He didn’t belong. His blood was not blue, his pedigree
was uncertain. His manners were impeccable because he had learned his lessons
at Andrei’s side, boys in the schoolroom with Yuri and the sons of the court.
He had shared their riding and fencing masters, showing more grace than some
and more skill than others, and dissolving into the scenery when it became
clear that he was not to better any of them. He remembered nothing of his life
before the Imperial nursery, but reminders had been so constant that he had
been unable to forget what he could not recall.
Andrei had loved him on sight. Andrei had loved
everyone on sight, but Viktor had been proclaimed as special, so Andrei had
responded with utter devotion. Neither boy had grasped precisely how special he
was until the Tsesarevich had misbehaved and Viktor had been punished for it.
The shock had bewildered both boys. Andrei alone had received an explanation.
“You’re my dumb brute,” he had told Viktor, repeating
what had been said without fully understanding it.
Viktor had protested. “I’m not dumb.”
Andrei’s face had been pinched with dismay. At six
years old, he had set his mouth in a determined line and vowed to protect his
friend. He had done his best to honor his word as they grew up, but boys were
boys and frail though Andrei had been, he had also longed to prove himself as
strong as his fellows. Viktor had been thumped more than once as a result of
Andrei’s reckless action; perhaps more upsetting had been his role as proxy for
the Tsesarevich in the schoolyard. Forbidden to goad the heir to the throne,
they had goaded Viktor instead, driving Andrei to endanger himself by
intervening and thus subjecting Viktor to further consequence. The strain had
frayed their friendship to the limit of comprehension. Andrei had wanted him to
defend himself and Viktor had continually refused. Incensed, the Tsesarevich
had demanded to know why.
“It’s my place,” Viktor had replied. Then he had
added, “Calm down, Andrei, before you hurt yourself.”
“Hurt myself? Hurt myself? How can I be more
hurt than by you taking my lumps? I should hurt myself; that would teach
them!” He had spun a circle on one heel, scanning wildly for an object to do
the most damage. In the end, he had thrown himself at the wall and Viktor had
tackled him before he struck the plaster, twisting in midair to take the fall
on his own back. Andrei had sprawled on top of him and burst into tears. Viktor
had lain gasping, his arms locked around his sobbing prince, terrified that something
had been ruptured by his rash act of deterrence.
“I hate it when they hurt you. I hate it!”
Viktor had tried to hush him, half-aware as he stroked
Andrei’s hair that their argument had been overheard and trouble was imminent
if he could not settle the Tsesarevich before it arrived. “Stop crying,” he had
hissed. “You are not to die for me.”
“But I would! I would die for you, Viktor, I would …”
An eerie stillness had come over him at Andrei’s
muffled confession. The blond head had come up, pure eyes sparkling and
swollen, dripping tears onto his skin. Viktor had calmly met those eyes and
known what came next, what was inevitable when he thought of the distress
Andrei always displayed on his behalf. His heart had dropped a beat. What was
he supposed to do? How could he avoid what he had known for years?
While he was distracted, Andrei had kissed him. Sweet,
soft, tremulous, afraid of rejection but more afraid of an opportunity missed,
his mouth had been warm and tasted of apples. Viktor had accepted the kiss with
his eyes wide open, watching Andrei’s close and listening to the pulse deepen
in his belly. The resonance had stirred between them and he had considered
resisting, but it was just a kiss, and probably Andrei’s first, and when it was
over, the love in those blue, blue eyes had threatened to crush him.
“You’re a bleeder,” he had croaked, fighting tears of
his own.
“The cost would be worth it.”
“Not to me, my prince.”
“I hate them for this.”
“You hate nobody, Andrei.”
“You’re wrong.” Gentle fingers, long and poetic, had
caressed Viktor’s hair where it fell away from his brow; dark hair with a
cinnamon tint to complement the apples in Andrei’s kiss. Viktor had tasted them
once more before a shift in the silence had made him turn his head to see Yuri
standing in the doorway.
* * *
Andrei’s daughters, six and ten, whom he had called
his little darlings, curtsied for Viktor in the white salon. “We’ve been
practicing,” Tatiana solemnly informed him, repeating the motion with a wider
fan of her skirts. Susanna emulated her sister with less success, wobbling
frightfully as she dipped. Viktor steadied her with one hand in the guise of
delivering praise.
“Well done, my ladies. You’ll have men lined up to
claim the first waltz.”
“Mama says we can each have one dance before bed.”
Did they remember dancing in their father’s arms,
clasped to his chest, whirling and spinning as he hummed a melody? Susanna was
too young, but Tatiana would have memories for life.
“I want you, Viktor.”
He looked down at the tug on his coat. Susanna gazed
adoringly from eyes as clear and blue as her sire’s, beneath hair as thick and
fair as his had been, and as her brother’s was. He smiled. “You don’t want to
waste your one dance on me, my lady.”
“Yes, I do.”
He laughed without committing either way. Tsar Nikolai
had done submitting to further fussing, this time at his mother’s hand, and was
growing impatient. “Go on ahead, Viktor,” he commanded. “Clear the way for the
prize bullock.”
“I told you, my king, you’re the buyer.”
“Just get on with it.”
Perhaps Yuri was right. Despite his physical
resemblance to Andrei, Nicky’s moods called to mind his uncle more often than
his father. Viktor risked a glance at Stacia, found her fixed on adjusting
Tatiana’s pearl choker, and briskly obeyed his king.
The ballroom looked the same, but rather than being
sucked into a vortex of dark silk and darker velvet, the light from a dozen
chandeliers laughed and played over a glittering pastel palette. This was the
first occasion in a year when the court could shine in rainbow colour, and
every one of them had shed their mourning to burst like butterflies from their
shadow cocoons. Musicians played a waltz in the gallery and footmen in royal
livery balanced silver trays of crystal flutes as they circulated seamlessly
among the guests. And such guests! Foreign envoys in their chains of office,
Cabinet members in their ostentatious best, military officers in full dress
uniform, and the nobility themselves had turned out to see and be seen at Tsar
Nikolai’s first public showing. Viktor had a brief word with the herald and
stepped into the corridor to await the family’s arrival.
His heart always beat too fast at these damned things.
Large gatherings annoyed him and relentless exposure had failed to alter the
fact. Before he had married, Andrei had hosted balls for political reasons as
well as holidays and historical anniversaries. After he had wed, he had
invented reasons to host them, but his deeper purpose had always been to show
off his bride. True to his romantic nature, Andrei had loved his imported
princess on sight.
So had Viktor. The marriage had been arranged by
ambassadors when Andrei survived childhood to become a viable prospect for
continuing the bloodline. He had protested at first, citing Yuri as a worthier
candidate, but when Stacia’s sledge had arrived at the Ice Palace and an
anonymous bundle of brindled furs had been unwrapped before him, he had
promptly abandoned his argument.
She had not changed in fifteen years. She walked the
corridor on her son’s arm and was as beautiful tonight as she had been on the
arm of another fourteen-year-old boy. Viktor felt as young looking at her now
as he had been then, spellbound by a beauty he had not imagined in his dreams.
She had looked at him then, and smiled as she passed; just as she looked at him
now, and smiled as she passed, but the smile tonight held a different meaning
despite its singular radiance.
She had danced with him once, at her wedding ball,
when they had been strangers and neither had known what to say. Her eyes had
continually strayed to Andrei anyway, so Viktor had not minded being mute. It
was meet that she be in love with her husband; how could she not be in love
with him when he all but worshipped her before witnesses? He had been so proud
of her, so pleased to be the prince of a storybook princess. She had wanted for
nothing, and when she had borne him a son, she had surpassed the Deity Himself
in Andrei’s pantheon.
“He liked to look at me,” she said later, lying
tangled in the sheets with sweat drying on her skin. “Not the way you do,” she
added, dryly.
Viktor smiled. “How is that?”
“Like you want to devour me. It makes me skittish and
shy, and sets me afire at the same time. Andrei wasn’t like that. To him, I was
a work of art, a sculpture of marble and flame. That’s what he used to say.
‘Marble and flame’.” She swallowed hard and her eyes filled with tears. “Am I
betraying him by being here with you?”
“I don’t know,” Viktor replied, truthfully. His voice
was husky in the snug confines of the bed.
Stacia laid a hand on his arm, following the curve of
his bicep with her fingers. “I loved him so much, Viktor. I loved him and yet I
wanted you.”
Viktor waited. He had waited fifteen years to be with
her; waiting a few minutes while she gathered her thoughts was no hardship. He
wondered, though, if Andrei had known. Nothing had been said, but nothing said
meant nothing. He did know that Andrei, despite his inclination, had been
faithful to her. To them both, if one dared to look closely enough.
“When we made the girls,” she said, “he was driven by
something more than desire. I felt that he was reaching for something beyond
me, something beyond himself, and I just wanted him to break me, to shatter me
into a thousand little pieces, and put me back together one bit at a time until
I was whole again, and safe in his arms. In his arms, Viktor. I wanted to be
flesh with him—but I never was. I loved him and he loved me, but we were never
truly flesh.”
“You mean ‘merely’,” Viktor said.
Her eyes flicked briefly to his and away again. “I
suppose so.”
“He couldn’t,” Viktor said. “You know that. The risk
was too great.”
Stacia made a sound between laughter and despair. “He
wouldn’t bruise me like a man, yet he risked it all to play football with his
son.”
Viktor was silent. They hadn’t known he was injured
until it was too late. He had seemed fine, completely normal, and Nicky had
been so happy that Papa had taken time to practice penalty kicks with him. What
had he been thinking? What madness had possessed him?
“I want you to hurt me,” she said. “Punish me, Viktor.
Use me, ride me, make me feel something mortal.”
Viktor refused.
She stared at him from dark, haunted eyes. “Then I
have no use for you.”
to be continued …
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