Katerina's Secret (25 page)

He must stay with his work.

He persevered, although her image floated before him in the light of the table lamp.

For no reason at all, he suffered an attack, a violent one.

Celeste, carrying a tray of empty coffee cups to the kitchen, heard him. She delivered the tray to Marie and hurried to his room. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his handkerchief to his mouth, his face dark with the pain of squeezed lungs.

‘M'sieur, where are your tablets?'

‘I've taken one.' He coughed into his handkerchief. He hit his chest with his hand. ‘Give me a moment, angel of love and mercy.'

‘Oh, m'sieur, even when you're in pain you're sweet to me. Who could wish for a lovelier man?'

Edward managed a smile.

‘You could wish for one who didn't creak so much,' he said.

‘I will bring cognac, yes?' said Celeste. ‘A cognac? Only say, and I will fly for it.'

Edward straightened his back.

‘Celeste, you are France's joy. Cognac will be splendid, and with a coffee, perhaps?'

‘Oh, at once – immediately.' She turned at the door. ‘Oh, first, Inspector Cartier has
telephoned. He's coming tomorrow to ask questions of everyone who became acquainted with Monsieur Valery while he was here. But you weren't acquainted with him, nor was Madame. Mama will see to it that you two aren't bothered. M'sieur – Edward – I fly.'

She knocked on the door two minutes later. She opened it. But it was Katerina who entered, Katerina who bore the tray containing coffee and brandy, and Celeste closed the door on them.

‘You see?' said Katerina. ‘Celeste is so busy. I'm not busy at all. Edward, it was a bad attack?'

‘No, not at all. A brief one. Over and done with.' He stood up, clearing papers from the table. Katerina set the tray down.

‘I may stay a while?' she said. ‘It won't tire you if I do, or be considered too scandalous?'

‘I think we'll escape headlines,' he said. ‘I doubt if we can compete with the German airship which has just crossed the Atlantic.'

But perhaps she could, he thought. If the impossible was not impossible, she could indeed.

They sat down at the table together. She was quiet for a while, watching him as he drank the coffee and sipped the brandy. The colour returned to his face.

‘Celeste told me you'd had an attack,' she said then, ‘and that you wished for coffee and cognac, that she was attending to it at once, if not immediately. She's delicious, isn't she, Edward?'

‘Celeste stands alone,' said Edward.

‘Yes.' Katerina smiled and steadied herself. ‘She said she put me into the room next to yours so that you could look after me and care for me.'

‘In between my coughing and wheezing?'

‘Edward, your pain is my pain. Do you see, you've made me so alive. Edward, I—' Katerina rose to her feet, escaping his eyes. She moved to the fireplace, hiding the flush on her face as she looked down at the laid grate. She was full of the uncertainties of a woman who had never known a lover. There had been many years of trial, many dangerous moments and many different kinds of people. The good and the brave, the weak and the treacherous, the loyal and the helpful, and the cold and the merciless. There had been many men among these. She had been grateful to some, contemptuous of some and defiant of others. But there had been no man she loved, until now. She was not a shy person, not by any means, but nor was she a sophisticate, neither by upbringing nor
inclination. What she had to face up to now, by reason of Edward's self-deprecation, touched every sensitive nerve. ‘Edward,' she said, ‘this is so difficult for me. You must help me.'

‘Without Dr Kandor, I know you feel—'

‘No, it isn't that,' she said. ‘It's us, Edward, you and I.'

‘The problem is between us? Katerina, have I said wrong things?'

‘You've said nothing. Except that you think me beautiful. That is the problem, that you've said nothing.'

‘But we've had so many conversations,' said Edward, all too aware that he was dangerously close to taking a heady leap into the unknown. It was the unknown, Katerina Pyotrovna in his arms.

‘Yes, we've talked,' she said. She turned as he approached her. Her eyes reflected the lamplight. The night colour flickered between her unsteady lashes. Her blood suffused her. Love was very painful, very sensitive. ‘Edward, it isn't enough.'

‘Am I very lacking, Katerina?'

‘Oh, no! How can you say that?' She was a figure of light and shadows, an incredible dream to him. Her hands were at her throat, as if her voice hurt her. ‘Oh, I had no idea it
would be so difficult. Hundreds of times I've had Papa's handsomest young officers declare they loved me, and there was nothing difficult in telling them I adored them all. It isn't like that now.'

‘Your father's officers, Katerina?'

She shook her head a little wildly.

‘No – no – I mean – oh, there were the officers Papa had command of in those days. Edward, please don't confuse the issue, and please don't avoid it.'

‘Katerina,' he said, ‘is it necessary for me to say I love you?'

‘It's desperately necessary for you to love me very much and to say so.' She clasped her unsteady hands. ‘Please, will you say it and make me stop wishing for the floor to open up?'

‘Is that all? That you wish to know if I love you? What else can I say except that I simply love you? Do you think it's possible not to love you? You're the most enchanting woman on earth.' Edward smiled into her suffused eyes. ‘Without any reservations at all, I adore you. We met only two weeks ago? That's not possible, either. I feel I've known you all my life – you're all my years, all my days. Katerina, you're the loveliest of women.'

‘Edward?' Katerina, visibly trembling, drew
a long breath. ‘Oh, how precious that is to me. I've been looking at you and loving you, and Boris Sergeyovich knew it. Love is a gift of pain and sweetness and magic, and even more than that when it's returned. I've never been seriously in love before, but now, do you see, I've fallen desperately in love in the shortest space of time, a single day. I'll show you.'

She did then what she had wanted to do for many days. She kissed him, on the mouth, and her lips were warm, giving and confessional, telling him in their lingering pressure how much she needed him, how much he filled the life that had been so lonely for her. His declaration of love had been made, and so, because she was what she was, emotionally demonstrative, her response was frank and unashamed. She wound her arms around him, and her warm body pressed very close, communicating its eager life and vitality to his. His blood coursed as he felt the incredible wonder of vigour reborn.

‘Katerina—'

‘Oh, you're my dearest love,' she breathed, head back and eyes radiant. ‘You have brought me to life, you have given me days of sweetness. I used to sit day after day, looking at nothing and thinking only of the years long ago, and
now, dear dear Edward, I'm thinking only of the years I shall share with you. I'm disastrously weak with love, quite close to falling down, yet so strong I could fly. Oh, how glad I am you did not marry Emily. You will propose to me now?'

‘Katerina, you must think – you can't take an invalid for a husband, you need a far healthier man than I am, a man far more suitable in every way.'

‘Far more suitable?' Katerina was visibly shocked. ‘Far more suitable?'

‘You're not an ordinary person—'

‘Stop.' She put a hand over his mouth. ‘Don't say such things. I'd never marry a man because someone said he was suitable. Never, never. You must make no excuses for not proposing. You'll break my heart if you do. Yes, that's far more likely to do lasting damage to my health than anything else. Edward, I'm strong, I don't have a weak heart. You know I don't. And you've been wondering why I said I did. You've been thinking things. Edward, they're all irrelevant, all things to do with my past. I'm here, with you, and my heart is beating madly for you. There, do you feel how it's beating?' She brought his hand to her warm, round breast, and a little sigh escaped her at
the touch that was a caress. ‘Hold me. Put your arms around me, and you'll know how alive and strong I am for you.'

He put his arms around her, and again her body imparted its magical transference of vitality. He felt himself engulfed by the dreams.

‘Dear God,' he said.

‘Edward?' Her face was against his shoulder, her voice full of faint vibrations. ‘I want you to marry me, don't you feel how I do? I beg you, propose, or I shall die a death from burning.'

‘Will you, then, will you marry me, my most lovely Katerina?'

‘Oh, yes, yes. I want to be with you – every day, every night – I shall care very much for you. Celeste is right, you must have a wife, and I must be the one. It is true you told her I was the most beautiful woman you'd ever seen?'

‘Quite true,' he said, in wonder at the turn life had taken.

‘You'll always think that, even when I'm old?' she said.

‘Even when you're very old,' said Edward.

‘Edward, you will have to love me very much,' she said, her arms lingering around him. ‘You
must, because I'm going to ask a great deal of you. You must never ask questions. You must accept me only as you know me, as Katerina Pyotrovna – oh, but there's nothing in all my years to make you ashamed, believe me. Whatever I tell you about my life you must accept, even though it may not be precisely true. Will you do that, my darling, will you take me as you know me now?'

He might have said he knew her to be far more than Katerina Pyotrovna, that to him she represented a miracle. But he only said, ‘Nothing is important to me but you yourself.'

‘Edward, I am only as you see me,' she said. ‘You must make no guesses and have no worries. We must go far away. Oh, it will be a joy, will it not?'

‘We shall find a quiet place, Katerina, and you must have no worries yourself. The man I think responsible for Dr Kandor's death, is dead himself. He too was found at the foot of the cliffs.'

Her eyes opened wide. She shivered. She thought of Sandro, who had declared to her that Boris Sergeyovich would not go unavenged.

‘Edward—'

‘No more, Katerina. You've borne enough.
But I gave you that news so that you'll know you can sleep safely tonight. And tomorrow.'

‘I must see Anna and Sandro,' she said.

‘Tomorrow,' said Edward.

She smiled.

‘Yes, Edward. Tomorrow.'

Rosamund, Colonel Brecht and Mademoiselle Dupont were quietly conversing in the lounge.

‘The poor countess,' said Mademoiselle Dupont, as Celeste brought the glasses of cognac Colonel Brecht had ordered for her and himself. ‘To have lost her doctor, to know that this other gentleman has died in the same way, and she with her weak heart. She's bearing up, Celeste?'

‘Yes, mademoiselle,' said Celeste, who would have preferred the Frenchwoman to know nothing about the countess. But it had got about, the fact that she was resident in the hotel.

‘I haven't had the pleasure of meeting her myself,' said Colonel Brecht, ‘but saw her enter the hotel with Edward early this evening.'

‘If you haven't met her, Franz, how did you know it was she?' asked Rosamund.

‘An assumption, Rosamund, an assumption,' said the colonel. ‘I hope most sincerely the tragedies won't bring on a serious heart attack. I have known of people retiring in apparent good health to bed, and failing to wake up.'

‘Oh, mon Colonel!' Celeste was shocked, and Mademoiselle Dupont cast the German a pitying look.

‘That was hardly the most joyful thing to say, Franz,' said Rosamund.

‘Ah – most stupid of me,' muttered the abashed colonel.

‘I shall return to Paris,' said Mademoiselle Dupont. ‘One cannot in all fairness be expected to relax in this atmosphere, delightful though your hotel is, Celeste.'

‘It's as you wish, mademoiselle,' said Celeste, who would quite happily have helped the Parisian lady on her way.

‘I shall retire to bed,' said Rosamund, as Celeste departed, ‘the day has been quite gloomy. However, there's always tomorrow. Life has its consolation in that there's always tomorrow.'

‘Indeed, indeed,' said Colonel Brecht. ‘We shall take a brisk walk, yes?'

‘Shall we?' said Rosamund.

‘If you insist,' said the colonel.

‘I'm provoked into that,' said Rosamund.

Mademoiselle Dupont smiled faintly.

Colonel Brecht coughed.

Celeste could not sleep. She lay awake, tossing and turning. Poor Mama, so unhappy about Monsieur Valery, and about the police returning to the hotel. It was all so bad for the Corniche.

And there was the countess, so mysteriously a lonely and troubled woman, and so enchanting. Edward simply must look after her.

Celeste loved them both.

It was so late. She must go to sleep or she would never get up in the morning. She turned and reached for the glass of water that always lay to hand on her bedside table. She found it, sat up and gulped thirstily.

She stiffened. Her little bedroom on the ground floor was not far from the staircase. Someone was out there. The tiniest sound had reached her ears. Edward was wandering about? He could not sleep, either? But no, he would not wander about. He would take a tablet and try to relax.

Madame – the countess!

Celeste was out of her bed in a flash. Her eyes, used to the darkness because she'd
lain awake for so long, needed no light. She opened her bedroom door very quietly, and just as quietly she walked on her bare feet towards the lobby, then turned to the left. Her heart was beating fast. She reached the door of Katerina's room. It was open, just slightly. She pushed it wide. The darkness of the room was a momentary blackness before her orientated eyes pierced it.