Marina jumped up from her chair near the fire, the book in her lap clattering to the floor. “I’ll fetch one. My legs could do with a stretch.” She took the tray from Mama’s lap and smiled. Sadness still clung to her eyes, but she was doing her best to put on a brave face. “I’ll see if I can find a few mashed cherries to put in the bottom. I know how much you like those. Makes it feel a bit more Russian.”
As Marina left, Svetlana set about straightening the coverlet across the bed, smoothing the drape pleats, and retying the pink ribbon on Mama’s nightdress after noting one loop on the bow was bigger than the other. Anything to occupy herself, for it was in the listless moments that the unwanted thoughts and feelings found her. The notes of a midnight waltz. The scent of wool and aftershave. The warmth of arms holding her at night. The stab of betrayal and heartache of lies. It all made her feel too much when she preferred the escapism of numbness.
“You’re like him.”
The scratchy voice turned Svetlana from the vanity table where she was aligning a tray of hairpins to find her mother watching her.
Svetlana slid a fingernail between a pin’s blades, the metal cool and rigid like the shining medals pinned across Father’s chest. He’d taught her the name of each one and allowed her the honor of pinning on his Order of Saint Catherine when he was decorated by the tsar.
“Organized, you mean?”
“Coldly efficient.”
After all those years it shouldn’t have stung, but it did. Svetlana nudged the silver pins into straight lines. “A soldier’s trait.”
“Prince Dmitri Nikolaiovich Dalsky, Captain of the Imperial Forces, with his resourceful mind and steadfast demeanor, and me with my wit and charm. The Dowager Empress Maria herself said we would make the perfect match.” A soft smile curved Mama’s pale lips as her thoughts drifted from the room to a happier time. Svetlana had heard the story of the matchmaking dowager more times than she could count, but it had always been told in a manner of boasting, never with this reminiscent fondness. As if an egg had cracked open to reveal its sweet, runny center, kept unspoiled all these years within its shell.
Desperate to assuage the earlier sting, Svetlana cradled the image in its delicacy. One false slip and the rare moment of vulnerability between mother and daughter would shatter. “You always looked smart together.”
Mama toyed with her cross necklace, running her finger over the slanted bottom bar. “There’s nothing more I love than a perfect match of anything. I tried so hard to please him, but I quickly learned there was nothing more he loved than order. I was anything but. No matter how many pretty gowns I wore or opulent dinner parties I threw with all the right attendees, I never pleased him as much as watching his soldiers drill or aligning his army boots in the closet.”
“I assumed most husbands and wives held their own interests independent of one another. Grand Duchess Xenia was often quoted as it being the only way to sustain a peaceful marriage.”
“Because you have been taught to think no differently, as all properly brought-up young ladies are.”
“Yet you wished otherwise, yes?”
“For a time, when I was young and naïve. Each passing year erected a brick around my heart. A growing wall your father never sought to scale. His eye was caught by too many other battles. He was a good man, but he made loving him nearly impossible.”
Mama’s expression shuttered. She turned her face to the window once more. “Where is your husband?”
The denial of an answer and change in topic was like a slap to the face after having been spat in the eye. Unlovable and unable to love. In the days passing her fallout with Wynn, Svetlana’s bones felt of ice, as if she were no longer a part of her body. She listened for Wynn’s voice constantly but prayed her steps would not lead her to him. Her emotions were too raw to be reliable. Like a cord of beads strung on one after another with no intent of purpose. The lack of control was nearly as debilitating as the crack in her heart.
But this weakness she would never allow her mother to witness, not to be seized upon and brought down to Mama’s level of insecurities. Svetlana tapped the hair pin tray parallel to a silver-handled brush. “His time is occupied of late with matters from the medical board.”
“About that soldier who died under his knife in Paris?”