Free The Jewel of St Petersburg by Kate Furnivall

gave the smallest of shudders. “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”

    I T WAS THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. VALENTINA HAD been sitting in the dark for two hours. When she heard Nurse Sonya’s heavy tread finally leaving Katya’s room, she waited a few minutes, then slipped out into the corridor. Her bare feet were soundless and she turned the doorknob to the sickroom with no more than a faint click. A fire crackled in the grate behind a mesh guard and on the bed a bulky quilt had been pushed aside, so that it lay humped like a range of mountains. The slight figure of her sister lay immobile under a sheet, though her head tossed restlessly on the pillows as if it belonged to someone else.
    “Katya,” Valentina whispered.
    Instantly the blond head lifted off the pillows. “Valentina?”
    “How are you?”
    “Bored.”
    Valentina knelt on the end of the bed. “You know what gave you the fever, don’t you?”
    “What?”
    “That kiss on the filthy baby’s head.”
    “It was worth it,” Katya smiled.
    “You didn’t tell Mama or Nurse about it, did you?”
    “Of course not. I’m not stupid.”
    “Think of it as an adventure. But one we won’t be repeating. I overreacted, I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t say that. Don’t say you won’t take me on any more adventures.”
    “If you really want adventures, Katya, you must get better. I’ll give them to you,” she promised, “only not quite as dangerous as that one.”
    “An adventure isn’t an adventure if it isn’t dangerous. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” She pushed her damp hair from her eyes. “Tell me what the woman’s scar felt like when you touched it.”
    “Like warm glass. Hard and slippery.”
    “I felt sorry for her.”
    “I didn’t.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “It’s true, Katya. I hate them. I don’t care whether they call themselves Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, or Social Revolutionaries, they’re all the same to me. I hate them because of what they did to you.” She moved forward and kissed her sister’s hot cheek.
    Katya lifted her hand and tenderly stroked her sister’s dark hair. “It’ll go eventually, the hatred,” she said with confidence.
    “Did yours?” Your hatred of what they did to you? Of what I did to you?
    “Yes.”
    Valentina didn’t tell Katya it was too late. That the hatred had already burned its way down into her bones.

    S HE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR OF HER FATHER’S STUDY. IT was time to tell him of her decision.
    “Come in. Vkhodite.”
    She pushed open the door. Her father was seated at his broad leather-topped desk and raised his head from the papers he was studying.
    “You asked to see me?” he said. He didn’t look pleased about the interruption.
    “Yes.”
    He folded his arms. An unlit cigar flicked impatiently between two fingers. He was still a good-looking man, though a little heavy now from too many banquets at the Winter Palace, but she remembered him lean and fit when he served as a general in the Russian army. He wore his hair swept back from his face, with thick eyebrows over shrewd deep-set eyes. Dark as her own. They assessed her now.
    “Sit down,” he said.
    She sat on the chair in front of the desk and tucked her hands neatly in her lap. “Papa, I wish to apologize for taking Katya down to the Rzhevka district yesterday. I was trying to keep her safe from the strikers who—”
    “I accept your apology.” He brushed a hand over his dark whiskers, as though he could brush away his thoughts. “What you did,” he said, “was foolish, but I realize you were trying to protect your sister.”
    She had expected worse.
    “Is that all?” he asked. “I am busy.”
    “No,” she said. “That’s not all.”
    He placed his cigar in an ashtray, then lined it up precisely beside a pen and a red pencil in front of him. His eyes lingered on the cigar as if he preferred to smoke it in peace. Her father had an orderly mind, which was why he worked where he did. Valentina