Free The Third Section by Jasper Kent

heading there now. Tobacco was nothing in comparison with
his
vices.
    Would Valentin Valentinovich and Yelena Vadimovna ever have the slightest chance of understanding her, she wondered. She hoped she would never find out. Yelena at least would be prepared to listen, perhaps to sympathize, but it was difficult to envisage in similar circumstances her doing the same, even to protect her own husband.
    Vitaliy Igorevich had been Tamara’s first love, and her only love. She had moved to Petersburg to be with him when they married, in 1840, when she was nineteen. He had been twenty-eight. On the eve of their wedding he had, a strict traditionalist, presented her with his diary. She had stayed up almost the whole night reading it, reading of the seven lovers he had previously known, of his feelings towards her as expressed to himself and of his hope for the future, not only for them, but for Russia. By morning she had discovered ways in which she loved him that she had never guessed, without any diminution of the ways in which she already loved him. That evening she discovered yet another way to love him, and for him to express his love for her.
    It was in 1844, when Milenochka was three and Stasik was nearly one – Luka not even dreamed of – that things changed. Up until then Tamara had always felt a liking for Prince Larionov, not least for the fact that he was her husband’s most enthusiastic sponsor. Vitaliy was a physician. He did not come from a wealthy family – Tamara herself had probably brought more money to the marriage – and so he spread his work between meagre employment at the Army Medical Academy and more lucrative private practice. Prince Larionov, a regular patient, recommended Vitya’s services widely to his friends, and even occasionally paid for those services when his friends saw fit to ignore their medical bills.
    But in 1844 Larionov had called on Tamara during the day, while Vitya was at the Academy. There was nothing so unusual in that, but the story he told her was concerning. There had been a death a few weeks earlier in the Academy hospital. A young soldier had been horribly burned when a cannon exploded near him. The tragedy was that it had not even taken place on the battlefield, merely during artillery training at Volkovo Polye. Whether much could have been done to save him was a moot point, and Vitya had been just one of several doctors who had tried, but the soldier had come from a noble family and his death might have ramifications. Tamara remembered the word as it had formed on Larionov’s lips – ‘ramifications’.
    Essentially, as Larionov had tactfully explained, it was possible that rumours might spread that would mean Vitya was never welcomed again as a doctor in a private house, either in Petersburg or in Moscow. And then Larionov had added that there also existed the possibility that such rumours might not spread.
    In retrospect, Tamara realized that Larionov was probably a little taken aback by the naivety of her response. She was genuinely touched by his concern and desperately hoped that together they could find some way to save Vitya’s career.
    ‘What can we do?’ she’d asked.
    Larionov had smiled, and Tamara saw in him for the first time the hint of something vile. ‘How well you put it,’ he said. ‘Because your husband’s fate depends very much upon what you and I do – together.’
    At the same moment Larionov had placed his hand upon her leg and his smile had widened, but only on one side, and Tamara had understood everything. When Larionov left her house, seconds later, he could have been in no doubt as to how she felt about his proposal, but he displayed no diminution in his self-confidence. She should have told Vitya, but she could not imagine the words on her tongue. She didn’t have the openness that Vitya had shown when he gave her his diary. All she could do was hope that Larionov would accept defeat.
    It was three weeks before Vitya mentioned that a