A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood #1)(30)

Unsurprisingly, Magdalena and I became restless. I could not resist the siren song of a new language, a new culture to explore, and Magdalena was itching for fresh air and fresh ideas. She privately referred to our time in the apartment as her “gilded confinement”, and I had to talk her out of letting herself out onto the street more than once. I wanted to let her go. I wanted to turn my back while she slipped out the window, or throw the door open wide for her the moment you disappeared from view. I wanted her to taste freedom, to feel the salty sea air toying with her hair, to find a lover or a meal in a darkened tavern. She was still young, still fresh and vibrant. I feared smothering the light that came back into her eyes when she dreamed of roaming the whole of Petrograd.

But, my captor, I feared your ire more. So I coddled her and shushed her and kept her shut up in our stuffy home just the way you wanted, without you even having to ask me to.

You must have known, my lord. You always knew. You could sense the moment one of us began to draw away from you with the acuteness of a bloodhound. That’s when either the iron fist or the velvet glove came out. Sometimes it was both. But ever since Magdalena’s melancholy became more pronounced, you favored sweetness. Magdalena was delicate, you confided to me. Prone to emotional weaknesses and flights of fancy. We must handle her carefully for a while, give her everything she wanted. I didn’t want her to run off and abandon our family, did I? I didn’t want to lose my only friend. Best convince her to stay then, by whatever means necessary.

I didn’t realize what means you were referring to until you took us to the artist’s studio. He was a favorite of yours, lauded in the coffeehouse for both his progressive politics and his mastery over stone, plaster, and oil paints.

“A true savant,” you declared as you helped Magdalena into her coat. “A genius of his age. I must show you some of his work. Anything you want in the studio, you can have. Pick whatever beautiful thing strikes your fancy and we’ll bring it home.”

At the time I thought you were just in one of your magnanimous, indulgent moods, the ones that made your kindness feel extravagant. I should have learned by then to expect some kind of scheme.

The artist’s garret was squashed between two tall buildings, accessible only by a narrow set of stairs. Inside, the close air smelled of plaster and silk flowers, and a fine dusting of white powder clung to Magdalena and I’s skirts as we walked. The walls were crowded with blank canvases and half-constructed wooden frames, with chisels lying about haphazardly on tarps. It was like entering the harried mind of the artist at work, untidy thoughts and all. Magdalena and I stopped to admire every bust, every painting, but you strode on ahead, eyes keen as though searching for something in particular.

“Chin a little higher, please.”

A man’s voice, distant yet close. The artist, perhaps?

“Show me imperious,” he went on, and I heard the soft tapping of a paintbrush against a pallet. “I want to see the arrogance of Alexander.”

You ducked behind a sheaf of cloth draped across a doorway, moving towards the sound of the voice. Magdalena and I followed, stepping lightly to avoid pots of paint piled up on crumpled newspaper.

The artist stood wrapped in a tattered smock, taking in his subject as he compared life to the fantasy he was creating on the canvas. The subject in question was a young man, golden haired and lovely, with sea-blue eyes and a full, mischievous mouth. He stood stripped to the waist despite the frost on the windows, holding up a platter of fake fruit and doing his best not to shiver.

“I’d feel more imperious if it wasn’t as cold as the devil’s tit in here,” the model said, in a musical tenor.

I looked at you. You were observing Magdalena, who was watching the model. Desire, as faint yet undeniable as the light thrown by a single candle, flickered across her face.

I swallowed and folded my hands primly in front of me. After living with the both of you for so long, I knew trouble when I sensed it.

“Ah my friend, you’ve made it,” the artist crowed, clapping you on the back. The gesture startled me. I couldn’t imagine someone speaking to you so familiarly, but you seemed at ease around him. Perhaps acting the congenial comrade was one of your new personas. You spun whole personalities out of silken promises to get close to whomever you needed to. It was one of the reasons you were able to keep us alive so long, and one of the reasons I sometimes woke with a start in the middle of the day and stared at you, wondering who I was sharing a bed with.

“Who are these lovely doves you’ve brought?” the artist asked, stroking his greying beard as he looked at Magdalena and I with a twinkle in his eye. Not leering. Friendly. Truly happy to see you and to see us. I was impressed, if a little concerned, at your ability to convince a being you saw as little better than breakfast that you two were bosom friends.

“My wife,” you said, extending your arm and pulling me in close. “And my ward, Magdalena. Her mother drowned in the Spree last spring, very tragic.”

I resisted my urge to roll my eyes at you, and Magdalena nearly managed it.

You delighted in making up stories about Magdalena, whether you claimed she was your ward or your daughter or your widowed niece or your sister in training for the convent. But I was always your wife. I think you categorized us this way less to elevate my station above Magdalena’s — we were both your wife behind closed doors — and rather because no one would believe I was anything but a matron, a spoken-for woman. Magdalena said I always radiated a faint sense of motherly worry.