From Governess to Countess (Matches Made in Scandal #1)(38)
‘I don’t know. I was going to suggest a riverside stroll, but if you are tired...’
‘No,’ Allison said hurriedly, ‘I’m not tired. Not a whit.’
*
Aleksei found a thick cloak belonging to one of the coachmen for her, and they walked along the embankment of the Moyka River, following the same route they had taken in the rowing boat. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been in St Petersburg less than a month,’ Allison said.
‘I know, time is flowing faster than the Neva.’
He pulled her closer, wrapping his arm around her waist. It was another clear night, the stars pinpoints of light in the canopy of the sky. Though the buildings varied in size and height, in colour too, the fa?ades painted gold and white, terracotta and blue, at night they formed one solid, dark mass on the narrow towpath of the embankment. The lights from some of the windows reflected in shimmering gold in the water. Allison shivered. There was a marked autumnal bite in the air that made her grateful for the heavy cloak.
‘The season is changing,’ Aleksei said, as if he had read her mind. ‘We will not see many more days such as this one. You brought the sunshine with you from England. It has been unseasonably warm since you arrived. Soon, the temperature will plummet, and the rain will set in. St Petersburg in the rain is not such a beautiful place.’
‘In Scotland, we had rain in the winter, the spring and the summer as well as the autumn,’ Allison said. ‘Freezing rain in the winter, soft in the summer, but it soaks right through you all the same. It makes everything very green, mind you. It’s a different kind of climate in London, much warmer and drier. You’d be astonished at the difference five hundred miles can make—and at the variety of plants which can be cultivated as a result.’
‘You have your own garden?’
‘Of course I do, and grow many of the same herbs as are grown in the palace garden. Would that I had a little succession house though, I’d grow a lot more than orchids.’
‘Is that what we have in our succession houses, beside deadly poison?’
‘Ours, is it now?’ Allison teased. ‘Don’t you mean Nikki’s? There’s a grape vine in one of them, and lemons and oranges in another, and then of course there is the fern house, but it’s all very—very ornamental.’
‘You don’t approve of ornamental plants?’
‘Only if they also have a practical application.’
‘Well you’ll have the luxury of being able to afford both, once you have completed your work here.’
They had arrived at the Red Bridge, and of one accord stopped to lean on the railings, to watch the faint ripple of the Moyka as it flowed out towards the Neva and then on, out into the Baltic Sea. The journey she’d be taking, when this adventure was over.
Her stomach lurched. How soon would it be over? How many more days and nights did they have together? Surely she should be counting down the time with anticipation, for when she left, her new life would begin. And this interlude would be over. No more St Petersburg. No more Catiche and Elena and Nikki. Though there were times, especially with Catiche, when her ingenuity and her patience were stretched, her efforts to engage with them on her own terms, without trying to emulate the saintly Madame Orlova, were increasingly paying off. The dread she’d felt every morning at the schoolroom door was a thing of the past. She relished their company now, delighted in stretching her always vivid imagination to invent new stories to tell them, new ways to entertain them. She was beginning to enjoy their company far too much for her own good.
But worse, much worse than no more children, would be no more Aleksei.
‘I’m glad,’ Allison said, surprising him by throwing her arms around him. ‘Tonight. I’m glad we did not wait.’
He pulled her tight against him. His lips were cold, but his kiss was warm, sensual, a promise. ‘I’m glad too,’ he said. ‘Very glad.’
*
Only afterwards, lying alone in her bed, unable to sleep, watching the dawn light filter through the curtains, did Allison finally concede to herself that she was in far deeper waters with Aleksei than she ever intended.
It was not their lovemaking but the aftermath, the intimacy of their stroll, the recognition that time was against them and all that implied about their feelings. For the first time in her life, she had an inkling of what it would feel like to fall in love. Not that she would allow herself to do such a thing. She was only envisioning it, because Aleksei was—yes, she could admit that much—he was like no other man she had ever met. Though they were polar opposites in many ways, they were also in many ways soul mates. As for the unbridled passion that had flared between them—didn’t opposites attract? Particularly when the situation encouraged them to surrender to that attraction without fear of consequences.
That was it. Nothing more. She was not falling in love with Aleksei. She was immune to love. And even if it turned out that she was not, the antidote was there, waiting for her, in the form of a ship which would transport her back to England at the end of her assignment, where her future awaited her.
Chapter Eight
Allison had forgotten all about the footman’s ill-timed arrival until the next day, when she left the children with their nanny, and was in her chamber, preparing for her daily dispensary. If the servant had talked—and why wouldn’t he?—the entire servants’ hall would know what she and Aleksei had been up to last night. All very well to tell herself that they must have guessed at the liaison after their first illicit dinner together, but that night no one had witnessed anything untoward. Now, there was tangible proof. The occupants of Derevenko Palace would brand her a harlot, and this time, it would be the truth.