The Fifth Doll(54)

A quick smile tugged on his lips. “When are you supposed to go to him?”

Matrona let out a sigh. “He said he’ll send for me, and I won’t escape his anger if I evade him again. He’s giving me time to . . . ponder. I don’t know what to do.” She paused. “Let me help you.”

Jaska tugged on her braid and kissed her again. Despite the graveness of their situation, despite Feodor, Matrona smiled against his lips.

Downstairs a door opened.

Matrona pulled back. “Oh heavens.” In her mind’s eye, Feodor strode through the house, ready to condemn her, to guilt her before she could tell him—

Jaska listened for a moment before frowning. “It’s my father.”

“How—”

“His gait’s uneven.” He sighed. “We don’t have a back door, but I doubt he’s lucid enough to notice you.”

She nodded, trying to mask the jitters running the length of her arms. “Will you be all right?”

“Eventually.” An honest answer. “And Slava . . . take the power from him, Matrona.”

Matrona wasn’t sure what Jaska meant, but the knowledge that Afon was skulking around downstairs urged her to her feet. She crept down the stairs and then quietly closed the attic door behind her.

Afon was in the kitchen—his head against the ridge of a shelf, his back to her. She hurried by on her tiptoes, and as far as she knew, the drunkard didn’t turn around.

Matrona kept her head down as she departed the house and headed, off path, into the village. Not out of embarrassment, but because she wanted a moment alone. And if someone had spotted her exiting Jaska’s home, she wasn’t in any mood to see narrowed eyes or hear whispers behind cupped hands. Such a thing would ruin the strange, churning feelings inside her. Yet maybe the fourth doll would prevent such gossip . . .

She headed toward the Grankins’ potato farm, but stopped at the small cordwainer’s shop, resting her back against its rear wall. She touched her lips, igniting a feathery feeling in her chest.

All the reasons she shouldn’t want this had gone limp within her—the village gossip, the age difference, even her engagement. In that moment, she truly didn’t care, and nothing in her small world could have restrained the grin pulling on her cheeks. A new warmth flooded her body, lingering in her veins, and she relished it. The sensation was unlike anything she’d felt before—stronger than the relief she’d felt when the agreement between her and Feodor was set, more pleasant than a holiday feast, more poignant than a church sermon, more exhilarating than a wagon of foreign goods from Slava’s cart. Something Matrona had been missing all her life had finally been found, and all the reasons she shouldn’t want it simply didn’t matter anymore.

Rolling her lips together, she considered Feodor. She needed to speak with him as soon as possible. There would be consequences, of course. Matrona wasn’t sure how dear they would be, or if the opened fourth doll would make the involved parties more agreeable.

She pushed off the building and continued toward home, but she didn’t get far before her steps slowed.

Was she really doing this? Tarnishing her family’s reputation by negating a betrothal? The feathers around her heart grew heavy. Kisses weren’t promises, were they? What did she expect, to marry Jaska?

Did he even want to marry her?

Her stomach twisted as she recounted the words exchanged in Jaska’s room, trying to interpret them. The spell of the second doll put him under so much stress. Had it affected his behavior toward her? Yet the spells of his first and her fourth dolls had revealed that he returned her affections.

“It’s time,” a tenor voice sounded beside her, startling her. Matrona turned to see Georgy Grankin, an empty potato sack in his hands. Sweat collared his neck and dust clung to the perspiration on his face. Her blood tingled, and she saw his desperate need to impress his father and a yearning for hard work.

“Forgive me, I didn’t see you.” Matrona wished the doll-sight away. “Time for what?”

“She will labor soon. The pains have already begun.”

Matrona frowned and took a step away from the man. The voice was not Slava’s, but Matrona recognized his cool, patronizing tone. “Must you summon me in such a vulgar way? Come for me yourself.”

“I would waste time if I sought you out with my own eyes,” Slava said through the farmer’s mouth. “Come now, as promised.”

Matrona nodded, and Georgy blinked. “Oh, Matrona,” he said, then turned about, taking in his surroundings. “I was just plowing . . .”

“And thank you for coming out to see me, but my ankle is fine.” She feigned a smile. “I’m clumsy today.”

Georgy’s brows pulled together, but he nodded before turning back for his farm.

Matrona took a deep breath. Thank goodness Slava did not look for me earlier. How humiliating it would have been for him to have spoken to her through Jaska.

The moment Matrona started northward for the tradesman’s house, her palms began to sweat, and any lingering good feelings within her fell as ash to her feet. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry.

She had hoped Slava would give her more time. And maybe he would have, had Roksana not begun her labor pains.

Her gut clenched. The baby was coming. How much of that did Roksana comprehend? How far did the madness extend? While Matrona had spent time at the Maysaks’ house when she was younger, she had never studied Olia. Galina would know more—if, indeed, the madness in the two women continued to take the same pattern—but there would be no time to ask her today.