Secret Fire Read online

  Johanna Lindsey

  Secret Fire

  Dedication

  For Grandma Rosie,

  a very special lady that I love

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Another spring shower was in the offing, but Katherine St.

  Chapter Two

  “Grandmère, he’s coming!”

  Chapter Three

  Katherine placed another cool compress on her forehead and leaned…

  Chapter Four

  Anastasia fretted at the delay. It seemed as if their…

  Chapter Five

  “What am I to do, Marusia?” Vladimir asked his wife.

  Chapter Six

  The bath was delivered late in the afternoon, or was…

  Chapter Seven

  “Vladimir, wake up. Vladimir!” Marusia shook his shoulder roughly until…

  Chapter Eight

  As the sun rose higher, the activity in the house…

  Chapter Nine

  “In here.” Vladimir held the cabin door open for the…

  Chapter Ten

  Dimitri leaned his head against the high-backed chair and lifted…

  Chapter Eleven

  The narrow corridor was dimly but adequately lit. A lantern…

  Chapter Twelve

  “Sweet Mary and Jesus!” Vladimir exploded. “What did I say?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bathed, shaved, and donned in one of his more elegant…

  Chapter Fourteen

  Her cabin had been rearranged while she spent the evening…

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I want to see Mr. Kirov.” Katherine looked from one…

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Her, Mitya? You think I haven’t heard about her? You…

  Chapter Seventeen

  The first of several storms that the ship would encounter…

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Katya?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What are your plans when we reach St. Petersburg, Katherine?”…

  Chapter Twenty

  The ship was silent again. Katherine refused to take the…

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The carriage sped along at an alarming rate, the view…

  Chapter Twenty-two

  When she thought about it later, Katherine was glad that…

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Similar to the country estates passed along the way, yet…

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It was an agonizingly long day for Katherine, that first…

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The morning light turned the White Room into a brilliant…

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “Oh my God!”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Katherine crouched in the shadows beside the house and took…

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “So you are the little pigeon who flew the coop.”…

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Dimitri stared at the empty room: the bed smoothly made,…

  Chapter Thirty

  Nadezhda Fedorovna watched the Englishwoman covertly, blue eyes narrowed with…

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “The boots, man!” Dimitri growled impatiently. “I’m not presenting myself…

  Chapter Thirty-two

  My Lord Prince,

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “Grigori, isn’t that Prince Dimitri just coming in?” Tatiana asked…

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “My lady?” Marusia stuck her head in at the door.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  With snow whirling outside the windows and the fire burning…

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The ball gown was exquisite, like nothing Katherine would ever…

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  The smooth blanket of snow, unmarked as far as the…

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Katherine came to him out of the fog, warm and…

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  “Lady Katherine, are ye receivin’ this mornin’?”

  Chapter Forty

  “Well?” Dimitri demanded.

  Chapter Forty-one

  “Kit? Are you up?” Elisabeth knocked on the door, then…

  Chapter Forty-two

  Vladimir was waiting for them in the entryway when Dimitri…

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Johanna Lindsey

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  London 1844

  Another spring shower was in the offing, but Katherine St. John took little note of the overcast sky hanging heavily above her. She moved absently about the little garden, snipping pink and red roses that she would later arrange to her satisfaction, one vaseful for her sitting room and one for her sister Elisabeth. Her brother Warren was off in his typical endeavor of enjoying himself somewhere, so he didn’t need flowers to brighten a room he rarely slept in. And her father George disliked roses, so she cut none for him.

  “Give me lilies or irises or even wild daisies, but keep those cloying roses for you girls.”

  Katherine wouldn’t think to do otherwise. She was adaptable in that way. So a servant was sent out each morning to find wild daisies for the Earl of Strafford, never mind that they weren’t easy to find in the city.

  “You’re a wonder, my darling Kate,” her father was fond of saying, and Katherine would accept the compliment as her due.

  It wasn’t that she needed praise; far from it. Her accomplishments were for her own sense of pride, for her own self-esteem. She loved being needed and she was needed. George St. John might be head of his household, but it was Katherine who ran the household, and it was to her that he deferred in all things. Both Holden House here on Cavendish Square and Brockley Hall, the Earl’s country estate, were her domains. She was her father’s hostess, housekeeper, and steward. She kept domestic trivialities and tenant troubles at bay, so the Earl was free from worry and free to dabble in politics, his passion, to his heart’s content.

  “Morning, Kit. Come have breakfast with me? Do.”

  Katherine glanced up to see Elisabeth leaning precariously out her bedroom window, which overlooked the square. “I’ve had breakfast, love, several hours ago,” Katherine called back in a voice just loud enough to carry. It wasn’t in her character to shout when anything else would do.

  “Coffee, then? Please,” Elisabeth entreated. “I need to talk to you.”

  Katherine smiled in agreement and carried her basket of roses inside. She had in fact been waiting patiently for her sister to awaken so that she could have a talk with her. No doubt they both had the same subject in mind, for they had both been called into the Earl’s study last evening, separately, but for the same reason—Lord William Seymour.

  Lord Seymour was a dashing young man of devilishly good looks, who had taken the innocent young Elisabeth by storm. They had met at the start of this year’s season, Beth’s first, and the poor girl had looked at no other man since. They were in love, that universal emotion that made fools out of the most sensible people. But who was Katherine to scoff just because she thought the emotion silly and a waste of energy that could be better put to some useful endeavor? She was happy for her younger sister, at least she had been until last night.

  In the time it took her to cross the back hall to the stairs, she had servants running to do her bidding: a breakfast tray to be sent upstairs, the mail delivered to her office, a reminder sent to the Earl that Lord Seldon had an appointment this morning and was due in half an hour, two maids dispatched to the Earl’s study to make sure i
t was in order to receive a guest (her father was not known for his neatness), and vases of water carried to Beth’s sitting room. She would arrange the roses while they had their talk.

  If Katherine had been one to put things off, she would have avoided Elisabeth like the plague. That wasn’t her way, however. Even though she wasn’t sure yet exactly what she intended to say to her sister, she was certain she wouldn’t fail her father in his request.

  “You’re the only one she’ll listen to, Kate,” her father had told her last night. “You have to make Beth understand I wasn’t just making idle threats. I won’t have my family associated with this bounder.”

  He had laid the whole dismal tale in her lap by that time, but her calm “Of course, Father” had only made him more defensive over his decision.

  “You know it’s not my way to be autocratic. I leave that to you, Kate.” They both smiled over this, for she really could be domineering when warranted, though that was rare, since everyone did their best to please her. George St. John continued his defense. “I want my girls to be happy. I don’t lay down the law, like some fathers.”

  “You’re very understanding.”

  “I like to think so, ’deed I do.”

  It was true. He didn’t interfere in his children’s lives, which wasn’t to say he lacked concern. Far from it. But if one of them got into trouble—more accurately, when Warren got into trouble—he left it to Katherine to sort out the mess. Everyone depended on her to keep things running smoothly.

  “But I ask you, Kate, what else could I do? I know Beth thinks she’s in love with this chap. Probably is, for that matter. But it makes no difference. I’ve had it from the best of sources that Seymour is not what he claims to be. He’s just one step ahead of debtors’ prison. And what did the girl tell me to this? ‘I don’t care,’ she says. ‘I’ll elope with William if I have to.’ Of all the impertinent misses.” And then on a quieter note, one full of uncertainty, “She wouldn’t really elope, would she, Kate?”

  “No, she was just upset, Father,” Katherine had assured him. “Beth just said what she needed to say to appease her pain and disappointment.”

  Elisabeth had gone to bed last night in tears. Katherine had gone to bed saddened for her sister, but too practical to let this turn in events depress her. She felt partly responsible, because she had been her sister’s chaperon and had in fact encouraged the growing affection between the two young people. But she couldn’t let that influence her. It came down to one simple fact. Beth couldn’t marry Lord Seymour now. She had to be made to see that and accept it and go on from there.

  She knocked only once before entering Elisabeth’s bedroom. The younger girl was still in disarray, wearing a pink silk wrapper over her white linen nightgown. She sat before her vanity, where her maid was pulling a brush through her long blond hair. She looked exquisite in her melancholy, with her soft lips pulled down at the corners. But then there was little that could detract from Elisabeth St. John’s dazzling beauty.

  The two sisters were alike only in height and in the color of their eyes, neither green nor blue, but a subtle blending of the two. All the St. Johns possessed these light turquoise eyes ringed with a darker blue-green. The servants were fond of swearing that Katherine’s eyes lit up with an unholy light when she was displeased about something. Untrue. It was just the lightness of color and the fact that her eyes, her only really good asset as far as she was concerned, tended to make the rest of her features fade away to nothing.

  For Elisabeth, the lovely turquoise color complemented her light blond hair, the darker gold brows, the soft lines of her face. She had a classic beauty inherited from their mother. Warren and Katherine favored their father, with dark brown hair; a proud, patrician nose; forceful, stubborn chin; cheekbones high and aristocratic; and full, generous lips. On Warren these features produced a handsome countenance. On Katherine they were too severe. She was much too tiny at just over five feet to carry off their haughty effect. Passing pretty would have been a generous compliment.

  But what Katherine lacked in beauty she made up in character. She was a warm, giving woman with many facets to her personality. Warren liked to tease her by saying that she was so versatile that she should have taken up the theater. In a quite natural way she could adapt herself to any situation, whether to take charge or to cooperate humbly if others were leading. Hers were not all inherent traits, however. Many she had learned during the year she had been one of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting. If court life teaches anything, it’s versatility and diplomacy.

  That was two years ago, after her own first season, which had been such a resounding failure. She was twenty-one years old now, soon to be twenty-two, and considered quite firmly on the shelf. A distasteful term that, just as bad as old maid. It was whispered about her, but it wasn’t what she considered herself. She fully intended to marry one day, a staid, dependable older man, not handsome and dashing, like the men sought by all the young debutantes, but not ugly either. No one of her acquaintance could deny she would make a superb wife. But she just wasn’t ready yet to be that wife. Her father still needed her, her sister needed her, even Warren needed her, for without her he would have to own up to his responsibilities as the Earl’s heir, which he had no desire to do at present.

  Elisabeth waved her young maid away and met Katherine’s eyes in the mirror above her vanity. “Kit, did Father tell you what he did?”

  Such a woebegone expression. Beth’s eyes were even glistening, very close to tears. Katherine was sympathetic, but only because it was her sister who was suffering. All this emotion expended on such a silly thing as love she just couldn’t understand.

  “I know what he did, love, and I’m sure you’ve had a good cry over it, so buck up now. No more tears, if you please.”

  Katherine didn’t mean to sound so heartless. She really did wish she could understand. She supposed she was too pragmatic, and being realistic to boot didn’t help either. She firmly believed that if you couldn’t win after all your resources were depleted, you gave up and looked on the bright side. No one would catch her beating her head against a wall.

  Beth swung around on her little velvet stool, and two fat tears did indeed trickle down the creamy expanse of her cheeks. “That’s easy for you to say, Kit. It wasn’t your fiancé that Father refused and showed the door to.”

  “Fiancé?”

  “Well, of course. William asked me before he came for Father’s blessing and I said yes.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, please don’t take that tone with me!” Beth cried. “Don’t treat me like one of the servants who’s displeased you!”

  Katherine was taken aback by this heated attack. Good Lord, was she really that condescending?

  “I’m sorry, Beth,” she said sincerely. “I know I’ve never been in this sort of situation myself, so it’s not easy for me to comprehend—”

  “Weren’t you ever even a little bit in love, just once?” Beth asked hopefully. Katherine was the only one who could persuade her Father to change his mind, but if she didn’t realize how important it was…

  “Honestly, Beth, you know I don’t believe in… What I mean is…”

  That pleading expression on her young sister’s face was making this very difficult. The maid arriving with a breakfast tray saved her from saying the truth, that she felt herself immensely fortunate to be one of the few women of her day who could look at love in a practical manner. It was a silly and useless emotion. It produced highs and lows of feeling that had no business cluttering up one’s life. Look what it was doing to sweet Beth. But Beth didn’t want to hear that what she was feeling at this moment was ridiculous. She needed sympathy, not ridicule.

  Katherine took the steaming cup of coffee the maid handed her and moved over to the window. She waited until she heard the door close on the servant before she turned to face her sister, who hadn’t moved toward her breakfast tray.

  “There was one young man I thought would do,
” Katherine offered lamely.

  “Did he love you?”

  “He never even knew I was alive,” Katherine said, remembering the young lord she had thought so handsome. “We saw each other the whole season, but each time we spoke, he always seemed to look right through me, as if I wasn’t even there. It was the prettier young ladies he danced attendance on.”

  “Then you have been hurt?”

  “No, I—I’m sorry, love, but you see I was realistic even then. My young man was much too handsome to be interested in me, even though he wasn’t that well off and I am quite a catch, financially, that is. I knew I didn’t have a chance to snag him, so it didn’t bother me that I didn’t.”

  “Then you didn’t really love him,” Beth sighed.

  Katherine hesitated, but finally shook her head. “Love. Beth, it is the one emotion fated to come and go with remarkable regularity. Look at your friend Marie. How many times has she been in love since you’ve known her? A half-dozen times at least.”

  “That’s not love but infatuation. Marie isn’t old enough to experience real love.”

  “And you are, at eighteen?”

  “Yes!” Beth said emphatically. “Oh, Kit, why can’t you understand? I love William!”

  It was time for the hard truth to be thrust home once again. Obviously Beth had not taken her father’s lecture to heart.

  “Lord Seymour is a fortune hunter. He gambled away his inheritance, mortgaged his estates, and now needs to marry for money, and you, Elisabeth, are money.”