The Midwife of St. Petersburg by Linda Lee Chaikin Page A

pendant back into the box. “Is there a key to the box?”
    “Natalia keeps it in the crystal container. Earlier, I watched to see where she put it. It’s over there—on the vanity table.”
    He locked the box and had Tatiana carefully place it where she found it. After returning the key to the cut-glass container, he glanced at Tatiana. She looked uneasy with herself, and he was encouraged by it.
    “You’ll not mention this pendant to Fyodor?” he asked.
    “I’ll say nothing.”
    “We’d better return before we’re missed,” he said. “All we need is to be caught by your cousins, after hovering over their mother’s pendant.”
    Tatiana had returned to good temper and seemed normal again. She smothered a silly giggle. Alex playfully pinched her dimpled chin.
    “Out, my girl. And make it quick, or one of these days, I will stop flying to your aid.”
    “Do so, and I shall mourn and waste away.”
    He gave no response. She reached up suddenly, threw her arms around him, and kissed him.
    Alex propelled her from the room into the corridor. He could just imagine bumping into Karena as he was exiting her room, Tatiana’s lip rouge on his mouth. He rubbed it off with his kerchief.

    After dinner, Alex reluctantly joined the dozen or so special guests in the great-parlor. Rasputin was to arrive soon with the Crow sisters, and Tatiana had gone out to greet them.
    The great-parlor with connecting terrace, which overlooked the river full of twinkling houseboats and barges, was a pleasant area with comfortable damasked furnishings and fine paintings. Across the room, Alex noticed Karena beside Fyodor. The medical student’s sullen mood was gone, and he seemed more animated than before. Karena listened and smiled.
    A patient young woman
, Alex thought.
And modest
. She and her sister were the only women wearing gowns that concealed beauty instead of displaying it. The other women showed no restraint in donning low-cut dresses and weighty jewels. Accustomed to seeing more than he should, Alex found himself intrigued by Karena. Was she religious? Jewish, she had said, but if she, her mother, and her sister practiced Judaism, they would need to live “within the pale” in Odessa, where the czar insisted all practicing Jews must live. Since they were wheat producers from Kiev, he assumed she had adapted to worshiping in the Russian Orthodox Church.
    Alex joined Karena and Fyodor by the terrace. They stood with Natalia and the count’s son beside the grand piano. “Are you prepared to meet Grigori Rasputin, Colonel Kronstadt?” Fyodor asked, turning toward him.
    He smiled. “With breathless anticipation.”
    Karena was listening to the casual exchange and turned toward him, as if to judge his seriousness.
    “He was in Kiev, visiting our famous monasteries, before his recent pilgrimage,” she said.
    Alex looked at her directly to interpret her remark. He recognized a subdued flicker of pleasure in her eyes over his presence. He was irritated that he could find more stimulation in her small response than in Tatiana’s overly amorous attention.
    “Do you follow your cousin’s enthusiasm for Rasputin’s spiritual guidance?” he asked her.
    “At the risk of being misunderstood, I’m not impressed with the starets, Colonel Kronstadt. I told Tatiana so earlier this evening, and I’m afraid her feelings were nettled.”
    “Oh?” He studied her face, hoping she would reveal her thoughts.
    “My uncle knows about him, and I trust his judgment,” she said in a low voice that even Fyodor might not hear. “He happens to know thetrends in society and says the starets’s pilgrimage was to make amends for stealing a neighbor’s horse a few years ago in his village of Pokrovskoe.”
    Alex knew this as well. Rasputin had lived a wild life as a peasant. Many said he still did.
    “His supporters aren’t apt to give much credence to that,” he said, “even if it’s true. It merely emboldens them to rally against