The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [73]
“Now, Misha was a quiet man who enjoyed country life. In winter he liked nothing more than to sit by the fire at Varishnya, reading books on history or pursuing country sports, hunting wolves with his borzois and shooting in the season. Anouska only liked Varishnya when she could throw extravagant parties and fill it with friends from the world of the theater and the international riffraff she seemed to collect on her travels. She was the most popular hostess and still the most beautiful woman in St. Petersburg. Gradually their lives began to take separate courses, and gradually too Anouska became more and more unpredictable in her actions.
“Alexei was born three years after their marriage, and for a time she was transformed: She doted on her baby son and took him everywhere with her, showing him off at every opportunity. But after a few months she was back to her old ways. Xenia came along three years after that in a desperate attempt by Misha to get his young wife back into his life, but she grew more and more erratic, and soon her behavior was causing gossip. There were rumors that Anouska had grown reckless, that flirtations had grown into affairs. Names were mentioned and the gossip swelled. But Anouska was so beautiful nobody minded her wild behavior, they forgave her anything. They said that every man in St. Petersburg was in love with Anouska Ivanoff. Except her husband.
“But Misha still looked after her; he cared for her as if she were a fragile porcelain doll who might break any minute, because he understood that the way she was was not what she wanted to be. Poor Anouska had no control over her emotions and actions; she was like a straw, drifting with the wind whichever way it blew. But when the great depressions came over her, she always came home to Misha.”
“Oh, Missie,” Anna whispered, and in the moonlight Leyla could see she was crying. “Oh, Missie, now I understand.”
Missie reached out her hand and stroked Anna’s soft, fair hair tenderly. “There’s something else I should tell you, Anna, now that you are old enough.” She hesitated as if thinking how to say it, and then said quickly, “Your grandfather and I were in love with each other.”
Anna’s blue eyes opened wider and Leyla sat up straight, listening eagerly: It all sounded like a story from the Arabian Nights, jewels and princes and intrigue … Was Misha going to strangle his wayward wife with a silken cord, the way they had in the harem at Topkapi Palace?
“Missie?” Tariq said warningly, but she smiled and shook her head.
“Anna must know everything now,” she said. “It is her right.” And Anna reached up and took her hand as she went on.
“Even though I was only sixteen when I first saw Misha, it was love at first sight. And even though he was so handsome and a prince, and I was young and impressionable, I knew it wasn’t just infatuation. It was like … like coming home, finding the one person in the world who is exactly right for you. Of course, he said nothing: It would have been wrong. But I knew he felt it too. My father had just died and Misha went out of his way to be kind to me, to try not to let me dwell on things. Anouska was away a great deal, and he took me to the opera and the ballet, always in a group of course, and to dinner parties at his friends’ houses. And of course he showed me his beloved Varishnya. We rode around the estate together, visiting the school and the clinic, and dropping in on the workers and their