The Diamond Secret (7 page)

"Is there a doctor on board?" Ivan asked.

"Yes, yes there is," the conductor said, handing off Nadya's slumped form to Sergei. "I'll get him at once."

The moment the conductor left, Nadya's eyes opened. "Well, I got rid of him. Now what do we do?" she asked.

Ivan stepped back, shocked. He'd completely believed her throat was closing. "You're all right?" he asked.

"Yes, fine. But clearly we have no tickets. They arrest people for riding the train without tickets, you know."

Sergei set her down gently onto the seat and stepped into the corridor. "I thought we could give them the slip for a few more stations," he murmured.

"She's right," Ivan agreed. "We have to get off at the next station."

"We have to get off now," Sergei corrected him, his eyes locked on someone coming down the hallway toward them.

"Now?" Ivan and Nadya cried at the same time.

"The conductor is returning with a doctor and a police officer," Sergei reported urgently.

Nadya snapped up her pillowcase bundle as Ivan hurried her out of the compartment. They moved out quickly to the platform of the last car. All around them were rolling hills dotted with patches of snow.

Ivan glanced over his shoulder and saw the conductor rushing toward them with the policeman. Instinctively, he grabbed Nadya's hand. She didn't shy away but gripped his hand tightly.

"One, two, three!" he counted. On three, they leapt together from the moving train.

Ivan's shoulder hit the ground with a painful thud, and the next thing he knew, he was rolling down a slope holding Nadya tightly against him. She held him around the waist as they rolled over and over down the hill until they landed hard, crashing into a shallow creek. Sergei was several yards away from them, sitting in the running water.

Nadya was shaking with laughter. It wasn't like the near-hysteria that had seized her before--this was simple exhilaration. "Whew! What a ride!" she cried happily and threw her head back to continue laughing.

Her laughter was so contagious that it made Ivan laugh also. He realized he was doing something he hadn't done for over a year. How wonderful it felt to explode with uproarious mirth! It was as though a spark, long dead in him, had been unexpectedly rekindled.

CHAPTER EIGHT
   

Moving Closer, Stepping Back

Sergei warmed his hands by the fire they had made that evening. He chuckled to himself as he gazed into the crackling blaze. What an adventure it had been so far!

Across from him, Ivan and Nadya had curled up close to the warmth of the fire and played a desultory game with the soggy deck of cards that--along with a few coins--had been in Sergei's pocket when they had jumped from the train. Ivan and Nadya had spoken only about the cards and had barely looked at each other.

Nadya still wore Ivan's coat, though, since she'd left her old wool blanket on the train. Now her paltry belongings, which had been soaked in the creek, were spread out by the fire: some well-worn clothing and a rag doll. Seeing the doll touched Sergei. It was such a tender, childish item for her to have brought along--a stark contrast to the tough face she showed to the world.

She was an interesting girl, at once hard and soft. With a good scrubbing and a few extra pounds on her, she'd be pretty, though he had no idea how they'd unsnarl that squirrel's nest of hair on her head.

Could he really teach this scruffy creature imperial ways? She was quick-witted and obviously had a good sense of humor, but she didn't appear to have an ounce of style. Sergei had assumed they'd select a girl of some breeding for the job, not a pub waitress who was one step above a scullery maid. It wasn't that Sergei didn't like her--he did. But Nadya was so clearly ill-equipped for this assignment.

From the other side of the fire, he couldn't hear what Ivan was muttering to Nadya, but it was making her smile. Unexpectedly, a pang of loss shot through him. Something in Nadya's smile reminded him of Elana, his wife.

When Sergei had heard that the Bolsheviks were heading toward his estate, he'd sent Elana and their one-year-old son Peter away to stay with his aunt in Sweden. Because the Bolsheviks had kept Sergei a prisoner while they took over his estate, it was weeks before he was allowed to write to his aunt to inquire after his wife and son. When the answering letter had finally reached him, the news was devastating: they had never arrived.

In the last year and a half, Sergei had walked all the roads they might have taken and had turned up not a single clue as to their whereabouts. Now he was simply out of ideas as to where his family might be and devoid of the funds it would require to continue the search.

That was why he'd agreed to this plan despite his better judgment. If it were a way to find Elana and Peter, Sergei would agree to nearly anything.

Nadya laughed again at something Ivan said. She really did have the most infectious laugh, and it made Sergei smile. He was glad she was no longer thinking about the frightening man she'd seen at the station. Remembering how scared she'd been made Sergei think of someone he hadn't thought about in a long, long time: a short man with a horrible twisted scar.

At the moment, Sergei couldn't recall the man's name, but he'd seen him once or twice when attending public events at the palace. The man had always been at Rasputin's side. Rasputin had been assassinated by members of the aristocracy, but Sergei had never learned what had become of his scarred assistant. Was it possible that he was now a member of the Secret Police? It could be. A twisted, secretive little man like that would be just the type to sell his services to the highest bidder. But why would he be following them? Was he looking to bring in Ivan as a deserter from the army?

Or might he be tracking them because they really had the grand duchess Anastasia with them?

Sergei got up and stretched, trying to shake the worrisome thoughts from his head. He watched Nadya concentrating on her hand of cards as the golden glow from the fire played over her face. Seen in this soft light, her expression so serious and her eyes so focused on her card game, Sergei saw how delicate Nadya was, how refined--even regal--a profile she had.

Ivan had said it was impossible that Anastasia could live, and while Sergei wanted to believe him...

At the very least, Ivan had selected well. Despite his first impressions, Sergei now was convinced that, with some work, Nadya would make a very believable grand duchess.

"I'm going to sleep," Sergei announced.

"Good night, Sergei," Ivan and Nadya both murmured, their voices tumbling over each other.

Nadya glanced up from her cards. "Sleep well."

"Thanks. And you, as well," he replied with a gentle smile. This spirited, lovely girl had become like a younger sister to him. He couldn't let anything bad happen to her.

The next day Ivan, Sergei, and Nadya covered over ten miles thanks to a farmer who gave them a ride in the back of the hay wagon he was taking to market. While Ivan napped, Nadya mischievously buried him in hay, and then awoke him by tickling his nose with straw. Sergei had to chuckle as, still asleep, Ivan tried to bat away the straw as if it were a pestering bug. Ivan squirmed in his sleep, trying to move his arms, which were buried under the hay.

Nadya shrieked with laughter when Ivan awoke and realized his predicament. With a powerful lunge forward, Ivan broke free from under the hay and immediately began showering straw on Nadya. She howled as she swatted him away with one hand and grabbed handfuls of hay to retaliate with the other hand. In the end, they both lay in the truck covered in hay and smiling. Sergei chuckled and shook his head good-naturedly. It was good to see they were no longer scowling at each other.

They unloaded wrapped bales of hay for the farmer and picked up a few coins for a meager lunch of cheese and bread that they ate by a stream. The day after that, an iceman let them help him deliver blocks of frozen water to his customers to cool their iceboxes. It was backbreaking work, but Nadya kept it lively by constantly dropping ice shavings down the back of Ivan's shirt, always when he least expected it. Sergei roared with laughter at the sight of Ivan wriggling to fish out the ice, and then running after Nadya with ice shavings of his own, trying--sometimes successfully--to get her back.

This work on the ice truck moved them forward another eight miles, and the iceman bought them supper as recompense for their labor.

On the third day they met a traveling salesman who wanted company in his British roadster. "This is the new Russia of the working class. Workers need uniforms and uniforms require buttons, which is where I come in," he told Sergei, who was seated in the front beside him.

"How is that?" Sergei asked him.

"I sell buttons! It's a great time to be in the button business. By this time next year, I'll be rich!"

"Excuse my saying so, but isn't the whole idea of the new Bolshevik Russia that no one is richer than anyone else?" Ivan pointed out from the backseat.

The salesman gave a sputtering laugh. "That will blow over soon enough. It goes against human nature. People are naturally competitive. They will always strive to rise higher than those around them."

The salesman glanced toward the backseat at Nadya. "Don't you think so?"

Nadya only shrugged, but Ivan jumped in. "Absolutely!" he agreed with bombastic sarcasm. "Only the rich matter."

"You don't believe that," Sergei reminded Ivan.

"Life has opened my eyes," Ivan replied. "Humans are naturally greedy, selfish, and brutal. To expect anything more is to invite disillusion."

"Are
you
greedy, selfish, and brutal?" Nadya challenged him.

"Am I human?" he asked. "If so, then I am those things."

"Then you think
I
am also greedy, selfish, and brutal?" she said. "And Sergei too?"

"If pushed, you probably have those capacities," he insisted.

Sergei sighed to himself. It saddened him that his friend had become so cynical. When he'd first met Ivan, he'd told Sergei how he'd joined the Communist Bolsheviks in sympathy with their message of a decent life for all Russians, not only the aristocracy. He had been an idealist. But seeing the brutality of the Revolution had deeply wounded his spirit, and that wound had scarred over, leaving him with something hard and injured where his soul had been.

Lately Nadya had brought out something more playful in Ivan. Sergei had been glad to see it. So it made him especially disappointed to hear Ivan sounding so bitter now. It was almost as if he were trying to get back to acting like the cynical young man he had left behind these last few days. Maybe it made Ivan feel too vulnerable to laugh and be happy. Was he struggling to regain the untouchable heart he'd had before he met Nadya? Sergei wished--for Ivan's own happiness--that he wouldn't try so hard.

The salesman brought them into Moscow and even bought them supper, claiming that he couldn't stand to eat alone. Nadya fairly shoveled the meal into her mouth, making Sergei despair even further that he could ever teach her to be a grand duchess. They were all hungry, but the girl completely disregarded appearances. It made him wonder what the early years of her life had been like. Had no one ever taught her anything?

CHAPTER NINE
   

Changes

That night, Ivan brought them to the apartment of a soldier he had known while he was in the army. "He gave me the key," he showed them. The apartment was plain, but it had a bed, a couch, and an overstuffed armchair.

It also had a bathtub with a shower!

"You go first," Ivan told Nadya as he steered her to the bathroom. "Wash that filthy mop of yours."

"Don't tell me what to do!" she protested, shaking his hand from her arm. "It's not as though you smell like a flower."

"On second thought, come here and sit down," he insisted.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Just come. Come here." He took her arm and sat her down with an unceremonious push into a wooden chair.

Before Nadya could protest, Ivan had snapped up scissors that had been left on the table and chopped off the bottom of her hair up to her jawline.