Silver Nights by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

hours she had been asleep. “I am not going to St. Petersburg, Tanya.”
    Tanya humphed. “Hurry with your dressing. I’ll fetch you up some coffee and biscuits.” The heavy door closed with the emphatic snap that generally expressed the opinion that her erstwhile nursling had better stop talking nonsense and gather herself together with all due speed.
    Sophie began to have the frightening sense that events were moving too fast for her to grasp them. She had parted with her grandfather the previous evening stating that she would not comply with the imperial command. But it seemed as if he was proceeding without paying any attention to her statement; as if there was no question of discussion. If TanyaFeodorovna believed that the princess was about to depart for St. Petersburg and a husband, then the entire household would believe it. The first shaft of genuine panic loomed. Until now she had not truly believed that this could happen. Her grandfather would see her position—he had to. Of course, he would support her. Now a niggle of misgiving rippled across the surface of certainty, threatening to develop into a full-blown storm of doubt. Could it be that no one was on her side?
    Tanya brought her coffee and sweet biscuits to compensate for her missed breakfast. She drank the coffee, made as strong as Tanya knew she liked it, hoping that the powerful concoction would haul her clearheaded into the waking world. It helped a little, but she was still heavy-eyed and pale when she went downstairs to the library.
    Prince Golitskov was with his lawyer and Count Danilevski, conferring around the leather-topped desk. He looked up as his granddaughter came in, subjecting her to a grave appraisal that missed nothing. “You do not look as if you slept well, Sophie.”
    â€œI did not,” she replied. “Tanya Feodorovna said you wished to see me.” She nodded to the lawyer, whom she knew well, and offered a cool good morning to the count, who had risen at her entrance. He was in uniform once more, his black hair confined in a neat queue at the nape of his neck. The gray eyes held hers for a long moment, the inexorable eyes of her dream, and the spectre of the wolf slid confusingly into her internal vision. Why were the two somehow inextricable? There was nothing remotely wolflike about Count Adam Danilevski.
    He was bowing, smiling as he drew forward a chair for her. “I am sorry you passed a bad night, Princess.”
    Sophie dismissed the polite platitude with an impatient gesture. He was perfectly aware that he was more than partly responsible for her troubled sleep. Disdaining the chair, she walked over to the French window to stand in a patch of warming sunshine. The light accentuated her pallor and the smudges under her eyes, even as it brought out the rich chestnut highlights in the dark hair massed on her shoulders.
    Adam’s lips tightened at this clear discourtesy. He had hoped to make amends for his error of the previous evening, but obviously Princess Sophie was having none of his conciliatory smiles and friendly expressions.
    The old prince came straight to the point. “We are drawing up the marriage settlements, Sophie. I wish you to hear what dispositions I have made.”
    There was to be no escape, she thought in dull despair. They were going to take her off to St. Petersburg and marry her to some complete stranger; only death offered reprieve. It was inconceivable, and yet she knew that it was not. It was the way such matters were conducted. She opened her mouth to repeat her point-blank refusal to go to St. Petersburg, then changed her mind. What was the point? She could only refuse to participate willingly in this selling of her body, soul, and fortune.
    â€œI am not interested,” she said, walking back to the door. “I do not consent to any part of this.”
    â€œSophia Alexeyevna!” Her grandfather spoke with the sharp authority that he rarely used