The Jewel of St Petersburg by Kate Furnivall Read Free Book Online

knew her mother could never understand why she had no interest in going shopping with her, choosing dresses, all the things young ladies were meant to do, instead of sitting at home on a piano stool hour after hour. Worse, Valentina sometimes feared that her mother felt that if she wasn’t going to behave like a proper girl, she might as well have been the longed-for boy.
    She wished Katya had been there to hear her yesterday. With a sudden movement she rose, drew a chair from beside the wall, and placed it next to her piano stool. The chair was padded in a creamy brocade and had slender fluted mahogany arms. She sat again on her stool, then rested first one hand on the chair and then the other. Without using her legs at all she tried to swing herself off the stool toward the chair seat, but missed it completely. Her arms became entangled and the chair edge stabbed her shoulder blade as she tumbled like a rag doll to the floor. She glared at her legs as if the fault were theirs.
    “Chyort!”
    It took five awkward attempts, but finally she succeeded. Her heart was racing and her arms shook with the effort.
    “Chyort!” she swore again. Then she stood up and ran up the stairs to her room.

    I N FRONT OF HER AT HER DESK VALENTINA HELD A LIST, NEATLY written out on a sheet of ivory-tinted paper. It was a list she had drawn up four months ago and which she kept locked in the drawer of her table away from prying eyes. Maids peeked into everything. But the paper was already dog-eared at the edges because she liked to handle it, to remind herself. Her eyes traveled down each point methodically.
    1. Contact every spine specialist in Europe.
    With painstaking care she’d scoured medical journals in the library for articles on spinal damage, and she’d written to doctors as far away as Berlin, Rome, Oslo, even London. Few had bothered to reply.
    2. Make Katya happy.
    She smiled at that one. Such a simple aim. Four months ago, making Katya happy after her operations had seemed the easiest of all on her list: she would read to her, play cards with her, whisper secrets, and pass on the latest tittle-tattle from school or from the servants’ hall downstairs. She brought her ribbons and jigsaws, as well as the latest books from Belizard’s bookstore. From the parks or the riverbank she collected magpie feathers and the first coppery maple leaves of autumn. She smuggled in chocolate from Wolf & Beranger’s or risked the sticky confections from the bazaar at Gostiny Dvor.
    But now she understood that making Katya happy meant far more than that. It meant creating a whole new future for her. Those words in the silence of her head felt huge.
    So what next?
    3. Find employment.
    She ran a finger over the word employment and her stomach lurched. For years she’d had a dream. Ever since she was a gawky gap-toothed child she had planned it, while others giggled in corners and played with toys. To be a concert pianist. That was her aim. To tour the greatest concert halls and palaces of Europe, performing before heads of state in Rome and Paris, London and Vienna. But it was gone. Blown apart by the bomb. It couldn’t happen now. It would mean years of dedicated work at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, and she no longer had that luxury. She had to care for Katya. She stared at her fingers, at their strong tendons and well-rounded pads, and she felt disloyal to them. Disloyal to herself. She had to forget the dream.
    But how? How could she tear it out of her head when she could still see herself at the keys, pouring her heart into the music, then rising from the piano, her audience on their feet? She would wear a scarlet Parisian gown, a single strand of pearls in her hair, and she would play the finest concerts in Europe. She could actually see herself. Feel her heart thudding.
    “Forget the dream.” She said it aloud.
    The paper in her hand shook. Find employment. Yes, she had made her decision about that.
    She must talk to Papa. She