He turned to see if his horse had stopped down the road, but it hadn’t. It was nowhere in sight, though easy enough to follow. Dimitri sighed again. Just what he needed: a long walk through the snowdrifts. But at least he was able. That idiot had had a clear shot, but hadn’t taken it. He supposed Lysenko had a conscience after all.
Dimitri changed that opinion when he found his horse an hour later with a broken leg and had to dispatch it. He was left with the annoying suspicion that Count Lysenko had known exactly what he was doing. Unfamiliar with the area, hours away from Berdyaev’s, with no houses or villages in sight, and the sky looking uglier by the minute, Dimitri had the feeling that he wasn’t only stranded but also in danger of being caught in another storm without shelter. His chances in that case were none.
He set off immediately in the direction he had been heading. He had come too far from Berdyaev’s to try and make it back there, so his only hope of finding shelter before nightfall was to continue on.
It wasn’t long before the cold seeped through the leather of his gloves and boots, and his extremities grew numb. His fur-lined coat was some help, but not when the temperature dropped as evening approached. But at least the snow had held off. And just before the last of the daylight dimmed completely, he found a little shed, an indication that he had drifted onto someone’s property. As much as he would have liked to find the owners of the property, with no house in sight he didn’t dare. His strength was too depleted from trudging through the snow all day, and the light was gone.
It was apparently an abandoned shed, perhaps used for storage at one time, but empty now, too completely empty. There wasn’t a single item that Dimitri could use to start a fire, unless he wanted to tear down boards from the walls and lose what little insulation from the cold they offered. It wasn’t much. The cold still managed to slip in through cracks in the walls, though most of the wind was kept out. Still, it was better than nothing, and once morning came, he would be able to find the house that had to be near.
Dimitri curled up on the cold dirt floor in a corner, wrapped tightly in his coat, and went to sleep, wishing he had Katherine’s warm body beside him—no, he had better reserve his wishes for simply being able to awake come morning, for that was one of the bitter results of being exposed to Russia’s icy weather: falling asleep in it and never waking up.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Katherine came to him out of the fog, warm and sultry, and she wasn’t angry with him anymore. She didn’t blame him for the ruin he had made of her life. She loved him, only him. But the snow fell again and she began to fade. He couldn’t see her through the snow, couldn’t find her, no matter how far he ran, no matter how loudly he called for her. She was gone.
When Dimitri opened his eyes, the sight that greeted him made him so certain he was dead that he might have had a heart attack if he didn’t as quickly see Anastasia and Nikolai too. His eyes came back to the apparition.
“Misha?”
“You see, Nastya.” Mikhail chuckled. “I told you there was no need to wait until he recovered more.”
“You didn’t know that for certain,” Anastasia protested. “He could have had a relapse. I know I would have, confronted with a ghost.”
“Ghost, am I? I’ll have you know—”
“Sweet Christ!” Dimitri exhaled sharply. “Is it really you, Misha?”
“In the flesh.”
“How?”
“How?” Mikhail grinned. “Well, I could tell you how my cowardly comrades left me with three saber wounds to let my blood nourish the earth. Or I could tell you how the Armenians dragged me back to their camp to make sport of me before I died.” He paused here for effect, his blue eyes crinkling. “Or I could tell you how the chief’s daughter took one look at this notorious Alexandrov face of mine and badgered her father into giving me to her.”
“So which will you tell me?”
“Don’t let him rib you, Mitya,” Nikolai put in. “All of it’s true, if we’re to believe him, and I suppose we must, since he brought that same Armenian princess home with him.”
“Is it too much to hope that you married her, Misha?” Dimitri ventured.
“Too much to hope?”
Nikolai laughed. “Hewouldfind that of particular interest, since Aunt Sonya hasn’t let up on him ever since you were reported dead, Misha. There was nothing for it but for poor Mitya to many and get himself an heir before there were no Alexandrovs left.”
Dimitri scowled at this brother. “Trust you to find humor in that. I assure you I didn’t.”
“Well, you can relax now,” Mikhail informed Dimitri proudly. “I not only married her, but she’s already given me a son, the reason why I was so long in returning. We had to wait until the boy was bom before she could travel.”
Dimitri did relax, but in simple weakness. “Since your ghostly appearance has been explained, would someone mind telling me what you three are doing surrounding my bed and how the devil I got here? Or did I only dream of being stranded—”
“It was no dream, Mitya.” Anastasia sat down on the bed to offer him some water. “You have been so sick that for a while we weren’t sure you would recover.”
“You’re ribbing me again?” But not one of the three faces was smiling. “For how long?”
“Three weeks.”
“Not possible!” Dimitri exploded.
He tried to get up, but was assailed with dizziness and sank back onto the pillow, closing his eyes. Three weeks of his life gone, not remembered? The emotions that possibility stirred overwhelmed him.
