The Property of a Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

the snow, shouting obscenities and laughing drunkenly as they watched the next man mount Anouska.
    Suddenly the captain ran forward, kicking the nearest lumpen body savagely. “Get up,” he roared. “Hands over your heads.” They staggered to their feet, astonished, as he kicked away the man astride Anouska and the young lieutenants leveled their rifles and took aim.
    As if released from a spell, Alexei suddenly took to his heels and ran toward Missie. He flung himself on the ground beside her and took her icy hand in both of his. “Missie, Missie,” he begged, “help me, please help me, Missie, I’m so frightened….”
    She shut her eyes tighter, yearning with all her being to take Alexei in her arms, to hold him and comfort him, to try to restore some sanity to the nightmare he was enduring, but she knew these new men were enemies too. They were a different sort, but still enemies. They already had Alexei, and if she tried it meant they would find Xenia too. And she knew only too well what both children’s fate would ultimately be as prisoners of the new regime. She steeled herself, telling herself she could not help him, she
must not
do it. She must at least save Xenia. Alexei’s tears scalded her hands and she prayed silently for strength to ignore him.
    “You drunken filthy cretins! You belong in the piggery with the rest of the swine,” the captain roared. “Line them up,” he told his men as they butted the peasants into a straggling line with their rifles.
    Then, “Bring the boy here to me,” he commanded.
    They brought Alexei to stand in front of him. His face was ashen and his beautiful eyes were still filled with horror as the captain looked him up and down.
    “I knew your father,” he said at last. “If I could, I would have spared you what happened tonight. But what is done is done and you must face it like a man. Now I want you to watch something, little boy. I am going to show you how the Army of the People will avenge your mother.” He glanced dispassionately at the straggling line of cowardly peasants, the very people the revolution was supposed to be for. Then he commanded, “Fire.”
    Alexei put his hands over his ears to shut out the terrible screams and curses, but he didn’t shut his eyes. He watched their bodies spin and jerk as the bullets raked them, waiting until the final spasms had finished. Then he lifted his head and looked the captain silently in the eye.
    “Come,” the captain said, holding out his hand, “we must leave now.” But instead, Alexei ran to his mother’s side. Kneeling, he wrapped the beautiful dark sable cape tenderly across her bloody, naked body. After taking her poor, icy hand in both his, he smothered it with kisses. Then he hurled himself to the ground, burying his head in the softness of the fur at her breast, breathing in the familiar scent of the violets she always wore. By her side, like a droplet of fresh blood on the snow, lay a ruby ring. His hand closed over it instinctively.
    From the distance came the sound of a huge explosion, and the sky above the tall fir trees filled with an orange glow. “They’ve dynamited Varishnya!” the young lieutenant shouted.
    “The fools!” Captain Solovsky exclaimed angrily. “There is no control over peasant rabble. They must be stopped now, if we are ever to achieve our aims.”
    Alexei stared silently at the glowing sky. His face was expressionless, closed to all emotion. He put his hand in his pocket and dropped the ring in there.
    “Come,” Captain Solovsky said again. “You must forget all this.” Alexei met his eyes. “There is a new life ahead of you,” he said more harshly, “and who knows, maybe
you
will help to make the new Russia the great country it willbecome.” He laughed at the irony. “Yes, maybe
you
will be a new breed of revolutionary.”
    Alexei followed obediently as they walked to the horses, and Captain Solovsky lifted him onto the saddle in front of him. “Leave the