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“Is she that fascinating, that Countess Rostova?” Katya Petrovna’s musical voice filtered through the thin haze of unreality that was his own private world. Fyodor stiffened, feeling her touch upon his sleeve. He looked down into the smiling face of his once-lover. Her lips, red as blood, curled into a secretive smile. “You’ve been awfully distracted, you know. A less forgiving woman than myself could take it for a slight.”
Despite the many years which had passed them over since those days of his youth in her company and the changes time had wrought over her person, she seemed, nonetheless, not to have lost her sharpness. She’d once been quite a beauty.
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Fyodor felt a shiver of awareness skitter its way merrily down his spine. He did not turn to look in Countess Rostova’s direction, however. Katya’s expression turned expectant and he hesitated a moment. “I am merely curious about her.”
The woman’s lips parted, puckering in a small circle. “Only curiosity, is it?” Her eyes glittered with mischief. “Then you don’t mind that Mikhail Fyodorovich sniffing at her skirts, do you?” His expression must have changed, because Katya chuckled. “You should see your face; black as thunder. Go on, have a look.”
He did. Countess Rostova was, indeed, in company with the major-general, but not only with him. Fyodor kept watching, attempting to determine what the look in his eyes meant whenever they brushed against the Countess. Vague interest, curiosity, just a hint of warmth; but that could as easily be the wine. The uncertainty unsettled him.
There was something undeniably ironic about a reprobate of his calibre suffering a surfeit of moral indignation over some other man’s wife having what could be qualified as a flirt only by the application of a breathtakingly liberal definition of the term. The Countess chose that moment to look up once more and her eyes, mystifying pools of darkness, pierced him to the core. Her gaze was searching, prodding. It felt almost as though she’d pried him open and occupied herself with poking about his insides.
A surge of something flared in response. But before Fyodor could parse it out, her eyes lowered and her attention shifted. He could breathe again. Conversely, it almost felt as though she’d taken something from him during that exchange. Whatever it was, he could not have it back until his image reflected in her gaze.
“That bad, eh?” Katya’s voice roused him. Fyodor glared down at her, but unaffected, she smacked her lips. “Is she one of yours then?”
Fire and brimstone. “No,” he replied tersely and succinctly. A trace of horror lingered.
Somewhere in the high heavens, the saints were having a good laugh at his expense. He’d been instrumental in breaking more marriage vows than he could count. He’d duelled with angry husbands, after bedding their wives as though it were nothing. And yet there he was, tying himself in knots over Rostov’s wife discovering that she was a woman like any other woman. If that was what she’d been in the process of discovering, in any event.
Beneath the layer of ire bubbled longing.
Orlov smiled at something Countess Rostova had said just then. It was an indulgent sort of smile, as though she’d amused him with some innocent remark. The Countess returned the smile and Fyodor was hard-pressed not to intervene. Only the knowledge of countless witnesses stopped him; they would read too much into it and her reputation would invariably suffer.
“No? I thought for certain–” Katya’s eyes burned with curiosity. “You look as though you’re one step away from carrying her away.”
She wasn’t far off. Fyodor reigned in the impulse. “You shouldn’t speak nonsense.” He would keep an eye on the situation, perhaps warn Orlov away if necessary. Clearly, Pierre, great lummox that he was, had taken no lesson from his own wife’s mishap with Anatole. Either that, or he was so wrapped up in his woman’s skirts, he was useless to the world. Knowing Pierre, both were equally likely. Fyodor shook his head gently.
“Are you perchance in love with her, Fyodor Ivanovich?” Trust Katya to be direct. Their eyes met and held. He saw steel in her gaze. “Don’t think you’ll get away with lying to me. I know you too well.” He sighed. Admitting to himself that he was, in fact, head over heels in love with that woman was not an issue. “Well, are you?”
Disclosing his feeling to another, however, endangered more than just himself. And yet, Katya, he thought, could be trusted. Could she not? Only one way to find out. “Yes.” He fixed her with a glare. “This goes no further.”
She snorted. “Who do you take me for?” Her expression softened. “That’s quite the pickle, that is. Countess Rostova,” she trailed off thoughtfully. “It’s quite unexpected. That of all women it should be this one to capture you so.” She seemed to find it amusing. “What do you propose to do about it?”
Glad as he was to have provided her entertainment, Fyodor had little wish of discussing Countess Rostova any further with Katya. “That is for me to know, I daresay.”
“Stingy,” the woman complained.
Perhaps he was trying to prove to his first of many lovers that Sofia Alexandrovna was different. Fyodor considered the notion, attention split between the past and present. That had to be it. He wanted her to know there could be no comparison. Katya fanned herself gingerly, seemingly blind to the sudden change between them.
Turning a painted smile upon him, she allowed her head to tilt just so in a very obvious show of interest. “I get the sense you mean to be a stubborn wretch. A word for the wise, do not let yourself be carried away by a mere fancy.”
She took her leave after with a saunter that would have not have looked out of place on a woman half her age. Fyodor, somewhat absorbed, by the laborious task of figuring just what she meant, almost missed the fact that as he moved towards the balcony for some air, a soft step came up behind him.
He turned, once in the embrace of the icy evening, somewhat surprised to find a frowning Countess staring up at him. It was just not the one he wanted to see. Natalya Ilyinichna was direct at least, mitigating the waste of time. “For what purpose do you trouble my sister?”
Fyodor’s lips curled, a bitter flavour on his lips. “When have I?”
Countess Bezukhova sighed. “I am neither blind, nor a fool.”
Some would argue both points. Fyodor merely glared.