Chapter 93 Anya
I locked the door behind Nikolai and stood there for a long moment with my forehead pressed against the cold wood.
My legs were trembling.
My hands would not stop shaking.
I turned back to the bed where Ivanov lay sleeping, one arm reaching across to my side, his face relaxed and unaware.
He had no idea how close he had come to finding us.
I walked to the window and wrapped my arms around myself, staring out at the dark grounds below.
The moon was still high, casting pale light across the gardens.
Somewhere out there Nikolai was making his way back to his room. Alone and hungry and carrying a burden that should never have been his.
Tears slid silently down my cheeks. Tonight had been a mistake.
A beautiful, terrible, necessary mistake.
I had felt alive for the first time in weeks, had felt like myself again, had felt like Anya Koslov instead of Mrs. Ivanov.
And now I would have to bury that feeling so deeply that not even Ivanov's cruelty could dig it out.
"Anya."
I spun around, my heart lurching violently.
Ivanov was awake, watching me from the bed with heavy lidded eyes.
"Come back to bed," he said. His voice was thick with sleep.
"I was just getting some water," I said, amazed at how steady my voice sounded.
"Come back to bed," he repeated, more firmly this time.
I walked to the bed and lay down beside him.
He pulled me against him. His arm was heavy across my waist. His breath was warm against my neck.
"Did I wake you?" I asked carefully.
"I heard you moving," he muttered. "You should be sleeping."
"I could not sleep."
"Try harder," he said. Then he was quiet for a moment. "You smell different."
My entire body went rigid.
"Different how?" I asked, forcing the words out slowly.
"Like wine," he said. "And something else."
The silence that followed was the most terrifying silence of my life.
Then he shifted, settling more heavily behind me. "Go to sleep."
I lay there in the darkness, rigid as stone, staring at the wall with my eyes wide open.
He had suspected something. I was certain of it.
But Ivanov was a man who moved slowly when he suspected, a man who watched and waited and gathered evidence before he struck. Just like Nikolai was doing to him.
The irony was not lost on me.
Morning came gray and cold.
Ivanov rose at six exactly, dressed in silence and left for his study without saying a word to me.
I stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to his footsteps fade down the hallway.
A maid came at eight with breakfast.
It was Sonya, the older woman who had brought me tea on my wedding night.
She set the tray on the table and looked at me with careful eyes.
"Are you alright, Mrs. Ivanov?" she asked quietly.
"I am fine," I said automatically.
Sonya moved to collect yesterday's clothes from the floor and paused. She picked something up and turned to me with a look that made my stomach drop.
It was one of Nikolai's rags, one of the strips of cloth he wrapped his hands in.
It must have fallen from his clothes in the darkness last night.
Sonya looked at the rag and then at me and then at the rag again.
"Mrs. Ivanov," she said very quietly. "I found this."
"I do not know what that is," I said immediately.
Sonya walked to me and pressed the cloth into my hand, closing my fingers around it.
"Neither do I," she said firmly, meeting my eyes. "I found nothing this morning. I saw nothing. Do you understand?"
Relief crashed through me so powerfully I nearly gasped out loud.
"Yes. I understand." My voice shook.
She squeezed my hand briefly and released it, going back to tidying the room as if nothing had happened.
"Sonya," I said.
She looked at me.
"The servant who serves us at meals. Markov. Do you know if he has been given breakfast today?"
"They do not feed him until evening, Mrs. Ivanov," she said carefully.
"I want him fed at breakfast and lunch as well," I said. "Starting today. Tell the kitchen it is on my orders."
Sonya hesitated. "Mr. Ivanov may not approve."
"Mr. Ivanov does not need to know everything that happens in his own house," I said. "Can you arrange it quietly?"
A small smile crossed Sonya's face. "I believe I can manage that."
"Thank you."
She left and I sat down at the breakfast table and ate without tasting anything.
Days passed and I continued playing my role.
The obedient wife. The beautiful ornament on Ivanov's arm.
I went to his dinners and smiled at his guests and laughed at his jokes and pretended to be exactly what he wanted me to be.
But inside I was watching. Paying attention to everything.
I noticed the guards he trusted most and the ones he barely
acknowledged.
I noticed that he always checked his study door twice before leaving it, which meant something important was kept inside.
I noticed that he had been making more phone calls lately, late at night, his voice low and urgent through the walls.
Something was changing. Some pressure from outside was building.
I did not know what it was yet but I intended to find out.
One afternoon I passed Nikolai in the hallway as he was carrying a bucket of water for cleaning.
We could not stop. We could not speak. Ivanov's guards were everywhere.
But for one brief moment our eyes met.
He looked better than he had in weeks. Less hollow and less broken. Which meant he had been eating well.
And there was something in his eyes that had not been there before.
He had a plan. I could see it on his face as clearly as if he had spoken it aloud.
I gave the smallest possible nod.
Whatever you are planning, I trust you.
He looked away and kept walking and I continued down the hallway in the opposite direction.
That night Ivanov was in a foul mood, snapping at servants, throwing a glass across the dinner table when the wine was not cold enough.
I sat perfectly still and said nothing while he raged.
Afterward in our chambers he paced back and forth, running his hands through his hair, muttering under his breath.
"Is everything alright?" I asked.
"There are people making trouble for me," he said without looking at me. "Asking questions. Poking around in things that are none of their business."
"What kind of questions?" I asked carefully.
He stopped pacing and looked at me sharply. "Nothing that concerns you."
"Of course," I said, lowering my eyes. "I was only asking because you seem upset. I do not like seeing you upset." I said slowly and sweetly.
The sharpness in his face softened slightly. He walked to where I sat and cupped my chin in his hand, tilting my face up.
He studied me for a long quiet moment.
"You have become a good wife," he said finally. "Obedient and loyal. I did not think you had it in you."
"I had a good teacher," I said, holding his gaze.
He smiled slowly. "Yes. You did."
He released my chin and walked to his desk, already distracted by whatever was troubling him.
I looked down at my hands folded in my lap.
He had called me obedient and loyal.
He was wrong about all of it.
I was none of those things.
I was a woman waiting for her moment and learning everything I could until it arrived.