A Flight To Heaven Read Free

higgledy-piggledy roofs of the town.
    She lay for a long time, watching the tiny point of light against the darkness and somehow it comforted her.
    ‘I will be happy again,’ she told herself. ‘I cannot see how, but I will.’
    With a tiny glimmer of hope in her heart, Chiara turned over in the bed and then fell into the first deep and peaceful sleep she had enjoyed since her Papa had passed away.
    *
    Count Arkady Dimitrov turned away from the buzz of conversation and the clink of glasses in the drawing room of the fine house he had rented in Mayfair.
    Outside the tall bay window the street below was quiet and the pavements gleamed wet from heavy rain.
    It was a far cry from the outstanding prospect over the River Neva that stretched away outside his Palace in St. Petersburg.
    Everything in London seemed to him so small by comparison. Small and rather drab, like this house, that the agent had assured him was one of the best to be found with all its furniture and fittings brand new and in the very latest style.
    The Count gave a wry little smile.
    This drawing room was intensely bland, he thought, remembering all the gilded chairs, the great gold clock, the embroidered draperies of his own fabulous salon at home.
    And it was impossible to obtain decent caviar here in London. Not that his guests complained. They would happily nibble on tiny sandwiches of thin white bread and cucumber!
    A woman’s hand touched his arm.
    “You are very thoughtful tonight, Count. Will you not share your musings with us?”
    It was Mrs. Fulwell, a fair-haired English widow who had been very helpful throughout the Count’s stay in London, inviting him to dinner parties and the theatre and making sure that he was never short of entertainment or company.
    Arkady took her hand and kissed it politely, bowing low.
    Mrs. Fulwell, he reflected, was looking very smart tonight with her pale hair dressed in a soft flattering style and her plump face blushing sweetly in the candlelight.
    The best thing, undoubtedly, about his stay so far, had been the prettiness of the English girls.
    And indeed twenty years ago, Mrs. Fulwell must have been a very fine example of a classic ‘English Rose’.
    But now her delicate rosy skin was showing signs of becoming lined and her hand, where it lay in his, was rather too large for Arkady’s taste.
    He smiled politely at the widow.
    “I am just thinking of home,” he told her. “I miss St. Petersburg and my country estate. I have been away for a long time.”
    “Oh, but it seems no time at all since you arrived here and from what you tell us, it’s quite dreadfully cold in Russia at this time of year.”
    “Yes, indeed.”
    Arkady closed his eyes for a second and pictured the gleam of thick snow under the winter sky.
    At least here in England you did not have to swathe yourself in furs before you stepped out of the door. He had not seen a single snowflake since his arrival in London – only what seemed like endless rain.
    Perhaps it was all the moisture in the air that gave the women their exquisite soft complexions.
    Mrs. Fulwell’s blue eyes were gazing imploringly up at him.
    “I hope you are not thinking of leaving us so soon,” she said. “Why, my darling girls will be quite devastated! They are so longing to meet you.”
    She had mentioned her two daughters before, but he had never actually met them. They seemed to be always busy with dressmakers and milliners and a constant stream of social engagements.
    Mrs. Fulwell had assured him that they were bound to be engaged very soon, as they were both so very pretty.
    He turned back to the window, suddenly longing for Russia, for the fresh icy air of St. Petersburg and the brilliance of the starlit sky on a clear winter’s night.
    Tonight just one tiny star could be seen twinkling bravely through the hazy light of the London gas lamps.
    “You are drifting away again,” Mrs. Fulwell was saying, her hand still on his arm.
    “Oh, forgive me,” he