The Concubine's Secret Read Free Page B

‘Who, Alexei?’
    He pushed his shoulders away from the door and only one half-pace took him to the bed where he sat down next to her. The mattress was bullet-hard and the three piles of coins tottered slightly in her lap.
    She treated him to a surprised smile but her gaze was wary. ‘What?’
    He leaned close, so close he could hear the whisper-soft clicking of her teeth behind the smooth curve of her cheek. ‘First of all, keep your voice down. The walls are paper-thin. That’s not just to save money on materials, they’re designed to be like that.’ His voice was the faintest trickle in her ear. ‘So everyone can eavesdrop on everybody else. A neighbour can report a muttered complaint about the cost of bread or about the incompetence of the rail system.’
    She gave him that direct look again and rolled her eyes so dramatically he almost laughed out loud, but stifled it with a frown instead.
    ‘Damn it, listen to me, Lydia.’
    She took his hand, scooped up one of the piles in her lap and dribbled twenty coins on to his palm.
    ‘I don’t want your money,’ he objected.
    But she gently wrapped his fingers round the little heap, one by one.
    ‘Keep it,’ she whispered. ‘One day you may need it.’
    Then she turned her face to him and kissed his cheek. Her lips felt feather-soft and warm on his skin. His throat tightened. It was the first time such an intimate gesture had passed between them. They’d known each other for eighteen months now, much of it unaware of the fact that they were brother and sister, and he’d even seen her stark naked that terrible day in the woods outside Junchow. But a kiss. No, never that.
    He stood up awkwardly and flexed his legs. The room was suddenly claustrophobic, and silent except for the vibration of a woman snoring next door.
    ‘Lydia, I’m just trying to protect you.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Then why do you make everything so…?’
    ‘Difficult?’
    ‘Yes. So damn difficult. As if you prefer it that way.’
    She shrugged and he studied her for a long moment, the mane of fiery hair that she refused to cut, the delicate heart-shaped face with candle-pale skin and the firm chin. She was seventeen years old, that’s all. He needed to make her understand, but he knew she had long ago learned to be stubborn, learned to be strong enough and difficult enough to deal with the hardships of her life. He knew that. Something in him wanted to reach out to her, to bridge the gap between them and touch her, to pat her shoulder or her undisciplined hair, to reassure her. But he was certain she wouldn’t welcome it, would regard it as pity.
    Instead he said gently, ‘We have to work together, Lydia.’
    But she didn’t look at him, didn’t answer.
    Just a faint murmur escaped her lips and it struck him as a wretched and lonely sound. Alexei saw her eyes unfocused and her lips moving silently. She’d gone. Sometimes she did that. When things became too much she would disappear, leave him and float away into her own private world, somewhere in her head that brought her… what? Joy? Comfort? Escape from this dingy room and this dingy life?
    Alexei’s back stiffened. He could guess where she’d gone. And with whom. Abruptly he opened the door to leave.
    ‘I’ll see you at the station tomorrow,’ he said in a brisk voice.
    No reply.
    He walked out and shut the door with a sharp click behind him.
     
    Alexei stepped out into the gloomy corridor and stopped dead. Right in front of Lydia’s door loomed Liev Popkov, that crazy Cossack of hers. Alexei himself was tall and unused to looking up at people, but Popkov was considerably taller and as broadchested and bad-tempered as a water buffalo. Popkov didn’t back off. He was rooted to the scuffed floorboards, deliberately in Alexei’s way, huge arms folded across his chest so that he seemed to swell with every breath. He was chewing something vile that turned his teeth the colour of old leather.
    ‘Get out of my way,’ Alexei said