"I'll take you to the tent," he said when she did not reply. What choice did she have? He knew what his rights were, and her obligations. But to her surprise, he left her outside the tent. She crawled in and flung herself down on the floor and just lay there in the darkness. After a while, the pounding in her head diminished to a dull, roaring throb. After a while, Feodor returned with hot tea, and Vasha, and a lantern to light them. The boy thanked her and begged leave to spend the night in the tent of the khaja lady with hair the color of fire. The entire speech had a rehearsed sound to it. Nadine didn't know the child well enough to know whether he was happy with the arrangement or resigned to his fate.
"You'll ride with me tomorrow," she insisted. Vasha agreed. Feodor sent him away. After a moment, Feodor crawled into the tent, hooked the lantern along the center pole, and took off his boots.
"Drink your tea," he said. He turned. He had long, pale eyelashes that never showed unless the light struck him just right, and lantern light usually struck him so as to bring out his most attractive features. "Gods, Dina, don't refuse it just to spite me. It ought to make you feel better." He began to pull off his shirt, hesitated, and then shifted to pull off her boots instead. She let him. Then she sipped at her tea and he watched her, just watched her, until she had emptied the cup. She was not used to him watching her so closely, so openly. The sensation made her skin crawl. He moved, and she tensed, but he reached away from her and extinguished the lantern.
Darkness. She sighed and shut her eyes. "You will have children. I order you to." She could still hear Ilya's voice. Ilya was all that was left to her of her mother. Nataliia Orzhekov would have had many more children, and gladly, to help her beloved younger brother. Was her daughter going to do any less than she would have? Nadine knew her duty.
Feeder's hand came to rest on her brow. He stroked her forehead and the circle of bone around her left eye, and the pounding in her head faded to an ache. He was gentle, and patient, and tender. She ought to have guessed long ago, though, about that other side of his personality, the determined, brash side. He was bold enough once he got between her blankets. She would never have kept him for a lover for as long as she had if he hadn't been.
She sighed and her right hand strayed onto his thigh. He made a noise in his throat and all at once-well, all at once. The change was so sudden that she only realized then how firmly he had clamped down on his feelings before. He shook with emotion, and she could not get him to take his hands off of her for even a moment, so she had a damned hard time getting him out of his clothes and he was a little rough with hers.
She was still angry, afterward, but much calmer. "Feodor," she began in a low voice, and then: "Oh, here, move over, will you? My back is up against the tent wall."
He shifted, and she shifted, and he traced her earlobe and the line of her jaw and her lips. "Hmm?"
"Feodor, you can't speak like that to me, like you did out there, before. It just makes me furious. And it isn't right."
"I can speak to you however I wish. I'm your husband."
"Yes, as you're forever reminding me."
There was silence. "No," he said finally, so low that she had to strain to hear, "perhaps it's myself I'm reminding. Gods, I dreamed, but I never thought-" He broke off. He turned his face into her cheek and just breathed. She felt like she didn't know him at all. "Anyway," he said, his lips moving against her skin, "I'll bet your head doesn't hurt anymore."
"Oh, gods," said Nadine to the air. She settled in against him. He began to hum under his breath: He was happy. Nadine sighed and resigned herself to her fate.
CHAPTER TEN
Anna had died once already by the time Diana got to Dr. Hierakis's tent. A boy from the Veselov tribe brought Diana the news-garbled, she prayed-at the Company encampment, and she ran all the way to the hospital grounds and into the doctor's tent, pitched in the center. She stopped at the edge of the carpet. Her ribs were in agony; she gulped air.
Tess sat cross-legged on a pillow, mending the torn hem of a tunic. Her eyes lifted once to watch Kirill, pacing in the distance, and then shifted to Diana. Her face lit. "Ah, thank goodness," she said in Anglais.
"What happened?" Diana fairly shrieked the words. Beyond the tent, Kirill opened and closed his good hand to the rhythm of his pacing. His face was white. Once a man paused to speak to him, but the exchange was brief and the man shook his head sadly and walked away.
"We got caught in a skirmish. Anna was wounded."
"But-she's dead-?"
Tess pinned the needle into the fabric, bound up the loose thread, and set down the torn tunic. "Her heart stopped. At that point, Cara threw every jaran out of the surgery and began-well, she's operating now."
"Operating!"
Kirill halted stock-still and looked their way, caught by the sound of Diana's voice. He strode over to them and flung himself down on the carpet, next to Tess. Tess embraced him. He accepted it. More than that-he buried himself against her as if he sought his comfort from her. Diana knew body language. When acquaintances embrace, one can read the gap between them. When friends, when siblings embrace, no matter how close, there is still an infinitesimal distance, like a layer of molecules, separating them. When a mother hugs her child, they meet. But when lovers embrace, they don't just meet but join. Tess held Kirill against her as if he was her lover.
At this inopportune moment, Bakhtiian appeared. A bandage swathed his left arm. Tess's gaze lifted and met his. Diana watched an entire conversation pass between them, wordless and within seconds. A lifted eyebrow. A grimace. Eyes slanting toward the tent. The movement of a chin, signifying a nod. To Diana's astonishment, Bakhtiian grabbed a pillow, threw it down on the other side of Kirill, and settled down beside the other man. At once, Kirill broke away from Tess and sat up. He flushed.
"Here is something to drink." Bakhtiian offered the other man a cup of komis. Trapped between Tess and Bakhtiian, Kirill had to accept. He sipped once, twice, and then gulped the rest down like a man who has only just discovered that he is desperately thirsty. Then he sat, breathing hard, gaze fixed on his withered hand. He closed it into a fist, and opened it again. Closed it. Opened it.
"Do you want a command?" asked Bakhtiian, refilling Kirill's cup.
"Ilya-" began Tess.
Kirill flung his head back. "A command!"
"A general doesn't have to fight in every engagement. He only has to lead. I know your worth, Kirill. And I know the worth of your loyalty to me. You and Josef and Niko are the three men I trust most in the whole world. You'll never be the fighter you were, but you've some use in that arm now. Enough to lead your own command, I think."
Diana was appalled. Was this how Bakhtiian consoled him for the death of his wife?
Kirill's expression underwent so many swift changes from one emotion to another that Diana could not read them alclass="underline" anguish, exhilaration, hope, fear, ambition- Goddess! He was going to accept.
"You honor me, Bakhtiian," he said softly.
Bakhtiian snorted. "It's only to keep you away from my wife."
Kirill grinned. Yes, he was a distinctly attractive man, and he knew it. "I suppose it's unlikely that she won't succumb to my greater charms sooner or later."
"Perhaps," said Bakhtiian. His lips quirked.
"I find this conversation offensive, considering the circumstances." said Tess in a voice thick with emotion. "If you can't talk about something decent, then stop talking."