Inventing Wonders

Chapter 26: Outplaying Everyone

Late September turned out to be unusually warm. The last heat of the long-gone summer enveloped St. Petersburg. Naturally, the rare good weather in this city couldn't halt or slow the processes that inevitably came into motion: families who could afford city life hurried back to their mansions, and conspirators gathered in secret apartments.

This suspicious sun seemed restless and out of place. Nikolai Pavlovich was tormented by nightmares. Acting as the de facto emperor in the capital, he was plagued by a vague anxiety best described by the phrase: "something is happening in the city." He had felt it for a long time, but now it was especially vivid. It was foolish to say that he suffered only from suspicions that had lived within him for several years.

Of course not. Nikolai Pavlovich was deeply troubled by the presence of Countess Vovk in the capital. If anyone thought that only Lara was disappointed by Mark Nikolayevich Bulgari's departure from the city, they were mistaken. The Grand Duke had to admit with a heavy heart that he counted the days until the countess's departure. With pain, he dreamed of her becoming a pleasant memory, disappearing from his life.

Nikolai Pavlovich was raised as a family man and sincerely loved his family. Alexandra Feodorovna always appeared to him as a light, a bastion of tenderness, a reason to fight, someone to protect. She was his ideal woman. But then Lara burst into his soul, turning everything upside down and taking root there. A girl who had never been there but always was. If Countess Vovk hadn't taken such a firm place in his heart, the Grand Duke, skilled at sensing conspiracies and oddities, would have surely conducted an investigation and determined that Larisa Konstantinovna Vovk, born in 1803, did not exist. But he was blinded, so like many others, he sighed at all her antics: "The American."

The Grand Duke couldn't sleep. One single nightmare haunted him day and night—Lara. He dreamed of the theater. And her tanned neck encircled by a pearl necklace. At first, he couldn't see the countess's face but saw her hands gripping a fan. Her shoulders shook, and Nikolai imagined she was crying. He jumped up from his seat and called out to her. She slowly turned, her face distorted by a horrific laughing grimace.

The Grand Duke rushed to her, but there were too many people. All he could do was watch. Meanwhile, Lara stood up, sat on the edge of her box, and said:

"There's no denying, you are very good..." she paused, smiled again, "all you had to do was drink the tea."

Nikolai wanted to justify himself, to say something in return, but the countess spread her arms and fell backward. And the hall seemed bottomless, she kept falling and falling, her laughter echoing through the empty hall.

This bad dream hadn't left him since their meeting at the theater. But he wasn't the only one haunted by eerie visions at night, not the only one who could foresee grim changes.

Alexandra Feodorovna sat by the window, staring intently at some tree. That's how it might have seemed to anyone who found her at that moment. In reality, her thoughts were approximately where her husband's thoughts were. Remarkably, in the imaginary drawing room of Countess Vovk, all the Romanovs left in St. Petersburg hadn't collided.

The Grand Duchess had long known about her husband's affair. It was easy to hate the vulgar girl who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Hating this vulgar image, so diligently painted by Agrafena, was easy. But then came that awful ball where Alexandra Feodorovna confronted the main villain of all Petersburg, and hating her became much harder. With annoyance, the Grand Duchess realized that she was somewhat indebted to Countess Vovk.

From all these unspoken worries, Alexandra Feodorovna began to suffer from severe migraines. In the end, she couldn't stand it, set aside the useless book, took a breath, and ordered the carriage to be prepared. The Grand Duchess, distinguished by her rare beauty, was not known for her intellect.