Innocent in the Ivory Tower

‘Which is how you and Alexei met. You’re very young to have been raising a child. I got the impression Anais didn’t spend very much time at home.’

Maisy had no intention of defaming her friend, but Ivanka seemed to understand this and laid a warm hand on hers.

‘Leo chose a highly strung racehorse and wondered why she didn’t turn into a brood mare when he got her in the stable. They’re Valery’s words, not mine. I’m a brood mare, Maisy, and happy to be one. I’ve got two boys of my own—Nicky and Sasha—you’ll meet them tonight. You, on the other hand, seem more like a filly to me, which makes it hard to imagine how you manage a two-year-old boy. Actually, I don’t know how you manage the thirty-year-old one.’

‘I don’t. Not very well,’ Maisy confessed. She was finding Ivanka very easy to talk to.

‘Tell me how you and Alexei met.’

‘He attacked me in the Kulikovs’ kitchen.’

‘Okay—so far, so not Alexei.’ Ivanka laughed. ‘Do tell, Maisy.’

So Maisy started at the beginning, picking her way through the rubble of the past few weeks, explaining about Anais and looking after Kostya, and the outrageous way Alexei had stormed into the house.

‘That’s Alexei—never does things by halves,’ was all Ivanka said.

Maisy edited out herself in a towel, him throwing her up against the door, and moved on to coming to Ravello. ‘And then I fell in love with him,’ she said simply. It was the first time she had said it aloud, and the fact that it wasn’t to Alexei, that it could never be to Alexei, opened the floodgates.

She cried. For herself, but mainly for the little boy who had been abandoned by his mother and left to fend for himself. Ivanka stroked her head throughout, until a strange sort of peace invaded Maisy’s body. And with it the nausea rose. She just made it to the bathroom in time.

And that was where Alexei found her.

‘She’s drunk.’

Alexei sounded incredulous, and in the old days—the days before today—Maisy would have laughed. But she was too busy being gloriously ill into a mercifully pristine toilet bowl.

Ivanka said something in Russian. Something that silenced Alexei. And in the silence Maisy slid onto her bottom, shutting her eyes against the suddenly clear certainty that she had disgraced herself.

The problem with nausea was that now it had passed she felt a reprieve—enough to realise how appalling her situation was. She awkwardly got to her feet, flushing the toilet and refusing to look at Alexei as she struggled to the sink, filling a glass with cold water and rinsing out her mouth. The mirror wasn’t kind: she looked white, her fancy hairstyle beginning to come apart. The robe gaped open and she sashed it tightly, her eyes going anxiously to his.

Alexei’s whole body told the story of how angry he was with her. His arms just hung at his sides, and he was tense and frozen to the spot.

Ivanka was gone. Wise woman, thought Maisy, drawing her arms about her waist. She needed a hug, and Alexei wasn’t going to provide it.

It was hard to feel sorry for him when he was towering over her, all two hundred pounds of Russian machismo, judging her.

‘Are you all right?’

He was very angry, she recognized. His accent was so thick she had to concentrate to understand him.

She nodded. ‘Ivanka helped me. She’s very kind.’

Alexei said something under his breath.

‘How much did you drink?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t drink.’ He sounded almost helpless.

Maisy met his eyes in the mirror. ‘I didn’t do a lot of things until today,’ she muttered, leaning into the sink.

‘Where’s your dress? Why are you undressed?’ He framed the question roughly.

‘I spilt champagne on it. Ivanka took it to soak.’ She took a shuddery breath. ‘I think a man was here and saw me. When I didn’t have any clothes on.’

‘I heard about it.’ The last scrap of colour left Maisy’s face. He made a European gesture with his hands. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he said urgently. ‘I’ve taken care of it.’

‘What do you mean?’ she whispered.

‘Everyone’s gone. I’ve emptied the boat.’

‘Oh.’ Oh.

Alexei shifted on his feet. He wasn’t angry with her, Maisy registered. Something else was going on.

He had emptied the boat. Because of her. Was he taking care of her?

‘Did he speak to you? Touch you?’

Maisy shook her head. ‘I shut myself in here. I didn’t leave the door open even a crack.’

His expression altered. He took a step towards her. Why isn’t he holding me? her nerves were shrieking.