Falling for the Rebel Falcon. Lucy Gordon

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      I dedicate this book to Katerina, my friend in Russia, who has told me so much about that lovely country.

      PROLOGUE

       ‘DON’T LEAVE ME. Please, please don’t leave me!’

      Varushka’s voice rose to a desperate cry. She reached out frantically, seeking someone who wasn’t there, who hadn’t been there for many years, who would never be there.

      ‘Where are you? Come back! Don’t leave me!’

      She cried out again and again, then gasped as she felt a pair of loving arms enfold her.

      ‘I’m here, Mamma. I haven’t gone anywhere.’

      The young man’s voice was affectionate and comforting, but it hardly seemed to reach the middle-aged woman sitting on the garden seat. Her eyes were closed, seeming to lock her into the prison of her private misery.

      ‘Don’t go,’ she whispered. ‘Stay with me. I beg you.’

      ‘Mamma, wake up, please.’ The young man sounded distraught. ‘It’s me, Leonid, your son. I’m not … anyone else. Open your eyes. Look at me.’

      He moved closer beside her on the garden seat, touching her face with gentle fingers to brush away the tears.

      ‘Open your eyes,’ he begged again.

      She did so, but stared in bewilderment, as though unable to recognise him. His heart sank, and for a moment he too was on the verge of weeping. Determinedly he controlled the weakness.

      ‘Mamma,’ he murmured. ‘Please. ’

      At last the vacant look died out of her eyes, and she managed a feeble smile as she finally recognised her son.

      ‘Forgive me,’ she murmured. ‘I fell asleep, and in my dreams he was there with me. I felt his hands taking hold of me—’

      ‘They were my hands, Mamma,’ Leonid said gently. ‘I came out to find you here in the garden to say goodbye. I’m off to attend Marcel’s wedding in Paris. Didn’t you remember that I said I was leaving today?’

      ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘Of course I remembered.’

      But they both knew it wasn’t his departure that had made her cry out in terrible anguish, but another departure long ago; and the memory of a man who’d vowed to return, but who had done so only rarely over thirty years, and never for long.

      ‘Naturally you must go now,’ she said. ‘Your father will be waiting for you in Paris. Oh, how he’ll be longing to see you!’

      If he was there at all, Leonid thought. With another man it could be taken for granted that he would attend the wedding of one of his sons, but with Amos Falcon nothing could be taken for granted.

      ‘You’ve got my letter?’ Varushka urged. ‘You’ll give it to him?’

      ‘Of course I will, Mamma.’

      ‘And you’ll bring his letter back to me?’

      ‘I promise.’

      Even if I have to twist his arm to make him write something, he brooded. But she must not be allowed to suspect his thoughts.

      ‘Perhaps he might even come back with you,’ she murmured. ‘Oh yes, say that you’ll bring him here to see me. Promise me.’

      ‘I can’t promise, Mamma,’ he said. ‘He has so many demands on his time, and Marcel’s wedding cropped up so suddenly that he couldn’t make any plans.’

      ‘But you will try? Tell him how much I long to see him, and I know that will make him decide.’

      ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, speaking with difficulty. ‘Perhaps you should come into the house now. It’s getting chilly.’

      ‘Let me stay here. I love looking at this so much.’ She made a gesture towards the lawn that sloped down and away, giving them a splendid view of the Don River. ‘It’s where we were together, where we will one day be together again. I know that. I must simply be patient. Goodbye, my dear boy. I’ll wait to hear from you.’

      He drew her close in a hug, kissed her lovingly then walked away with a heavy heart.

      As he neared the house he saw an elderly woman watching him through a window. She was Nina, who looked after his mother, and who now came to the door.

      ‘How is she managing?’

      ‘Not well,’ he sighed. ‘She’s given me a letter for my father. It’s sad that she still believes he loves her after all these years.’

      ‘Whereas Amos Falcon used her, abandoned her, broke every promise he ever made to her,’ Nina said scathingly. Although, strictly speaking, she was Leonid’s employee, she knew she could risk talking like this of his father. He treasured her for his mother’s sake, and it was only because he trusted Nina to care for her that he was able to leave this country house and return to Moscow, where he had to live for the sake of his extensive business interests.