Page 79 of The Tsarina's Favorite
She reached out and brushed her hand over my forehead and back through the feathers.Her touch, gentle and appreciative, did not elicit any of my instincts to withdraw as they did with the tsarina.It was illusory, of course, but Alaina’s touch promised safety and care.
“Pietrodillo is right,” she said.“You do have human eyes.”
That broke the illusion.I jerked back as if she had struck me.
“What was that for?”she asked.
“I’m not, you know.Not human,” I said, trying not to panic or bristle and make her regret showing me any care at all.“I am going to disappoint you if you think of me like that.”
“Is that what the tsarina does?”she asked, reaching over the chair to touch my shoulder.“Tries to make you a man in feathers?I don’t mean to do that.”
“I know you don’t.And I know that you’re far too intelligent to let a man degrade you by association were he in my state.”
“What do you mean?”Alaina’s brows bunched up.
I didn’t know what my point was, but not to address it would be akin to a lie, even if I would never be in a position to be Mikhail again to her or anyone.
“If I were just a man in feathers, you would want nothing to do with me, and rightfully so.A man does not elevate his company by wearing a collar and living in a cage.”
“Is that why you won’t let me join you?Because you have some notion that you aren’t fit company for me?”
“Something like that,” I confessed.
Alaina leaned over her lap and patted her legs through her skirts.When I shifted close enough to her, she sat back and patted her knee, guiding my head down to it.Her fingers played in the feathers, soft and deliberate.
“I do not know what I am,” I said honestly, her touch freeing my tongue.“Why not just let me be an adoring, if stubborn, pet?”
“Because even if you don’t know what you are, Kaylay, I do.”She bent over me and kissed the top of my head.“You are my friend.”
XXV.
Fireside sitting becamemy primary pastime.I could have done a lot worse.I had done a lot worse.And now, I spent my days curled up with pillows and blankets in front of the hearth, baking myself into pleasant dreaming by convincing myself that I was in Varnasia again, enjoying chilled wine and the radiant sun.The mental gymnastics required to accomplish it in full view of a darkness that lifted just before midday and descended again barely three hours after might have astounded anyone privy to my thoughts, but I had grown desperate for peace and needed few props to set my stage.
The servants who emptied chamber pots and tended the fire adapted to my presence.No one maligned or taunted me in Alaina’s apartments.It was a nice change not to have to pretend not to hear things said about me.
Although Alaina could not always be with me either, she did not suggest that she lead me about by the leash as the tsarina did.She even ordered regular bathing water for me although few others saw me now.And when the servants and the ladies who assisted Alaina with her evening preparations departed each night, Alaina would join me in her anteroom and read to me.
