Heirs of the Motherland by Judith Pella

Author:Judith Pella [Pella, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042030 FIC042000, FIC026000
ISBN: 9781441229779
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2015-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

36

It turned out to be a much longer walk than she had anticipated. The street named in the note was a different one than she thought, and she had to stop once to ask directions. The tea shop specified in the message was a good fifteen-minute walk, at her brisk pace, from the boardinghouse.

She was glad she hadn’t bothered getting a coat, for by the time she arrived at the tea shop she was hot and sweaty and out of breath. But her efforts were well rewarded when she glanced in the shop window and saw Stephan seated at a small table.

He didn’t see her until she stepped inside and a little bell over the door announced her entry. When he glanced up, she wanted to run to him and embrace him and kiss him and hold him, but such a greeting in a public place was out of the question. She didn’t notice that he hardly responded with a similar intensity. He smiled as he stood to meet her, and took her hands in his but let go as soon as they sat at the table.

“Look at you!” he said, scanning her from head to toe. He took in her silky dark hair pulled back from her face and tied with a ribbon into ringlets that fell softly about her shoulders; her rosy countenance, flushed not only with the exertion of her walk but also with her joy. He noted especially her pretty pale yellow dress, hardly like the simple peasant frocks he was accustomed to seeing her wear, but very fashionable, trimmed with lace and satin ribbons.

Mariana smiled and looked him over. Gone were his peasant tunic and trousers, replaced with a somewhat ill-fitting and worn brown woolen jacket over a dingy white collarless shirt, brown trousers, and scuffed and cracking knee-high boots. He was now an impoverished student instead of a poor peasant.

But he still looked wonderful to Mariana.

“How did you find me?” she asked. “I gave up hope that my inquiries would ever reach you.”

“I’ve been buried in preparations for end-of-term examinations, and almost completely cut off from society,” he replied. “It was really just chance that someone in the administrator’s office mentioned your inquiries when I went to the office on another matter. They had lost track of the address you had given them and I had to do some detective work to locate you—”

“But we finally found each other. Oh! It’s like a very romantic story, isn’t it?”

“Except I can’t put my arms around you and kiss you as I would like to do.”

Mariana blushed with pleasure.

Stephan’s expression grew earnest. “But why are you here in St. Petersburg, Mariana? What has happened? You—you look so different.”

“Stephan, my whole life seems to have changed. I don’t know where to begin. It’s a long story, going back to when I was born. Much of it I already knew, but my mama and papa felt it was best to keep quiet about it. They are not really my parents; they have been caring for me at the request of my real parents.

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