Rebel Princess by Evelyn Anthony

Author:Evelyn Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Chapter 10

During the long hot afternoons at Oranienbaum, while Peter and the rest of the household slept or played cards in the high-shaded rooms, Catherine slipped out of her apartments and kept a daily rendezvous with her lover.

In the seclusion of the old Summer Pavilion, situated in the center of a large lake and screened by a wilderness of tree and bushes, Orlov waited for her, watching for the small boat, rowed by a taciturn boatman who accepted the roubles his pretty passenger gave him and asked no questions.

The pavilion was in disrepair, and had long ceased to be frequented by any who stayed at Oranienbaum; there was no safer place in the whole palace, and Catherine had managed to secure some furniture and a low couch for an inner room.

There Gregory received his mistress, and when the storm of their love-making had at length subsided, he would lie beside her on the ottoman, her dark head on his chest, and play absently with long strands of fine black hair, wondering what magic lay in her embraces that with each passing day and hour he loved and wanted her the more.

Love was an emotion new to his experience; physical passion was as natural and essential to him as the air he breathed, but women never roused in him the instincts of protection and concern. Once the mistress of the moment had left his arms, Orlov turned carelessly to other pleasurable pursuits, whether they were found at the card-table or on the battlefield.

But this woman was not one to be so dismissed.

Away from her or at her side, she obsessed his thoughts even as she dominated his desires. Catherine alone could satisfy him, and one fact only permitted his arrogant spirit to bear this servitude with patience. She was bound with bonds as fierce as those which shackled him. He had allowed no reservations, and the proud Grand Duchess, with her superior mind and veneer of culture, had been forced into abject surrender from which there was no possible return.

Gregory had mastered her and she loved him hopelessly. She loved him because he was coarse-tongued and honest, because he was brutal and masculine and in the grip of his own passions treated her with savage disrespect, because in his barbarian soul she knew he loved her in a primitive, uncomprehending way, and because in all his reckless life he had never known fear.

He was cruel and driven by ambition, pitiless towards the weakling or the coward, ruthless and quick-witted.

There were times when Catherine almost hated him for the way in which he read her thoughts, sensing the secret hopes of the succession which sometimes whispered across the surface of her mind when they were alone together. He knew her better than she knew herself and stripped the illusions of courtesy and charm from her character with laughter and contempt.

With him she practiced no diplomacy; she spoke her thoughts aloud and there was little difference between them when he voiced his own.

“I love you for four reasons, my Catrina,” he said one day.

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