Heavens, he was handsome.
He released her and reached for the pottery door. “Thank you, Matrona,” he said, then slid inside. Seconds later, Matrona heard Kostya shouting at him.
Matrona took a deep breath and leaned against the pottery, staring up into the blue, cloudless sky. Her fingers trembled, and she fisted her hands to still them.
One doll. It was just one doll. She’d come this far; Slava would have to be forgiving. And wouldn’t it be a relief to have someone share the burden with her?
Yet as Matrona walked away from the pottery and met the scornful glare of another villager, the still-fresh memories of her humiliation bubbled to the forefront of her thoughts. Jaska would suffer that, too, and it would be her fault.
Then again, he was Jaska Maysak. Surely his secrets were light and easily dismissed. Surely he hid nothing of which to be ashamed . . .
Chapter 11
Matrona made it back to the cow pasture without so much as a glare from her mother or nod from her father. She wiped down the table and equipment in the barn, swept it out, then took to filling the villagers’ dairy requests—Georgy Grankin came by for milk, Nastasya Kalagin came for cheese, and Pavel came for butter. Matrona silently wondered at Pavel as she wrapped up his butter and set it in the basket, which was already filled with potatoes from the Grankin farm. Was his appreciation for white horses so strange? She studied him as he left, trying to piece it together for herself, but Pavel was like every other man in the village, just as his doll was like every other doll.
As luck would have it, Feodor and his father came for dinner that night, an invitation Matrona’s mother had neglected to tell her about until an hour before, leaving Matrona rushing to bathe and dress and make herself look proper for her soon-to-be husband. She stood behind her parents when the Popovs arrived, smiling and trying to look pretty while they exchanged formalities. By the time Feodor took any obvious notice of her, Matrona again felt like a doll—not the complicated, layered one atop the table in Slava’s home, but the forgotten toy locked away inside her mother’s chest, sewn for Matrona’s vanished sister. Forgotten.
It made her want to touch him in a way that was not at all romantic.
Feodor and his father sat at the same side of the table as Matrona’s father, and she and her mother sat opposite them. Matrona served the shchi, ladling the steaming soup into Oleg’s bowl first, then Feodor’s, her father’s, her mother’s, and hers last. She watched Oleg from the corner of her eye, again wondering at Jaska’s words in the darkness of that cellar. Oleg was as different from Pavel as a man could be, and yet he seemed no more extraordinary than the carpenter.
Matrona sat and, when Feodor looked up from his soup, smiled at him. He returned the gesture with a nod. A nod?
“We have been discussing dates,” Oleg said halfway through his bowl.
Her mother leaned forward as though Oleg were the main course. “Oh, please share. What are your thoughts?”
Feodor answered, “We believe Pyatnitsa, two weeks from today, would be an acceptable date. It would give us enough time for final preparations without stirring up further gossip.”
Matrona’s father took a sip of kvass. “Oh? And what gossip is feeding them now?”
“Why we wait,” Feodor replied matter-of-factly. He seemed more interested in the food than in the conversation.
Matrona’s stomach tingled as though the cabbage in her swallowed soup had grown wings and sought to escape. Two weeks!
She would open the fourth doll long before then.
“You need to separate yourself from the rest of the village.”
Matrona cleared her throat as softly as she could and took a sip of water. She tried to tell herself that Slava didn’t matter and that what she’d always wanted—to be seen as an adult by the rest of the village—was finally about to happen.
She thought of the hushed sound of Jaska’s voice, carried on warm breath as they hid in the darkness from the tradesman.
Oleg chuckled. “You’re rather pink.”
Looking up from her cup, Matrona realized he’d addressed her, and nearly choked on her water.
“A blushing bride,” her father joked, and Feodor smiled.
Her father continued, “What preparations? Is there anything additional you need us to do?”
“Simple things, really,” Feodor answered, setting down his spoon. “Working on the house, though I suspect we’ll be in my father’s abode for a short time before moving in.”
Matrona smiled softly to herself as she thought of her own izba. A good start to a marriage. To a new life.
Feodor continued, “I’m seeing it furnished as well. I hope to visit Pavel before we return home, to see the progression on the bed for Matrona.”
Her smile faded, and she kept her eyes on her soup to mask it, though she needn’t have—the conversation continued around her. She had been right, then—Pavel had been working on a headboard. The disappointment came from Feodor’s words, “for Matrona.”
So he did not expect them to share a bed. Such a thing was not unheard of; but even her parents shared a bed, and they did not act incredibly fond of each other, at least not when Matrona was around to play witness. Roksana and Luka certainly shared a bed.
Matrona’s eyes stung, and she drank deeply of her water, blinking rapidly to prevent any tears. It’s fine, she told herself. We really don’t know each other well, not yet. Once that happens, surely we could commission Pavel to . . .
She glanced at her betrothed, only then noticing he and Oleg had empty bowls. Silently rising from the table, Matrona went to fetch the pork kholodets from the cook fire. She stepped around Feodor’s chair to serve him, millimeters from brushing his shoulder. So close, and yet so distant. If her arm brushed him, would he notice? Would it send prickles up her arm the way Jaska’s touch had done just that morning?
Did it matter?
She leaned in, just a little, until their sleeves brushed. Until there was the slightest pressure between his shoulder and her forearm. There, that wasn’t so bad. Just a touch. Feodor didn’t seem to notice, even when she set the meat on his plate.
There was nothing special about a brush of sleeves, of course. What she needed was something more. Something to make her skin tingle or her chest flutter.
Pinching her lips to keep from frowning, Matrona went on to serve her family and lastly herself before placing the pot on the brick beside the cook fire. In her mind, she prayed.
Please let him touch me before he leaves, she thought, blinking again, swallowing the soreness rising in her throat. Let him hold my hand, kiss my cheek, anything.
He had agreed to the marriage, even after the mishaps with Slava’s doll. He was the one who had pursued the match in the first place. Didn’t he want her?
Matrona returned to her place at the table, but found her appetite gone. She stirred the pork bits on her plate and glanced at Feodor. Why can’t you love me?
Desperation burned her belly raw, but she wasn’t going to do this, not here, not now. Lord help me, I’m so tired of crying.
She plastered on her best practiced smile throughout the rest of the meal, and when the Popovs took their leave, she walked them from the izba and onto the path. With a gentle nod, Feodor said his good-bye and headed for Pavel’s carpentry, his skin never once coming in contact with hers.
Matrona drew in a shuddering breath and noticed Roksana coming down the same path, a blue sarafan dancing about her pregnant frame. It almost matched the shade of the darkening sky . . . which reminded Matrona of her promise to Jaska. Feodor had weighed down her thoughts so much, she’d nearly forgotten.
She had to leave soon. She had to sneak into Slava’s home, again.