Lily’s eyes were as round as saucers as she regarded Vadim for several seconds before nodding her approval. ‘You can hold Tracy if you like.’
‘Thank you.’ Vadim stared down at the rag-doll Lily had placed on the table in front of him, and closed his eyes briefly as pain swept through him. It was incredible how after all this time the sight of a doll could open up the floodgate of memories. His mind flew back across the years and he saw another doll, another little girl.
‘You hold my dolly, Papa. Sacha’s scared on the swing.’ He could hear Klara’s sweet, childish voice, speaking in Russian, as clearly as if she had just uttered the words. ‘Promise you’ll take care of her, Papa?’
‘Of course I will, devochka moya. I’ll take care of both of you.’
But he had broken his promise, Vadim thought grimly, pain slicing his insides like a knife in his gut. He hadn’t taken care of his little daughter, nor her mother. He picked up Lily’s beautifully dressed doll, with its bright golden curls, and thought of the raggedy doll with brown wool hair that Irina had so painstakingly mended each time the stitching had broken and more stuffing had spilled out.
‘When the business does better I’ll buy Klara a new doll,’ he had told Irina as she’d squinted to thread her needle in their poorly lit apartment.
‘She likes this one.’ Irina had stared at him, her pretty face troubled. ‘And she’d rather see her papa more often than have a new doll.’
It was a pity he hadn’t listened. The guilt would be with him for ever.
‘Do you like Tracy?’ Lily’s voice wrenched him back to the present. ‘I got her for my birthday.’
‘She’s a beautiful doll,’ he assured her gravely. ‘How old were you on your birthday, Lily?’
‘Five.’
The knife sliced again, deeper; the pain no longer the dull ache that served as a constant reminder of the past but so agonisingly sharp that he inhaled swiftly. Klara had been just five years old. It was no time at all, he brooded dully. She should have had so much longer on this earth, but instead she had been buried by the tons of snow that had hurtled down the mountainside and all but wiped out Irina’s home village.
Ten years had passed since that fateful day when his wife and little daughter had been killed by an avalanche, and he had learned to contain his grief. But Lily, with her cheeky smile and halo of curls, was an agonising reminder of all he had lost. And the limp rag-doll, which travelled with him wherever he went in the world, was a poignant link with the only two people he had ever loved.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WELL, Vadim, I think we’d better give you some peace to settle into Kingfisher House,’ Rex Portman gasped, panting and pink-faced from chasing his granddaughter around the garden. ‘There’s not much else to show you, apart from the summerhouse down by the river. If there’s anything else you need to know, Ella will be able to help. She’s lived here for-what is it now, Ella-four years? She was responsible for most of the interior decoration too. I’m sure you’ll admit she’s done a classy job.’
‘The house is delightful,’ Vadim murmured, replacing his sunglasses on his nose so that his expression was unreadable. The demons that haunted him were too private and personal to be shared, and he had never spoken of his past to anyone.
‘Oh, I almost forgot. Photos of the new baby.’ Rex extracted a packet of photographs from his pocket and handed them to Ella. ‘Handsome little chap, isn’t he? Steph says he looks a lot like me.’#p#分页标题#e#
Ella stared at the round red face and bald head of her cousin’s newborn baby son, glanced at her uncle’s sweat-beaded pate, and conceded that there was a strong resemblance.
‘He’s very sweet,’ she said softly, surprised by the pang of maternal longing that gripped her.
Uncle Rex nodded. ‘I expect you’ll want to settle down and have a couple of kids of your own soon.’
She shook her head firmly. ‘I doubt I’ll ever have children. For one thing, I believe children should grow up with two parents who are committed to each other,’ she explained, when her uncle gave her an incredulous look, ‘and as I never want to get married I’m just going to have to enjoy being a godmother.’ She gave Lily a hug, and was rewarded when the little girl squeezed her so hard that her ribs felt in danger of cracking. It wasn’t that she did not like children, she mused. She adored Lily, and loved spending time with her, but music and her career put huge demands on her time and she had always thought it would be selfish to have a child when she spent five or six hours a day playing.