"Translate for Her, She's Only the Nursemaid," the Countess Said — The Ambassador Bowed to Her
Chapter 14
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It was the first time anyone in England had called her by her name."Yes," she said in English, and then, because it was the language of her childhood and she wanted him to have it: "Da."He kissed her once, there on the stairs in the dark, with five children asleep above them and a water jug on the step. Then he took her hand and did not let go of it, and they went down together.They were married in September, quietly, at St. George's in Hanover Square, with Count Zabelin giving away the bride, because there was no one else to do it, and because, he said, it was the nearest he could come to repaying a debt. Lady Honoria sent a note from Bath: the baronet had come up to scratch; she wished them joy, and underlined it twice, which Theodora chose to take kindly.The summer after, Calderwood House in Berkshire had a nursery of its own, and in it, from the first week of June, a son, dark like his father and loud like Louisa, whom the household called Lord Rannoch, and his mother called Sasha when the household was not on the stairs.The Stanwick children came in July, all five, because the Earl was home on leave from his northern court, and the Countess, who had learned to say "Your Grace" to her former nursemaid without visible pain, found that it was easier to send the children than to come herself. Frances, twelve now, read to the baby. Rupert, ten, taught him to pull hair. Louisa, seven, told him about the rabbit. Perry, four, who had finally learned to say "Theodora," said it forty times a day, and then called her Lo-Lo anyway.And in August, there came a letter from Petersburg, six weeks on the road, because the writer had insisted on sealing it herself and had used too much wax. It was in Russian, in large, careful letters, and it said that Natasha was seven now and had a pony, and that Papa had been made something important at court, and that she still had Annushka, and that she sang the song to Annushka every night so that the house spirits would be quiet, and that she sent her love to her sister Theodora, and her sister Louisa, and her brother Perry, and the new baby, whom she had not met but who was hers, too, because that was how families worked.Theodora read it aloud to her husband in the library in Russian, and then translated it, because he had asked her to, and because she was the only person in the room who could.