her to know anything about his godforsaken mother.
He swallowed another gulp of ale and then, as if an epiphany burst within him, he had the answer. So obvious. If he’d taken a half-second to actually think, it might have occurred to him much sooner.
“Where is she?” he asked Darius in Russian. The language crunched between his teeth, unfamiliar and stale with neglect.
Darius’s eyebrow arched in surprise, but he responded in kind. “Dare I suspect Mrs. Winter does not speak Russian?”
Sebastian leaned forward, tension knotting his shoulders. Beside him, Clara shifted. He felt the exasperation building in her. Her own damned fault for insisting on this foolishness.
“Where is our mother?” he asked. “What do you know of her?”
“She found me in St. Petersburg earlier this year.” Darius heaved out a sigh and sat back. “She remarried and is now known as Catherine Leskovna. She contacted me because she suspected I would be the only one to agree to a meeting.”
“She was right,” Sebastian muttered. Alexander and Talia would have refused to see her, and Sebastian had no reason to react any differently. Certainly their mother had no way of contacting Nicholas or even knowing where he was. Darius, on the other hand, would allow his intellectual curiosity about their mother to conquer any remnants of anger and hurt.
“She has been following your career,” Darius continued, “and wanted to seek you out after your resignation from Weimar, but feared causing further disruption.”
Sebastian laughed without humor. “Did she consider that when she had a blasted affair?”
“She then approached me asking if I knew what had happened, as she suspected more than a conflict with the Weimar committee.”
Anger twisted hard in Sebastian’s chest. Bloody, bloody hell.
He’d not been any closer to their remote mother than his brothers or sister, but he and Catherine had shared an unspoken love for music—a love Catherine had kept private. Even now, Sebastian remembered hovering in the shadows of the doorway as a child while his mother played the piano to an empty drawing room. Unaware that her son was her only audience.
Sebastian jerked his head toward the scroll Darius had set on an empty chair. “That’s what this was about? Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I knew your loyalty to Alexander would preclude you from even hearing me out,” Darius said. “And while it’s true that I believe the cipher machine has numerous uses, I also wanted to know if you would agree to my proposition.”
“Why?”
“If you did, it meant that you had nothing else to do. No plans for another tour, no income from concerts or teaching, no work with the Society of Musicians. It verified that you withdrew not only from your public career but from any association whatsoever with music. And your acceptance of financial compensation indicated you were in need of funds, which I’d suspected after I saw Grand Duchess Irina last summer. She informed me you’d refused her further patronage and returned to London without explanation.”
Darius sat back, his gaze flickering to Clara before settling again on Sebastian. No satisfaction over the proof of his deductions appeared in his expression. Rather he appeared dispirited, a shade of sorrow veiling his eyes.
“And that,” he said, reaching for the tankard, “also led me to believe our mother’s suspicions were correct.”
Anger over his brother’s duplicity churned in Sebastian’s gut. He hated the idea that Darius had approached the harshest crisis of Sebastian’s life with logical calculation, as if he were a puzzle that required solving.
Yet still Sebastian was unable to prevent himself from voicing the question that had burned in all their minds for nearly three years.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
“After her affair came to light,” Darius said, “she fled first to France with her…paramour…then returned to Russia.”
“So she did go back.” How often had Sebastian wondered that?
“Yes. She lived on her father’s estate in Vyborg when her lover was deployed to the Urals.”
“Who was he?”
“A common soldier,” Darius said. “Alexei Leskov. They met during one of her visits to St. Petersburg. They married shortly before he left for the Urals. Her family opposed, of course, and insisted she remain at their country estate so as not to cause talk in the city. Leskov returned for a time, but last spring was sent to the Baltic Sea. This time, rather than remain confined to the Vyborg estate, Catherine accompanied him.”
“She went with him to war?” Good Lord. Had Sebastian known nothing at all about his own mother?
“She volunteered to assist the nurses. She had no