Golden Paradise

wash up first,' he said, stalling for time, thinking hell and damnation, what bloody bad luck. Nadejda should have been in Saint Petersburg, two thousand miles away. 'The roads are awash with dust this time of year,' he added.

Thank you, Lisaveta thought gratefully, but then Stefan was adroit at lying, wasn't he, she decided, his 'surprise' fiancee glaring at her. All she wanted to do was get away from this uncomfortable situation, find a coach traveling north very soon and leave Stefan Bariatinsky to the mercy of his fiancee.

Since they had dallied on the outskirts of Tiflis the previous night, reluctant to bring their passionate holiday to an end, neither Stefan nor Lisaveta was in fact at all begrimed by travel. Stefan's white Chevalier Gardes uniform was pristine while Lisaveta's simple white pique summer gown was bandbox fresh.

Ignoring the graphic evidence before her eyes, Aunt Militza said with a practiced courtesy, 'Of course, you must rinse off the dust of your journey. We'll see you on the terrace in half an hour.' This latter statement was delivered in a tone very like Stefan's when issuing orders to his men, Lisaveta thought, having witnessed the departure of his troop from Aleksandropol.

And surprisingly Stefan deferred with a nod of acknowledgement. There was an authority higher than his, Lisaveta realized, or at least in some circumstances there was. Or at least for trivialities like teatime there was.

'Come, Nadejda,' Militza declared firmly, 'you can help me with tea.'

Nadejda hesitated briefly, her eyes moving dismissively over Lisaveta to rest on Stefan. She was weighing the risks of refusing when her violet shaded eyes met forcibly with Stefan's dark gaze.

'We'll be along directly,' he said, without modulation, and it was that precise lack of inflection perhaps, the utter quiet of his tone, that decided her. After all, Stefan Bariatinsky was the catch not only of this season but of ten seasons past, as well, and she had been raised to be a practical woman.

For a moment after the two women departed, the only sound was the whisper of the wind through the gigantic cypress trees lining the ornate staircase. Grafted from those planted by Catherine the Great during her triumphant tour through the Crimea nearly a century before, they dwarfed even the magnificent villa on the crest of the hill.

'Why didn't you tell me?' Lisaveta said, speaking first, her voice a low, intense, restrained resonance.

She was tanned, Stefan thought, gazing down at her. The crisp white pique must heighten the color of her sun-kissed skin. He hadn't noticed before. And the slight breeze was blowing tendrils of her chestnut hair across her bare shoulders. Silk on silk, he mused.

'Why?' she repeated, refocusing his attention from more pleasant thoughts.

'I didn't think it mattered,' he simply said, which was the truth. His fiancee was quite separate from his love life.

'Didn't matter?' Lisaveta's golden eyes were stormy.

He wanted to say the information was extraneous to their relationship but he wasn't that crudely impolite. Instead he said, 'The opportunity didn't arise.'

'In eight days?'

He sighed then, a faint, almost negligible sigh encompassing a vast experience with irate women and unanswerable questions. 'I'm sorry,' he apologized.

She looked at him with scorn and anger and incredulity. After eight days of unremitting passion, after eight days of laughter and conversation, after nights when neither had slept because their need for each other was too intense, that was all… 'You're sorry'! For what? That I found out?'

He was primarily sorry Nadejda was in Tiflis, but that too would have been unprincipled to admit, so he opted for a less callous reply. 'I should have told you. I'm sorry.'

'Yes, you should have.'

'Would it have mattered?' he asked then very quietly, touching her arm lightly in an intimate, familiar caress.

His low voice and the gentle intimacy of his fingertips on her skin sent a shiver of warm response coursing through her body. 'Don't touch me,' Lisaveta said in a tone meant to be harshly emphatic but hushed instead and much too soft.

'She doesn't matter.' Stefan's voice too was hushed, and he moved a step nearer.

'She should.'

He only shrugged, the convoluted reasons for his choice of fiancee beyond brief or rational explanation. 'Don't be angry.' His voice was husky, his dark eyes much too close now, just as his powerful body was. Lisaveta moved a step back.

'They might be watching.'

'We're only talking.'

'I'm not as blase as you.'

'I'll teach you.' He smiled then and added in a hushed undertone, 'And you can teach me more of Hafiz.'

She tried to keep from smiling, she tried to remind herself he was an unprincipled libertine and much too beautiful for his own good. She reminded herself his reputation was legendary, she shouldn't respond to his warm suggestive smile. But he winked at her, his lush, dark lashes falling and rising in a lazy indolent gesture. 'We're only on poem nineteen.'

All the heated nights and days of lovemaking came pouring back into her memory… with his teasing smile like now, and his teasing hands and lips and expertise. She couldn't resist smiling back. 'Scoundrel.'

'Never,' he said. 'A moralist's term, and I didn't hear you complain before.'

'I hadn't met your fiancee before.'

'My palace has two hundred and eighteen rooms.'

'You're much too pragmatic.'

'A soldier's training. Forgive me, dushka…and forgive her intrusion. I'm truly sorry.' He brushed his finger gently along the curve of her shoulder. 'I hope she won't upset you. I'd like you to stay and visit.' His voice was as warmly coaxing as his smile. 'You'll like Militza. She's outspoken but delightful, and I've a month's leave.'

This was the first he'd mentioned her staying or the length of his furlough. Perhaps he'd assumed she'd stay, perhaps women always stayed as long as he wished. After the paradise of the past eight days, she understood why that might happen. However, she too was pragmatic and much too sensible to allow herself to become simply another of the parade of women passing through Prince Stefan Bariatinsky's life. 'Thank you, but no. I must return home to my estate as soon as possible.'

'Stay a few days.'

She shook her head.

He gazed at her, his expression unreadable. 'You won't?'

'I can't.'

'Why?'

'I've things to do.'

'Even though I risked my life to save you from the Turks?'

She smiled. 'Does that work often?'

He grinned. 'Every time.'

'Except one.'

'Truly?'

She nodded. 'Truly.'

'You'll stay until tomorrow, won't you?' His voice was as courteous as a young boy's, his dark eyes innocently polite. 'Aunt Militza will be inconsolate if she doesn't have a first-person account of your adventures, and she is a friend of your father's,' he added with gentle emphasis.

Lisaveta hesitated, weighing logic against her charged feelings, the apparent sincerity of Stefan's request against the history of his past. 'Just tonight?' she inquired, gauging the extent of her risk.

'That's it.'

'If I don't have to be more than civil to your scowling fiancee.'

'Agreed,' Stefan quickly said, intent on having Lisaveta stay on any terms. Tonight he'd change her mind. He