Golden Paradise

'You helped me forget last week,' he declared very simply. 'You did for me, as well,' Lisaveta replied.

'We helped each other then.' He smiled his achingly beautiful smile. 'And you reminded me there's goodness and laughter and love in the world.'

'I know, Stefan,' Lisaveta breathed, her voice almost inaudible, the quiet of the room surrounding them like silken solace. 'I know what you're feeling. Life and living mean so much more to me now for haying almost died. But I won't…' she quietly added. 'Please…' Her eyes were the color of warm sunsets and not pleading so much as patient. 'Just thank you… I mean it truly. Thank you for everything.'

She knew her feelings were becoming too involved with Russia's most exalted hero. He was so much more than his grand and valorous public image. She was drawn to his wit and intelligence as well as attracted to his harsh beauty, while his gentleness and expertise as a lover were pure perfection. She could never stay, so she must leave before her feelings were so deeply committed he would be forever in her heart. Her chin lifted a scant distance and her voice took on a new determination. 'I'm going upstairs to rest before dinner and I intend to leave in the morning.'

'You're sure?'

'I am.'

He smiled. 'And nothing I can say will change your mind?'

'Stefan,' Lisaveta said, returning his smile, feeling more confident with her decision made, 'you can have any woman in the Empire. You don't need me.' Turning to go, she couldn't resist the obvious pointed barb. 'Besides, Nadejda's here to entertain you.'

It was not a pleasant thought. 'Bitch,' he whispered, the word ambiguously caressing.

Lisaveta grinned. 'I couldn't resist. Forgive me.' But her apology was lighthearted and unapologetic. 'Until dinner, mon chou' she buoyantly said, feeling new strength in the rightness of her choice, and blowing him a smiling kiss, she left.

'Until tonight, mon chou' Stefan softly breathed. He'd make love to her then and convince her to stay, the best soldier in the Tsar's army vowed. And he'd never lost a campaign in his life.

Chapter Four

Nadejda wore lavender crepe de chine with diamonds in her hair at dinner, and were it not for her disagreeable tongue she would have been the picture of radiant beauty. She had, however, since being seated, complained of the heat, taken issue with the servants' casual behavior and condemned the country style of food numerous times. Her patience curtailed by yet another remark about its quaintness, Aunt Militza coolly said to her, 'Stefan has a Georgian palate and refuses to have a French chef.'

'We have always had a French chef,' Nadejda replied, as though her wishes were primary, as though she were already running the household. Her mama had assured her she would have total control since men preferred detachment from household functions.

'Perhaps you should think of adding a Georgian chef, as well,' Militza retorted, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. Her family had been royalty for a thousand years before the Taneievs had been elevated to princely status.

'Surely Stefan enjoys French cuisine, don't you, my dear.' Nadejda turned to Stefan with her winning smile, the smile she felt had successfully gained Stefan's attention in Saint Petersburg six months ago.

Stefan, dressed comfortably in the embroidered silk shirt and loose trousers native to his mother's land, was sprawled back in his chair, his wineglass in hand. His expression had remained unreadable while Nadejda had complained, Militza had seethed and the two women had discussed him as if he weren't present. While he appreciated Militza's advocacy for his taste in food, he could only see the disagreement escalating, and Nadejda's opinion on food or anything else was really rather incidental to him. He'd chosen her for a bride because her family was well connected at court, not for personal reasons. After the irregularity of his own childhood and his father's disgrace and loss of the Viceroyalty of the Caucasus, Stefan didn't care if Nadejda Taneiev liked African chefs, as long as the stability of the Taneiev family was intact. He was marrying that dependable stability, the court attachments, the conservative background. But he disliked the cattiness of Nadejda's tone and her grasping possessiveness as much as the thought of continuing disagreements over dinner when all he wanted to do was relax and drink his favorite wine from his own vineyard.

'I eat anything,' he said blandly. 'Militza, you know that. Nadejda can keep her French chef by all means. When you've campaigned as long as I, you learn to eat anything.' He was the perfect host, pleasant, affable, ready to step in and smooth over controversy. 'Georgi, more wine for the ladies.' His major-domo, who stood beside Stefan's chair, signaled for a footman.

'Oh, no,' Nadejda refused, waving away the servant. 'Mama says a lady never has more than two glasses.' Her lavender eyes, cool as her disdain, cast a scornful glance at Aunt Militza, who'd been keeping up with Stefan's consumption over dinner.

'Your mother was from the north,' Militza curtly said, her brows drawn together in nettled pique, 'where all they drink is tea to keep warm. Leave the bottle,' she added to the young footman filling her glass.

Stefan couldn't help but smile at Militza's snappish answer to Nadejda's prudery. It could be a battlefield of a dinner, he thought, managing to hide his grin behind his uplifted wineglass. When he raised his eyes a moment later as the glass touched his lips, his gaze met Lisaveta's, and immediately memories returned of the bottle of wine they'd shared one morning in an enormous wooden tub set out on a flower-bedecked terrace. The sun had been warm, and they warmer still, hot with need and tumultuous passion, and the wine, chilled in a nearby mountain stream, was ambrosia to senses already attuned to pleasure. They had made love endlessly and then much later laughed with silliness and frivolous intimacy, as if they were the only two people in the world. Tonight, he thought, he'd touch her again and kiss her and make her laugh and give to her the enormous pleasure she'd given him.

Lisaveta dropped her eyes first before his dark gaze, more concerned with appearances than he. Stefan never cared about comportment; in that he was his father's son. Only his betrothal to Princess Taneiev was an aberration in personality. No one on either branch of his family had ever been practical. There had been no need with their wealth and status, but then, none before him had seen their father die in slow degrees, consumed by drugs, none had seen their father die a broken man living in exile at the spas of Europe. So Stefan was going to be practical in the one facet that had been his father's downfall. He would have a wife beyond reproach; he would have children with a legal patrimony from birth.

'Do you like my wines?' he asked Lisaveta. 'They say some of the Georgian sun is captured in each bottle.' He spoke to her as though no one else existed at the table.

'It does warm one's senses,' she replied, her smile enchanting. After several glasses of wine Lisaveta found herself relaxed and without rancor. In fact, after listening to Nadejda over dinner, she'd actually begun feeling sorry for Stefan. The young woman was devoid of amusement or charm, fastidious only of her position and the refined affectations of society. How dreary for Stefan, who loved to laugh.

'It reminds me,' Lisaveta went on, holding her glass up to the light, its golden contents rich and sunshiny, 'of a special wine from Tzinondali Papa and I once had. Papa called it Angelglow because one's blood turned warm.'

'Those,' Stefan said, smiling back, 'are my vineyards.'

'My papa prefers French wines,' Nadejda interjected. 'He says only French wines are of superior quality and fit for the palate of a gentleman.' She spoke to the table at large as though she were delivering news of importance. 'The Emperor, you know, only drinks French champagne.'

Stefan knew better-Tsar Alexander had a fondness for his vintages and they'd shared many bottles together over the years-but Nadejda's insipidity wasn't his concern. 'I'm sure you're right,' he said in a detached way, more interested at the moment in the beautiful flush on Countess Lazaroff's cheeks. Had her smile been as suggestive as her remark or was he imagining her response? His eyes took in her azure gown and the way Militza's pearls at her neck and ears set off her sun-kissed skin to perfection. Considering the haste required of the dressmaker in Aleksandropol, she'd done exceptionally well, and his glance drifted down to the provocative splendor of Lisaveta's breasts displayed so enticingly by the low-cut decolletage. Even her skin exuded warmth; it glowed like his wine with fragrant allure, and he could almost smell its heated perfume.