Golden Paradise

'Won't he be angry with you?' Lisaveta asked as soon as Georgi left. She was unfamiliar with palace intrigue, her own tranquil life with her father insufficient education for the subtleties of manipulating people. As an only child with her father alone for company, Lisaveta was unaccustomed to the machinations of society. ''What if Stefan discovers what you've done?'

'I expect he will first thing in the morning. Actually I'm counting on it, but then I'm only accommodating his fiancee,' Militza replied, her sweet tone one of unalloyed delight. 'The one,' she reminded Lisaveta, 'he picked out in three days because she best met his requirements for stability.'

'I see,' Lisaveta said when she didn't see at all, when she envisioned instead a tangle of complications and disorder. 'You can't mean stability,' she added, as the word registered. 'Not for Stefan. He lives his life on the brink.'

'As did his father before him.' Militza expelled a small sigh: 'Which is the basic problem.' She looked into the golden liquid in her wineglass for a brief moment before her gaze came up and she went on, 'You must know of Stefan's father's lengthy liaison with Princess Davidow and the scandal.'

'Only vaguely,' Lisaveta answered. 'Father was reclusive after Maman died. His studies absorbed him increasingly-to fill the void of Maman's loss, I suppose. As I grew older, they occupied me, as well.' It was natural she'd adopted her father's field of study since she'd always traveled with him. 'The only scandal I'm fully aware of,' Lisaveta added, smiling a small rueful smile, 'is Stefan's reputation for amorous intrigue.'

Militza shrugged. 'A young man's normal interest,' she said. 'His father's scandal, though, is going to ruin Stefan's life.' She looked at Lisaveta across the remnants of dinner. 'He hasn't said anything to you of his family?'

'Nothing except you wouldn't mind me as a guest. As you saw earlier today,' she went on, her fingers tracing the pattern of the tablecloth in a nervous gesture, 'he hadn't even mentioned he had a fiancee.'

'He didn't expect her to be here, although that's no excuse, only an explanation… and in a way, perhaps that omission is typical of Stefan. Because of his background, he rarely confronts emotion directly.'

'Do you think so?' Lisaveta's question was contemplative more than inquiring, for in many ways Stefan was an intensely emotional man.

'In terms of his family, at least,' Militza said, and Lisaveta had to agree. In those terms he'd been extremely reticent.

'There was a love affair, wasn't there,' Lisaveta said, trying to recall the exact circumstances, 'between Field Marshal Bariatinsky and-'

'My sister.' Militza's words seemed suspended for a moment in the quiet of the room.

'Stefan's mother?'

'Yes. They shocked society by living together openly all the years of the Field Marshal's Viceroyalty of the Caucasus, although my sister, Damia, was married to another man. When Stefan was born, our parents adopted him to ensure the continuity of the Orbeliani line and fortune. I had no children, there was only Damia and myself, and if Damia's husband wished to, he might have laid claim to the child. Indeed, he would not allow a divorce, vowing to fight a divorce action to his last rouble. The potential for complications, as you can see, was enormous.' Her explanation was rapid and direct, as though the words had been said a thousand times before.

'I knew of the Field Marshal, as every schoolchild does, but not-' Lisaveta hesitated, searching for a polite phrase '-of… the entire background.' How extreme were the contrasts in their childhoods, she thought. Stefan's life had been led in the glare of publicity from birth while hers had been almost a country hermitage.

'You knew, then, that Stefan's father was forced to resign the Viceroyalty. Damia's husband, after opposing divorce for years, suddenly instituted proceedings, naming the Field Marshal as correspondent. After twenty-five years of valorous service to the Tsar, his career was over.'

Militza must have been a young and elegant lady then, Lisaveta thought, as diminutive and darkly beautiful as a Persian miniature. 'How devastating for him… for everyone,' Lisaveta said, and how wretched, she thought, for a young boy trying to understand.

Militza sighed again, recalling the heartache and sorrow. 'The Field Marshal and Damia were married in Brussels after the divorce, but I'm afraid the example of what overpowering love can do to a proud man had a profound effect on Stefan. At the time his father was relieved of his viceregal post, Alex was at the zenith of his career, and while the Tsar still sought his advice, for they had been companions since childhood, his hands were tied. As Viceroy, Alex embodied the Emperor and as such couldn't be correspondent in a divorce proceeding. He had no choice but to step down. He was forty-five.'

'How old was Stefan?'

'Ten.'

She had been six when her mother died in a riding accident, and that loss had tempered her entire life. 'How much did Stefan know…of…the events?' she inquired, trying to imagine him as a young child, coping.

'He seemed to grow up overnight.'

And in those hushed words her question was answered. 'How sudden was the change?' Lisaveta inquired, her own voice oddly muffled, and at Militza's expression she answered herself. 'It was sudden. They lived abroad, didn't they…'

'At first they retired to Alex's estate in Kursk, but he was restless, still raging with life. He couldn't stand the confining tranquillity of country living. He was a conqueror with nothing to conquer and he needed distractions.' Militza had always felt the wreckage of such an illustrious career could not have been the happiest foundation for a marriage, and the procession of half-lived days-then years-at Plombieres, Ems, Baden-Baden, the capital cities of Europe, had to have been touched with regret along with the ennui. 'They left Russia,' she explained, 'after just two months at Kursk, taking only two servants and Damia's jewels. From that point on the family's aimless wanderings from spa to spa in Europe began destroying Alex. Stefan watched his father turn to morphine, saw his health worsen until he died at Ems when Stefan was fifteen. Damia committed suicide two weeks later. I sometimes think,' Militza said, recalling the vivacious dark beauty of her sister, 'Stefan blamed his mother for the loss of his father…or blamed love. He made up his mind then never to lose his soul to a woman, a principle he's adhered to for over a decade now.'

'And yet he's marrying.'

'For an heir. Both the Bariatinsky and Orbeliani fortunes require one, and I must confess my insistence may have had something to do with his decision. His style of soldiering does leave one holding one's breath.'

'He never spoke of…this,' Lisaveta softly said. 'How sad it must have been to lose both your parents so young.' How terrible it must have been for Stefan, she thought, to see his father die so uselessly.

'And yet in many ways he was very lucky to have parents who loved him so,' Militza declared. 'He was doted on from the cradle. Alex had led a life much like Stefan's has been the last many years, known for its searching the limits of sensation in love and war. When he fell in love with my sister, Damia, many thought it inexplicable. But-' Militza half closed her eyes for a moment, against that memory and her own '-love is… mystifying, is it not?' She sat more upright abruptly, as if relinquishing hold on all the memories from her past. 'Stefan was Alex and Damia's only child. He was the center of their world-which may both explain and condemn him to his present path.'

'I don't understand how he can be so ruthless about his own marriage after seeing and experiencing such love. Surely the circumstances…'

'Stefan was deeply scarred by the manner of his father's death. Alex had been Russia's greatest hero for a quarter of a century, yet he died in exile.' She leaned her head against the chair back and briefly shut her eyes. How often had she wondered what might have been if Alex's enemies hadn't persuaded Davidow… 'You can see,' she said, opening her eyes, 'Stefan's childhood was… unusual.'

'It certainly explains, in some ways, his choice of a wife. Nadejda and her parents appear on good terms with the current Viceroy. How does Stefan feel about the man occupying the position once held by his father?'

'There is deep-seated animosity. Melikoff is the son of the man who replaced his father. He holds a post Stefan might have inherited.'

'Does Stefan know Nadejda's parents are visiting the Viceroy?'

'I didn't tell him, but he found out,' his aunt said, blunt as a hammer blow, 'from the servants.'

'You wouldn't have told him?' Lisaveta's words were blurted in astonishment. She had been reared to honor simple truth.

'I wanted him to find out from his fiancee. She has such an irritating way about her.'

'He may not find her irritating.'