express my dissent,' she said, her voice unsteady with frustration, 'to this- this-'
'Holiday? Fine. Great. Accepted. Can we go now?' He placed one foot onto the metal step, tipping the carriage with his weight. 'Ready?' he said with a smile.
'You're incorrigible and shameless and completely overbearing,' Lisaveta fumed, staring at him with bold contempt.
'Masha keeps telling me that. Does it matter when you command a large portion of the Tsar's army?' His grin was teasing, self-assured and provoking.
'You
'I'd prefer you as my guest.' His voice was gallant once again and amiable. She was more beautiful than he remembered and he'd missed her terribly already in the few short hours she was gone. 'I can promise you-' his words dropped to a husky whisper and he thought of the delight she brought him '-a pleasant holiday.'
'I won't go of my own free will,' Lisaveta stubbornly insisted against the overwhelming odds facing her, against his whispered promise and her own indiscreet volition, resisting to the last, because with Nadejda in the wings and the hundreds of other women in his past and future, why should she docilely become one of them?
His sigh was a well-bred exhalation of tolerance. 'I didn't think you would,' he said, reaching in, grasping her hand and pulling her forward as if she were weightless. 'Close your eyes and think of the Empire,' he cheerfully teased, lifting her out of the carriage and swinging her into his arms in a swish of silk petticoats and crisp pink linen. 'You're absolved of all moral blame. Guaranteed. With my reputation I'll gladly take the role of abductor.'
'You don't care what people think, do you?' Her face was very close to his as he held her in his arms, and she didn't know if the blazing sun or Stefan's closeness was the cause of the heat racing through her senses.
He thought for a moment of the fishbowl of scandal he'd grown up in and of all the scandals since. 'Not really,' he casually replied, not looking at her, striding purposefully toward Cleo.
'Do you care what people think of me?' she quietly asked.
He stopped for a moment as he was about to lift her onto the red padded, quilted leather saddle, his expression suddenly solemn. 'My servants and troopers are trustworthy. Nothing will be said.'
'And Nadejda?'
He considered briefly how he could protect her against that moral outrage. 'Masha will help,' he declared, understanding that stronger measures might be required in countering Taneiev perturbation. 'She has great influence in society. And Alexander will champion you should you need more powerful protectors.' He spoke of the Tsar in intimate personal terms, pledging her the full extent of his privileged status and position. His dark eyes were grave and very near as he held her in his arms. 'Would you like that in writing?'
I'd like a license of sole possession, she inexplicably thought, so you'd be mine alone for always and ever. But then every woman he'd ever known, no doubt, reacted similarly. He was rare and beautiful and much too attractive in a million ways. He was going to be-was already-all-consuming and disastrous to her peace of mind. But since she couldn't conceivably have what she wanted, and he wouldn't welcome the true nature of her possessive impulse, she discarded utterance of her irrelevant whimsy and said instead, 'You can't absolve a person's reputation by fiat.'
'Yes, darling, you can.' Swinging her up onto Cleo, he followed, then settled her across his lap. 'If it's the Tsar's fiat,' he said matter-of-factly. 'Kiss me,' he whispered, smiling down at her, his plans on track once again.
'Not with everyone looking.' Lisaveta was shy yet and inexperienced in the ways of brazen and public courtship.
While Stefan preferred privacy for his amorous dalliance, it wasn't a requirement. 'Then I'll kiss you,' he said. And he did.
They rode for half a day over treacherous, almost impassable trails, climbing all the time, pausing occasionally on a rocky promontory to rest the horses, dismounting once to water the mountain ponies at an icy rushing stream. Portions of the trail were no more than a yard across and Lisaveta clung to Stefan through these passages, her eyes shut against the terrifying sight of the valley, distant and small a half mile below, then a mile below. Immune to the terrors shaking Lisaveta's nerves, Stefan was relaxed, joking with his men, exchanging stories and reminiscences in their native Kurdish, brushing Lisaveta's hair occasionally with a light kiss, smiling at her, soothing her when she shivered in his arms.
Late in the afternoon when the air had cooled considerably with the high mountain altitudes and the sun had begun its journey toward the horizon, the party reached a pine grove dappled with shadow, scented with pungent fragrance. Riding through the limpid, iridescent-shot sunlight and cool dimness, they came after some time upon a whitewashed lodge roofed in green glazed tile. The building was without systematic plan, all asymmetrical and sprawling with mullioned windows and decorative porches, vine-covered trellises and assorted bays that had the look of being added on by whim. It was perched picturesquely on a sloping escarpment that fell away beyond the lodge into the openness of the sky, its center portion graced by a landscaped courtyard through which a mountain stream, bordered by a carpet of flowers, ran.
It had the charming look of a fairy tale.
Out of its apricot-painted, vine-covered doorway a dark-haired young girl came running, cast, it seemed, for a part in the fairy tale. Her slender form, clad exotically in brilliant, luxurious Gypsy attire, was lithe as a nymph; her bare arms and legs and feet were the lush olive of her Romany heritage; her wildly curling tresses streaming out behind her shone like black silk.
'Stash, Stash, you're home!' she cried, her great dark eyes gleaming with delight, her arms thrown open wide in welcome.
Lisaveta stiffened in Stefan's arms the same instant he saw Choura's expression alter as she became aware of Lisaveta. Oh Lord, he thought, I forgot. 'Don't move,' he murmured to Lisaveta, cognizant of Choura's temper and her skill with a knife. In a rapid staccato delivery he spoke to Haci next. The dialect was unfamiliar to Lisaveta, but his intent was clear. His voice was gruff and exasperated. As Haci swiftly urged his horse forward to intercept Choura's forward dash, Lisaveta surveyed Stefan's impassive face. As Haci scooped the Gypsy girl up in one arm and rode out of the courtyard, out of sight behind an enormous stand of rhododendrons, Choura's screams echoing above the rustle of the wind in the pines, Lisaveta noted Stefan's air of apparent detachment. No more than an inconvenience-immediately dispatched.
'Will he drown her?' Lisaveta maliciously inquired. This was the common method of disposal for members of the Sultan's seraglio. 'Or will I simply be added to your harem?'
Stefan was tired and hungry; he'd been riding for more than she hours after a night with little sleep and his fatigue was achingly real. He was not presently inclined, especially after finding Choura still vividly in residence, to politely accept sarcasm from the woman causing him all his discomfort. 'I was saving your skin,' he bluntly said, 'protecting you from Choura's knife.'
'I can protect myself, thank you,' Lisaveta replied, haughty and incensed; Stefan had not only left a fiancee behind but had a woman in reserve here, as well.
'Not unless you move real fast,' he sardonically murmured. 'She could carve you up in under thirty seconds.'
'Do women fight over you often?' Her barely contained fury was evident in her voice. It was enough to know her own feelings were disastrously involved-against her will and better judgment-but to see Stefan's women conveniently available wherever he lived, and to hear him plainly suggest they might fight a rival for his affection, was galling.
'No,' he quietly said, his own self-control additionally provoking in face of her outrage. 'Now if you'll excuse me briefly.'
'And if I won't?' Her objection was anger only and having the last snappish word-or perhaps most of all, wishing she had the power he did to bend the world to his will.
He looked down at her for a long moment, his expression benign, as if an angry child were thwarting him. 'Nakun will see you to my study,' he said, neither answering her question nor acknowledging her challenge. 'Please make yourself comfortable.' With the merest nod he signaled one of his men.
'I don't
