week, I'm planning on returning to my country estate anyway.' Lisaveta's voice was moderate; she was dealing with the situation as she normally dealt with issues: logically assessing a problem and then resolving it. At least that was what she believed. 'Before I came to Saint Petersburg,' she went on, 'no one knew me, and I'm sure my leaving will cause little stir. I like my country estate, I'm very much looking forward to my studies again, and I'm not,' she finished, her smile appearing again, 'likely to miss the frantic schedule of a society belle.'
'You're taking this all remarkably calmly.' Under the circumstances Alisa was surprised at Lisaveta's tranquillity. She should have been hysterical or angry or sobbing or concerned… or at least open to the suggestion of pregnancy, considering her time with Stefan.
Was it possible, Alisa briefly thought, that Lisaveta knew of some unusual, esoteric method of birth control, discovered in some old manuscript, learned from some ancillary reading to Hafiz, unearthed among the tribes of Kurdistan? Was she unconcerned because no real possibility of pregnancy existed? But as she had known Nikki's cousin for only a few weeks and since Lisaveta had never confided any of the details of her relationship with Stefan, Alisa felt awkward asking such an intimate question.
'If falling into a faint would help, I'd consider it. However-' and Lisaveta smiled ruefully '-it won't change or alter a minute of my past. So…do we pin this offending neckline together with your brooch or substitute the burgundy silk.'
She apparently was intent on changing the conversation, Alisa decided. 'It is looser,' she said, debating whether she dared pursue the topic further.
'The burgundy it is.'
'How can you be so cheerful?' Alisa inquired. Hesitant or not, she was disturbed by Lisaveta's serenity in the face of a possibly portentous issue.
'How can I not be when I think of Stefan. He's a remarkable man.' Lisaveta's smile was self-assured when she stood abruptly in a swish of silk. 'And I'm sure you're wrong.'
While Lisaveta changed, Alisa excused herself and went to speak to Nikki. As usual, having dressed swiftly, he was patiently waiting for the ladies in his study, his feet up on his desktop, a glass of brandy half-drunk. He looked relaxed, leaning back in his chair, and he smiled in greeting.
'Madame Drouet has outdone herself, darling. You look exquisite.' Alisa's pistachio-green damask gown was festooned with garlands of pearls and crystal, her fine shoulders and bosom rising above a low decolletage trimmed with pink silk chrysanthemum petals.
'Thank you, dear,' Alisa automatically said, making sure the door was closed behind her. Turning back to her husband, she announced, 'I think she's pregnant.' She stood stiffly, her back to the door.
'Who's she?' Nikki asked, but his feet had already dropped to the floor and he was sitting upright, his posture belying his casual inquiry.
And he knew the answer to his question before his wife said in a short expulsion of air, 'Lisaveta.'
'Stefan.'
'Of course.' Her reply seemed distracted for a moment, her mind in the grip of unresolved pique over Stefan's cavalier treatment of Lisaveta.
'Damn!'
'Thank you,' she crisply said. 'My sentiments exactly.' In her voice was affront for the casual victimization of women in these circumstances. 'And she's cheerful,' she added, her astonishment evident.
'Are you sure?'
'That she's cheerful?'
Nikki raised one dark brow in contradiction. 'That she's pregnant.'
'She says no, or probably not or maybe not, all in a calm, deliberate way that unnerves me, but the signs rather disagree. She's not had her menses since she's come to Saint Petersburg and her gowns are getting tight. She's eating too much, she says, like a young naive girl would.'
'Which she might be. Oh, God,' Nikki groaned, and leaned his head back against the soft green leather of his chair.
, 'You know Stefan's engaged to Vladimir's daughter.' Alisa had moved across the room and sat down now in a chair across the desk from Nikki.
'If you're right about Lisaveta, he'll have to get disengaged,' Nikki growled. 'She's my cousin.'
'Lisaveta says Stefan is intent on his marriage to Nadejda.'
'Has the man no scruples?' Nikki's face was darkened by a scowl.
'You should know, darling, since he was so often your companion in-' his wife paused significantly '- adventure.'
'Point taken,' Nikki replied with a crooked grin, leaning forward to clasp his hands on his desktop. 'But I've reformed.' His golden eyes were both amused and affectionate as he gazed at his wife.
'Would he, perhaps?' Alisa suggested, aware what profound changes she'd made in her husband's life.
His eyes turned flinty. 'If she's pregnant, he will whether he likes it or not,' Nikki replied, and no suggestion graced his voice, only peremptory command.
'Can you force Stefan? '
'Damn right I can.' Nikki's voice was soft with restrained anger, his eyes half-closed in contemplation of that necessity.
'Would that be prudent… for Lisaveta?' Men responded differently to compulsion, and while Alisa might take issue with Stefan's casual liaisons, she was realistic about the possible results of forcing a man of his temperament.
'The prudence, or lack of it, can be debated
'Unfortunately, he's at Kars.'
'If necessary, he can be called back for his wedding,' Nikki said grimly.
When Nikki suggested as much to Lisaveta as they rode to the Gagarins' ball, his tone courteous instead of grim, she replied, 'Don't be ridiculous, Nikki. You needn't play avenging relative for me. I wasn't some simple young girl unaware of my choices. I'm quite content.'
'And if there's a child?'
Their golden eyes, identical in color if not mood, met and held steadily for a moment.
'There isn't,' Lisaveta said, her gaze dropping away first. Despite her denial, she recognized she'd been intimate with Stefan too often in the past weeks to discount the fact she might be carrying his child. And at the thought, both stupefying and strangely pleasant, she felt a flutter of sensation in the pit of her stomach as if her body were trying to tell her something. 'But if there should be,' she said, raising her gaze again to confront her cousin, 'I'm perfectly capable of rearing a child. My father raised me alone.'
'It's not the same.' Nikki wasn't concerned with child development but rather with protocol.
'It may be for me,' Lisaveta said very quietly, as determined as Nikki to decide the direction of her life. She wouldn't be persuaded to change her mind even though both Nikki and Alisa tried to reason with her.
They brought up all the societal pressures she would be exposed to.
'Not in the country,' she answered. 'Sometimes the country is worse-more provincial and conservative.'
'Nikki, darling, Papa and I were practically hermits. It's not a problem.'
'Well, think of the child in that isolation.'
'It might turn out like me, you mean?'
Nikki smiled a rueful smile. 'No, I don't mean that.'
'Nikki, you of all people to be lecturing me on protocol. You've said all your life that a Kuzan can do anything.'
'This is different.'
'How?'
'You're my cousin.'
She grinned. 'And Stefan must pay.'
'Damn right.' And then he grinned, too. 'This is not logical, is it?'
'No, Nikki, I'm afraid not.' From the first moment Stefan had walked into her room in Aleksandropol, logic had ceased to function in her mind. She more than anyone understood that.
