'Nikki, dear, Lisaveta knows best how she feels,' Alisa interposed, touching her husband's arm in a small gesture of restraint.
'The decision, of course, is yours, Lise,' he said immediately, his voice congenial. 'Forgive our interference.' His smile was bland; his words a lie. He had no intention of releasing Stefan from his obligations. 'Everything will work out,' he added as a polite disclaimer. 'I'm sure.'
'Or course it will,' Lisaveta replied with alacrity, her tone remarkably cheerful. 'I'm as much a Kuzan as you, and we make things work out, don't we?'
Nikki's frame seemed larger in the confining space of the carriage, his size overwhelming the narrow dimensions of the interior, but his voice when he spoke was mild. 'We
Stefan arrived at the palace on the Neva an hour after the Kuzans and Lisaveta had left for the ball. 'Prince Gagarin,' Nikki's butler said to him, 'is celebrating his newest Rembrandt acquisition at his villa on the islands.'
'When did they leave, Sergei?' Stefan stood impatiently waiting for the answer.
'At ten, Your Excellency. Would you like me to send them a message?' Stefan was wearing an informal tweed jacket and riding pants; Sergei assumed he wouldn't make an appearance at an evening party in such dress. 'I could have brandy brought into the library for you.'
'Thank you, no.'
'The Prince will be sorry he missed you.'
Stefan smiled politely. 'I'll be seeing him later. An hour, you said?' He had taken two steps toward the door, and the footman was already opening it when Stefan turned back. 'Did the Countess have an escort?'
'No, sir.'
Twenty minutes later, Stefan arrived at Prince Gagarin's villa. They had been twenty very long minutes in which he cautioned himself to prudence, warned himself against making a scene, knew without illusion his mere appearance would be scene enough, thought transiently of returning to his own palace for evening clothes, as quickly discarded the notion because he refused to take the time when hours counted on this flying trip, told himself he would simply say, 'Good evening, Countess, may I have a moment of your time?' and then they would find someplace quiet to talk. That was of course a euphemism for what he really wanted to do, for what was causing the blood to drum in his ears and pulse through his body, for what had driven him across the length of Russia.
His entrance was as dramatic as he knew it would be; everyone in Saint Petersburg thought him halfway across Russia in Kars, but the drama extended as well to his notoriety, his handsome good looks, his unorthodox attire and tantalizing curiosity. Why had he come? Why hadn't he been announced? Why was he scanning the crowd with interest?
He stood perhaps five seconds in the entrance to the ballroom before the first whispers began, and in five seconds more he was surrounded by well-wishers and admirers, by beautiful women and inquisitive statesmen. He politely evaded them all, offering brief answers to their avid questions or courteous refusals or smiling acknowledgement to the compliments even as he moved forward, his gaze intent on the dance floor. He hadn't seen Lisaveta yet or Nikki and his wife, and he wondered restlessly if they'd changed their plans.
The ballroom was ablaze with light, the crystal chandeliers illuminating the large room as if it were noon, the throng of twirling dancers a blur of colored silk and jewels and ornamented uniforms. His own swelling entourage, its rising buzz of whispered comments, exclamations and cries of recognition, was beginning to contest the orchestra's music, and he'd just reached the border of the dance floor and finally caught sight of Lisaveta dancing with a young lieutenant in the Tsarina's Hussars when the music abruptly ceased.
'Ladies and gentlemen!' the leader of the orchestra cried, his eyes on Stefan, his baton raised, 'we have the honor of welcoming the Conqueror of Tubruz, the Savior of Mirum, the fearless General Prince Stefan Bariatinsky!' The orchestra director's hand chopped the air, his baton falling in a swift arabesque, and in a muted fanfare of oboes and bassoons, embellished with a flourish of drumrolls, Stefan was presented to the hundreds of guests.
Oh, hell, he swore under his breath as an aisle to the bandstand opened like the passage through the Red Sea and all eyes were directed his way. Hell and damnation. But there was nothing to do under that numerous gaze but graciously acknowledge his introduction. Striding swiftly through the passageway of smiling and congratulatory guests, he lightly leaped onto the stage and bowed to the assembled guests. Modestly accepting the frenzied applause and cheers, he spoke then as he did to his troops, with informality and cordiality: the war was going well; Russia's soldiers were sure to conquer the Turks; the assault on Kars was certain to be victorious this time. He was humble and charming, he was gracious and smiling, he was a potent spokesman for Russia's sacred duty; the crowd loved him.
Lisaveta's first irrelevant thought when, with fluttering pulse and wide-eyed astonishment, she watched him stride toward the stage was, he's not dressed for the ball. His cavalry twill and tweed was a startling contrast to the jeweled and ornamented throng, and he was overpowering in his size. She'd forgotten in the weeks away from him how tall he was and how the width of his shoulders dwarfed other men… and how his smile dazzled.
Her second, more relevant, observation concerned his reason for appearing dressed like that. Her heart began beating in a small rhythm of hope.
Perhaps he'd come for her, she thought, like a young maiden pining for her absent lover. Perhaps the most popular man in Russia was here in Saint Petersburg for her. How fairy-tale perfect it would be if her love were requited, if he could no more live without her than she could without him, if he'd traveled across the breadth of the Empire to sweep her into his arms.
Stefan's speech when he spoke, though, wasn't of frenzied lovesick longing but was essentially political. His manner was one of ease, as though he stood often in riding clothes before a ballroom, and when he stepped down into the crowd after several rounds of additional applause, he didn't seek her out but was immediately surrounded. Even Lisaveta's dance partner apologetically asked her pardon to withdraw and greet the General. She smiled him off with a wave and then moved to a quiet corner away from the stage, watching Stefan in the midst of the adulatory crowd, complex and confused feelings of desire conflicting with pride tumbling through her mind.
'I won't be staying in Saint Petersburg long, but thank you,' Stefan was saying for the twentieth time to an invitation, when his searching gaze fell on Lisaveta again over the heads of the importuning crush pressing round him.
Two men were approaching her as she stood near a console table adorned with an enormous arrangement of fuchsia-colored lilies, and her welcoming smile to their mannered bows triggered a surge of resentment. The Golden Countess had used that same smile on him. He'd seen it early in the morning and late at night, in bed and out-of- doors, over the dinner table and across a small cool mountain pool. He'd always thought it was her special smile, used for him alone. But there she was, displaying it for other men.
His temper showed minutely in a faint crispness in his voice, but it was several tedious minutes more before he was able to disengage the last beautiful clinging woman from his arm, make the last gracious refusal to dinner or something more intimate and break away from the mass of people intent on fawning sociability.
The floor was open between them because the orchestra hadn't yet resumed playing, and when Stefan stepped out onto the polished parquet, his progress was noted by every pair of eyes in the room.
He was obviously on some urgent mission, dressed as he was; he wasn't simply passing an idle night two thousand miles away from the war. And while his fiancee was in attendance tonight, no one to whom he'd spoken had heard him ask for her. The style of his engagement, though, was common knowledge, and none of the guests labored under the illusion that he was here for Nadejda. So they watched, avidly curious and titillated by the demonstrable impetuousness of his appearance.
The Golden Countess, it was seen as he crossed the midpoint of the ballroom floor, was apparently the object of his advance. And it didn't surprise a single soul. Prince Bariatinsky had always had an eye for the exotic in women, and surely the Countess was exceptional. Was the rumor true, too, that the Countess and he were… friends? Did Nadejda's spiteful disregard for the Countess have basis in fact?
It looked very much as though it did.
The buzz of speculation rose in a low humming resonance like bees over a flower bed as the distance between the General and Countess lessened. People instinctively held their breaths… waiting.
Reaching Lisaveta in three strides more, Stefan acknowledged the two men at her side with the merest of curt nods and brusquely said, his voice very low and, Borsoff said later, hot with temper, 'Countess, may I have a moment of your time?' Without waiting for her answer, he took her hand in a grip just short of punishing and,
