'Don't go,' she whispered.
He didn't reply and she felt guilty for saying the words, for asking him to do what he couldn't. He stroked her back in a slow soothing rhythm, his palms warm, the pressure of his hands gentle, his heartbeat unaltered. 'I won't,' he finally said.
She looked up quickly.
'We have today and tomorrow.' He was telling her they wouldn't think of menacing prospects now. Tonight she could ask and he would promise that their love and their future would be inviolable for… two days.
It was more than some people ever had. It was more than she'd thought possible even a week ago. She smiled up at him, her golden eyes full of love. 'I'm glad you're not going.'
'So am I,' he said, the fiction theirs, this wedding night a miracle achieved against unprosperous odds, their love a triumph of two spirits validating the power of love.
He needed reminding when the time came later that she wasn't fragile as glass, that she was healthy and young and much too aroused to wish to be treated with such restrained gentleness…although 'tame courtesy' were the actual words she used.
'The baby,' he said, reminded by Nikki at the station and by his own thoughts, the prospect of fatherhood more and more prominent with his future so insecure. He could no longer disregard or waive the unalterable change in his thinking, no more than he could overlook Lisaveta's pregnancy, and his unease with the precise nuance of making love was natural. He had, to date, not acquired any familiarity with enceinte women.
'I'm fine,' Lisaveta softly assured him.
'You're sure.'
'I'll be finer soon,' she replied in a seductive teasing whisper, 'if you remember everything I've taught you in the past.'
He laughed. 'My apologies, darling, for being too well behaved.'
'I think,' his newly married wife said, her eyebrows raised in mild reproof, 'we've talked enough.'
He was braced above her on his elbows, her legs wrapped around his, the heat from her eyes almost tactile, his own glance only fractionally cooler. 'That almost sounds like an order,' he murmured, his mouth curved in a smile.
'Did I word that improperly?' Lisaveta murmured back. 'I meant it to be…' She paused, lifting her hips slightly and rotated them in exquisite slow motion so he felt it in the soles of his feet and the tips of his toes, in his fingers, down his spine and with sensational intoxication in his heated brain. 'An unequivocal order,' she finished.
He was smiling when he lowered his head to kiss her, and he made certain no one could fault him for excessive deference, although excessiveness in other areas found unqualified favor.
The bed was a shambles soon and the room too hot in short order. Stefan opened the window because the small porcelain stove near the door wouldn't cool down for hours.
It was raining out, a fine misting rain that dampened his hair and made it curl when he stayed in the windswept air for long moments to cool himself. And when he fell back on the bed and pulled Lisaveta in his arms he smelled of pine forests and freshness.
He seemed a young boy suddenly, removed from the pomp of his princely travel and retinue, and she wished with the illogical fantasy of lovers that she'd known him when he was young.
'I love you so much my heart aches,' she whispered as he kissed her cheek and nose and chin, small droplets of water falling from his hair.
'No, no, no,' he resolutely objected, his voice rich with happiness. 'Love me so much your heart spills over with joy…love me, sweetling, with laughter and pleasure…' He cupped her face between his warm palms, his smile infectious, boyish. 'Love me with jubilation and rejoicing because that's how I love you and,' he added very, very softly, 'you're having my
His eyes as she gazed up at him were dark passion, his words irresistible, and her answering smile was artless and unreservedly loving. 'I'm having your baby.' Her quiet declaration had the power to erase long years of sadness and bring full circle a kind of happiness he'd forgotten existed. Her small hands covered his where they lay on her cheeks and she said, as a young schoolgirl might recite a statement of fact, 'I love you, Stefan Bariatinsky.' And then she grinned like that same young schoolgirl might. 'Now what are you going to do about it?'
He laughed, and then his dark glance turned seductive. 'I suppose,' he murmured, his deep voice husky with suggestion, 'I'll have to make you happy.'
And he did. Offering her everything, his heart, his soul, his exhilaration, his unconditional love.
She welcomed him on that rain-cooled night with the unrestrained spirit he adored. They made love with extravagant generosity, indulgent to each other first before they were self-indulgent, so in love each melting kiss seemed sweetly new, each peaking splendor and rushing climax rare and precious.
As morning came, they fell asleep in each other's arms, wishing in those illusory, unsubstantial moments before sleep falls that they weren't on a princely railcar speeding south to a killing field.
They slept late into the morning and woke leisurely when the sun was already high in the sky.
Almost half the day gone, Stefan unconsciously thought, as though some internal clock were ticking off the restricted time. And he felt for a short sinking moment as if these few hours were all he was going to be allowed. Determinedly shaking away his brief melancholy, he leaned over and kissed Lisaveta good-morning, and when her eyes slowly opened, he said with a smile and the impatience of a child, or perhaps a prince, 'We have to eat.'
Familiar with his appetite, Lisaveta said in sleepy, sardonic query, 'How did you last so long?'
'Inherent politeness,' he teased.
'And you've only been awake thirty seconds.'
'That, too.' His grin was engaging, although with the dark stubble shading his jaw he had the look of a brigand.
'And I'd better shave,' he added, as though he could read her thoughts, his fingers trailing over the contour of his face, 'as soon as we eat.'
Lisaveta smiled. 'You have no patience.'
'Should I have?' He asked the question with idle casual-ness as he reached for the bellpull.
Thinking for a moment of Stefan's particular style of living, Lisaveta said, still smiling, 'Perhaps it's too late for you.'
'Would you like breakfast or lunch, darling, this time of day?' he inquired, knowing it was years too late for him to learn patience.
Rolling over on her back and stretching, Lisaveta teasingly asked, 'Are all you Orbelianis the same?'
'No, of course not,' Stefan replied, ignoring the point of her question. 'Some are shorter-the women, you understand-and some are older or younger-'
She smacked him with the flat of her hand on his stomach and his fingers closed around her wrist before she could strike him again. 'Save that energy for later, darling,' he said very low, his dark eyes amused. 'You're going to need it.'
Breakfast was sumptuous, served in bed, and as promised, their renewed energy was put to good use. The afternoon sped by, as did the evening, in amorous pursuits, their conversation lighthearted and without substance or topicality.
Neither spoke of the future or the war, although the assault on Kars loomed specterlike in both their thoughts, the reality only days away. The terrifying possibility Stefan might die was too awful for Lisaveta to allow herself to think about, but her sleep that night was restless. Stefan lay awake after she finally dozed off, holding her in his arms, his mind on the complexity of the attack. Not unusual, he reminded himself; he always detailed the maneuvers of his troops on an internal battlefield, considering alternative options in endless possibilities. But this time he experienced an unfamiliar twinge of anxiety, no more than an infrequent dragging beat of disquietude, but that break in his concentration kept him awake because it was new.
They reached Vladikavkaz a day and a half later at four in the morning, ten hours eliminated from the normal run, the engine firebox red-hot and glowing like a live coal. Even while the train was still rolling to a stop, a harsh banging erupted on the railcar door. Stefan, who had been dressed since midnight, swiftly opened the door, cast one glance over the troop of horsemen prancing restlessly beyond the station platform and knew he faced serious problems.
'Hussein Pasha is only three days from Kars!' the young lieutenant cried. His salute was perfunctory, and
