Sweet Love, Survive

by Susan Johnson

  Kitty sat down with a soft whisper of lavender wool and was gallantly handed a glass of champagne by a smiling lieutenant who bowed, clicking his heels together very smartly. Unfortunately, he was not exactly sober; having accomplished the adroit maneuver, he fell facedown on the table.

  “Hey, hey, Sandy,” someone yelled. “Damn good form. Didn’t spill a drop.” And indeed he hadn’t; infinitely polite, the lieutenant had landed eight inches to the south of Kitty’s glass. Efficient servants restored him to his chair and the countess quietly sipped from her glass while joking repartee, noisy songs, and shouts of laughter passed back and forth, and as high spirits riotously escalated.

  “To Apollo!” someone shouted. “And to his devilish cool hand with dynamite!”

  “Hear, hear!” The chorus stood and refilled glasses were tossed down once again.

  “There was a little bet concerning the possibility of infiltrating the arsenal at Balashov,” Peotr explained to Kitty. “Apollo took up the challenge and somehow managed to get in. That munitions dump rose sky high. It lit up the heavens clear to Kabul. Apollo won himself a roan stallion—which he doesn’t need, since he’s enamored of that Karabagh mare he rides. We were all watching from the bluffs south of town, and when Apollo came racing out of that depot area riding hell-bent for leather, we knew the fireworks were about to—”

  “Hey, Apollo!” Peotr’s narrative was interrupted by a booming voice. “Where’d you learn the technique? Some bloody anarchists in your family tree we don’t know about?”

  A lazy drawl replied, “It helps, Azof, to have owned a munitions factory or two.” Apollo was now elegantly disheveled and more than a trifle drunk. His clear, golden eyes glittered brilliantly. “Learned the finer points of blowing up the world at my papa’s knee,” he added with a flash of a grin, his fine white teeth shining against his deeply bronzed skin. There was something demonic in his expression—the smile with the mouth alone, perhaps. The captain had the look of a great tawny mountain cat, sleek, powerful, lean. His eyes were cat eyes, sparkling and yellow, their corners lifted high in a bold, sensual slant beneath heavy brows many shades darker than his blond, sun-streaked hair, which was long and carelessly brushed back like some rough lion’s mane. He had the reputation of having the best hands in the world—an instinct he had been born with, and one which allowed him to deal gracefully and flawlessly with horses, cards, firearms, explosives, and … women.

  “He’s so wild tonight,” a sandy-haired corporal said sottovoce to his table companion.

  “As usual” was the dry retort. They both watched as Apollo carefully emptied a sizable portion of a bottle of vodka into his glass. Unaware of the scrutiny, and satisfied his task was accomplished when the clear liquid rinsed the rim, Apollo leaned back in his chair, one long-fingered hand curled around the perfectly filled glass. Abruptly, as an afterthought, he lifted the bottle to his mouth and drained the few remaining inches. Waving a servant aside, he very carefully placed the empty bottle at the end of a neat row arranged before him.

  “Holds his liquor like a Siberian peasant,” the corporal said with a certain awe.

  “A pity at times,” declared his more worldly companion. “Might save himself a lot of trouble if he’d pass out occasionally. Remember the time when, after two solid days of drinking, he set out for Moscow to assassinate Lenin? Got there, too. Amazing. Only Lenin was in Petrograd at the time, and Apollo was beginning to sober up by then so he came home. He said it was hair-raising, coming back through enemy territory stone-cold sober.”

  Apollo was known to favor a mode of life wilder than most, and this predilection for dangerous play and drunken adventuring often required a nimble use of his wits, an instinct to survive, and occasional assistance from his two personal bodyguards, Karaim and Sahin.

  Like noiseless shadows, these two mountain men guarded the Young Falcon—or As-saqr As-saghir, as Apollo was familiarly known in their mountain aul—at the request of Alex, Apollo’s father, and of Iskender-Khan, their leader and Apollo’s great-grandfather. In the course of battle one took one’s chances, but at least in the extraneous turmoil of civil war Apollo would be relatively safe from other forms of treachery—Karaim and Sahin would give their lives to protect their ward.

  Now they sat impassively watching their handsome charge, who for some time had seemed detached from the raucous hum of conversation buffeting to and fro across the table. Suddenly his animal eyes came to life and a white blaze of vitality lit the golden depths.

  Rising from his slouching sprawl in a deceptively fluid motion for one so inebriated, Captain Prince Apollo Kuzan lifted his glass to the table at large and, a malicious glitter now evident in the pale eyes, indolently saluted, “To the Bolskis.”

  A stunned silence greeted his toast.

  One dark brow rose sardonically at the sudden hush. “May they all be blown to kingdom come,” he softly finished with a slow grin. Apollo’s yellow eyes were suddenly bland, his expression one of celestial affability. Raising the brimming glass to his lips without spilling a drop, he proceeded to pour the vodka down his throat.

  “To kingdom come!” twenty rollicking voices shouted in unison and twenty throats were washed with fiery alcohol.

  And so the celebration went its clamorous way in a surge of masculine bonhomie.

  Forty minutes later, the countess excused herself to check on the preparations in the kitchen. The door had scarcely closed on her back when the count inquired of the table in general, “What say to a couple of days at Zadia’s little nest in Niiji? Ilya says she’s brought in six new girls from Georgia.” He looked around questioningly.

  A drunken roar of approval greeted his suggestion.

  “After we eat, then—off to Niiji,” Kitty’s husband declared emphatically.

  “I’ll drink to that,” decreed a slurred, sibilant Petersburg accent, perfectly on cue. “A woman, a meal, and a streak of luck—what else does a soldier need?” And all glasses were emptied again in roguish agreement, anticipation of Zadia’s special brand of comfort running high.

  After dinner, when port and cigars had been passed around, Peotr blandly announced to his wife, “We’ve a scouting mission beginning in the morning. Have my orderly pack some clean clothes for me. We’re off within the hour.”

  “Oh, Peotr, I thought you were staying for a few days.” Kitty’s disappointment was obvious.

  The count’s shoulders lifted in a Gallic shrug as he gazed at his pretty little wife, deciding absently she was not a pleasure he would ever appreciate. “Sorry, pet, we’re expected at Wrangel’s headquarters in the morning.” The lie came easily. Zadia was one of Peotr’s favorite paramours. “I’ll be back in two or three weeks if all goes well. You’ll take care of things for me while I’m gone?” He bent to brush his wife’s cheek with a kiss. A detached, obligatory kiss.

  Kitty lowered her heavy lashes. “Of course, Peotr; you know I will,” she answered dutifully, but her heart lost its warmth. What did she expect, anyway? she asked herself with sad frustration. Why had she thought it would be any different this time? She knew full well why Peotr had married her. Rationally, she understood the arrangement. She always had. A marriage of convenience, contracted by their parents years ago. The estates were adjacent; it was a profitable marriage for both parties—but Kitty, innocently shunning logic, had hoped and dreamed her dark, handsome husband with those beautiful gypsy eyes would come to love her. It hadn’t worked out that way. After three years of marriage she should have known better, should have learned the futility of romantic yearnings, been immune to disappointment.

  Peotr always treated her with courtesy and a careless affection, much as one would treat a friend’s sister or a relative. Theirs wasn’t a conjugal relationship so much as a lack of a relationship altogether, a polite fiction of a marriage. Kitty had been orphaned while still in her teens, and during the remaining two years of her minority she’d been chaperoned by a paternal aunt reluctantly dragged away from Petrograd and
brought south to “do her family duty.” Kitty and her aunt had never more than courteously tolerated each other, unfamiliar as Kitty was with all the feminine graces, pastimes, and idle amusements so dear to her aunt—so dearly missed by her aunt. Kitty had been reared to take an interest in the estate and trained by her father in all aspects of stewardship; when her parents died in an accident on the Volga it was both natural and necessary for Kitty to take over management of Kuchin. As natural as becoming engaged to Peotr, whom she had known all her life.

  Shortly after Kitty’s eighteenth birthday, on one of Peotr’s leaves from the western front, they had married. Immediately after the ceremony, Kitty’s aunt, her duty discharged, had climbed into a carriage loaded with her trunks and left for Petrograd. Two days later, Peotr had returned to the war, leaving Kitty alone, responsible for running both estates.

  Peotr genuinely appreciated Kitty’s administrative abilities and often praised her competence and proficiency. But neither his careless, brotherly affection nor his compliments on her management acumen were what Kitty craved from her husband. She wanted his love. Sighing quietly, Kitty gazed at her raffish, ebullient mate—who was intent at the moment on emptying a decanter of vodka—and advised herself against such folly. After all, she understood the ways of the world as well as any other gently reared female. She understood the position of women in her class. Husbands loved and adored their mistresses but they didn’t marry them; they took chaste, respectable, fresh young girls for their wives. But the converse was depressingly true … they didn’t love them.

  Several more bottles were emptied and another hour elapsed before chairs scraped back and the young cavalry officers rose to their feet, bid the countess a polite, if drunken, good night, and somewhat unsteadily mounted their horses for the twelve-verst ride to Niiji.

  Morosely returning to the house after seeing her husband off, Kitty dismissed the servants. It was late, almost three o’clock; the cleaning-up could wait until morning. After one last look about to see that no lamps or cigarettes were left burning, Kitty started upstairs.

  She felt very much alone. Unhappy feelings resisted all practical attempts at composure. Prospects for the future with Peotr seemed bleak. Such reflections smacked of self-pity, Kitty realized, perturbed with herself, and she chastised herself for such selfish thoughts. It was mean and ungenerous to fret about her future when Peotr’s life was in mortal danger every day. In any event, with the war progressing as it was, what future did any of them have? Death, exile, servitude were the specters of the future—ominous thought. But for the moment, their district was still secure, and by busying herself with the supervision of the estate and trying to remain optimistic her mind would be distracted from the ghastly war, from her terrible fears for Peotr’s safety. In these awful times, she could be of service to her husband at least as an estate steward if not as a wife and lover.

  Then the haunting dread, which managed to slip around the most meticulously constructed mental barricades, reappeared. Dear Lord, Kitty thought helplessly, what would ultimately come of them? The area under White control diminished each month despite the summer victories of Wrangel and cavalry units such as Peotr’s. The Red armies, well supplied, freshly reinforced, were tightening the ring each day. How much longer could they be beaten back? Kitty attempted to dismiss these morbid apprehensions, not wishing to contemplate the devastation of their estates or the fearful consequences of defeat any more than she cared to recall Peotr’s instructions to her when he’d left to fight with the White Guard at the very beginning, in 1918.

  “I’ve written everything down. Instructions are in a sealed folder in the study safe. Money’s deposited for you in Paris. If I’m killed and defeat appears imminent, promise me you’ll leave in time.” He had looked at her very somberly, his gypsy eyes full of sadness, and had repeated, “Promise you’ll leave.”

  Kitty had nodded, forcing herself to reply, “I will,” although she had died a little then at the thought of losing Peotr and of leaving the land that had been her family’s for a thousand years.

  “And just in case …” Peotr had added, leaving the sentence unfinished, handing her a vial of morphine. Stories of atrocities, of torture and rape practiced by the Red Army, hung malevolently in the silence like a gruesome corpse on a gibbet. Neither could bring themselves to comment further. Kitty had nervously taken the vial from Peotr, burying it in the depths of her vanity case. It had never been mentioned again.

  All the memories and daunting anxieties for the future, freshly recalled, served to further depress Kitty’s spirit. Very near tears, she tightened her grip on the stair railing and steadied herself by sheer willpower against the coming attack of weeping. Damn the war, she swore silently. Damn all the senseless slaughter and misery. And damn, too, all the Zadias of the world, offering their kind of shameless, unconventional love, irresistible to husbands like Peotr.

  Kitty knew very well where her husband and his friends had gone. Peotr’s voice had carried quite clearly through the dining room door. At the thought of Peotr’s indifference, Kitty’s long suppressed tears suddenly spilled over, like a quicksilver break in a weakened dike. Determinedly, she dashed them away with a tiny closed fist, sniffling and blinking in a resolute effort to regain composure. Not too long ago, Kitty had promised herself never to cry again over Peotr’s inconstancy—and damn, she didn’t intend to so easily forget her resolve and become a watering pot tonight. Three years of shedding tears over the impossible dream of a loving husband were enough. Kitty had pragmatically jettisoned all but logical considerations regarding love and loving; for the future, she had intrepidly determined, all romantic illusion was to be summarily quashed.

  2

  Kitty walked into her dressing room and discarded the lilac frock, slipping back into the white, lace-trimmed batiste gown she’d so hastily discarded when Peotr and his troop had arrived. Untying the ribbon binding her hair, she padded barefoot into the adjoining bedroom and began extinguishing the lamps left burning in the large, pine-paneled room. The pungent fragrance of sweet peas wafted through the air, their redolent perfume rising like whispers of summer from several large famille verte bowls filled with massive bouquets of the delicate pastel blooms replenished daily from Aladino’s hothouses.

  But another faint, disparate aroma drifted indistinctly to Kitty’s senses as she moved to dim the lamps. A scent not vivid enough to enter her consciousness; an odor only vaguely noted. Approaching the bed, the elusive, earthy essence, previously indistinguishable, became remarkably clear—faintly leather, vaguely horsey, and … decidedly alcoholic.

  In the shadowy glow of the small brass bedside lamp Kitty saw a man sprawled facedown on her pristine white coverlet. A tunic jacket lay in a heap on her carpet, along with a glistening cartridge belt, holster, and sword strap. The officer slept with his face buried in the pillow, clad in a shirt, elkskin breeches, boots, and spurs. His tall, powerfully muscled body, revealed so blatantly beneath close-fitting elkskin and white silk, took up a great deal of space on the birchwood bed. Although most of his face was concealed in the pillow, the long, sun-streaked hair and the portion of dark, winged brow and stark cheekbone verified the usurper as Prince Apollo Kuzan, one of her husband’s young captains. Kitty glanced quickly around the bedroom, half expecting to find Karaim and Sahin hovering in the shadows, but Apollo was alone.

  It looked as if she’d be sleeping in another bedroom tonight, Kitty rapidly decided. The prince was much too large for her to move, and it was senseless to wake him simply to ask him to transfer to another room. The cavalry troop would still be at Zadia’s in the morning. Apollo could rejoin his companions after a good night’s rest. However, consideration for the delicate, embroidered counterpane Apollo was lying on induced Kitty to conclude that pulling off his boots before she left might be wise. Those wicked spurs would wreak havoc with the padded silk if he tossed and turned during the night.

  One moment Kitty’s hands were grasping a grimy cavalry boot,
and the following moment she was lying on her back in the center of the bed, her hips straddled by muscular, leather-clad thighs. A lifetime of training in the Caucasus Mountains, as well as the last few years of war, had instilled a finely tuned sense of survival in Apollo. He was a very light sleeper.

  “Ah-h-h.” He relaxed the harsh grip of his fingers around Kitty’s slender throat and smiled warmly at the soft female beneath him. No enemy. The adrenaline ceased its furious pumping through his nervous system. “Forgive me, dushka,” he said, exhaling softly, soothing the angry red marks his fingers had left. The lean, brown hands massaged her neck lightly with apologetic caresses.

  Apollo looked down on the beautiful perfumed woman lying under him, felt a fleshy female body between his legs, and the familiar scene stimulated reflexes schooled to perfect response by countless incidents in the past. To wake after drinking and find a woman in bed with him was no novelty—and his need for a woman’s warmth was achingly real after weeks of campaigning in the unpopulated steppes.

  Without a word he bent to kiss her, not a gentle caress, but a barbaric kiss that shook Kitty’s spine, a dangerous kiss that ate at her lips, her tongue; teased the soft interior of her mouth; suffocated the cry of alarm which died in her throat. His hands moved up swiftly, lost themselves in her golden tresses, and held her captive as he lowered his body. Kitty couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out; she was trapped beneath Apollo’s powerful frame while he savored her mouth with a greedy, sharp-set passion—savored her with the avid hunger of two weeks’ abstinence, his lips warm and soft, his tongue languidly probing, his sensitive hands leaving their indelible imprint, until a small flame of response, unwonted and disturbing, began to smolder in Kitty. Apollo felt it, the infinitesimal acquiescence, and he lifted his mouth to trace a path downward, lowering his head to kiss the crest of a pale, rounded breast.