An instant, unbidden joy pervaded Zena's heart. "I promise, Sasha," she softly whispered.
One powerful arm encircled her waist and, drawing her against his hard body, he covered her trembling lips with a tender, restrained kiss that spoke potently of his protective love. "I will take care of you, child," he murmured huskily.
They left for Biskra the next morning and spent ten glorious days cruising the Mediterranean, arriving back in Nice quite literally in the nick of time. Zena had gone into labor twenty miles out, and the engines were pushed to their maximum to rush back. Alex carried Zena to the waiting carriage and held her on the journey up the shore to the palace on the cliff.
The best doctors in Nice were in attendance and, after having heard the story of his birth numerous times over the years, Alex also took the precaution of assembling the best of Nice's midwives.
The crowd of assistants hovered over Zena's bed as she labored to deliver Sasha's child into the world. Alex never left her side, comforting her in his awkward distress as best he could. The sight of his beautiful, delicate wife enduring such agonies caused him the most penitent feelings of guilt. Good God, did all women go through this? Was he being too sensitive? Was this sort of pain supposed to be brushed off nonchalantly as part of living? He held her hand and watched, attempting realistic smiles of support when Zena searched his face with bleak, suffering eyes. Maybe they should consider adopting children if they wanted more, he thought. The travail was becoming unbearable for his fragile wife. Why weren't all these people doing something? he raged indignantly.
"Can't you do something!" he snapped at the illustrious assembly of prominent doctors.
"Madame is progressing extremely well, Prince Alexander," the spokesman for the black-coated array declared insensitively. "Husbands usually prefer to wait outside, my lord. Perhaps you'd like to step out ..."
Alex shot him a withering glance, and the sentence died ignominiously. His eyes searched the faces of the four mid-wives, not trusting the word of the doctors. "Is she all right?" he asked anxiously.
"Monsieur, only a few minutes more, and her pain will be over," one old woman replied sympathetically.
Alex gripped Zena's limp hand fiercely and prayed the old lady was right.
Indeed, she was, and the old midwife was well rewarded for her competence. Five minutes later she presented Alex his son and heir wrapped in soft, white linen. "A fine, lusty boy, monsieur." Alex gratefully accepted the child, relieved Zena's ordeal was over.
She opened her eyes briefly and smiled at Alex weakly. "Is it over?" she asked.
"Over, my love, and thank you for a beautiful, strong son."
"A boy." She smiled triumphantly. "A boy like you," she murmured, shutting her eyes again. She drifted off to sleep.
Alex gently laid the wrapped child next to Zena in bed and thought ruefully, not exactly like me. The baby lying beside his wife had blond hair and blue eyes.
If his memory served him right and historical fact was accurate, there had never been a blond, blue-eyed Kuzan.
As a matter of fact, there had been a blond, blue-eyed Kuzan once, but if the circumstances had been known to Alex, they wouldn't have cheered him.
The tale is one of long ago and of great detail. Suffice it to say, several centuries ago, in the early years of the sixteenth century, an infusion of foreign, non-Russian blood produced a golden-haired, blue-eyed Kuzan—a Prince Kuzan, by the way, only by reason of Old Muscovy's code of jurisprudence, hereditary statutes, and the grace of a benevolent God.
The fair-haired Prince Kuzan's paternity, you see, would not have withstood close scrutiny.
On the day Alex's telegram arrived from Nice, Amalie had been visiting Yuri. They were partaking of tea and brandy in Yuri's study on a rather dull, cloudy, fall afternoon. Yuri's butler brought the wire in on a silver salver. After quickly perusing its contents, Yuri tossed it over to Amalie, who was avid with curiosity. A doleful expression slowly appeared on her beautiful face as she read the jubilant message.
"Damn!" she swore softly under her breath as she came to the end of the sheet.
Yuri lounged back in his chair, assessed the golden-haired belle through heavy-lidded eyes, and murmured commiseratively, "Slipped through your beautiful fingers, didn't he, ma cheri?"
Amalie looked up and cast her soulful lavender eyes in Yuri's direction. "The marriage seems very certain this time." Her pastel eyes shone as a glimmer of an idea appeared. "Do you think the remarriage is for the sake of the child?" she asked hopefully.
Yuri noted the buoyant eagerness in Amalie's expression and felt a sadness for her. "Don't be a fool, Amalie," he said gently. "Sasha wanted Zena back desperately. He had finally recognized he loved her. It's not that his child's future didn't concern him, but if that were his only apprehension, money would have solved that dilemma very nicely."
The shining eyes dulled in gloomy understanding. "You can't have every man you want, little one," Yuri said tenderly.
"But I always have, Yuri," Amalie wailed. "Sasha's different," he said flatly.
"I know that," she replied unhappily. "Don't I know," Amalie sighed deeply.
"I'm twenty-two years old, Yuri," she cried piteously.
"You're talking to an old friend, Amalie, not a current lover," said Yuri. "Twenty-four. But at any age," he gallantly added, "you're a prime piece."
Too deeply overcome by her own morose reflections, Amalie overlooked Yuri's inelegant interjection. "What's going to happen to me? All men like young girls. I don't want to turn into some faded beauty who has to start chasing men. It's degrading. I've always had them come to me. I'm afraid, Yuri. Oh, Yuri, my whole life is a mess." Tears welled up in the exquisite lavender eyes.
He lowered his glance, because, for the first time in his life, he saw tears in hers.
"Never say the Golden Goddess is crying," Yuri teased, hoping to distract her morbid thoughts. But the tears astonished him, for he remembered the fifteen-year-old girl whom he had loved and who had loved him, giving birth to their daughter after a long and terrible labor of three days. Even then she had never cried, not once. From an early age she had been forced to be strong, compelled to take care of a father who was weak. She knew she must endure the delivery and then put it behind her. She had not allowed herself to be weak. Her future and her father's future depended on her.
Amalie wrung her white kid gloves distraughtly as Yuri pensively recalled the past. "I have feelings too, Yuri. Oh, Lord," she moaned, "I'm so unhappy."
Yuri viewed the stately, stunning beauty before him: classic, patrician features; high cheekbones; marvelous eyes; frankly sensual mouth; heavy cornsilk hair; and magnificent body.
"Don't cry, dear. Your stunning looks are quite unimpaired. The future's not as bleak as you envision. Twenty-four isn't old, little one," he whispered.
But the vision of the gorgeous beauty in burgundy was overcome by the image of the sweet young girl of fifteen, who had flung herself into his arms in the flower-strewn summer meadow and clung to him with the deep, sweet passion of first love. The slim, willowy' young girl was gone, replaced by this dazzling creation of nature and the consummate artifice of man. But underneath, he thought to himself deliberatively, there still remained at base the uncertain little girl who knew she had to be strong, who knew she must resolutely and unwaveringly persevere despite her fears and qualms.
She had carried the role indomitably for almost ten years. Now with Alex irrevocably gone the Golden Goddess had come to an impasse, the first defeat in a life crowned with successes. Her successes were attributed to the sure and positive managing of that great assest, her flawless beauty. It had brought her the much-needed rich marriage. It had brought her men fawning and fetching and dying of adoration for her. The ominous threat of perhaps other defeats in the future was terrifying and daunting.
"I'm afraid, Yuri," Amalie whimpered. "I'm afraid."
Yuri rose, crossed the small distance between them, picked up the tearful wom
an, and sat down again, cradling her in his arms.
Her body was warm and soft beneath his hands, and the sweet, musky scent of her hair brushed his nostrils as she lay with her head on his shoulder.
He was utterly astonished to hear himself saying in avuncular tones, "What the hell, Amalie. You know you can't stand Boris, and you can't have Alex; might as well settle for me. And since I can't have Zena, I might as well settle for you."
Amalie sat up with a start and fixed her piqued gaze on Yuri. "Zena?" she groused. "You, too?"
"She's quite a remarkable woman, dear, if you'd given yourself half a chance to know her—as courageous and tenacious as you with the most enchanting mind in addition to the obvious winsome beauty."
At first Amalie was affronted at the careless proposition, offered as almost a callous solution to their mutual deprivation. But the warm country girl still dwelt beneath the society facade, and she had never been able to completely erase the memories of that summer years ago.
"I don't know, Yuri," she said hesitantly.
"You could have married me ten years ago, you know," Yuri reminded her.
"You didn't have enough money," Amalie said.
"But Papa and his dangerous gambling fever are gone now. Right?" he drawled.
"Right," she sighed quietly.
"How about it, Rosie," he grinned, using her childhood name. "I'll have a divorce for you in a fortnight, and we can begin making more of those golden children."
"It'll ruin my figure," she pouted playfully, making a pretty moue of distaste.
"Do you really care?" Yuri inquired huskily in her ear as his embrace tightened.
"Not if you don't," she smiled sweetly.
"You'll always look good to me, Rosie, figure or no figure. We'll sit on the veranda of our home in the Ukraine and watch our crowd of children grow."
Amalie visualized the idyllic picture. She had always wanted children and deeply regretted the loss of her daughter. Necessity had decreed she give Betsy up, but she had somehow never been able to consider having children by Boris. Not only was he physically unattractive, but the cruelty and viciousness he displayed dismayed her. What if her child would inherit those qualities?
Yuri was lazily nibbling on her ear as his hands stroked and caressed each voluptuous curve. As his fingers reached up and began unbuttoning the neckline of her dress, he whispered softly, "And if you become plump, my sweet, after all our children, I'll just have more to love."
Amalie wrapped her arms around Yuri's powerful shoulders, and one hand slid up to caress the back of his neck where his long, golden hair fell in soft curls.
"Will you take me home, Yuri," Amalie breathed happily. "Can we really go back?"
"I'll take you home, my darling, and never let you go."
The next morning Alex and Zena received a telegram from Yuri.
Alex, Zena, and the children were outside on the terrace overlooking the sea. Zena was resting on a wicker chaise lounge, the baby sleeping in her lap. Bobby was riding his tricycle up and down the marble floor at breakneck speed. Alex, seated next to Zena, smiled as he read the lengthy telegram.
"Yuri and Amalie are getting married," Alex explained, "and Yuri says Amalie apologizes for all the discourteous behavior to you." Laughing softly, he raised his brows sceptically and said, "Can the Golden Goddess really sheath her claws? I wonder."
"I'm happy for her anyway, Sasha," Zena said. In the utter bliss of her own unparalleled happiness she benevolently wished the whole world well. "But what an odd match."
"Not actually," Alex declared. "Amalie and Yuri grew up together on adjoining estates in the Ukraine. Almost like brother and sister, but with the usual experimental lovemaking in adolescence."
Zena opened her eyes in astonishment.
Alex responded to the surprise. "It's really quite commonplace, my pet. You just never had any cousins or young friends around. Amalie had to marry for money. Yuri has tolerable wealth, but not unlimited funds like Boris. I don't think either one of them really realized their attachment was more than old friendship. They scrapped and bickered like family. Yuri consorted with the usual variety of women but never seemed to find anyone that mattered enough to marry."
Alex cast a rueful smile at Zena. "We both felt that way, love, felt we were too young to consider marriage. All that debauchery beckoned. I think with my leaving, Amalie and Yuri were probably thrown in each other's company more and voila! I'm happy for them. Yuri always used to tell me I didn't understand his Rosie, and I guess he was right. I never saw that side of her character It was concealed too well for anyone but an old childhood friend like Yuri to see." Alex grinned boyishly. "Yuri says to expect to be a godfather in nine months. They're moving back to the country."
"I wish them happy," Zena sighed felicitously. "They'll have beautiful children."
"They already have a daughter. A very pretty little blonde girl almost ten now."
Zena looked up in amazement.
"So they had more than an old friendship to draw them together," Alex drawled.
"They must have both been very young," Zena said.
"Very young," Alex agreed. "Yuri's raised his daughter alone and has done a marvelous job of it."
Glancing at the fair-haired baby sleeping on his wife's lap, Alex remarked mockingly, "If I didn't know better, I'd say Yuri had a hand in this one, too." He was teasing, but underneath a tiny, nagging doubt wouldn't be stilled.
"Sasha, what a thing to say."
"Well, it seemed Yuri was always underfoot."
"But you were there, too."
"How do I know what happened after I passed out? I was more drunk than sober most of the time, and I've known Yuri too long to be under any illusions about his moral character."
"What about my moral character?" Zena asked, mildly affronted.
"Well, sweet, since you ask. . . ."
"Sasha!"
"Really, my dear, consider," he said crushingly. "I picked you up on the street, had my way with you in mere hours, and settled you in as my latest mistress within a day. Hardly the virtuous conduct of a paragon of womanhood I would be apt to trust with a practiced rake like Yuri."
"Do you believe me when I say you're the only man I've ever made love to?" Zena disallowed the Arab's rape, feeling that being tied, gagged, and sexually molested hardly constituted making love.
"If you say so."
"Sasha!"
"Of course, my love, I believe you," he soothed chivalrously. Whether he did or did not mattered infinitely less to him than having Zena back. And cruel suspicion aside, he was prone to believe her more than to disbelieve. But considering the prince's broad and varying experience with women, one must allow his cynical demon.
The dark, wolfish, swarthy Kuzan physical attributes had, after all, been amazingly dominant through the male line for generations, but Alex had decided on the day of the baby's birth, after the first staggering sight of the fair child, that regardless of patrimony, his or not, he'd love the boy because it was Zena's. She was more important to him than all the children in the world, and they could have other children later if he could ever repress the terrible memories of Zena's travail. Consideration of the possibility of losing her in childbirth was too agonizingly real to contemplate. The feeling of utter helplessness that had overwhelmed him as he sat impotently and watched her in labor was both unique and unnerving.
"My father had blond hair and blue eyes, and so do many of the tribesmen in my mother's aul," Zena said tranquilly.
"Of course, dear," Alex smiled reassuringly, determined to never again so much as intimate his uncertainties. "You're absolutely right." His love for Zena was the first and only strong passion he had ever known, and all else paled before its urgency.
Zena was the only woman he had ever wanted, and nothing must come between them. He couldn't take a chance of damaging their new happiness. The joy they shared was too hard won and too fragile to chance any arguments over the baby. He couldn't stand the t
hought of losing her again. He set his teeth, determined never to allude to his son's coloring again. The subject was closed.
Later that evening as they enjoyed a quiet supper à deux, Bobby in bed and the baby sleeping, two more telegrams arrived.
"Good God," Alex exclaimed as he was handed the missives. "Is there somewhere in this world we could go for some peace and quiet?"
Ripping open the first one, he swore several times as he read through it. He silently handed it to Zena while he opened the second one.
Zena swiftly read the warning sent by Katelina. Katelina's husband upon returning once more from Europe had reacted violently to the knowledge of his wife's friendship with Wolf. He was threatening to take the children away; Wolf was threatening to take Katelina and the children away and gratuitously kill the husband to boot. Katelina had prevailed upon Wolf to desist at least temporarily from his savage plan and was simply relating the story to Alex in the event Wolf should come to him for help. Wolf had left in a fury, and she didn't know where he had gone.
"Interesting family," Zena smiled impishly.
"Père will see to everything, never fear, he always does. But it burns me to see Katelina at the mercy of that cad of a husband she has." He made a face of mild distaste. "I agree with Wolf there, a nice swift bullet would ease the world of an unnecessary burden.
"In the meantime, more family, dear." He handed her the second telegram.
"Congratulations," Nikki had written. "Your mother seems to think she should see her grandson. Be down in a week."
"Let's get the hell out of here," Alex said tersely. The thought of his parents' faces when they saw their blond blue-eyed grandson discomfited him.
Kuzan 02 - Lovestorm Page 34