"Damn," he softly swore in the next breath, impatient, bone tired and inherently selfish. Whatever she was or whoever, she meant problems and delay. But in the next instant, more humane feelings superseded his first moody reaction. Sliding his hands beneath her shoulders and knees, he lifted her slight weight into his arms.
Standing under the blazing sun, he glanced at the empty horizon, swept an observing eye over the flat, arid landscape looking for signs of his men. Nothing stirred except the glimmering flux of the heat waves. Knowing the traditional enmity between his own Kurds and the Turkish Bazhis, and with the possibility of plunder inspiring his troopers, he realized their hot pursuit might reach the walls of Aleksandropol. Which left him to deal with this problem alone. Merde, he thought disgruntledly, the last thing he needed right now was a dirty, half-dead native girl who might require medical attention—not exactly a reality in this wasteland—and restoration to her family, if they existed in this war-torn country.
What he needed was restoration himself to the silken comforts of civilization, he reflected grouchily, minus the burden of this female. He shook the girl slightly, optimistically hoping she'd wake and say, "Thank you for rescuing me. My family lives conveniently near and I'll walk home." Instead she continued breathing in limp unconsciousness while sweat ran down his face and back and chest and ultimately into his black kidskin boots.
Deuce take it, what the hell to do with her other than stand here melting? He could leave her with the caravan of Armenian refugees they'd passed on the road some time ago. But that, unfortunately, would require retracing his journey. Not a pleasant option in the scorching heat.
Since Aleksandropol was his destination for today's travel, she would have to be content with that, as well, he thought, refusing to backtrack when the ultimate comforts of Tiflis and his Gypsy lover, Choura, beckoned. His decision made, he walked the few paces to where Cleo stood. Placing the girl in front of the saddle, he mounted behind her and resumed his journey north.
A slight cooling breeze seemed to spring up as if in affirmation of his decision, and for the first time since sighting the Bazhis, he smiled. His smile altered the moody features of his face, softened his strong jaw and well-defined cheekbones, modified the scowl drawing his heavy brows together, even touched his dark flinty eyes with a brief flash of levity. Lifting his arm, he raked his fingers through the ruffled black silk of his hair, raised the damp curls resting on the silver-encrusted collar of his uniform and felt the blessed coolness on his neck.
A few miles more, he thought with relief. And then a bath.
* * *
The same breeze refreshing Stefan drifted over Lisaveta's face as she lay in the crook of his arms. Her eyes fluttered open. Immediately in her line of vision was a bronzed, austere male face, dirt streaked, unshaven. With a terrified start she wondered if she'd been recaptured by the Bazhis. But as her panic-stricken gaze moved downward, she saw the silver insignia of regiment and rank on his uniform collar and shoulder and the frenzied beating of her heart subsided fractionally. He was clearly in the Russian army, but his looks suggested he could be a native warrior. Was he wearing a trophy of war? Without moving, she allowed her gaze to slide downward. He wore a ring on his right hand, a large unfaceted emerald, and that hand was resting on a thigh encased in filthy white leather breeches. Thank God! The natives didn't wear jewelry and would never wear tight-fitting breeches for riding. He was Russian! She was saved!
Her heartbeat slowed to normal and a strange lethargy overcame her, as though all signals to her brain had received the message of her salvation. She lay for a few moments more without speaking, feeling utterly safe, feeling as if she were waking from a sleep, her gaze fixed on the man who held her. The officer's face, framed by the brilliant light, was streaked with sweat, and his dark eyes of a distinctive Tartar cast were narrowed against the hot glitter of the sun. He had a surprisingly young face, she thought, for the general's rank on his shoulder, a classic aquiline face with an etched handsomeness enhanced somehow by the dark stubble of beard shading his jaw. He had a compelling masculine severity of face and form, a mythological pagan quality of animal strength and grace despite the dirt and sweat. He also looked surprisingly familiar.
And then she found herself staring into midnight-black eyes, saved from absolute opacity only by curious golden flecks near the pupils.
His gaze was both benign and dismissive, but his deep voice when he spoke was courteous. "How do you feel?" he asked in the local dialect.
Her lashes lifted completely so the tawny gold of her eyes was visible to Stefan for the first time. His reaction was immediate, instinctive: Kuzan eyes. His friend Nikki Kuzan had eyes like that, slightly oriental, tilted marginally like hers and of the same unusual shade. And then he remembered she was a native girl three thousand miles from Saint Petersburg. She could hardly be related to a Russian prince simply through a coincidence of eye color.
"I feel marvelously alive, thanks to you," she answered in French.
"Ah," he murmured in surprise. "You speak French." French was the language of the Russian aristocracy, but she hardly qualified. Was she a teacher of some kind?
"And several other languages as well, all of which I'm appreciative in," she informed him in a voice unshaken and calm. "The caravan I was traveling with was attacked and I was abducted," she continued in a firm declarative way. "If you hadn't come to my rescue, there's no doubt I would have been those bandits' victim. I'm deeply in your debt and will surely reward you at my first opportunity."
She spoke so assertively it startled him for a moment, as did the style of her speech. Obviously she wasn't a native. He glanced at her again with a less desultory curiosity. Maybe she was the wife of a merchant or some minor official; her dress was too modest for any higher position. Stefan's tastes, although catholic in rank or status, were inclined toward lush females with silken skin and feminine ways, so his scrutiny of her was brief. She didn't pique his interest in any of these areas. Furthermore, he took mild offense at her offer of a reward. He was Prince Bariatinsky on his paternal side, the only noble family directly related to the Tsars, while his mother's family, the Orbeliani, had been the wealthiest and most powerful dynasty in Georgia since the third century. He took issue at being offered a reward like some bourgeois shopkeeper when he justifiably considered his act no more than simple chivalry. She would do well, he peevishly thought, to learn the accepted way of the world. In his milieu, men gave and women took, not the other way around.
"No reward is necessary," he replied in a mildly repressive tone. "Think nothing of it."
"But I'd feel so much better if I could show my appreciation."
And under ordinary circumstances when Stefan heard those words from a woman, his reaction was predictable.
But this woman was too plain and unattractive, so for the first time in his life he rejected that invitational phrase. Inherently polite, he declined with courtesy. "To know you're unharmed, madame, is reward enough," he said.
"Mademoiselle," she casually corrected.
"I'm sorry. Was your family—" He didn't precisely know how to ask if her family had been killed in the attack.
"Oh, I was traveling alone," Lisaveta said, interpreting his hesitancy.
After a life significant for a wide and varied profligacy, Stefan considered himself beyond shock, but he found himself momentarily confounded. Young unmarried women didn't normally travel alone, although he realized the war had raised havoc. "How is it," he inquired, both curious and mildly astonished, "you were traveling alone in this war?" He was not a martinet for protocol, but he did not consider a war zone exactly the safest place for a single young female.
"I didn't begin my journey alone," Lisaveta explained. "Javad Khan sent an escort with me…."
Stefan immediately recognized the name. Javad was a power to be reckoned with in western Azerbaijan. Was she one of his harem being sent home on a visit? No, he dec
ided, glancing at her peasant clothing. Javad's houris would never be so poorly dressed, nor would he send them out in this no-man's-land. And, he thought next with masculine bias, Javad Khan's taste in women was much superior to this female in his arms.
"But we were so close to Aleksandropol when we met the caravan," Lisaveta went on, oblivious to Stefan's assessment, "that I insisted Javad's men return to Turkish territory. I was on Russian soil now and traveling in sufficient company for safety. Who would have thought Bazhis were in the vicinity, so few miles from Aleksandropol?" She looked up at him then with a translucent gaze reminiscent of an artless child.
A simple woman, he thought, so naive in the ways of the world. And dressed like a peasant, yet sent out under escort by Javad Khan himself. Nothing quite connected.
"Do you live in Karakilisa?" he inquired, thinking perhaps she was a special member of Javad's household staff—a favored housekeeper or cook or harem servant.
"No, I was only visiting Javad, studying his Hafiz manuscripts, when the war broke out," she answered plainly, just as she'd answered all his questions. "He'd granted me permission to use his private archives and I was planning on staying several months more to take advantage of the opportunity, feeling that in that time the campaigns would have moved west anyway, but then… well… circumstances required I leave precipitously."
Now any one of her disclosures would have been enough to startle him, but in the entirety the result was stupefying. First, women were rarely scholars—particularly of Persian erotica. Second, women weren't allowed any freedom of scope in Karakilisa. It was a provincial Turkish city and Muslim law strictly prevailed. Women lived in harems or under rigid restrictions. They didn't have free rein in a Khan's library. Actually, very few of them were literate.
"Did you say—Hafiz?" he carefully inquired, persuaded on further reflection that he must have misunderstood entirely.
"Yes. Do you know his work?" she asked blandly, as if he'd casually questioned the competence of her dressmaker.
He found his eyes drawn to her again when she reaffirmed her unusual activities at Karakilisa. Definitely unsightly, dirty and overweight. No, his first assessment had been correct. How odd. She and Hafiz. It made no sense. He wondered whether he'd been out under the hot sun too long. But she seemed to be waiting for his answer so he replied, "I know of him, of course. I've several of his works in my library, but frankly—" He stopped before he overstepped good manners.
She smiled and her teeth shone surprisingly white against the smudged grayness of her face. "I realize it's unusual," she said, answering his unspoken thought in what he was discovering was her habitually direct style, "but it happens to be my current area of study. And if you shouldn't mind, I'd very much like to see the copies you have."
No delicate wallflower here, he thought, not quite sure if he was offended or not at her forwardness. Both breeding and rank had made the Prince firmly a product of his age, an age that viewed women as pretty, gay, delightful amusements but looked askance at women who dared to be assertive.
"The fact is," she continued amiably as though she openly discussed Persian erotica with any stranger she met, "I'm Count Lazaroff's daughter, Lisaveta Felixovna." She pronounced her father's name with obvious pride, conscious it would be instantly recognized. And of course it was. The recluse count had been, before his untimely death three years ago, the premier Russian scholar of Persian manuscripts.
There, Stefan thought. An explanation for the plain dowdy woman and her unorthodox studies. It helped ease his sense of uncomfortable rapport. Women fell into distinct categories for him: female relatives he treated with kindness and friendship; beautiful women he treated as potential lovers with flirtatious charm; the rest generally received only polite civility on the rare occasions he noticed them. As for female scholars, he'd never met one.
"So you're following in your father's footsteps. Commendable, I'm sure," he said politely. "And you're welcome, of course, to make use of my library," he added in deference to good manners. "I still don't completely understand, though," he went on, inexplicably intrigued by the sheer bravado of this strange woman, "why you left the safety of Karakilisa to venture into the midst of the war?"
"I simply had to leave," she answered in that same clear, affirmative tone he now decided was what displeased him. It made her sound like a man. "Although my host graciously overlooked my nationality when I was detained by the hostilities, and I continued to work, his nephew Faizi Pasha, a colonel in the Turkish army, visited unexpectedly one day. On meeting me, he decided to add me to his harem. Naturally, I was opposed to the idea." Her voice was filled with cool disdain, as if she were saying, "I had to refuse my dancing master's proposal of marriage."
Stefan wondered what in the world the Pasha had seen in her that appealed to him, although the Turks did appreciate what he considered excess female flesh. "I understand your problem," he courteously replied, thinking soon he would be free of this decisive managing woman who grated on his nerves.
"So there was nothing else to do. I had to leave."
Again. That authoritarian certainty.
"And the combined forces of the Russian and Turkish armies be damned," Stefan found himself saying with only a mildly disguised sarcasm.
Lisaveta looked at him briefly, her gold eyes reflective. "I didn't care to consider a future locked in a cage," she said quietly, "no matter how gilded the bars."
Stefan immediately regretted his lapse in manners. "Forgive me." She had sounded very human for a moment and he reminded himself she had come through great danger. "And you escaped one peril only to face others."
"None so dangerous in my mind as Faizi Pasha's advances. There's a certain finality about harems… like a prison door shutting for life." Her voice held a winsome quality, and had he known her background of independent living, he would have realized how important freedom was to her. "And my host, Javad Khan, saw that I was well escorted with a dozen Afshar guides. When they left me with the caravan so near Aleksandropol—at my insistence, I might add—I assumed the rest of the journey would be uneventful."
The sheer naïveté in the word uneventful renewed Stefan's exasperation. With difficulty he refrained from remarking that only a stupid female would term crossing through the battleground of two armies "uneventful," even with a hundred guides.
"And if I hadn't given my horse to an enceinte woman, I probably could have escaped and arrived in Aleksandropol completely unharmed," Lisaveta added with the self-assurance Stefan found so annoying.
"Good marksmanship," the Prince said evenly, his irritation evident in the hard line of his jaw, "is a given with the native tribes. And the Winchester .44 round will outrun a horse, guaranteed. Your horse might have saved you and it might not have."
Lisaveta's temper was as quick to ignite as the Prince's, but since he'd saved her life, she felt she owed him a certain degree of politeness despite his rebuking tone. She would have liked to point out that her usefulness to a Bazhi was alive and not dead, but smiling instead, as reared to politeness as the Prince, she said with good grace, "You're right, of course." She had learned long ago that men preferred being right, and in circumstances where arguing was counterproductive, she always allowed them that privilege. He was, after all, transporting her to safety.
Stefan's ill humor was somewhat mollified by her ready acquiescence, so he refrained from saying thank-you and having the last word on the subject. Countess Lazaroff's next statement, however, destroyed his short-lived complacency.
"I'll need some money," she said, "when we reach Aleksandropol. If you could lend me a few hundred roubles I could find lodgings tonight. After a long day of this abominable heat, I'd seriously consider selling my soul for a bath." Unfamiliar with any of the nuances of feminine wiles, educated to establish effectively, then deal with a problem, and perhaps at base just as indulged and spoiled as the Prince, she was unaware her simple request would not be viewed as simple a
t all.
Stefan's resentment returned full force at her damnable tone. He also knew that with thirty-thousand troops bivouacked in Aleksandropol, the only way anyone would find a room was by rank, title and large sums of money. She was a woman, though, despite his own lack of interest in her rotund person. No doubt she could find accommodations on her own for a price other than gold. But she was also Count Lazaroff's daughter; he couldn't simply abandon her to the army's train with the other refugees as he would have were she a peasant. He supposed, he thought with a silent sigh, he was obliged to act the gentleman. "Allow me, Countess," he said, only because he'd been taught to protect the weaker sex, "to find you accommodations tonight."
"How thoughtful," Lisaveta replied, as if she hadn't recognized the coercion prompting him, as if she didn't know how hazardous her position would be, alone in an army camp.
"My pleasure, mademoiselle," he murmured. They could have been at a court soiree for all their superficial politesse.
"I so appreciate your help." Lisaveta almost choked on the words, for Prince Bariatinsky was the epitome of all she despised in the aristocracy. Too rich, too handsome, too spoiled by both his fame and infamy. She'd recognized him shortly after she regained consciousness, realizing then why he'd seemed familiar to her at first sight. Engravings of the Prince in uniform were prevalent throughout Russia women collected them to pine over.
At twenty-two he had been the conqueror of the Citadel of Tubruz, at twenty-five the savior and avenging angel of the survivors of the massacre at Mirum. His victories in Asia had subdued at last the Khanates of Khiva and Kokand. In fact, the youngest general ever gazetted in the history of the Russian army was a universal hero. He was the famous and fearless Prince Stefan, always dressed in his white Chevalier Gardes uniform and mounted on his black Orloff steed, challenging death and the enemy at the head of his cavalry.
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