Golden Paradise

by Susan Johnson

  He was also famous—or notorious—for his love life.

  And she suspected the women fondly collecting his likeness were more interested in his amorous exploits than his military ones.

  "My pleasure," he tightly replied, wishing for his part that he were with his Gypsy lover, Choura, in the cool altitudes of his mountain lodge, miles away from the scorching heat and Countess Lazaroff. He had no tolerance for bluestocking women and less for unbecoming nonconformist females with a propensity for emphatic declarative statements. She was en­tirely lacking in the feminine graces and attributes that at­tracted him to women. In fact, she was damned annoying.

  Both seemed mildly irritated at the course of their conver­sation, and the remainder of the ride into Aleksandropol passed in a peevish silence.

  Chapter Two

  As they approached Aleksandropol, the Russian army's base of operations eighteen miles from the Turkish border, Stefan said in a voice brusque with fatigue, "Until we reach our lodg­ing, I expect you to obey my orders. The city's jammed with veterans of the siege." He didn't say they'd been without women for weeks. Instead he added, "Soldiers at war can't be expected to act like gentlemen." He hoped she wouldn't ar­gue, because he wasn't in the mood to deal with any more of her idiosyncrasies.

  Surveying the ranks of lounging soldiers at the city gate, all appearing remarkably large and burly, their eyes trained on her in a disconcerting way, Lisaveta judiciously replied, "Yes, sir."

  Stefan glanced down at her swiftly, for her quiet tone and manner were extremely unlike her previous confidence.

  "Are we safe from that mob?" she asked, uncertainty prominent in her voice. She was seeing lust with brutal clarity, and it took enormous control to keep her voice from shaking. Stefan was only one man, she thought. Could even his rank protect her from what she saw in the soldiers' eyes? It was the same look she'd seen in Faizi's eyes, although his had been a more leisured inspection. Under the circumstances she felt sure none of these men were interested in leisurely concerns.

  Before Stefan could answer he was recognized and a series of cheers erupted, traveling down the ranks of men in a sponta­neous cry of welcome. Gruff voices called to him as com­mander and comrade as they passed through the medieval gate and entered the narrow cobbled streets of the city. Stefan ac­knowledged the noisy clamor, responding to his men with ca­sual waves and a smile, with personal comments to one and then another, recognizing a remarkable number of men by name. It was obvious he was a hero to them, adored and re­vered and loved.

  But beneath camaraderie and facetious banter, Lisaveta was still aware of the soldiers' eyes dwelling on her as they passed, as hungry wolves would survey a tender lamb. Unconsciously she moved closer to the large man behind her.

  After a dozen turns and a winding uphill climb, the crowds of soldiers thinned, the shouting died away, and they reached a small villa the Prince must have known of, for he made no inquiries on the way. Riding through a gateway into a paved courtyard walled round with a low wrought-iron railing, Ste­fan said, "Wait here," and slid to the ground, his hands steadying Lisaveta on the saddle. Handing her his Colt re­volver, he added, "Shoot anyone who comes too close."

  "Shoot?" Lisaveta said, not reaching for the extended weapon.

  He looked at her for a moment, not wishing to alarm her unduly. But even nondescript as she was, women were in such rare supply she should have a firearm for protection. "A pre­caution only, mademoiselle" he said, "until I return."

  "Should I come in with you?" Brave under normal circum­stances, she knew she was seriously outnumbered with thou­sands of troops in Aleksandropol.

  "I'll only be a moment," Stefan replied, knowing he'd have to oust the villa's current occupants. He outranked them, but sometimes more than a polite request was required. Addition­ally, he couldn't be certain the men wouldn't be "entertain­ing" themselves with some of the available women, a situation that could prove embarrassing for his passenger. Placing the Colt in her hand, he wrapped her fingers around the grip and asked, "Can you shoot?"

  Lisaveta nodded, mute and touched with apprehension.

  He gave her a smile, the first she'd seen since meeting him, and she understood immediately a portion of his allure. His dark eyes lost their severity, his perfect teeth flashed white, his sculpted mouth reminded her powerfully of classic Greek archetypes come to life. She felt bathed in a sudden shimmer­ing happiness.

  "Good," he said, and was gone, taking the entrance stairs three at a time.

  Despite the heat, the surrounding air seemed to cool mo­mentarily at his exit. Good heavens, she thought, shaking away the unusual sensation. Was she so gullible, so unsophisticated, that a simple smile from the illustrious Prince Bariatinsky changed the temperature of the sun?

  No doubt he was familiar with the power of his smile. No doubt he was familiar with women responding to that smile. Well, that might be, but he was also overbearing and imperi­ous, and while she was grateful for his rescue, she disliked his style of womanizing man.

  The next moment she chastised herself for not showing proper gratitude for her rescue. Without him, she'd be dead now or wishing for death. Certainly, it was the height of in­gratitude to be pettishly caviling over his lady loves and amo­rous leisure activities. She was truly grateful. Period. His style of life was incidental. And she summoned a smile to her face in indication of her sincerity.

  He didn't seem to notice when he returned a short time later.

  "We're set," he said gruffly, and lifted her down.

  He was enormously tall, she thought, a wayward perception that she immediately suppressed as totally irrelevant. As if it mattered what he looked like.

  "Would you like to keep the pistol?"

  Had he repeated the question? She wasn't sure, but his dark glance was mildly perplexed.

  "No…no…not at all…here," she answered, stammer­ing in a rare unease. You'd think she'd never seen a man in skin-tight leather cavalry breeches, half-nude above the waist, his chest sleek with sweat, his muscles…

  She felt the revolver being taken from her grasp and her gaze fell from the prominent definition of his pectorals to his hand, only inches from hers. His fingers were long and slender and very tanned, shades darker than her own. He didn't speak as he replaced the weapon in its holster on his saddle, and while she was debating some appropriate casual remark to cover her unease, he turned back to her, put out his arm like a gentle­man at a ball or a promenade and said, "This way, mademoi­selle."

  "Was the villa vacant?" Lisaveta inquired as they ascended the short bank of stairs. She'd seen no one exit.

  "A few officers only, mademoiselle, who were more than happy to oblige you."

  "Have they gone?"

  "I believe so," Stefan replied with equanimity, not about to detail the true nature of his confiscation. A small amount of force had been required in addition to the threat of his rank, and the artillery colonel had been swearing as he'd departed through the back door. The transport officers had been will­ing to negotiate, offering Stefan several hours of their female companions' time, but Stefan fancied cleaner women and had declined. The Countess Lazaroff, he thought, would appreci­ate sleeping without the raucous sounds of an all-night party. And he, too, would prefer quiet tonight. Choura was only a few days away; he could wait. After three months, he could wait a few days more.

  As they passed through the walled courtyard, its fountain miraculously still playing despite the disruptions of war, and crossed the elegantly tiled pavement, Stefan said, "I've com­missioned a bathtub for you, and supper. I hope you'll find the accommodations comfortable. In the morning I'll see you have an escort with one of the guarded convoys traveling to Tiflis."

  While his statements were courteous, the tenor of his voice implied he was released from any further responsibility by these acts. "The villa is guarded," he added in afterthought to the dust-covered woman in black. "Sleep well." And with a mini­mal bow he left Lisaveta at the base of the stairca
se, waving a servant over to escort her to the second-floor rooms.

  "Thank you," Lisaveta ironically said to the back of his head as he walked away. "You're too kind." A sudden resentment, disturbing in its novelty, overwhelmed her. Why did it matter that he dismissed her as insignificant? Why did she care what he thought of her? She should be above the triviality of female coquetry.

  When her mother had died, her father had returned to his country estates and never entered the world of society again. Lisaveta had been raised in a quiet country existence, but she still remembered her early years in Saint Petersburg before her mother's death. She had fond memories of her beautiful mother, a Princess of the Kuzan family, and recalled their pink marble palace filled with people for parties and teas, recitals and balls. Bach evening before Maman and Papa left for one of their parties or entertained their own guests, they would come to the nursery to tuck her into bed, and Maman had al­ways been gorgeous in magnificent gowns and splendid jewels. When she'd hug Lisaveta good-night, she'd smell of blooming roses and smile her radiant smile and sometimes slip her tiara on Lisaveta's curly hair and call her "my baby princess." It wasn't often she thought of those long-ago years in Saint Pe­tersburg or of Maman's hugs and kisses or of the very differ­ent life her father had once led. She and her father had lived away from the capital so long she'd forgotten the frivolity of the aristocratic world existed. And she'd considered herself insen­sitive to its amusements and glamour.

  But somehow Prince Bariatinsky gave rise to a provoking sense of inadequacy. And it annoyed her. She never felt inad­equate. It was his dismissive gaze and tone and attitude—as though she weren't worth noticing. An incipient spirit of chal­lenge stirred in her at his bland negation of her womanhood, an unprecedented feeling, not focused enough to even fully ac­knowledge, only a tiny flutter of long-suppressed femininity.

  And while she despised the Prince for all his arrogant insou­ciant notoriety, she couldn't deny his sinful, obvious beauty. She'd been too close to the perfect modeled planes of his face, too near the splendid magnificence of his heavily lashed eyes, and she was aware despite herself that his tall lean body pos­sessed an unusual charismatic power and virility. She wasn't the first woman to note these vividly masculine characteristics, she thought, following the servant upstairs. Only the latest.

  After arranging quarters for Cleo and his troopers, who would presumably appear once the Bazhis were dispatched, Stefan returned to the villa, took the stairs to his rooms in a run, stripped off his filthy uniform with efficient speed and was in his waiting bath in record time. Submerging himself briefly to rinse the dust from his face and hair, he came up out of the water dripping and degrees cooler, reached for his brandy flask, which he'd set conveniently near, slid back down so he was leaning comfortably against the painted porcelain headrest and sighed his first exhalation of satisfaction in three long months.

  Tipping the gold flask engraved with good wishes from Tsar Alexander, he let the amber liquid spill into his mouth, and af­ter his first slow swallow, he smiled into the quiet shaded room. Contentment came from such simple pleasures, he philosoph­ically noted.

  In the course of the next hour he emptied the brandy flask while the water cooled, and when he was sufficiently relaxed, the numbing fatigue of the past weeks alleviated not only by the liquor but by the soothing water, he bathed.

  When his food arrived sometime later, Stefan was lounging on the bed in one of the silk robes left behind by the villa's owner when his home was requisitioned by the Russian army. The fabric was a cinnamon brocade shot through with a heavy underweaving of aquamarine, and the robe accented the ori­ental cast of Stefan's features, emphasizing the slight oblique­ness of his eyes and the elegant dark wings of his brows. The long-skirted luxurious silk was juxtaposed with his harsh mas­culinity, the contrast both dramatic and sensual, as if a war­rior knight were transposed briefly into a worldly courtier. He'd rolled up the trapunto-trimmed sleeves, an incongruous touch in such a stately robe, as incongruous as his galvanic power contained in the delicate silk.

  His dinner was excellent and he ate it with a haste his major-domo would have disapproved of, but the comforts of civili­zation had been sadly lacking the past few months, the food at Kars deplorable, and he intended to relish his first real meal without concern for etiquette. And while he ate and later lounged again on his bed, finishing the bottle of fine wine the servant had brought with his meal, Stefan was regaled through the plastered walls with a tuneful array of songs in the Count­ess's soft contralto.

  She was a most unusual female, Stefan decided, more indul­gent in his assessment once the bottom of the bottle of wine was reached. After all the treachery and danger of the past few days she seemed in cheerfully good humor. Most remarkable. He couldn't think of a woman he knew who would have re­bounded from the fearful perils she'd experienced with such buoyant resiliency. Her voice, too, had a delicate feminine charm in song. A shame she was an antidote to look at.

  An exemplary officer, Stefan dressed shortly after eating and went to see that his men were satisfactorily bivouacked. His guards were flushed with success, much richer for their pursuit of the Bazhis and celebrating their good fortune with the na­tive arrack, a potent liquor known for its fiery taste. Several stoneware bottles were passed around and shared as the chase was described in detail, so it was past midnight before Stefan bade his bodyguards good-night and returned to the villa.

  Although the sounds of revelry in the town continued, the courtyard and villa's interior were hushed and quiet. Despite the hour the heat of the day had scarcely diminished, and the area around the small fountain, open to the stars, seemed hung with a dense dark curtain of torrid vapor. Stefan could almost feel himself move through successive layers of sultry air.

  He'd stripped off his loose native shirt on his way up the stairs and kicked off his low boots just inside the door to his room. Tossing the shirt on a chair, he shoved the door shut with one bare foot and padded across the soft Antolian carpet to his bed. Unbelting the coarse woven pants he wore, he let them drop to the floor, then he fell pleasantly inebriated onto the cool linen sheets of his bed. The first night away from Kars, he thought contentedly, the pillow beneath his head a luxury he'd not felt for weeks. The first night he could sleep without one ear tuned to the pickets' song, the first night he didn't have to catch himself dozing as he rode patrol. The first night in months he might have had the opportunity to bed a woman. Unfortu­nately, in a town accommodating thirty thousand troops, one's choices in vice were limited to a less delicate type of female, and he'd decided to sleep alone.

  As he drifted off, his thoughts wandered to the very immi­nent delights awaiting him in Tiflis. Only two more days, he mused, wondering if Choura would still be waiting at his lodge in the hills north of the city or whether her hot Gypsy blood had tired of the enforced leisure and she'd found some new young buck's back to bloody. The memories of Choura's particular brand of lovemaking evoked a surge of pure lust through his senses. He'd found her savage wildness, the uncivilized vio­lence of her passion, an exhilarating change from the delicate refined sighs of the young matrons in the aristocratic circles he frequented. He fell asleep reminiscing about Choura, recalling the perfect length of her slender legs and how she liked to bite and how much he enjoyed her biting, how she danced for him until she was damp with sweat and lust and how the sleek beauty of her body felt beneath his. He fell asleep with a dis­tinct smile on his lips.

  It was no more than twenty minutes when he woke to an unearthly scream, the kind of scream he'd heard at night on patrol, the horrifying scream of Russian prisoners being tor­tured by the Turks. For a moment he thought he was back at Kars. But his palms rested on sheets. He was in a bed. His mind scrambled desperately to climb up from the depths of slumber, his senses perhaps slightly impaired by the liquor he'd drunk. But his years of military service were manifest in his swift re­sponse, and he was halfway out of the bed, reaching for his robe, when he distinguished
the source of the piercing cries.

  The Countess.

  In one blurred motion he rose from the bed, grabbed his robe and dashed out into the hall, shrugging into the garment as he strode the few steps to Countess Lazaroff's room. Assuming she'd locked her door, he heaved his weight against the solid wood. The door gave way too readily and crashed explosively against the wall, leaving the plaster in shattered fragments. Catching himself against the jamb, he grunted in disgust. The witless woman hadn't even locked her door.

  Some of the guards had been celebrating tonight, as well; it was possible someone had slipped into the villa or perhaps through the window. He scanned the room carefully as he stood in the doorway, alert to danger, ready to spring on an intruder. Moonlight poured in the latticed window, illuminating the room with elegant decorative shapes, and he surveyed each portion of the room in swift perusal.

  No one. The furniture was all in place; the latticed shutters were still secured from the inside. The Countess's screams had now subsided into great gulping whimpers that punctuated the hushed silvery stillness like tiny muted starbursts in space.

  Once he assured himself there was no danger from assassins or brutal soldiers intent on rape, his dark eyes followed the sound of her soft whimpers. When his gaze finally halted on Countess Lazaroff, he stood transfixed, framed in the shad­owed doorway, his head just brushing the arched plaster of the lintel, his wide silk-clad shoulders dwarfing the width of the entry, his dark eyes incredulous.

  No dirt on the lady any longer. No muddy face and tangled hair. No features lost beneath layers of grime. No disguising volumes of crow-black material, petticoats and shawls and ba­bushkas.

  No indeed, he breathed, dumbfounded, and wondered briefly if he was in the wrong room.