Silver Nights

by Jane Feather

  He could hear Eva’s scornful laugh as she accused him of prudery, of ignoring, of hiding from, the realities of the world they inhabited; standing at the head of the stairs, her belly, swollen with another man’s child, pushing against her skirt…

  “Something bothering you, Count?” The calm tones of Boris Mikhailov shattered the corrosive images.

  “Not at all,” he denied, turning toward the muzhik, aware, even through the denial, that his mouth was set, his eyes hostile with memory. “I was just looking at the horses. They seem not to have suffered any serious ill effects.”

  Boris looked at him with the wise eyes of one who has seen and learned much. “Best to be honest with her,” he said. “Sophia Alexeyevna can deal with most things, but she can’t abide confusion and lies.”

  “And you think I am about to confuse her with lies, Boris?” Adam’s eyebrows lifted sardonically. “What have I done to deserve such a judgment?”

  But Boris was not to be intimidated. He simply shrugged. “You know your own business best, lord.” Bending, he began to run knowing hands down Khan’s hocks, feeling for the heat that would warn of a strained tendon.

  Adam left the stable. He had not told Sophie of his marriage; there had seemed no point. He could not talk about it without bitterness, a bitterness he knew would become directed toward his audience. And now, enmeshed in this tangle of love, it would be even more difficult. The parallels were too clear, too agonizingly obvious.

  Sophie was just coming out of the post house as he emerged into the dazzling morning. She was wrapped tightly in her pelisse, the pale oval of her face framed in the fur hood. Her hand lifted in salute, but she did not wait for him, simply turned toward the noisome outhouse at the rear of the inn.

  Had he hurt her? Adam swore softly. Of course, he had. Pacing up and down in the snow, he waited until she emerged; she came hurrying toward him, her boots scrunching across the crisp ground, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun’s dazzle. “Are we ready to leave?”

  “In a minute,” he said quietly, taking her mittened hands. “I am a bear in the morning, Sophie, particularly when I have spent the night fighting off fleas.” He smiled. “Forgive me.”

  Her candid dark eyes regarded him gravely, as if reading his soul. Then she shrugged. “There is nothing to forgive, Adam. You do not wish to talk of Paul. I cannot blame you. We will not do so again.”

  “I hurt you,” he said, squeezing her hands.

  She smiled with a hint of resignation. “I have had my head bitten off before, love. There is no damage done.”

  With that, he was obliged to be satisfied. They resumed their journey with Boris Mikhailov driving, but a constraint hung over the occupants of the sleigh. Sophie seemed distant, although she smiled and responded whenever Adam attempted to initiate a conversation. But it was clearly an effort for her, so eventually he fell silent, leaving her to draw pictures in the dirt on the window as she peered out at the landscape that today sped by, the blades of the sleigh cutting through the crisp snow.

  By mid-afternoon, Adam decided he had had enough of this unrelieved tedium. He could not accuse Sophie of sulking—indeed, such behavior would be foreign to her nature—but there was more to her introspection than a simple desire to be alone with her thoughts. Action was definitely required. He gathered up a handful of sticks from the pile in the corner of the sleigh and replenished the brazier, giving Sophie a speculative look.

  “What is it?” Suddenly, vividly aware of the look that penetrated her not-very-pleasant reverie, she gazed back at him, puzzled yet with a prickle of anticipation.

  Stroking his chin thoughtfully, Adam remarked, “I was just thinking that opportunities for privacy are so few and far between, we should perhaps take advantage of them when they come.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened. “Do you mean what I think you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean?” he teased.

  “Here…now…?” Sophie looked around the tiny space. “But it’s broad daylight.” The prickle was blossoming into full-blown awareness, sending tingles up her spine, creeping across her scalp, creating a hollowness in her belly.

  “So it is,” agreed Adam solemnly.

  “It is not decent,” Sophie said, her dark eyes glinting with mischief.

  “By the law according to whom?” inquired Adam with a raised eyebrow, drawing her against him so that her head rested on his shoulder. He smiled down at her, and she wrinkled her nose wryly.

  “You are a shameless rake, Count.”

  His head bent, his lips pressed against the soft curve of her mouth, a finger brushing in a stroking caress over the planes of her face, before trailing down to the mounded curve of her breast. The slow, sweet spread of longing annointed her. Her body moved into the caress as his fingers deftly unfastened the buttons of the pelisse and her nipples lifted into his molding palm. Without loosing her mouth, Adam spread the fur over them both before he pulled down the low neckline of her much-abused gown and released her breasts from the confinement of the chemise.

  Sophie’s sighing pleasure rustled against his lips, all discontent, the vague niggling unhappiness left over from the morning, subsumed now under the touch of lust, the affirmation of love. She felt his hand slide from thigh to knee, drawing up her skirt and petticoat, slipping into the waistline of her pantalettes. The garment was pushed down to tangle at her ankles, and the bared flesh of hip and thigh danced beneath the sensuous stroking fingers and the soft brushing warmth of the fur covering. He unfastened his own clothing, wriggling free of his britches with an agile twist, then caught her behind one knee and drew her leg across his hip.

  He held her strongly beneath the cover, her body fitted to his, as the sleigh slid across the snow and its whispering progress matched the whispering rise of pleasure within as he allowed an infinity of stillness to pass, when she was conscious only of the throbbing presence filling her body, the only movement that of the sleigh insinuating its gliding rhythm into their joined selves. Slowly, he turned her until her hips rested on the edge of the wooden bench, twisting himself to rise above her smoothly, so there was no loss of contact. Then he added his own movements to the movement of the vehicle, thrusting with gathering tempo, until she was no longer aware of her body as an entity apart from the motion beneath her and within her.

  She sank into extinction, sank through layers of delight, drifting down, a cloud speck in the wide blue horizon, until she lay lapped in peace upon the luxuriant verdant carpet of release. Adam looked down at her closed eyes, the sable lashes dark half-moons on the delicately flushed cheeks. She was limp in his hold, but as he moved to withdraw from her, her arms tightened around him in protest.

  “How fortunate the movement of a sleigh does not have the same effect upon you as that of a carriage,” he observed with a lazy grin. “One day we must try making love across a galloping horse.” He was quite unable to help a chuckle, despite his own fulfilled lassitude. “If the simple motion of a sleigh can assist one to such heaven, think what—”

  A yell from Boris, the violent cracking of a whip, the sudden surge forward of the sleigh brought an end to this interesting speculation.

  “Hell and the devil!” Adam pulled away from her, grabbing his britches, yanking them up his body. He flung open the door of the sleigh, leaning out precariously, despite the rollicking speed of the cumbersome vehicle. Across the white plain, galloping toward the sleigh on fast mountain horses, came a group of riders.

  “Can’t outrun them!” Boris shouted, cracking the whip again. “I’ll try to make for those trees.”

  “Is it brigands?” Sophie, fumbling desperately with her undergarment, which was hopelessly tangled in the folds of satin, cambric, and fur, gasped out the question, her face pink with her exertions. “Holy Mother! What an invitation to rape I must present.”

  Adam stared at her in amazement. “If we can’t beat them off, that’s exactly what will happen, before they trample us to death,” he said vigorously.


  Sophie looked up. “They’re only brigands. Of course we’ll beat them off. Do you have a pistol for me?”

  This was the woman who shot rabid wolves, Adam remembered with a jolt. Chivalrous concerns were out of place. “Here.” He handed her a flintlock pistol. “If we can reach the shelter of the woods before they come up with us, we might stand a chance. Can you prime that?”

  The look she gave him told him he shouldn’t have asked the question. “Ammunition and the other pistols are in that pack. Get them organized so we may reload swiftly.” On that crisp instruction, he left her in the sleigh, swinging himself out and up onto the second horse. Their pursuers were gaining, but the woods were a great deal closer.

  “We’ve plenty of ammunition. Sophia Alexeyevna is preparing it,” he told Boris briefly. “There are three of us and four of them. Reasonable odds.”

  Boris grunted his assent, expertly swinging the sleigh into the cover of the first line of trees. As the conveyance slowed, Sophie sprang down, running to the rear.

  “Sophie, what the devil are you doing?” bellowed Adam.

  “Releasing Khan,” she yelled. “They’ll do anything to get their hands on him.”

  “That goddamned horse!” exploded Adam. “Does she never think of anything else?”

  Boris chuckled. “Not often, Count. Although I’ve noticed her attention’s been a bit divided just recently.”

  Adam shook his head in wonderment. What sort of people were these products of the Wild Lands? Neither the muzhik nor the woman exhibited the slightest fear. Instead, they made jokes. Sophie had swung herself onto the stallion’s back. “The ammunition and pistols are laid ready for you on the bench.” Then, before he could absorb the implication of her words, she had galloped into the trees.

  “Best get inside, Count.” Boris released the horses from the traces.

  “Sophie—”

  “She’ll be all right—”

  A pistol shot cracking almost in range brought an end to further discussion. The two men dived into the sleigh, where four pistols lay ready for them and ammunition was organized for easy reloading. Two pistols were missing. What was she intending to do with them? But at least she was out of immediate danger. If her need to save her horse meant she had saved herself, then he was not going to complain. On that comforting thought Adam settled into the corner of the sleigh, pistol cocked, and aimed through the crack of the door. Boris took up a similar position on the other side.

  The brigands, riding low over their horses, made elusive targets as they charged ferociously at the sleigh. Adam’s first shot whistled past harmlessly as its intended recipient swung beneath the belly of his horse. Instead of being three to four, Sophie’s defection left them two to four, and one of them was obliged to reload.

  Then a shot rang out; one of the brigands clutched his shoulder, falling forward over the neck of his mount. Adam, on the point of squeezing the trigger, looked in disbelief at Boris. The muzhik was stolidly reloading. “Someone out there is on our side,” Adam said slowly, turning back to the aperture and taking aim.

  “Sophia Alexeyevna,” Boris confirmed calmly.

  The unexpectedness of their comrade’s injury from a shot that seemed to come from nowhere had thrown the other three brigands into some confusion. Adam’s next shot fell true, and there were now only two men upright outside.

  “We’d best get them all,” Adam said grimly. “We can’t afford to leave even one able-bodied.”

  A shot smacked against the mica window, shattering it, before burying itself in the floor of the sleigh. “Too close!” muttered Boris. Then suddenly a wild Cossack yell rang out, and Khan leaped into the clearing. Both attackers swung around to face this apparition. Boris’s pistol blazed, and one man toppled to the ground. The other dragged a wicked curving blade from his belt and slashed at the rearing Khan.

  Adam aimed but was unable to shoot for fear of hitting Sophie. His heart in his throat, he watched as the stallion sidestepped out of the line of fire with extraordinary delicacy for such a mighty beast. The blade sliced again through the air. Adam fired in the same instant, and the brigand slipped sideways to crumple on the ground.

  Clutching her arm, Sophie sat astride Khan, looking down in some disbelief at the blood welling between her fingers. “How did that happen?” she asked in a dazed tone, as Adam pounded up to her.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Of all the foolhardy…! What did you think you were doing?”

  “Creating a diversion,” Sophie said in a faint voice. “It worked, did it not?”

  “Oh, yes, it worked—”

  “Watch her, Count!” Boris Mikhailov interrupted him sharply. “Can’t stand the sight of blood. Never could.”

  “What!” Adam was momentarily speechless, staring up at Sophie, who, without warning, swayed and slumped sideways, tumbling inert from Khan’s back.

  Adam managed to catch her, then stood looking down at the unconscious figure in his arms. She swooned at the sight of blood, became hideously sick in a closed wheeled carriage, rode like a Cossack, shot with the accuracy of a skilled sniper, withstood the full force of Paul Dmitriev’s tortuous, devious plotting to break her…Oh, it was unfathomable.

  He carried her back to the sleigh; the sable eyelashes fluttered and her eyes opened as he laid her down on the bench. “I do beg your pardon,” Sophie said. “I have the strangest weaknesses.” She turned her head away as he pushed up the sleeve of the pelisse. “It isn’t even as if it were dreadfully painful.”

  “It is only a flesh wound,” he said after a silent, thorough examination. “You may count yourself lucky. Boris, pass me the bandages and the salve, please?”

  “I would never make a soldier.” Sophie attempted to joke as Adam began to bind up the wound with the medical supplies he had ensured would form part of the provisioning for the journey.

  “I would just like to have you under my command for a week,” he declared furiously. “I would teach you a few things about soldiering that you would never forget.”

  “You are angry,” Sophie said in surprise. “Why ever should you be so? I was simply playing my part.”

  “When I command a military operation,” Adam said with studied calm, “I do not tolerate independent flights. In particular those that are not communicated to me beforehand.”

  The color had returned to Sophie’s cheeks. “I do beg your pardon,” she said in dulcet tones. “But I had not realized we were engaged in a military operation, or that you were in command. I had thought we were all fighting off brigands. You must make these things clearer in future.”

  There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then Adam began to laugh in rich enjoyment, exclaiming as he had once before, “Oh, Sophia Alexeyevna, what am I going to do with you?”

  The dark eyes glowed up at him. “Oh, come now, Colonel, Count Danilevski, you do not in general suffer from a failure of imagination.”

  Chapter 12

  It was an icy gray afternoon at the end of December when the reed-thatched roofs of the village of Berkholzskoye appeared across the frozen steppe.

  Sophie, who had been glued to the window since they left Kiev, jumped as if the sight were unexpected. Tears filled her eyes, and she kept her gaze averted from Adam in sudden embarrassment at this unstoppable flood of emotion.

  Adam was not deceived. Reaching over, he took her jaw between long fingers, turning her face toward him. Tears made tracks down her cheeks, and she sniffed pathetically. “I did not think I would ever see Berkholzskoye again.”

  He smudged a tear with the flat of his thumb. “You do not want to show such a wan countenance to your grandfather, sweet.”

  “If he is still alive.” Finally, she was able to voice the fear that had haunted her for weeks. “I cannot understand why he never wrote—”

  “The fact that you did not receive any letters did not mean that he did not write them,” Adam said quietly, watching her face.

  For a moment she looked blank, then understandi
ng dawned. Tears dried instantly, in their place the fierce anger that he knew well and now welcomed. “Paul kept them from me. That is what you mean, is it not?”

  He nodded. “I do not know it for a fact, but it does not seem unlikely.”

  “I wish I had been able to kill him!” She flung herself against the back of the bench with a furious thump. “I would not mind my own death if it brought about his!”

  “There are times when you do talk the most extravagant nonsense, Sophia Alexeyevna,” Adam observed coolly. He was rewarded by an indignant flash from the dark eyes, then a reluctant gleam of humor.

  “And when I do I can always be certain you will pull me up,” she said, chuckling, turning back to the window in growing impatience. “Oh, I wish I could ride Khan. We would be home in twenty minutes. This is so slow!” She was clenching and unclenching her hands, twisting them in impossible knots, her feet drumming unmelodiously upon the floor.

  Sitting back in the corner, Adam smilingly watched her through half-closed eyes. A two-day halt in Novgorod, the first sizable city after leaving St. Petersburg, had provided her with clothes and other basic necessities, so that, despite the privations of the journey, she no longer had the appearance of a homeless gypsy. But they were all dirty, fatigued with travel, and had almost forgotten what it was like to be properly warm or how it would feel to be without the furs they had worn day and night for a month, to have a bath, to sleep in a proper bed in a warm room, with no need for anything more than a nightshirt…. It was a heady prospect. His lips curved in pleasurable anticipation. An entire night of privacy with Sophia Alexeyevna in his arms, naked…