Golden Paradise Part 11

"Yes, darling, Lise," Stefan said, exhaling deeply, "you definitely are."

"I don't know," she playfully said, pleased he wasn't so enamored with all his other women, pleased her wanted her more, pleased with a female vanity she hadn't realized she possessed that he couldn't satisfy his desire for her, "if I like being called an aberration."

"Would you prefer seductive witch?" He was up on one elbow now, gazing at her as she lay beside him on the green mossy bank, his dark eyes amused.

She pursed her lips in mock disapproval. "It smacks of evil."

"Well, this pleasure is certainly not that. Do you like-" he traced a light finger down the column of her neck "-delightful nymph?"

She considered for a moment, as if this discussion were one of substance, then with reservation said, "Too poetical, Stefan, darling. I'm an archrealist."

He could have argued with her a.s.sessment. The unreality of their holiday together was so far removed from the mundane that he questioned at times whether he'd died and gone to heaven. "Delectable charmer," he pleasantly offered, "or captivating enchantress?"

Her eyes narrowed transiently at the ease with which his descriptions flowed. "Do you have many of these?" she softly inquired.

"Thousands," he teased.

"In that case I'm leaving," she responded with a hotness not altogether feigned. He'd said all these things before to too many women, and green demons of jealousy ate at her reason. Even the beauty of his body, as he lay, nude and virile, irritated those feelings. How many women had seen him so? Relaxed and charming, perfection in face and form.

"Going where?" he mildly inquired, his gaze surveying the mountain peaks surrounding them.

"Away... home... into some other man's arms," she heatedly said, wanting revenge for all his past lovers, in words at least.

"In that case, I'll have to tie you to my bed."

His calmness more than his statement shocked her. "You wouldn't!"

"In a minute," he said, his eyes having lost their amus.e.m.e.nt at talk of another man.

"I don't believe you," she replied.

"Leave then and test me." He hadn't moved in his lazy sprawl, but a new alertness was evident, as though he were coiled to spring at any suggestion of movement.

"You mean it, don't you?" she softly asked, astonished at how little she knew the man she'd been in constant company with for more than two weeks.

"I'm a possessive man," he replied as quietly as she. He was, but never before with women. He chose to overlook the significance of this discrepancy, knowing only that he wouldn't let her leave. Too many generations of royal blood, both Russian and Persian, flowed through his veins, too many tribesmen owed him obeisance, too many regiments obeyed his commands, to nurture humility. He would take what he wanted and keep it until he no longer wished it.

"I want to be alone," Lisaveta whispered, this new image of Stefan a chill shock to her senses.

"Don't go far" was all he said, as King Darius might have commanded a harem girl centuries ago.

And when she rose from his side and walked away, he watched her, no benevolence visible in his eyes.

Lisaveta sat on a window seat in a small parlor on the far side of the lodge, away from Stefan and Stefan's room. Wrapped in a soft mohair robe, her knees drawn up to her chin in a contemplative pose, she was trying to come to terms with the fact that she loved a man who was anathema to many of her most fervent beliefs.

How was it possible, she thought, her fingers smoothing in an unconscious gesture of indecision over the soft white wool of her robe.

She'd always a.s.sumed one fell in love with someone who idealized those principles one most cared for oneself, a man who was handsome but also kind and loving and imbued with a certain humanity. Was that all fantasy-the ideal, the perfect Prince Charming melded into her naive image of love? Was this even love she was feeling? Perhaps it was only sensual infatuation for Russia's most lionized hero. Was this overwhelming need to be close to Stefan love or merely obsession from another female hero-worshiper?

She wished she weren't so unpracticed and unfamiliar with the sensation. Since she'd never been in love she had no guidelines or experience to draw on. And Stefan never spoke of love. He spoke of adoration and enchantment, of need and desire, but never love.

That omission, she realized, was the dilemma in her own uncertainty. If his declarations were of love, would she even be questioning her feelings? She wouldn't, she sadly thought. She would be joyously oblivious to this unhappy speculation...

So how did she deal with her emotions in the absence of any reciprocal declarations from Stefan? The one she'd wrung from him to love only her for their holiday time had been carefully worded-although in truth, those days ago, her demand had been as inchoate as his answer was glib.

Can you love a man who not only sees a woman in an inherently subservient role but is quite literally deluged with submissive women willing to love him on any terms?

Her answer, she sorrowfully realized, was yes.

Can you love a man who not only is engaged to be married but is callous and selfish enough to leave his fiancee in pursuit of his own pleasure?

That answer too, after a minimum of introspection, was also yes.

Can you love a man who plans to leave you when his furlough is over with nothing more than a goodbye?

She touched the texture of the native rug covering the window seat, as though an answer lay beneath its rich and glowing color like a jinni in a bottle. It had been woven, Stefan had said, in Haci's village, and its colors were the favorite deep scarlet of the local tribes, contrasted with decorative detail in the expensive indigo carried overland from the East. Her pale hand lay on the stylized flame motifs, their crimson tones like blood, juxtaposing the fluffy white mohair of her robe and the rug's dramatic geometric designs, a stark contrast in color and tactile image, a contrast, too, of metaphoric innocence and the austere symbols of Stefan's tribal world. She didn't have the hard resilience of Stefan no matter how much she favored independence; she would never understand completely the primitive savagery of his background. She was a scholar, and he was a man of action.

Who unfortunately saw women as only adjuncts to his life- minimal adjuncts.

She sighed dramatically because she was alone and the sensation was comforting, and then she sighed again because there was satisfaction in her silliness. She smiled a little after that, thinking she was indeed being melodramatic beyond all sensible proportions. It wasn't as though she'd been deceived about Stefan's intentions from the very beginning. He'd been careful to promise nothing.

Now she wanted to blame him for her own vast affection when he wanted neither love nor blame. He only wanted the pleasure of her company.

Papa had once said years ago, on a rare occasion when he spoke of Maman that he treasured the time they had together as a gift from G.o.d and he had Maman always in his memory. Maybe she should deal as appreciatively with her time on Stefan's mountain. Maybe life didn't always transpire exactly according to one's wishes. Maybe she was as selfish as she accused Stefan of being for wanting him to change his life for her.

Stefan, on the other hand, didn't question his feelings of happiness. Lisaveta was superb, she was beautiful and pa.s.sionate, she entertained him with her charm and intelligence, she was grace and elegance and also girlish innocence in scintillating variations he found forever exciting. She wasn't a woman with a predictable personality and manner-the kind he always grew bored with. He'd experienced no sense of jaded ennui with Lisaveta and they'd been in continual company for more than two weeks. If he'd contemplated the novelty of that circ.u.mstance, perhaps their feelings would have been more in accord. Prince Stefan Bariatinsky, however, prided himself on his hedonist principles, and contemplation of any kind was nonessential.

He thought instead in practical terms. The Countess was unhappy and pouting or pouting and angry or any combination thereof, all of which could probably be satisfactorily relieved by a handsome gift or two or ten. Since his mountain lodge was often used for his amorous entertainments, and since females were p.r.o.ne to emotional outbursts and tears, he kept a ready supply of restorative baubles on hand.

So he rose from his languorous repose near the pool shortly after Lisaveta entered the house and, after dressing, went to his study, where his safe was housed. Pulling out a large chamois bag from it, he proceeded unceremoniously to dump its contents on his desktop. The jewels and jewelry and small carved animals in semiprecious stones fell out in a tumble of color, fractured light and glitter.

Spreading them out with one abrupt motion of his palm, he searched the disarray for items that would appeal to Lisaveta. Her hair was a rich chestnut but not so dark that dramatic jewels were appropriate, and her temperament was so naive and green-gra.s.s new at times that he automatically thought of pearls. Drawing out a three-strand necklace clasped with a pale rose of South Seas coral, he set it aside. The gold diamonds caught his eye next as though they were nudging his thought process. Of course, he realized with sudden delight, the rare pale yellow diamonds from India were a perfect match for her eyes. He lifted the drop earrings from the scattered jumble of rainbow hues.

They had once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the jeweler had boasted. After the revolution they had found their way into Catherine the Great's collection along with many other emigre treasures. They brought one luck, the jeweler had added, at which point Stefan had skeptically raised a brow, since Marie Antoinette's life had not been crowned with success. "The earrings, Your Excellency, were her maidservant's means of escape from Versailles so they were lucky, you see-they bought her life."

Stefan smiled now at his recollection of the jeweler's wide-eyed recitation of the little maid's miraculous escape from the guillotine, and holding the oddly pear-shaped diamonds up to the light, he thought how perfect the pale jewels would look against Lisaveta's golden skin. Her skin glowed as though it were touched by the soft paint of sunset or kissed by a warm morning sun. It made one want to touch it to see if it was as warm as it looked. And he remembered in the next flashing moment how she felt beneath him, how she did feel warm, with the sensual heat of welcome and pa.s.sion.

He set the earrings beside the pearl necklace and then plucked out two tiny jade turtles, because Lisaveta had admired a small water turtle yesterday at the pool. She'd mentioned that that particular color was rare where she lived and had blushed when he'd complimented her on the rarity of her beauty.

He wanted more, though, than the usual gift of jewelry; he wanted something to make her smile again. Something special. It came to him a moment later as he sat at his desk mentally eliminating all the habitual gifts he gave to his lovers-the female gifts of furs or perfume or gowns.

Hafiz.

He found her five minutes later after searching the upstairs first. When he entered the room she turned her head but didn't speak.

"Don't be unhappy," he said immediately. "I'll be very good from now on." He smiled then like a contrite young boy.

He looked very much unlike a small boy, though, in the loose leather breeches worn by the mountain warriors and an embroidered shirt in the same gunmetal gray. His feet were bare, his shirt open at the neck, and all he lacked was a gold earring to take on the full-fledged appearance of a brigand. His deeply bronzed skin and overlong hair did nothing to dispel the image of bandit, and when he pulled out the handful of jewels from his pocket, offered them to her on his open palm and said, "My apologies, mademoiselle," she thought for a moment she'd been transported to another time.

But it was not another time really, but actually that Stefan Bariatinsky lived a very similar life to that of his Kurdish bodyguards. "Did you pay for those?" she asked in a voice that gave him to understand that his apology was not instantly accepted.

"In a manner of speaking," he replied, responding to the doubt in her voice. Her question, of course, implied he had not.

"Meaning?" she coolly inquired, thinking him the most beautiful man she'd ever seen and trying without success to remain angry with him.

"Meaning-" he grinned widely "-of course, moppet." He decided he also adored her for her sweet pouty bottom lip, which reminded him strongly of a spoiled little girl. "I paid for them," he a.s.sured her, "or my business agent paid for them, or someone else on my sizable staff in Saint Petersburg brought a smile to Lazant and Sons establishment, I'm sure of it. Now take them."

When she wouldn't, he dropped them into her lap. "The canary diamonds were Catherine the Great's," he said, his grin undiminished. "She was, I hear, pouty like you."

"Which I'm sure your ancestor Orlov was able to mitigate with his..." She let the insinuating pause lengthen.

"Charm?" Stefan offered.

"Is that what you call it?"

"A euphemism of course."

"Blood must run true." It was not a compliment.

"I understand the Kuzans are reputed to be hot-blooded," he replied softly. "Although there are, no doubt, exceptions on the family tree," he added with a mocking irony that implied she was not one of them.

"Is this an argument over pa.s.sion?"

His expression matched his brigand garb, as did his suggestive predatory tone. "I certainly hope so." But he saw immediately that he'd gone too far in his teasing, and with a self-a.s.surance devoid of the insecurities of lesser men, he became instantly conciliatory. His wolfish expression altered into contrition and he said with genuine regret, "I don't want to argue. I don't want you unhappy." His voice, his intonation, his entire manner were without jest. "Tell me what to do."

Everything she wanted to say was melodramatic and infantile. So instead of saying, "Leave your fiancee for me," as she longed to do, she compromised with a statement that told at least half the truth. "Don't be an autocrat with me."

"My word on it," he quietly said. "And?" he prompted her, because he could tell there was more from both her hesitancy and mood.

"There's no 'and,' " she lied.

"But there is. Tell me." He was intent on pleasing her.

She looked down at the necklace and earrings, objects of beauty and luxury so casually given, fingered the two small jade turtles nestled in the white mohair of her robe and sighed, her gaze on the exquisite ornaments. "I don't want to argue anymore, and if I tell you we will. Besides..."

He coaxed her when she didn't continue. "Besides..."

"Nothing, really, darling," and she smiled for the first time since he'd come into the room. Nodding at the book he held in his hand, she changed the conversation from the futile controversy over their differing beliefs. "What's that?"

"Your friend Hafiz." Understanding her tactic, he obliged her.

"He's here? I thought he was at your palace in Tiflis." She was so immersed in the fabric of the poet's life and work that she spoke of him as a living being.

Stefan smiled. "He's both places."

"Let me see." Her voice was excited, her face animated with delight, and he knew he'd selected the right gift.

She moved the jewelry from her lap when he handed her the small leather-bound book and he thought how rare that gesture was in his experience. No other woman he knew would have casually set aside a fortune in jewelry as though she were putting away an empty tea gla.s.s.

When she carefully opened the rare volume to the frontispiece to check its provenance, her face lighted up. "A Baghdad Rotan edition! Where did you ever find it? There's only two outside the Ottoman Empire." She looked up at him quickly. "And this is one of them."

"The other's in Paris."

"They were both in Paris."

"Were," he said quietly.

Her gaze lingered on him for a moment more, as she was reminded of both his enormous wealth and power. How much had it cost him to prize this loose from its former owner? And then the vital opportunity for research overcame her speculation. "May I take notes from it?"

Her eyes were the color of brilliant sunshine. "You may have it," he said.

"I couldn't," she exclaimed. "It's nearly priceless. The ones in Turkey are never displayed. Even the ones I was studying in Karakilisa were only available to me because of my father's long friendship with the Khan."

"If you don't take it," Stefan genially said, "I shall pout."

For a moment she considered both his levity and seriousness. "You mean it."

"You have never seen anyone pout as brutally as I."

Her smile was pure sunshine. "You really mean it." He could have been giving her her complete heart's desire for the joy in her voice.

"I mean it, dushka... truly."

"In that case I accept," she readily agreed, "because you've been a monster and I deserve it, but mostly because I've l.u.s.ted after this book for an eternity."

"You don't like the jewelry."

"Oh yes, Stefan, it's wonderful! I didn't mean to be ungrateful. It's very beautiful and I'll think of you every time I wear it. But, darling, darling, you can't know how much this book means to me."

He found himself strangely jealous on two counts. First, because she had casually mentioned she would remember him with the jewelry as if he were a summer fling at one of the spas, as if she'd think of him later only when clasping the pearls around her neck or slipping Catherine's canary earbobs in her ears. He could visualize her in a year or so, saying to some man she'd married as she put on the yellow diamond earrings, "What was his name again...?" And second, he took mild issue with the adoration in her voice over the book. He envied the d.a.m.n book!

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Lisaveta cried happily. Carefully placing the book on the windowsill, she threw herself at Stefan, wrapping her arms around his neck.

I've thirty more books by Hafiz, he thought smugly, savoring the feel and scent and excitement of this remarkable young woman who'd been thrown into his path on the Plain of Kars. He was looking forward to offering her the remainder of his gift. "You're very welcome, moppet," he murmured, his arms folded around her, her head resting against his chest. "And we're not going to fight again, I promise."

"It's my fault, too," she said softly, clinging to his strong shoulders, knowing she never felt happier than in his arms. "I should overlook your autocratic ways. They're cultural... that's all."

"I'll be better."

"And I'll be more understanding." His voice had a smile in it. "I see only blue skies ahead."

"Without a cloud," she sweetly added.

He laughed. "How long will all this harmony last?"

"Till the end of time or your first surly remark," Lisaveta dulcetly said, "whichever comes first."

"Or yours."