Golden Paradise Part 5

"If you need anything, Excellency, the staff is at your disposal." His tone was moderate, but aware of the warrior code so prevalent in this area of the country, Lisaveta wondered precisely what "anything" implied.

"We'll begin by clearing the palace," Militza briskly said. "Please have everyone out by morning. Stefan should appreciate that interference from his fiancee."

"Excellent idea, Princess." Georgi reminded her, grinning from ear to ear.

"I know," Militza winked. "Have a pleasant holiday."

"Won't he be angry with you?" Lisaveta asked as soon as Georgi left. She was unfamiliar with palace intrigue, her own tranquil life with her father insufficient education for the subtleties of manipulating people. As an only child with her father alone for company, Lisaveta was unaccustomed to the machinations of society. "'What if Stefan discovers what you've done?"

"I expect he will first thing in the morning. Actually I'm counting on it, but then I'm only accommodating his fiancee," Militza replied, her sweet tone one of unalloyed delight. "The one," she reminded Lisaveta, "he picked out in three days because she best met his requirements for stability."

"I see," Lisaveta said when she didn't see at all, when she envisioned instead a tangle of complications and disorder. "You can't mean stability," she added, as the word registered. "Not for Stefan. He lives his life on the brink."

"As did his father before him." Militza expelled a small sigh: "Which is the basic problem." She looked into the golden liquid in her winegla.s.s for a brief moment before her gaze came up and she went on, "You must know of Stefan's father's lengthy liaison with Princess Davidow and the scandal."

"Only vaguely," Lisaveta answered. "Father was reclusive after Maman died. His studies absorbed him increasingly-to fill the void of Maman's loss, I suppose. As I grew older, they occupied me, as well." It was natural she'd adopted her father's field of study since she'd always traveled with him. "The only scandal I'm fully aware of," Lisaveta added, smiling a small rueful smile, "is Stefan's reputation for amorous intrigue."

Militza shrugged. "A young man's normal interest," she said. "His father's scandal, though, is going to ruin Stefan's life." She looked at Lisaveta across the remnants of dinner. "He hasn't said anything to you of his family?"

"Nothing except you wouldn't mind me as a guest. As you saw earlier today," she went on, her fingers tracing the pattern of the tablecloth in a nervous gesture, "he hadn't even mentioned he had a fiancee."

"He didn't expect her to be here, although that's no excuse, only an explanation... and in a way, perhaps that omission is typical of Stefan. Because of his background, he rarely confronts emotion directly."

"Do you think so?" Lisaveta's question was contemplative more than inquiring, for in many ways Stefan was an intensely emotional man.

"In terms of his family, at least," Militza said, and Lisaveta had to agree. In those terms he'd been extremely reticent.

"There was a love affair, wasn't there," Lisaveta said, trying to recall the exact circ.u.mstances, "between Field Marshal Bariatinsky and-"

"My sister." Militza's words seemed suspended for a moment in the quiet of the room.

"Stefan's mother?"

"Yes. They shocked society by living together openly all the years of the Field Marshal's Viceroyalty of the Caucasus, although my sister, Damia, was married to another man. When Stefan was born, our parents adopted him to ensure the continuity of the Orbeliani line and fortune. I had no children, there was only Damia and myself, and if Damia's husband wished to, he might have laid claim to the child. Indeed, he would not allow a divorce, vowing to fight a divorce action to his last rouble. The potential for complications, as you can see, was enormous." Her explanation was rapid and direct, as though the words had been said a thousand times before.

"I knew of the Field Marshal, as every schoolchild does, but not-" Lisaveta hesitated, searching for a polite phrase "-of... the entire background." How extreme were the contrasts in their childhoods, she thought. Stefan's life had been led in the glare of publicity from birth while hers had been almost a country hermitage.

"You knew, then, that Stefan's father was forced to resign the Viceroyalty. Damia's husband, after opposing divorce for years, suddenly inst.i.tuted proceedings, naming the Field Marshal as correspondent. After twenty-five years of valorous service to the Tsar, his career was over.'

Militza must have been a young and elegant lady then, Lisaveta thought, as diminutive and darkly beautiful as a Persian miniature. "How devastating for him... for everyone," Lisaveta said, and how wretched, she thought, for a young boy trying to understand.

Militza sighed again, recalling the heartache and sorrow. "The Field Marshal and Damia were married in Brussels after the divorce, but I'm afraid the example of what overpowering love can do to a proud man had a profound effect on Stefan. At the time his father was relieved of his viceregal post, Alex was at the zenith of his career, and while the Tsar still sought his advice, for they had been companions since childhood, his hands were tied. As Viceroy, Alex embodied the Emperor and as such couldn't be correspondent in a divorce proceeding. He had no choice but to step down. He was forty-five."

"How old was Stefan?"

"Ten."

She had been six when her mother died in a riding accident, and that loss had tempered her entire life. "How much did Stefan know...of...the events?" she inquired, trying to imagine him as a young child, coping.

"He seemed to grow up overnight."

And in those hushed words her question was answered. "How sudden was the change?" Lisaveta inquired, her own voice oddly m.u.f.fled, and at Militza's expression she answered herself. "It was sudden. They lived abroad, didn't they..."

"At first they retired to Alex's estate in Kursk, but he was restless, still raging with life. He couldn't stand the confining tranquillity of country living. He was a conqueror with nothing to conquer and he needed distractions." Militza had always felt the wreckage of such an ill.u.s.trious career could not have been the happiest foundation for a marriage, and the procession of half-lived days-then years-at Plombieres, Ems, Baden-Baden, the capital cities of Europe, had to have been touched with regret along with the ennui. "They left Russia," she explained, "after just two months at Kursk, taking only two servants and Damia's jewels. From that point on the family's aimless wanderings from spa to spa in Europe began destroying Alex. Stefan watched his father turn to morphine, saw his health worsen until he died at Ems when Stefan was fifteen. Damia committed suicide two weeks later. I sometimes think," Militza said, recalling the vivacious dark beauty of her sister, "Stefan blamed his mother for the loss of his father...or blamed love. He made up his mind then never to lose his soul to a woman, a principle he's adhered to for over a decade now."

"And yet he's marrying."

"For an heir. Both the Bariatinsky and Orbeliani fortunes require one, and I must confess my insistence may have had something to do with his decision. His style of soldiering does leave one holding one's breath."

"He never spoke of...this," Lisaveta softly said. "How sad it must have been to lose both your parents so young." How terrible it must have been for Stefan, she thought, to see his father die so uselessly.

"And yet in many ways he was very lucky to have parents who loved him so," Militza declared. "He was doted on from the cradle. Alex had led a life much like Stefan's has been the last many years, known for its searching the limits of sensation in love and war. When he fell in love with my sister, Damia, many thought it inexplicable. But-" Militza half closed her eyes for a moment, against that memory and her own "-love is... mystifying, is it not?" She sat more upright abruptly, as if relinquishing hold on all the memories from her past. "Stefan was Alex and Damia's only child. He was the center of their world-which may both explain and condemn him to his present path."

"I don't understand how he can be so ruthless about his own marriage after seeing and experiencing such love. Surely the circ.u.mstances..."

"Stefan was deeply scarred by the manner of his father's death. Alex had been Russia's greatest hero for a quarter of a century, yet he died in exile." She leaned her head against the chair back and briefly shut her eyes. How often had she wondered what might have been if Alex's enemies hadn't persuaded Davidow... "You can see," she said, opening her eyes, "Stefan's childhood was... unusual."

"It certainly explains, in some ways, his choice of a wife. Nadejda and her parents appear on good terms with the current Viceroy. How does Stefan feel about the man occupying the position once held by his father?"

"There is deep-seated animosity. Melikoff is the son of the man who replaced his father. He holds a post Stefan might have inherited."

"Does Stefan know Nadejda's parents are visiting the Viceroy?"

"I didn't tell him, but he found out," his aunt said, blunt as a hammer blow, "from the servants."

"You wouldn't have told him?" Lisaveta's words were blurted in astonishment. She had been reared to honor simple truth.

"I wanted him to find out from his fiancee. She has such an irritating way about her."

"He may not find her irritating."

Militza treated Lisaveta to a candid stare. Her eyes were dark with kohl in the fashion of the Caucasus, and brilliant with derision. "He hardly notices her."

It was unkind, but Militza's words consoled her; had Stefan adored Nadejda she would have been... what? Unhappy? Dejected? Jealous? Taking a serious grip on the reality of the situation, Lisaveta reminded herself that her feelings were incidental to the facts. Stefan was engaged; Nadejda was his fiancee. Whether she or Militza envisioned problems in the marriage was irrelevant. But a niggling voice wasn't so easily acceptant of rational argument, and she found herself saying, "Have you tried to talk to him about...well...his feelings for Nadejda?"

And she knew that one thoroughly unrealistic part of her longed for Militza's answer to match her own ideal.

Was it the wine? She'd always considered herself immune to fairy tales. But then Stefan had opened a new world to her in the days past, a world in which poetry took corporeal form and creative fancy was dream and fantasy and extravagant, breath-held actuality all in the same moment. Maybe she'd begun to believe in fairy tales after all.

"I've talked to him a hundred times," Militza said, arranging the used silver on her dessert plate as if their balanced placement might somehow carry over into Stefan's life. "I've tried every imaginable argument," she went on, exasperation and remorse equally audible in her voice, "in the months since his engagement took place. I've tried reasoning with him- about the merits of at least a mild affection as basis for marriage. I've suggested he consider spending some time with his fiancee before he makes a final decision. I've pointed out to him the negative aspects of his future in-laws in terms of their humanity-or lack of it. He listens without argument, but he's obstinately determined in his course.

"He says love is dangerous.

"He says most of his friends have married for dynastic reasons...most of society, for that matter.

"He says the kind of love he wants is readily available... and he doesn't have to marry it.

"He says his marriage is a pragmatic step-a career decision." Militza sighed again, wishing she could transfer wholesale to her nephew all she knew of the beauty and fullness of love, and then promptly apologized for her pessimism. "You must think me addled to first tell Stefan to marry and then complain of the style of his choice, but I want more for him than what he chose," she said in a quiet voice. "I want more for him than a career decision. And, frankly, I'm at my wit's end. Do you know how close he is to marrying that... that-"

"Beautiful prig?"

"You're too kind." Militza's snort of disgust at the vacuous young Nadejda flared her fine nostrils. "I'd use harsher words, beginning with empty-headed and stupid."

"She's very young." Lisaveta felt obliged to try to maintain a certain impartiality.

"That's no excuse. You're not much older but your brain functions."

"My education was-" Lisaveta paused, considering the numerous inadequacies of her nonfeminine instruction "-a man's education, I'm afraid. While I've always appreciated the variety of my schooling, much of a female nature was neglected. Nadejda, no doubt, has superior skills in those areas." Beginning when she was seven, her father had drawn up a liberal educational schedule for his only child. It had been balanced: languages, eight ultimately; poetry, of course; mathematics, engineering, literature, experimental agriculture and carpentry-to give her a practical bent. But he'd overlooked the feminine refinements.

"You needn't be so gracious." That kind of intrinsic compa.s.sion reminded Militza of Lisaveta's father. He'd been an outrageously benevolent man. "Nadejda does not possess superior skills, save those of arrogance."

"You must admit she experiences no discomfort in arranging an entire viceroyal staff. I couldn't say the same for myself. There are times, particularly now that I've seen Stefan in situ as 'Prince,' that I feel Papa and I led a very unsophisticated life."

"That was Felix's fault," Militza a.s.serted. "He should have had you brought out in Saint Petersburg." Although, she mused, perhaps Lisaveta's attraction to Stefan was that precise lack of feminine accomplishments, the kind he'd seen used to inveigle and entrap, the kind he'd learned to evade with such practiced finesse.

"Papa was always too busy on a new project to take the time. I've never been to a ball, not a real one," Lisaveta said. "The parties in the country were informal gatherings."

"You do dance?" Militza mildly interrogated, considering a new tack in her offense against Nadejda. The Countess was the only woman Stefan had ever brought home; even his note referring to her possible visit had held within its spare language a sense of happiness. Perhaps the beautiful Countess could open Stefan's eyes to the deficiencies in his fiancee. Perhaps the lovely Countess could prevail where reason and logic had failed.

"Yes, Papa hired a dance master from Paris to teach me." Lisaveta smiled at the memory of her father taking time each afternoon to watch her at her lessons. "Now that I've learned Papa was such a fine dancer, his interest in that single modish skill doesn't seem so odd."

"Marvelous!"

Militza's response was so forcefully expressed that Lisaveta's brows rose in surprise.

"Stefan likes women who dance well," Militza said in answer to Lisaveta's startled reaction.

"From his reputation," Lisaveta levelly said, "he apparently likes women for a variety of reasons."

"You'd understand that better than I." Militza's smile was warm.

Lisaveta blushed...from her decolletage, past her pearls and up her throat to her cheeks.

"You needn't be bashful." Militza's gaze was direct but cordial. "There's nothing nicer in the world than love and lovers."

"Now I am embarra.s.sed." The rose flush on her face turned more vivid, and Lisaveta's expression was one of artless misbehavior.

"Nonsense," Stefan's aunt retorted, her voice genial. "You're perfect for Stefan and he's obviously enamored, since he brought you home. He's never done that before." How sweet her innocence, Militza thought, and how rare; Stefan must be enchanted by such chaste virtue.

"I shan't be staying." Lisaveta spoke as David might have to Goliath, with resolution starching an inherent uncertainty.

"Why not?" Militza was genuinely shocked. After Stefan's extraordinary invitation into his home, she didn't think a woman alive would refuse his hospitality.

"I have responsibilities at home." In exactly that manner an angel might refuse the devil's temptation.

"I suppose it's Nadejda," Militza said bluntly, realizing she wasn't dealing with the usual style of aristocratic paramour Stefan favored, who would have found Nadejda no more than a minor inconvenience.

"As a matter of fact, yes," Lisaveta answered as bluntly, omitting mention of a variety of other reasons impelling her departure, reasons less clearly enunciated, less intelligible.

Reasons having to do with desire and temptation and a man who could raise the temperature of the Arctic with a smile.

"I do wish you'd reconsider staying," Militza said, dismissing Nadejda's presence in much the same way her nephew had. "Dinner tomorrow should be interesting."

Interesting, Lisaveta thought, was a mild word for the collision of forces about to take place. "You're attending?" she asked, wondering if she'd misunderstood.

"I have a feeling," Militza said with soft sarcasm, "my bridge party will be canceled at the last minute. Nadejda," she went on, her voice dangerously smooth, "doesn't realize who she's up against with Stefan."

"If my own feelings weren't enough to spur my departure, certainly the prospect of dinner tomorrow night with Nadejda's parents, would be sufficient incentive," Lisaveta said, amus.e.m.e.nt prominent in her pale eyes. "I wish you luck, with Mama and Papa in attendance."

"It's going to be dreadful, isn't it," Militza said, her voice sunny with expectation. "And none of Stefan's staff available."

"And only French cuisine," Lisaveta added, p.r.o.nouncing the word with Nadejda's precision.

"And gentlemen's wines... from France." Militza was patently jovial. "I can't induce you to stay?"

Lisaveta laughed. "Never. The thought of Nadejda's mama and papa terrifies me completely."

"A shame. Of course, you must do what you think best, but between the two of us," Militza said archly, "I'm sure we could open Stefan's eyes to the multiple inadequacies dear Nadejda possesses. It would surely be an act of the greatest charity."

"Charity?" Lisaveta murmured, smiling slightly.

"Our Christian duty, my dear." Stefan's aunt was happily smug.

"Seen from that perspective, I wish I could help. I've never actually been involved in an act of Christian charity. Papa, you see, wasn't of a religious bent." She was teasing, but then so was Militza.

"Pshaw, my darling Countess, your sweet kindness to Stefan was definitely charitable."

The teasing light in Lisaveta's eyes was instantly replaced by something more grave. The splendor of Stefan's affection required no charitable impulses to enjoy. He offered paradise as a gift... and laughter and pleasure. "You mistake my reasons for staying with Stefan the past week," Lisaveta quietly said.

"No, my dear, I don't," Aunt Militza replied, her own tone serious, as well. She'd seen much of the world, had been married twice and enjoyed her share of lovers in her youth. She understood Stefan's attraction to women.

"Then you know why I must leave. It's a matter of pride."

"I understand," Militza said, herself a product of a regal line dominated by Queens. "But Stefan will be disappointed."

"Not for long, I'm sure."

Stefan's aunt stared for a moment at the golden liquid in her winegla.s.s, debating how honest to be with the young woman so new to Stefan's life. And then she decided Lisaveta was not only intelligent but perceptive in terms of human nature. "I suppose you're right," she ambiguously answered, choosing at the last second something less than blunt honesty. To date, no woman had interested Stefan for more than a month, and that was the unflattering truth.

Militza's reply was no more than Lisaveta had expected, and while she knew she was right about leaving, her decision didn't allay the sense of loss she was feeling, as though some golden idyll had come to an end-an absolute, unequivocal end. But leave she must, or eventually bear the humiliation of Stefan making that decision for her. "I think I'll try to depart early tomorrow before the bustle of Nadejda's replacement staff overwhelms the household."

"Before Nadejda rises, you mean."

Lisaveta nodded. She had no wish for further conversation with Stefan's future bride.

Sympathetic to Lisaveta's feelings, Militza said, "I'll order a carriage for you then at, say, seven?" She looked to Lisaveta for confirmation.

"Thank you. The sooner I leave, the more comfortable I'll feel."