Golden Paradise

by Susan Johnson

  "Everyone has a mistress tucked away in a little house somewhere."

  "Almost everyone."

  "Think what it will do for my reputation," he said, stroking her hand lightly, "if I change the pattern."

  "Think what it will do for the state of your health if you don't." She looked up at him from under her lacy lashes, her glance moderate but firm.

  "Are you threatening me with bodily harm?" Teasing in­souciance infused his words.

  "Absolutely."

  "How nice," he said with a smile.

  "Don't use that charming smile on me, Stefan, I'm dead se­rious."

  "In that case, dushka, I must mend my disreputable ways and start a new trend. We shall make love matches fashion­able."

  "You don't mind?" Her voice was tentative at the enormity of the change she was demanding, at the realistic application of her emotional requirements.

  He thought for a moment of all the years he'd considered a love match the worst possible circumstance, a danger in fact to one's peace of mind. And now, by the grace of God, he was lucky enough to realize how wrong he'd been.

  "No," he said very quietly, "I don't mind."

  Nikki and Alisa were waiting in Stefan's railcar, having been invited to say their goodbyes in private, and they both rose from the comfortable parlor chairs to greet the newlyweds when they entered the door.

  Hugs and kisses were exchanged and pleased wishes ac­cepted for a happy future; the wedding was briefly recapped, they commented on the Tsar's lengthy visit, discussed various guests in passing, and then Alisa went off to the bedroom to help Lisaveta change into a traveling gown.

  Nikki and Stefan sat over brandy, their conversation turn­ing to the newest problem in the war. Nikki, a colonel assigned to the Staff College, served as liaison between the Tsar's ad­visers and the General Staff. "How serious is Hussein Pasha's attempt?" he inquired.

  "It's a deadly gamble," Stefan replied. He shrugged then, because both were familiar with the terrain Hussein Pasha was traveling through. "They could die or possibly succeed. But if they make it, will they be in any condition to fight? Even the mountain ponies need some water."

  "It's a hell of a risk."

  "But you can't help admiring him for trying. He's probably gambling his own colonelcy on it."

  Nikki smiled. "There's always armchair caution at the top."

  "Unfortunately it doesn't win a lot of wars."

  "How costly do you anticipate the attack on Kars to be when it comes?"

  Stefan had been asked that question too many times to count, the fortified city having withstood two major assaults already. But the words this time seemed to strike more personally, and he experienced a brief sense of vulnerability. "It depends," he replied, repressing his sudden precarious sensation of mortal­ity, "on how much ammunition they've stockpiled inside the fortress." His shoulder lifted in the briefest shrug. "We sim­ply don't know."

  "You won't be leading the attack now that—" Nikki paused to select a diplomatic turn of phrase "—you're no longer a bachelor," he finished, deciding against reference to the com­ing child.

  "Of course I will," Stefan replied. "My men expect it." He'd no more think of directing the attack from the safety of the Staff Headquarters behind the lines than he'd consider retreat­ing from battle. His personal leadership was in large part what inspired his troops. He'd always lived with them in the field, undergoing the same hardships, understanding their fears, lis­tening to them talk of their wives and children and lovers. They'd follow him to hell and back.

  And in a few days' time, even if Hussein Pasha's reinforce­ments were added to the defenders of Kars, he'd be leading his men into a kind of hell devised by the Sultan's wish for an in­vincible fortress. That, too, was an enormous calculated gam­ble, but if Kars could be taken the Turkish territories in the East would fall and the Sultan's ministers might be forced to the peace table. If Kars fell, the war could be over. If Kars fell, he could be back in Tiflis in less than a month.

  "I don't suppose it would do any good to say be careful."

  Stefan smiled. "In my own fashion I'm careful." But he understood what Nikki was saying. "And I've reason to be more cautious now," he added. "Will that do?"

  Nikki smiled back. "I know how ridiculous words of pru­dence are in wartime. As if caution ever won a campaign, but…" He sighed. "I know your style of command and it's based more on some goddamned guardian angel watching over you than on any even remote concept of discretion. Take care."

  "I intend to."

  Both men knew their platitudinous words, no matter how well intended, wouldn't last a second in combat. There one acted on instinct and experience. One did what one did best, and Stefan had always won by risk taking.

  "You intend to what?" Lisaveta asked, walking back into the parlor, her traveling dress of forest green bombazine an attrac­tive foil to her golden eyes and peaches-and-cream skin.

  "I intend to love you till the end of time," Stefan chival­rously answered. "Are you comfortable now?" he went on, inclined to change the subject to safer ground.

  "That wedding gown weighed thirty pounds," Alisa said, "although its dazzling splendor was worth the suffering."

  Lisaveta smiled. "One never actually suffers in something that beautiful but, yes, I'm very much more comfortable now." She twirled around, her light silk skirt billowing out in a flut­tering bellshape.

  Nikki and Stefan had come to their feet when the ladies en­tered the parlor. Knowing how pressed Stefan was for time, Nikki took his wife's hand and said, "Since they're holding the train for you, we won't stay any longer. Bon voyage and all our best wishes."

  "You'll let us know how you're feeling," Alisa said, her voice significant in its emphasis.

  "You'll be the first to know," Stefan replied with a smile. "We'll telegram."

  Hugs and kisses were once more exchanged amid promises to write and visit. No one mentioned the war, but when Nikki and Alisa stepped off onto the platform, the train began mov­ing immediately. Stefan's orders were being obeyed.

  "Are you happy?" Stefan asked, his arms around Lise's waist as they stood by the train window, the bustle of the sta­tion passing by with increasing speed.

  "Words pale," she softly replied, leaning back into the solidness of Stefan's body, all the pain and uncertainty of Nadejda in the past, Stefan's love for her wildly real, like his strength. She couldn't have been happier or more content.

  "You must be tired." She seemed small and delicate in his , arms and the day had been grueling. They'd worked nonstop arranging the wedding, then entertained their guests for sev­eral hours more.

  Lisaveta sighed. The evening had been so hectic and chaotic she hadn't had time to think about being tired. Until now. "I am," she said, letting her eyes drift shut for a moment.

  "Anyone would be, darling. The schedule's been brutal. Why don't you take a nap?" he suggested. Slipping his arms from around her waist and taking her hands in his, he turned her to face him. "I'll wake you in, say, two hours." The color was gone from her cheeks and fatigue shadowed her eyes.

  "You'll wake me?" She didn't resist, Stefan's soft bed temptation in her weariness.

  "Promise." His smile was protective. "You and baby need rest."

  Her fingers gripped his in a sudden tightening. "Do you…really think so?" She felt so normal; were other women as uncertain as she?

  Stefan hadn't had time himself to dwell at any length on that possibility, or perhaps he'd suppressed those thoughts with so much at stake in the attack on Kars. The reality of a child could seriously curtail his style of soldiering, which had, until very recently, been his life. And the thought of having a baby was, in honesty, not completely joyous. It was in too many ways terrifying. It made him vulnerable in a precarious world; it in­creased the danger of his existence; it opened up long vistas of "tomorrow" when he'd always lived for today. And his re­sponsibilities, which he'd learned to handle with a practiced skill, were now extended to a wife he lo
ved and soon, perhaps, to a child.

  Would he think of them as the charge was sounded? Would his emotional involvement temper his intuitive sense of survival?

  Would his risk taking be impeded because he had too much to lose?

  He was uncertain of the answers, and that in itself was dis­concerting. He wasn't, as a rule, uncertain.

  But to his wife, he said, "I hope we're having a baby."

  Gazing up at him, she tried to gauge his sincerity. "Good," she said after a small pause, "because Alisa's probably right."

  Stefan grinned. "Nikki certainly seemed sure. I was almost called out."

  Her pale eyes widened. "You weren't forced into this mar­riage?"

  "No, darling, I can't be forced into anything."

  "You're not just being pleasant?"

  He laughed out loud at the notion he'd marry someone "to be pleasant" after escaping designing women for years. "I don't think even my most fervent supporters would see me ob­liging as a bridegroom out of courtesy alone. You are truly loved, darling, make no mistake."

  Lise smiled a contented Cheshire cat smile. "You say the nicest things."

  He grinned. "Years of practice."

  "Which have now come to a screeching halt."

  "Of course." But his grin was still in place.

  "Are you always this accommodating?"

  "Years of practice," he repeated, amusement rich in the words, and he kissed her then to erase her small scowl. "Which," he added a moment later, his mouth still close to hers, his voice quiet and grave, "are now over. Have I told you that I'm looking forward to monogamy?"

  His words warmed her heart, his dark eyes so adoring she felt a contented security as bucolic as a Lorrain landscape. "A novel experience," she softly murmured, her mouth lifted in a very small smile, "for you, I'd guess."

  "But then," he replied, his voice a hushed suggestion, "I'm always open to novel experiences."

  "Libertine." It was a whisper only.

  "Former libertine," he quietly corrected her.

  "You're a married man now."

  "I like the sound of that with you in my arms, and," he went on, no longer jesting, "I didn't think I'd ever have those feel­ings."

  "We've the Turks to thank for our meeting," she reminded him, touched by the peculiar fate that had taken a hand in their destiny.

  "You're right." Mention of the Turks, though, effectively altered Stefan's sense of joy. He had enormous work to ac­complish mapping his plan of attack before the train reached Vladikavkaz. "Sleep now," he gently said, kissing her ten­derly, "and I'll wake you soon."

  The rhythm of the train and the warmth of Stefan's body, the swaying comfort of being held, were all lulling supplement to her drowsiness. "You won't forget to wake me?"

  The gold flecks shone briefly in his black eyes, brilliant like his smile. "Not a chance, sweetheart. This is my only wedding night and I'm not going to miss it."

  While Lise slept, Stefan pored over the maps he'd brought with him, coordinating his cavalry with the infantry move­ments, measuring distances from the artillery positions, trying to estimate the weakest approaches to the city, guessing with calculated experience which defenses would be shored up against attack and which, perhaps, would not. He knew the Turks after all the years of border skirmishing; he knew how Mukhtar Pasha and Mehemet Pasha thought. What he didn't know was the extent of the munitions stored within Kars and, even more daunting, whether the reinforcements coming from the west would reach Kars before him.

  He shouldn't have left, of course; he knew that now with a gut-level intensity. But at the time the risk had been minimal or no risk at all. He'd weighed it against his need for Lisaveta and decided he'd have more than a safe margin to accomplish his trip and return. And if Hussein Pasha hadn't decided on this suicide march he'd be well within his schedule. Unfortunately, he was racing against time now. The track to Vladikavkaz had been cleared so his train wouldn't encounter any delays, the engineer had orders to proceed at top speed—Stefan had been assured they could cut ten hours from their normal run—and he was relying on his intrinsic luck after that to carry him through.

  Slightly more than two hours later he glanced at the clock on his desk, finished the southwest angle of attack by noting the cavalry regiments to be held in reserve and, setting aside his maps, leaned back in his chair and stretched. The muscles across his shoulders ached and he flexed his arms briefly to re­lax the tension. So much depended on the attack, so much de­pended on his assessment of their options. The western campaign in Bulgaria and Romania would be dramatically in­fluenced by the success or failure of the attack on Kars.

  And failure was unthinkable.

  He'd never failed.

  Standing, he pushed his chair back and strode to the win­dows. Lifting aside the heavy draperies, he stared out into the blackness rushing by, only an occasional twinkle of light in a distant dwelling evidence of another living being. He felt very much alone in the luxurious railway car, as though he stood a solitary figure in a dark void, as though the entire burden of the war's success were on his shoulders. He must be more tired than usual, he thought, to feel the depression so intensely. Much of the burden of the Tsar's wars had been his responsibility for years now and he'd never felt the weight so oppressively.

  Perhaps the siege had lasted too long; perhaps they should have attacked sooner; maybe he was experiencing a sense of lost opportunities at not being more insistent in his views in the staff conferences. Shaking away his thoughts of what might have been, he walked to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a small cognac. It was futile to ponder days and weeks that were past, he reminded himself as the first draught of fiery liquor traveled down his throat. He'd never been prone to dwell on unalterable circumstance and he refused to be cast into gloom.

  Tomorrow he'd finish the cavalry placements and then be­gin to deal with Suvarov's artillery sketches. He'd told the old general, who'd come up through the ranks on competence alone, that he could help him pinpoint some of the weaker areas in the Turk's defenses after his months of scouting Kars dur­ing the siege. Suvarov's artillery was critical in the period be­fore the attack, and then Stefan's cavalry was the assault arm for the infantry. They had to break through the redoubts, they had to silence the cannon commanding the heights, they had to open the way for the foot soldiers… all possible with the right spirit and elusive, fickle luck. His cavalry had always triumphed in the past, for Russia, for his Tsar…and for his father's memory.

  His own future, though, was measured in different proportions from the unstable impetuosity of his past, when time was reckoned by the next battle or the next pretty lady in the next convenient bed. His expanded future included a beautiful woman he loved with a passion that colored his every thought. And soon he might have a child to carry on the Bariatinsky dynasty, a child he cherished already when he dared to plan beyond Kars.

  "For you, Mama and Papa," he softly said, raising his glass to the black night speeding by. "You would have loved them." Taking a deep breath, he added in a husky murmur, "And to luck."

  Chapter Seventeen

  He woke her by lying down beside her on his large bed and pulling her into his arms, where he held her for long minutes, her body warm from sleep. At leisurely intervals he mur­mured, "I love you," as though the phrase were verbal confir­mation of his happiness.

  Lisaveta responded with kisses and her own whispered love words, and miles of Russia passed by the darkened bedroom window as they savored their quiet joy. The birch-paneled room was lighted by a single bedside fairy lamp, its pale glow illu­minating a limited golden circle hardly reaching the limits of the bed. The dresser, the photos of Stefan's parents on the wall, the black leather campaign chair that had been his father's, were all in shadow. Stefan was still dressed with the exception of his uniform tunic, discarded in the parlor beside his rolls of maps. His long lean body stretched beyond the brilliance of the crys­tal lamp, the turquoise silk coverlet crushed beneath his boots, hi
s bare torso and arms and slender hands swarthy against Lisaveta's paler flesh and primrose gown. She was tucked close to him, like a small child still half-asleep, her feet covered by the folds of her nightgown. Nestled in the strong curve of his arm, she was thinking she would tell her grandchildren someday how the entire world seemed to be laid at her feet that night in the rushing train traveling south across Russia.

  "I've always been lucky," Stefan softly said, touching the delicate sweep of her jaw, trying to put his feelings into words.

  "I believe in Gypsy fate and jinns," Lisaveta breathed, her quiet voice imbued with a solemn intensity, understanding what Stefan meant. "I think I always knew you'd appear some­day."

  His gaze altered minutely and a teasing infused his words. "It took me longer to realize."

  "You loved me," she finished with a surety he admired.

  "Yes," he agreed. "Although," he went on, irony promi­nent in his tone, "my timing could have been better."

  "We've time now," she said, and reached up to kiss him.

  "Three days," he murmured against the softness of her mouth.

  "For our honeymoon…"

  And for mapping the last details of the attack, he thought. "For our honeymoon," he affirmed, and kissed her very gently.

  He undressed her slowly then, untying ribbon bows and un­doing small pearl buttons with a delicate slowness. He was in no hurry. In fact, he felt a rare and uncommon drama as if his wedding night should be approached with a kind of leisured sensitivity so it wouldn't end too soon.

  Lisaveta sat tranquilly in his lap, absorbing the tactile plea­sure of Stefan's touch, the gentleness of his fingers, the brush­ing sensation of her gown slipping from her body, the strength of Stefan's legs beneath her, the warmth emanating from his powerful frame. Extraordinary feelings of possession over­came her. He was her husband, the word and the sentiment that went with it ones of potent pleasure and startlingly aphrodi­siac. It surprised her she would feel that way, that having mar­ried him she would want him more, she could love him more, she could feel the heat of his body, his touch, even the sound of his voice, with increased intensity.