Silver Nights (11 page)

The door to a small parlor stood open, inviting his questing eyes. She was standing at the window, looking out, her appearance as forlorn and despairing as that of a caged bird. He stepped into the parlor, unable to help himself.

Sophie did not know how she knew it was Adam, but she had no need to turn to identify her companion. “I am dying,” she said dully. “Inch by inch, minute by minute—”

“Do not talk such maudlin nonsense!” The lowness of his voice in no way detracted from the fierceness of his tone. He closed the door. “What would your grandfather say to hear you talk such defeatist rubbish?”

“Then I shall kill him,” she said simply. “Only he has taken away my pistol.” Her shoulders sagged again. “I cannot abide knives; I never have been able to.”

Adam covered the distance between them in two long strides. Catching her by the shoulders, he spun her to face him. To touch her after so many weeks of holding himself away from her with a restraint that clenched his muscles, knotted his belly, was like laying hands upon the Holy Grail. The pale oval of her face was upturned, no longer brown with health, the dark eyes seeming larger than ever in its wan thinness, but as he stared into them, a shadow of the former glow shimmered in their depths. Her lips parted. Was it in invitation or surprise?

It was a question of supreme irrelevance, he found, as he kissed her, felt her shudder against him as she had done before, sensed the hunger that matched his own. And this time, augmenting the hunger, was a fierce desperation, a shared desperation. Then she was fighting against the arms that held her, the mouth that caressed her. He drew back and read the fear in her eyes.

“No…no,” she gasped, pulling away from him, one
hand pressed to her warmed, tingling lips, her eyes darting in panic around the room as if in search of a spy. “If we are discovered…”

“Your husband would kill me,” Adam said with a calm that surprised him. “If I did not kill him first.” That look of abject terror upon her face filled him with an icy rage greater than any he had ever felt. “He has gone to the barracks, Sophie.”

“Yes, but Maria…” Again her gaze swept the room, fell upon the closed door.

“Maria?” He frowned, taking her hands. They quivered, cold despite the warmth of the late September day.

“When he sent away Tanya Feodorovna,” she explained, “Maria came in her stead. She is a spy.” It was a flat statement. “Everything I do or say is reported to Paul.” She took her hands out of his. “It is no secret. I am supposed to know of it. Paul repeats things to me at night, when…when he comes to my room.” She wrapped her arms around herself, facing him with a small, bleak smile. “He is a frequent visitor.”

She was another man's wife. His mind filled with the distasteful images conjured by her statement. Adam drew away, burned by the unpalatable truth that he was honor bound to respect. How a man chose to manage his wife was no one else's concern. He was her lord, under God and the laws of the land, and he could make whatever dispositions he thought necessary or convenient. Yet, even as he recognized these truths, Adam could not accept their implications, not when applied to Sophia Alexeyevna.

“I will see if I cannot contrive for you to ride Khan,” he said, moving swiftly to the door, his step agitated, rapid as if he could not get away from her fast enough. “I will do what I can.” Then he was gone.

Sophie stood by the window. The imprint of his lips upon hers, of his arms around her, maintained the impact of reality. Yet, true reality was composed of other lips and arms. Not that her husband ever kissed her; the softness of caresses was no part of the reproductive act, although she assumed he
was fulfilling some other need while he tried to father a child upon her body. The coupling certainly seemed to give him some strange pleasure, and it always brought that gleam of satisfaction to his pale eyes as he looked at her, lying beneath him, spread to receive the assault of his manhood. But somehow she felt that it was not herself he was seeing in her subjection. Curiously, this feeling made it easier to bear, made it easier to separate herself from her body until he left her, returning to his own chamber without a word or a touch.

The contrast between a gray-eyed Polish count with a beautiful mouth that could give such exquisite pleasure, and the cold disdain, hard pale eyes, and thin lips of the man to whom she was wedded made the present even harder to endure. What could have been if fate had taken a different turn was as hopelessly unattainable as a return to the past, when a young woman had ridden the steppes without a care, secure and strong in her own world.

Sophie turned to the door. She could at least visit Khan, even if she was not permitted to ride him. Her husband had not forbidden her to visit the stables. And in the company of Boris Mikhailov she could gain some comfort, although, after the removal of Tanya, they were both careful not to be seen in conclave.

 

It was a week before Adam was able to fulfill his promise to arrange for Sophie to ride Khan. In the planning and execution of an elaborate deception, he found the pleasure of action overcoming the torments of his helplessness. It was not much he was doing for her, yet it would give her inordinate joy. He had to arrange for the absence of the prince, a stable yard deserted of all but Boris Mikhailov, and some way of getting a message to Sophie, explaining his plan.

As it happened, fortune intervened to ease matters for him. A messenger arrived from Czarskoye Selo, the empress's summer palace outside St. Petersburg, requesting information on the present disposition of the Preobrazhensky regiment. It took little persuasion from his colonel for the general to agree that he should answer the imperial summons in person.
All Adam had to do was ensure that the general was obliged to stay at Czarskoye Selo overnight. Sophie could then ride before dawn, before the household was up and about, and be back in her chamber with no one except Boris any the wiser.

Alerting Boris was a simple enough matter. The muzhik, as befitted his previous privileged position with the Golitskov family, was as literate as he was intelligent. He did not blink an eye when the count, riding into the Dmitriev stable yard one afternoon, slipped a folded piece of paper into his palm as he gave his horse into Boris's charge.

Adam strode into the mansion with the attitude of one on an important errand. He asked for the general, although he was well aware that Dmitriev was attending a brigade review. “Then, perhaps I might beg the favor of a word with Princess Dmitrievna,” he said, when informed of the prince's absence. “She could convey my message to the prince. It is of some importance, as it relates to his journey tomorrow.”

It was quite clear from the butler's expression that he was uncertain how to respond. The princess did not receive visitors; it was an unspoken rule. Yet Count Danilevski was not an ordinary visitor. He was the prince's aide-de-camp, frequently in the house, and frequently in her presence, although always in her husband's company.

“I am not sure where the princess is, Count,” he said hesitantly. “Perhaps I could convey your message to His Highness?”

Adam had been afraid of this, knowing that he could not insist upon seeing Sophie if she was not there by chance. He was about to accept defeat and give his fictitious message to the butler when his quarry came into the hall.

“Count Danilevski,” she said on just the right note of surprise and indifference. “My husband is not here, I am afraid.”

“No, your butler was just telling me so. I have a message for him. Perhaps you would be good enough to convey it for me.” He held out his hand in polite greeting.

Sophie curtsied, took his hand, felt the crumpled ball of paper against her palm. There was not so much as a flicker
in her eyes as her fingers closed over the ball, her hand dropped to her side. “What is your message, Count?”

“Why simply that the papers he wishes to take to Her Imperial Majesty tomorrow morning have had to be recopied. However, even if the clerks must work all night, they will be ready for him when he comes to the barracks in the morning.”

A somewhat unnecessary message, Sophie thought, but it did not seem to strike the butler as such. He still stood sentinel in the hall. “Nikolai, you will ensure that His Highness receives the message,” she said with studied indifference. “Good day to you, Count.” A polite smile touched her lips before she turned, walking slowly toward the stairs.

Adam remembered that long-legged stride, the way her skirts swished around her ankles, the crispness of her step, and he contemplated the slow death of General, Prince Paul Dmitriev.

In the privacy of her chamber, Sophie uncrumpled the scrap of paper.
Your husband will not return from Czarskoye Selo tomorrow. If you wish to ride, Khan will be saddled and waiting for you two hours before dawn on the following day. Ride to the north gate of the city. I will meet you outside the gate
.

How did he know Paul would not return the next evening, as was his declared intention? But that did not matter. Her heart lifted in her breast, the blood began to dance through her veins, bringing warmth and a resurgence of the quickness of life. She had not ridden Khan for two months. On the very few occasions she had been permitted to ride, it had been in her husband's company, sidesaddle on a mild-mannered mare. Boris told her that he had been instructed to exercise the stallion regularly on a leading rein, and to give him the best of care. It was the muzhik's somewhat caustic opinion that the prince knew a fine and valuable animal when he saw one, but hadn't yet decided how best to capitalize on this unusual beast.

But now she was going to ride Khan…ride like the wind through the night freshness, through the false dawn, see the
sun rise…. And she was going to share this ecstasy with Adam Danilevski. To be raised from the despondent depths of hopeless acceptance to such dizzying heights filled her with a joy so powerful that she felt almost sick with it.

Joy notwithstanding, she still kept her head, ripping the message into tiny shreds until it resembled confetti. When Maria came into the chamber to help her mistress dress for supper, the maid saw only the neutral expression to which she was accustomed, heard only the flat, resigned tones of a prisoner who has given up all hope of regaining her freedom.

When the prince left her bed that night, he told her that he would depart at dawn and would return in the evening. “You need not wait supper for me,” he said, retying the girdle of his robe. “If I am unable to leave Czarskoye Selo until late in the afternoon, I will not return before ten o'clock. But I will come to you when I have supped.”

“I look forward to it,” Sophie heard herself whisper, insolently sardonic. She froze, praying he had not heard her.

“I beg your pardon, Sophia?” her husband said, frowning.

“I wish you a safe journey, Paul,” she said, closing her eyes, lest he should see the gleam she knew they contained.

“You will remain within doors during my absence,” he told her crisply. “I do not wish to be anxious for your safety, my dear, and will only be easy in my mind knowing that you are protected by my people.” A thin smile touched his lips as he offered this considerate order for imprisonment. Protection meant surveillance, as Sophie well knew, but never did her husband acknowledge the true facts of her existence. Every restraint was presented as an indication of his care for her. He had to be the most caring and considerate husband in St. Petersburg, Sophie reflected ironically as the door closed on his departure. She was quite sure that that was how his constant watchfulness would be interpreted by others once he considered her sufficiently submissive to be permitted to venture forth into society.

Gingerly, she got off the bed, going to the ewer for the cool water that would ease her soreness—the inevitable aftermath of these nightly rapes upon an unprepared and una
roused body. At least tomorrow night she would sleep alone, if Adam kept his promise, and then…She hugged herself with fierce joy as she looked upon the prospect of such a ride in the exclusive company of Adam Danilevski, away from all eyes.

 

When General, Prince Dmitriev arrived the following morning at Preobrazhenskoye, the regiment's barracks, it was to be met with chaos. A fire had started in a wastepaper basket in one of the offices. It had been discovered before it had got out of hand, but there had to be an investigation, an examination to see which documents had been destroyed, an exhaustive search for the careless culprit. The general was obliged to set these matters in train before leaving for Czarskoye Selo. His aide-de-camp could have seen to these things himself, but as that aide-de-camp knew well, when it came to issues of discipline the general preferred to deal with them personally.

The culprit would elude discovery, since no one would suspect Count Danilevski of firesetting, but the regiment trembled as the general set off some four hours later than he had intended, promising with customary cold ferocity that the one responsible would pass six times beneath the rods of a hundred of his comrades.

Fervently trusting that a flayed back was not in his stars, Adam continued conducting the pointless investigation started by his general, and reckoned that Dmitriev could not reach his destination until mid-afternoon, even if he did not stop for dinner. His audience with Her Imperial Majesty would be of several hours' duration, then he would have to eat. It would be well past nightfall before he could start for home. He would not bother; there would be no point in exhausting himself and his escort, when they could leave first thing in the morning, after a night's rest. And by the time he returned, Princess Dmitrievna would be safely back in the house with just a little hope in her heart.

 

Sophie barely closed her eyes all night. Terrified that every sound heralded the return of her husband, she tossed and
turned amidst the fiery tangle of sheets until the clock struck three. All her Berkholzskoye clothes, which she had kept as reminders of the past, although they were hopelessly unfashionable and could not possibly be worn in St. Petersburg society, had been burned at her husband's orders. But she had managed to preserve her riding habit from the grasping clutches of Maria. It was bundled at the back of the garderobe. Now she put it on, feeling as if she was putting on her own familiar self again as the divided skirt freed her stride.