Silver Nights (20 page)

“I could not imagine being cold,” Sophie said, touching his face. “Not now.”

Smiling, he turned his mouth into her palm. “I shall develop eyes in every finger,” he murmured. “Even though I cannot see you, I shall know you in every facet before this night is done.”

A tremor ran through her again. She lay utterly still, poised on the brink of she knew not what, feeling his hands moving over her, drawing aside the pelisse, unfastening the cloak beneath, spreading aside the layers of material until he could sculpt the shape of her beneath the satin gown, and his hands could play upon the rise of her breasts swelling at the low neckline.

Sophie stirred beneath the touch, felt her nipples peak, hard and burning. She moved her own hands to close over his. “I am filling with wonder,” she murmured.

Taking her hands, he pressed kisses into the palms, before lifting her against him so that he could reach the hooks at the back of her gown. Deftly, as if indeed he had eyes in his fingertips, the hooks flew apart. He drew the satin forward over her shoulders, pushing it down to her waist before letting her fall back upon the furs. The little pearl buttons at the front of her chemise slid undone with sensuous ease, and Sophie felt the warm air on her breasts, the kiss of fur against her nipples as he leaned over her, exploring the soft contours
with the delicate tip of a finger before taking each nipple in his mouth, nibbling the rosy crests, his tongue painting fire over the smooth hillocks.

Sophie was cast adrift, floating on a warm, viscous sea that bore her up as if she were weightless. A flat palm slipped inside the layers of clothing gathered at her waist, slipped into the cambric pantalettes beneath her bottom, lifting her so that the wadded material could be pushed down her body. The shocking intimacy of the touch brought a startled gasp to her lips. Paul would grip her hips occasionally with bruising pressure as he expended himself, but it was merely a vessel he touched; the spirit inhabiting that vessel was on some other plane. Not now, though. It was her self touched by the hands of Adam Danilevski, touched in a hungry passion that acknowledged her own.

Her thighs parted involuntarily for the magical quest for her essence. His lips nuzzled her belly so that she stirred and whimpered in pleasure, her body tightening in response. His tongue dipped into the tight bloom of her navel and she was lost in this dark, warm enclosure where delight visited her blind, naked body in ways unimagined, and she could do nothing but lie beneath the pleasure bringer, breathless for the next touch, the next whispering breath.

With sudden urgency, Adam slipped out from the covers. “I have to take off my own clothes, sweetheart. I cannot do so under the covers without letting in the cold.” Swiftly, he shed his garments, while Sophie lay watching him, then the pale shadow of his body came down to her again. His skin was chilled even by that short exposure to the air, and she drew him fiercely against her, imparting her own warmth. Instinctively, she rolled on top of him, pressing her heated body upon his, murmuring with delight at the joining of their skins, the hard thighs beneath her own, the muscular concavity of the belly that seemed made to receive the softness of her own. His hands ran down her back, molding her to him; his heart beat swiftly against her breasts, flattened against his chest; her lips took his with fierce joy as the wanton hunger
demanded satisfaction and he rose in hard, throbbing promise against her thigh.

His hands spanning her narrow back, Adam rolled over, reversing their positions. “Another time, we'll love in that way, sweet.” She could not see his smile, but she could hear it in his voice. “This way, you will stay warm.”

He was inside her, a part of her, filling her with his presence, reaching to her core, and she was taking him, consuming him, as he possessed her. Inextricable, inseparable, minds and bodies meshed, they rose in bliss, hung in ecstasy, fell in joy. And Sophie wept with the wonder of it.

Sophie woke, naked and alone beneath the furs. She lay still, eyes closed, as reality reestablished itself. Slowly, she opened her eyes and sat up, holding the covers securely to her neck. It was daylight, judging by the grimy square of mica in the window aperture of the sleigh. The brazier was still alight. Someone must have replenished it at some point in the hours she had been asleep.

A tiny smile played over her lips. So that was what it was really like? The journey begun on that star-filled night when Adam had first kissed her had reached its goal. Now there was a new journey to make from this fresh beginning. With a smug chuckle, she snuggled down under the furs again, allowing her hands to roam over her warm, soft flesh. In a curious way, she felt as if she had been reborn. As if during those dark days and hurtful nights in the Dmitriev palace she had been serving a species of apprenticeship, a preparation for the moment when, like the butterfly, she could emerge fully fledged from her chrysalis. She was whole, knew herself capable of arousing passion and of fulfilling her own; of inspiring love and of being inspired by it. Womanhood was hers, with all its magical rewards, its obligations and its penalties, and she looked upon the world with the clear sight of one who was finally wide awake.

“Sophia Alexeyevna, you are a shameless slugabed! It is an hour past daybreak.” Adam spoke in laughing reproof as he opened the door of the sleigh. “If we are to reach Berkholzskoye this year, we cannot lie around in barns.”

“I would have got dressed, but I do not know where my clothes are,” Sophie declared with an attempt at lofty dignity. The covers were pulled up to her nose, the dark eyes, glowing with love and the wondrous memories of passion, laughed at him, even as they invited.

It was irresistible. Adam, conscious of the time and his own frailty of will in certain matters, had determined to remain outside the sleigh until Sophie was once more clothed and beyond temptation. Instead, he found himself kneeling on the fur bed, the door closed firmly behind him.

“Your clothes are where you left them last night,” he announced solemnly, removing his gloves before sliding a hand beneath the covers. “Somewhere in here.”

Sophie squeaked in mock dismay as his questing hand found what it sought. It was not seeking her clothes. “Shame on you, Colonel! To take advantage of an innocent maid in such fashion.”

“Innocent maid, my foot!” scoffed Adam. “You are lying on your chemise. Lift up.” The hand assisted her to comply with the instruction and Sophie wriggled seductively against the flat palm. Lust, brilliant in its purity, sparked in the gray eyes. “Damn it, Sophie,” he groaned, moving his hand abruptly. “We do not have time for this. Boris Mikhailov is preparing the horses and you must have coffee and breakfast. Get dressed quickly, now.” He shuffled backward, reaching behind him to swing open the door, but his eyes remained riveted to her face.

“When will we have time?” Sophie asked matter-of-factly, aware of her own arousal, enjoying it even as she lamented the impossibility of its satisfaction at this point.

“It depends what the day brings,” Adam replied, jumping down. “Hurry, now.”

Smiling, Sophie scrabbled under the covers until she had located her various articles of clothing. Putting them on without exposing herself unduly to the air was a cumbersome procedure, but she succeeded eventually and stood up, buttoning the fur pelisse thankfully over what she knew must be the most crumpled muddle beneath.

“Adam, if I am going to spend a month in the same clothes, I am not going to be at all nice to know.” She spoke as she emerged into the frigid gray light of the barn, where a fire still burned, Adam squatting in front of it. “We cannot even wash.”

He stood up from the fire, holding a mug. “Coffee.” He handed her the steaming mug. “I think cleanliness is the least of our problems, Sophie. We cannot afford the luxury of such refined concerns.”

Sophie sipped her coffee, wondering why she felt as if she had been rebuked. She glanced at him over the rim of the mug and saw that his mouth was drawn, his face set, anxiety in the gray eyes. “What is troubling you?”

“The weather,” he said shortly. “Boris says he can smell a blizzard, and the sky does not look at all inviting.”

“Perhaps we should stay here today, then,” she suggested, both practically and hopefully. For all its lack of creature comforts, the barn did provide dry shelter and a measure of warmth.

Adam shook his head almost impatiently. “If we do not move whenever there is the possibility of ugly weather, we will never get anywhere. We cannot spend forever on this journey, and the weather will not improve before the spring.”

Sophie shrugged, draining her mug. “Then let us start. There seems little to be gained by standing around fretting.”

Adam's laugh cracked in the dry air, chasing the worry from his eyes. “That's my indomitable Sophie! There's bread and honey for your breakfast. Eat quickly while Boris and I harness the horses.”

Sophie munched on bread and honey while ensuring the saddlebags were securely packed, shaking out the furs from the sleigh and replacing them. She refilled the brazier with the last of the fire. It was certainly going to be an improvement on the previous day's journeying.

She remembered that cheerful thought later that morning, and the memory brought a hollow laugh. By ten o'clock the sky was as dark as a starless night. Adam's expression became more grim by the moment as he looked anxiously
through the window, rubbing at the dirt with a sleeve as if it would improve the visibility.

“I don't think it's the dirt,” Sophie commented from her cocoon of furs. “Boris has always been able to smell a blizzard.”

Adam merely grunted, continuing his anxious watch until, abruptly, they were enveloped, blinded by an impenetrable yet constantly moving wall of snow. The temperature dropped even further, and the already feeble warmth emitted by the makeshift brazier ceased to penetrate a cold that was almost solid. Sophie found herself struggling for breath.

“Get on the floor!” Adam's voice came, harsh, cracked with effort through the darkness. His hands on her shoulder forced her to the floor. “Pull the furs over your head.”

“But you—”

“Don't argue with me!”

Sophie decided that perhaps she would not. She huddled on the floor, completely covered by furs. It was easier to breathe the trapped air warmed by her body as she crouched, hugging herself. The sleigh was moving so slowly now that when it came to a stop, at first she barely noticed the cessation of movement.

“Don't you move!” Adam's sharp instruction reached her just as a blast of fearsome cold stabbed into her nest. She realized that he must have opened the door, then it banged closed and she was left with the residue of that rapier thrust.

In the minute or so since the sleigh had halted, the snow had drifted above the level of the wooden blades. Adam struggled blindly to the horses, making out the great bulk of Boris Mikhailov astride the lead horse. Shielding his mouth with his arm, the count bellowed up at the muzhik.

Boris's reply was snatched away in the snow, but Adam had realized the problem for himself. The horse that Boris was not riding was turning to ice as the snow froze on contact with his coat. The animal was wracked with violent spasms as it stood, yielding itself to death.

Adam mounted it, grabbing the frozen reins. The metal of the bit was so cold it burned like the heart of a furnace. It
took every vestige of skill for him to get the beast to move, but at last he took a step. Boris's mount moved forward also, and the sleigh inched out of the rapidly icing drift around the blades. Adam, as he knew Boris would be, was obsessed with worry for the other horses, tethered to the rear of the sleigh; Khan, in particular. They had to keep moving, however slowly, just so that the blood would not freeze in the animals' veins.

It was impossible to tell whether they were still on the route. Whirling snow blanked out the landscape so that they moved without direction, without purpose, it seemed. Then Adam became aware of a movement in the veiling whiteness, coming up beside him. Stiffly, he turned his deadened body. A white heat of fury sent the blood shooting through his veins. Sophie, crouched low over Khan's neck, the two other horses on leading reins to either side, was forcing the beasts through the snow, pushing them to increase their speed. Adam bawled at her to get back inside, but the cold froze his lungs, and she ignored him anyway. He could do nothing without stopping, but to stop even for a second would spell disaster. Seething with fury, fueled by terror, he was obliged to accept her presence, knowing, as his own body succumbed to the disembodied sensation of extreme cold, that she must be in the same condition.

For a terrifying half hour, the three of them rode side by side through the storm, until Boris, with supreme effort, raised his arm, pointing with his whip into the white darkness. A shape loomed. Roofed, walled, it was the lifeline without which death was a certainty.

There was a chimney, smoke curling, melting into the snow; outbuildings solidifying, all evidence of a post house. Adam forced himself from his horse; reaching up, he pried Sophie loose from her death grip on Khan's neck, hauling her to the ground. Boris leaned sideways, grabbed the three reins, and drove the sleigh toward the outbuildings, the three horses obeying blindly.

The door of the post house crashed open under the force of Adam's shoulder. He stumbled inside, Sophie, whose legs
would not work, held against him. They found themselves in a room warmed by a vast potbellied stove set into the wall and a fire blazing in the hearth. Adam shoved Sophie so close to the fire she was almost inside it, then he took stock. Faces—a whole crowd of faces—stared at him through a smoky haze; children, men, women, two ancients rocking beside the stove. The earthen floor swarmed with dogs, cats, chickens, and a goat. They had fallen upon a post house of the most primitive kind, but its one room, although fetid, was warm.

He forced his lips to move. “My servant needs help with the horses.” His hand plunged into his pocket, pulling out a leathern pouch. Stiffly, fingers fumbling, he extracted a coin, handing it to a brawny lad. “There'll be another when the job's done.”

The lad touched his forelock, pocketed the coin, and grabbed a wolfskin from a wooden settle by the hearth.

“'Tis a powerful blizzard, lord.” An elderly man was the first person, apart from Adam, to speak, and there was awe in his voice. “Not fit for man nor beast.”

“No,” agreed Adam shortly. “Bring me vodka.” He turned to one of the women. “What can you give us in the way of hot food?”

The woman shook her head in its greasy cap as if trying to dispel hallucination. “Cabbage soup, lord.”

“Then see to it. I want some privacy around this fire. Have you a screen?”

The idea seemed extraordinary, but the memory of that pouch of coins, the richness of the travelers' furs, the authoritative tone could produce a near miracle. Sophie, thawing painfully, shivering violently as sensation returned to her body, suddenly found herself enclosed in a tent of sheets draped from hooks in the ceiling. The strings of onions and garlic also hanging from the hooks added the strangest decorative touch to a scene so bizarre that she began to laugh weakly.

“Get out of those clothes!” Adam spoke in French, ensuring that they could not be understood by any curious ears
beyond their tent. He held the vodka to her lips. “Never, ever have I seen such a piece of crass, mindless stupidity. Half an hour more and you would have been beyond salvation! What did you hope to achieve with that nonsensical act of martyrdom?” He tipped the bottle vigorously, his hand shaking. Sophie choked, the spirits trickling down her chin.

“I expected to achieve what I succeeded in achieving,” she replied in the same language, through chattering teeth. “Don't bawl at me, Adam. You didn't expect me to leave Khan to suffer?”

“As it happens, I did,” he said dryly, taking a deep revivifying draught of the vodka. “Foolish of me. Now get out of those clothes. They are frozen stiff.”

Gradually, the point of the tent penetrated her numbed brain. Sophie stared at him. “Here, in the middle of this room? With all those people…?” She gestured vaguely to the grimy curtains. A chicken, clucking cheerfully, pushed beneath one of the sheets to enter the makeshift chamber.

“Shoo!” Adam toed the bird back the way it had come. “Yes, here, Sophie. Now, this minute. You may not realize it, but your clothes are frozen to your body.” He was beginning to unfasten his own pelisse, his fingers tingling painfully as life returned.

“I can't stay stark naked,” protested Sophie. Then she became suddenly aware of a puddle at her feet as the fire melted the frozen snow from her clothes. An icy wetness seemed plastered to her skin, and she realized the truth of what Adam had said. Fingers fumbling, she began to strip off her clothes, finally standing in her cold-reddened skin.

“Come here.” Adam, as naked as she, began to scour her with a harsh scrap of toweling. “I have to say this was not the way I had envisaged my first sight of you,” he murmured, turning her around, scrubbing vigorously the length of her back and legs. “It is just about the least erotic moment imaginable.”

“You're scraping all my skin off,” Sophie complained. “I'll be as raw as a peeled potato!”

“See what I mean? Not at all erotic,” Adam said, with a mock sigh. “Apart from tuberlike, how does that feel now?”

“Alive and warm,” she said. “But what now?”

“Maybe we can beg a blanket.”

“It'll be flea-ridden, Adam! I'll be eaten alive.” She huddled into the hearth, scorching one side of her with the blaze, hugging her arms across her breasts. “I feel so exposed.”

“Count?” It was Boris Mikhailov from outside the tent. “Thought you might like your cloak-bag.”