Silver Nights (25 page)

“Sophie!” Adam's voice pierced her guesswork. “Oh, look at you! You are the most nonsensical creature, sweetheart.”

She realized that she was standing in the hall, snow melting on her eyelashes, running down her cheeks in a freezing stream, pouring off her pelisse to puddle at her feet. “I'll just go upstairs,” she said vaguely. “Change my clothes.”

“Sophie.” He took her hands, gripping them fiercely. “Sweet love, I am sorry for what happened. I had no right to snap at you in that fashion.”

All thoughts of that distressing exchange had vanished in the last few minutes, and she looked at him blankly.

Adam could think of no reason for such an expression except that he had wounded her even more deeply than he thought. Guilt and remorse washed through him. He would have to explain it to her, open up those corrosive, shaming memories for another's eye. It was perhaps time, anyway.
“Do not look at me in that fashion, love. I will try to explain—”

“A message has come from the empress,” she said as if she had not heard him.

“What?” Adam looked down at the hands he held and realized she was gripping something. That same icy stillness enveloped him. “What does it say?”

“I do not know yet. I have not opened it. I came across the messenger as he arrived. I sent him to the stables immediately. It seemed best, do you not think? His horse was half frozen.” The staccato sentences emerged in a distant, abstracted voice; her eyes were still blank as if they did not see him.

“Yes,” he agreed quietly. “Quite the best thing to do. Now, let us go upstairs and get you out of those wet clothes. We will open the letter when you are warm and dry.” Still holding her hand, he led her to the stairs.

Sophie, her mind wandering through a landscape of dread and the certainty of loss, allowed herself to be delivered to a clucking Tanya, whose scolding went unheard as she undressed, dried, and reclothed her frozen mistress under the concerned eyes of the count.

Adam sat on the long, low window seat, holding the unopened letter. As it had for Sophie, premonition became certainty in his mind. It had been inevitable, he had thought himself armed for it, but foreknowledge provided no shield, no buckler against the pain.

“Open it, Adam.” Sophie spoke in her normal voice; her eyes had returned from the sad internal land they had been viewing. She turned from her mirror, where Tanya had been braiding her hair. “I am prepared now.”

Silently, he complied.

When he had read the contents, he told her in flat tones, “It seems there is to be a state visit to the Crimea. You are appointed lady-in-waiting to Her Imperial Majesty and bidden to Kiev to join the imperial suite.”

Sophie frowned down at her fingernails. “And my husband?”

“According to the empress, he awaits you most eagerly.”

Sophie exhaled through her teeth. “What a consummate actor he must be. It is to be hoped he will be able to hide his surprise at seeing me.”

Adam sprang to his feet, looking at her in horror. “You are
not
going back to him, Sophie.”

She ignored this statement for the moment. “What of you, Adam?”

He sighed, saying with difficulty, “I must go to Mogilev immediately. It is to be assumed my own orders will be delivered there and I must be there to receive them.”

“We had best find
Grandpère
and tell him of this.” Sophie went to the door, calm and collected, her carriage as erect as ever, her stride as energetic. She knew what she was going to do; indeed, the decision had made itself. In fact, if she really thought about it, it had been made all along; it was just that she had not wished to contaminate the idyll with thoughts of its ending.

Adam followed her to the library, where, without explanation, she handed Golitskov the imperial summons. “Adam must leave straightway for his home,” she said briskly, once he had read it. “It is to be assumed he will be bidden to join this journey himself if my husband is to be there in an official capacity.”

“You must go into France,” the prince said, tapping the letter against his palm. “The empress will be angered, but it cannot be helped—”

“I am not running away,” Sophie interrupted. “I am going to Kiev to join the czarina's suite.”

“You most certainly are not!” both Adam and the prince exclaimed in the same breath with equal fervency.

Sophie looked from one to the other, and spoke with quiet determination. “Paul cannot harm me anymore. I have moved beyond his power to hurt. Besides, I shall be a member of the czarina's retinue. He cannot keep me prisoner in such circumstances, and I shall ensure that I have nothing and no one about me who could be made to suffer in order that I
should suffer with them. I daresay I shall hardly see him, except for the formalities.”

“If you believe he cannot hurt you, you do not know him as well as you should,” Adam said. “He will find ways. Maybe not on this journey, but what of later, when you will not be under the empress's close observation?”

Sophie shrugged. “Later will take care of itself.” She reached for his hands. “Love, listen to me. I cannot bear being away from you. Death would be preferable. I will suffer my husband in order that I may see you sometimes, talk with you sometimes, feel your eyes upon me, be warmed by your smile—”

“Sophie, stop! I cannot endure it!” Adam cried. “You cannot believe that I will be able to tolerate watching you, knowing that night after night you are possessed by that barbarous man, knowing how he is hurting you, unable to touch you, to protect you—”

“But surely a little is better than nothing at all,” Sophie interrupted passionately. “I cannot live with nothing; never to see you again. I cannot!”

“So you would have me without honor, living for the moments when I might look upon another man's wife? Scurrying around, hugger-mugger, trying to contrive a word, a kiss, a touch in dark corners, a squalid tumble between soiled sheets?” he said, vicious and bitter. “I'll not play that part, Sophie.” He turned from her, hearing Eva's laugh again, mocking the outraged cuckold.

“It would not be like that between us,” she whispered, recoiling both from the picture he had painted and from the idea that Adam could possibly depict their love in such language.

“It is
always
like that.”

“But…but it has not been. Please…you know it has not been.” Ineffably distressed, she took a step toward him, hand outstretched. “Say it has not been like that, Adam.”

“Can you not see the difference between what we have had here, in our own world, and what will happen at court, under the scheming, prurient eyes of gossips?” The gray gaze
was cold as the ocean, hard as a pebble beach. “There is no future, Sophie. God knows, I would that there were; but I cannot leave my responsibilities here, not even for love. If you will go into France, then I may contrive to visit you sometime.”

Sometime…this year, next year, sometime, never. Sophie shook her head at the old adage. “If I leave Russia without the czarina's permission, there will never be hope for us,” she said. “I would not be able to return, even if something should happen to remove my husband. I will not separate myself from you. You may do as you please, Adam, but I am going to obey the czarina's summons.
Grandpère—
” Only when she turned to include her grandfather did she realize that he had left them to a discussion that required no intruder.

“You would put me on the rack,” Adam declared in soft anguish.

“I will put us both on it, but at least in pain one is aware of life,” she replied. “The alternative is the numbness of living death.” The dark eyes held his. “I have the courage to live, Adam. I will live without you as lover, but I will not live without your love and your presence.”

“I do not know whether you talk of the courage of heroes or of martyrs, Sophie,” he said slowly. “But I daresay we shall find out in our pain. Now, I must make my preparations.”

He left her alone in the library, where Prince Golitskov found her a few minutes later. “You are set upon this course, Sophie?”

“It is the only choice that provides any hope,” she replied.

“And Dmitriev?”

She shrugged. “I am armored against him,
Grandpère
. And I will have the czarina's protection.”

“For the moment,” he agreed soberly. “But your husband is your lord, Sophie. He may use you as he pleases, and the czarina's eye will not always be upon you.”

“I will take my chance.”

“Very well.” The old prince bowed to the inevitable. So
phia Alexeyevna was a grown woman, entitled to make her own life-defining decisions. He could draw a smidgeon of comfort from the knowledge that she was rarely less than clear-sighted.

But that night, as she lay alone in the bedchamber in the west wing, her last sight of Adam galloping into the snow burned upon her eye, she felt neither grown nor clear-sighted. There had been constraint between them, the farewell abrupt. She knew he was angry at her obstinacy, just as he was fearful for her safety, but underlying those emotions was whatever darkness had caused him to cast that dreadful blemish upon their loving, to use such bitter words. It was the same darkness that had caused him to strike out at her that afternoon, when she had so flippantly insisted upon a walk before lovemaking.

And there had been no time…or was it no inclination…for a last loving. Turning her head into her pillow, Sophie wept tears of loss and bewilderment, railing against an unjust fate.

 

A week later she arrived in Kiev. The city was thronged with delegates pouring in from every country and representatives from every part of the vast Russian empire to pay their respects to their empress. Despite her depression, Sophie could not take her eyes from the window of the sleigh drawing her through the streets. There were Cossacks and the horsemen of the steppes, Khirgiz and Kalmuks; bearded merchants rubbing shoulders with nobles; officers, splendid in every kind of regimental uniform, parading beside Tatars and Indian dignitaries.

The sleigh drew up in front of the palace housing Catherine and her retinue. Lackeys ran up to assist this clearly noble personage to alight from the elegant, comfortable equipage. Sophie entered the palace, identified herself to a majordomo, and was swept away without further question into the presence of the Grand Mistress.

Countess Shuvalova smiled graciously at the princess. “We have been expecting you daily, Princess Dmitrievna, since
the messenger returned from Berkholzskoye. Your apartments will be in this palace,” she said. “As lady-in-waiting, you will be accommodated under the same roof as Her Imperial Majesty throughout the journey.”

Sophie curtsied in acknowledgment. “And my husband?” she asked as if it were the most ordinary question in the world.

“Of course, you have not seen him for some time,” said the countess. “He will have his own duties beside Prince Potemkin, but whenever he is able to visit you, I am certain he will do so.” She looked shrewdly at the young woman, but could see nothing untoward in her expression. The countess, who was in the empress's confidence, was well aware of the czarina's benevolent plan to bring husband and wife together in the relaxed, holiday atmosphere of this magical tour.

“You will be shown to your apartment now,” she continued calmly. “You will wish to change your dress before presenting yourself to Her Imperial Majesty.” She pulled the bell rope beside the hearth. “General, Prince Dmitriev had your belongings brought from St. Petersburg. And you will find your maid also.”

The faithful Maria, Sophie thought sardonically. Well, that servant was going to find some considerable changes in her mistress. Paul must have gone through with the elaborate charade, all the while believing that the clothes and jewels so solicitously brought from the capital would find no real woman to adorn. Just how was he going to react to the living, breathing proof of his failure?

She followed the lackey through a series of passageways and up a flight of stairs onto a broad landing. He flung open a carved oak door. The chamber beyond was hung with velvet and tapestries, richly carpeted, furnished with a large four-poster, a silk-covered divan, a marble-topped dresser, and a huge armoire. In the corner of the chamber stood the obligatory icon, a candle burning before it. Ladies-in-waiting did well for themselves, thought Sophie, nodding her thanks to the lackey. The familiar maid bobbed a curtsy, but it lacked
the previous insolence, as if, on this unfamiliar territory, Maria was unsure of her position or that of her mistress.

“Good day, Maria.” Sophie's greeting was cold and distant. “Lay out the cream velvet gown.” She threw her muff onto the divan, tossed back the sable-lined hood of her cloak, and went to the window. Below flowed the River Dnieper, except that in its present icebound state it could not be said to flow. It was in use as a thoroughfare, however, by skaters and sleighs, the busy scene carrying the same carnival air she had noticed in the streets.

“It seems, my dear wife, that you are to be congratulated on a safe journey. I bid you welcome.”

Sophie controlled the instinct to whirl from the window. Instead she turned slowly, drawing off her gloves as her husband softly closed the door behind him. “Why, thank you, Paul. I am most happy to be here.”

Her laugh mocked him. Every toss of her head implied defiance. Every quirk of that crooked smile, every fluid movement invited flirtation, and in the gay, pleasure-oriented court at Kiev her invitations were happily accepted. Sometimes Paul Dmitriev could not contain his rage, and he would have to leave the room to compose himself. The woman who had come back from Berkholzskoye was in essence the woman he had sent to her death, but there was a sureness about her, an impregnable confidence that had not been there before. She now took her place at court as naturally as if she had been bred to it, and she was received with the most flattering attentions from foreign diplomats and courtiers alike. The czarina looked upon her with a fond and pleased eye, congratulating the husband on his wife's blossoming in such a gratifying fashion. And Paul Dmitriev, ungratified, would smile and murmur his own satisfaction, while the black fury built within.

He watched her now across Prince de Ligne's crowded salon. The envoy of the Prussian king, Joseph II, was one of Catherine's favorite ambassadors, one of the most popular of the distinguished members of the select group around the empress. Prince de Ligne found Princess Dmitrievna utterly enchanting. He made no secret of this, and the princess, in response, lived up to the reputation he accorded her of intelligence and vivacity, of an unusual beauty, with that crooked smile and clearly defined features, deep, dark eyes glowing in an oval face radiant with health.

The pale, subdued prisoner had vanished; she made no pre
tense, even in the private presence of her husband, of submission. Under the umbrella of the court, she was effectively removed from her husband's jurisdiction, and he could visit none of the subtle deprivations with which he had accomplished her appearance of subjection in the past. She rode, took sleigh rides, went to balls and card parties. At times his fingers would curl around his cane and he would toy with images of a cruder form of domination, but she could not appear in public with the marks of brutality upon her. He could only bide his time until life became normal again, when his wife would be returned to the marital roof.

Glancing across the room, Sophie met the cold blue stare, read the loathing it contained, and in spite of the impregnability of her present position, a shiver of fear quivered her spine, crawled across her scalp. Why did he hate her so? He seemed repulsed by her. That first night in Kiev he had come to her bed, and she had lain like stone, untouched because she now knew the glory of loving, and this hideous travesty was not worth suffering over. But he had failed to achieve his own release and had left her with a violent execration, telling her she was unworthy to be his or anyone's wife—cold and barren, she was a disgrace to womanhood. She had said nothing, and her silence had driven him to greater fury, but he had not since touched her with the coldness of his vengeful lust.

“I understand Count Danilevski has arrived in Kiev.” The light voice, accompanied by a pleasurable titter, came from a young matron engaged in gossipy conversation with another of her kind in the circle behind Sophie.

Unobtrusively, Sophie took a step backward so that she was half in her own circle and half in the one behind. A smiling, complimentary comment to pretty little Countess Lomonsova and she was a part of the other group.

“I find him so intimidating, do you not?” chattered Natalia Saltykova, the young matron. “He smiles and says just the right things, but you feel as if he is looking right through you.” She turned, laughing, to Sophie. “What do you think, Princess?”

“About what?” said Sophie, smiling blandly.

“Why about the count, of course. He is your husband's aide-de-camp. You must see much of him.”

“Not really,” Sophie said indifferently. “My husband conducts his business in the barracks, in general.”

“Oh.” Natalia returned her attention to more rewarding conversationalists, dropping her voice confidingly. “It is said that he does not care for women. Ever since that dreadful business with his wife.”

Wife! Sophie felt the color drain from her cheeks even as she swallowed the exclamation. She took a glass of champagne from a passing lackey. “I did not know he was married.” Was there a squeak in her voice?

“Oh, he is not anymore.” Natalia, gratified by this apparent interest from one who had appeared indifferent to such juicy whispers, and not loath to display her own knowledge, spoke eagerly. “She died just over a year ago, I believe. Some say the count was heartbroken, but some say…” Her head bent into the circle, and other heads followed, like so many hens pecking in the dust. The words rustled in the enclosed space. “Some say that she was carrying a child at the time, and it could not have been her husband's.” She stood up in smiling triumph, examining the faces of her audience for evidence that her whispers had impressed.

“How did she die?” The question came from Countess Lomonsova, sparing Sophie the need to ask.

Natalia looked mysterious. “It was a riding accident, I believe, but no one is certain. It happened in Moscow.”

With a smile and a soft word, Sophie moved away from the group. How could he not have told her something so fundamental, so basic in his past? Why had she never asked? Because, in her naïveté, it had not occurred to her to probe. The present was so all-absorbing, nothing else had seemed relevant. She knew he was experienced with women, but that was only to be expected. Of course, he had had lovers. But a wife…weddings, honeymoons, shared names, commitment…children. Did he have children? Cared for by the mother and sisters he had told her about on the family estates at Mogilev? And what of the child his wife was said to have been bearing?

The fabric of the world she had constructed for herself was disintegrating, crumbling like a skeleton exposed to the air after centuries sealed in the tombs. It was not extraordinary that she had not heard the gossip before. She had been afforded no opportunity for gossipy congress with her peers in St. Petersburg; her husband's isolationist policy had ensured that. But how, in all the weeks she and Adam had spent in the closest contact, had he failed even to refer to such a fact? Such failure had to be deliberate, Sophie thought, moving blindly through the salon, a smile fixed to her mouth, meaningless words of greeting on her lips. If it was not deliberate, an accidental reference would have been inevitable.

“Sophia Alexeyevna. I have not yet had the opportunity to welcome you to my…our…grand parade.” Prince Potemkin, resplendent in full field marshal's uniform, smothered in diamonds and lace, his hair powdered and curled like a nobleman at the court of Versailles, stepped into her path.

Sophie dragged herself back to full awareness of her surroundings. One must not appear lacking in concentration in the prince's company. She curtsied. “Thank you, Prince. I have been looking for you since I arrived in Kiev, but I understood that you had gone into retreat in the Petcherksy monastery.”

“So I have, my dear Princess, so I have,” said Potemkin, smiling. “At times, I find all this”—he gestured expressively at the glittering, ceremonial throng—“a little too much confectionary for my tastes, and I must replenish myself with plain fare and solitude.” His gaze ran appreciatively over her. The dark hair was unpowdered, curling in soft, feathery ringlets to her shoulders. Her gown was of rose-pink taffeta edged with lace, her petticoat sewn with seed pearls. The diamonds at her throat were among the most magnificent the prince had ever seen. Catherine had not been exaggerating the transformation, he decided. His one eye gleamed seductively. His smile slashed the brown face. “You are enjoying yourself, I trust.”

“Indeed, I am,” Sophie replied. “I am awestruck, Prince, at how much planning and organization this orchestration of splendors must have involved. It is the work of genius.”

Potemkin's smile broadened. “I am not averse to flattery, my dear Sophia,” he said. “I see you have discovered that.”

“There was no flattery,” she replied with another curtsy. “It was a statement of fact, Prince.”

He looked at her closely, and only an inexperienced babe would have mistaken the message he was transmitting. Prince Potemkin was Paul Dmitriev's superior, Sophie thought. Such a friend would be invaluable when this carnival was done and life had returned to normal. But how to ensure the friendship while refusing this unmistakable invitation to his bed?

She was unaware that the frank speculation in her candid, dark eyes was easily read by her companion, who was hugely amused and not a whit offended. “Will you do me the honor of visiting me in my humble abode tomorrow?” He bowed as he made the request, raising her hand to his lips. “I will show you the plan of the route we will take when the ice melts.”

“I should be most interested. At what hour do you receive?”

He chuckled and sighed in mock resignation. “How prudent you are, Princess. I would much prefer to receive you alone, but if you must come with the hordes, then my cell door is open between eleven and noon.”

Sophie simply smiled. “Excuse me, Prince. Her Majesty appears to be leaving.”

“Until tomorrow then.” He watched her move through the crowd to join the czarina's departing retinue. Such energy she had, he mused. It was obvious she had difficulty adapting her pace to the limitations of hoop and high-heeled shoes. Such energy expended between the sheets would be a joy to share. He'd lay odds it was not a joy her husband shared, but somebody had. Potemkin was convinced of it. Sophia Alexeyevna radiated the sensuality of the awakened, something conspicuously absent before her visit to Berkholzskoye.

 

Sophie spent a wretched night, tormented with doubt and misgiving. Her faith in Adam, the implicit trust she had placed in his integrity, and in the integrity of their love, was cracked, something she had never believed could happen. She had to confront him with her knowledge. It was impossible to forget
it, or to pretend to forget it, yet she dreaded what she would hear. What possible acceptable, unhurtful explanation for his silence could there be? And this anxiety was confused by excitement at the thought that he was in Kiev, sleeping somewhere in this city; it was inevitable that they would meet in the next day or so. They would have to meet as cool, indifferent acquaintances, but just to be in the same room had to be joy.

The czarina had smiled knowingly when her young lady-in-waiting asked for leave to attend Prince Potemkin's reception on the morrow. “I trust you will not find him in morose mood, my dear,” she had said. “It is often the way that after an evening's enjoyment Prince Potemkin will become gloomy, and those upon whom he smiled in the evening receive only frowns in the morning.”

“I will take my chance, Madame,” Sophie had replied in the same light tones.

The atmosphere at the monastery was so different from that reigning in the palaces and salons in Kiev that Sophie felt as if she had arrived upon another planet. She was led by a robed monk through hushed stone passageways and shown into an ordinary monastic cell. It was filled with people, officers and dignitaries in court dress, all come to pay their respects to the field marshal. But no one was talking. Indeed, to Sophie the air held not only discomfort but a tinge of fear as these august personages attempted to reconcile the calm, meditative atmosphere of this holy place with the robust frivolity of the court. The man who had created the court at Kiev, who last night had appeared in a diamond glitter of full regalia, now lay sprawled upon a divan in the midst of a circle of officers. He was unshaven and unkempt, his legs bare beneath a half-open pelisse, under which it was clear he wore not even a shirt.

One of the officers standing beside the divan was Colonel, Count Danilevski. For Sophie, the extraordinary tableau lost the hard edge of substance; she saw just that one figure standing out, etched in his own three-dimensional reality. Sophie stepped into the cell.

“Ah, Princess Dmitrievna, I hardly dared hope you would remember your promise.” The languid figure extended his hand
toward her without moving from his position on the divan. Sophie took the hand and smiled a greeting. Her entire frame seemed to be vibrating as if that silent presence were a tuning fork playing upon the instrument of her body.

“I always keep my promises, Prince.” Her voice sounded hoarse, shocking in the surrounding silence.

The prince looked vaguely around the room. “You are acquainted with Count Danilevski, of course. Was he not your first escort from Berkholzskoye?”

“Yes, that is so.” Sophie looked up at the count. “How nice to see you again, Count.”

The count bowed, but the strain of restraint was revealed in his eyes, in the lines drawn at the corners of that beautiful mouth.

“I have taken the colonel from your husband,” the prince informed her idly. “He is now on my personal staff.”

“My husband's loss, I am sure,” murmured Sophie as she wondered hopelessly how long this could go on. How long could she stand here making these inane polite noises in this artificially silent monk's cell under the burning gray gaze? Adam had been right. It required more than human strength to endure this perverted situation. Every sinew ached with the agony of holding herself away from him, and she knew it was the same for him.

“You promised to show me the route we shall take to the Crimea,” she reminded the prince, desperate to create a diversion, to make something happen.

“Ah, so I did.” Potemkin yawned profoundly. “I daresay the colonel will show you. The maps are upon the table.” He waved in the direction of a simple table against the wall and below the high slit of a window.

A sigh of relief rustled around the cell at this prospect of activity to break the brooding awkwardness. They all turned toward the table, where Adam, his face expressionless, was opening maps. They listened, commented, murmured admiringly at the magnificence of the grand plan laid out before them, explained in the count's calm tones.