Silver Nights (31 page)

“It is hardly a duty, Madame.” She curtsied again. “May I have leave to accompany the Prince de Ligne on a stroll about the gardens?”

Catherine waved her away, and she returned to the prince, unable to keep the spring from her step or the light that shone more lustrously than usual from her eyes. There would be no conjugal visit to her sleeping chamber this night or for many nights to come.

“What do you think of this magical palace, Princess?” the Prussian envoy inquired as they walked down tiled corridors open onto courtyards lush with vegetation, the heavy scents of tropical flowers hanging in the air.

“That it is a house of fantasy,” Sophie replied.

The prince laughed. “I must show you the apartments assigned to the Comte de Ségur and myself. They are such voluptuous chambers it would be impossible not to indulge in fantasy. Ah, there is Count Danilevski.” He greeted the count, who was coming toward them across the courtyard. “I was just telling Princess Dmitrievna about the voluptuous chambers we are allocated. Is not yours in the same part of the palace?”

“In the harem,” Adam said with a slight smile. “And you choose an accurately descriptive word, Your Excellency. May I join you on your walk?”

“Please do, Count,” Sophie said. “The prince maintains that in such surroundings all fantasies are like to come to life. Do you agree with him?”

“We talk only of voluptuous daydreams, you understand,” said the prince with a smile. “I venture to suggest that the
one universal male conceit is in the forefront of many a mind in this place.”

“And may a woman inquire what this universal fantasy might be?” asked Sophie, looking up at the prince with a mischievous smile.

“I do not know,” mused the prince, glancing across at the count. “What do you think, Count Danilevski? Should we enlighten the lady?”

Sophie looked from one man to the other. Adam's eyes held a secretive gleam, and a tiny smile played over his mouth. “It is to own a woman, Princess,” he said. “Body and soul.”

“Is it?” Sophie directed the startled question at the prince, who laughed.

“Indeed, it is. This possession need not be of a permanent nature, you understand. In fact, it is best if it is ephemeral; but it must be total for the duration of the fantasy.”

“How very Mohammedan of you all,” Sophie declared.

“Ah, no!” Adam held up a forefinger. “Not quite, because you see, for the illusion to be entirely successful, the woman must be a wholehearted participant. She must derive from her role a pleasure to match that of her partner's. Is that not so, Your Excellency?”

“Exactly so,” laughed the prince. “Now, see…” With a grand gesture, he flung open a door upon a vast chamber with delicate mosaics on the tiled floor, gleaming marble walls, a cushioned divan running around the entire perimeter. In the center played a fountain falling into a marble-tiled bowl. A greenish light filled the room, produced by the thick vegetation screening the windows from prying eyes. “Fantasy land! What a waste to sleep alone in such a chamber.”

“You are similarly endowed, Count?” Sophie's eyebrows lifted.

“I will show you.”

The idea took shape, grew, delicious and outrageous. Why ever not? In a way, it would serve to exorcise the soft-spoken menace of her talk with Paul, a secret defiance of his beliefs and precepts. Excusing herself from her escorts, she made
her way back to her own modest chamber. It could not be hard to find what she wanted in the city markets. A light cloak and veiled hat would hopefully ensure that she caused no offense to the city's inhabitants, although the fact that she was one of the infidel foreign invaders would be recognized immediately. But she would not be at risk of assault if she did not offend.

In ten minutes, Sophia Alexeyevna was hurrying through the city streets, where the warmth of late afternoon still clung, but the shadows were lengthening and men stood in doorways, taking the air, idly chatting. The women she saw were heavily veiled and burdened, staggering to the wells for water, laboring under pots and baskets filled from the markets. There was no standing around in leisured gossip for them, although, in a square, where a spring bubbled in a stone basin, a group of swathed, dark-clad women were doing laundry, scrubbing with stones, their voices rising in the evening air like starlings returning to their nests.

Sophie found what she wanted in a dim little shop behind a bead curtain. No words passed between herself and the wizened old man; they communicated in gestures, Sophie interpreting through her veil.

She entered the palace gardens through a side gate set in the high stone wall, hurrying across the grass beneath laurel and orange trees, her bundles concealed beneath her cloak. In her chamber, she found a pale Maria.

“His Highness, madame…” she stammered, “came looking for you. I said I didn't know—”

“No, of course you did not. You cannot be expected to know things I do not tell you,” Sophie interrupted briskly. “Did he say why he wished to see me?”

“I understand he is going away,” Maria said, a little sulky at the brusqueness that seemed to discount the serf's fear that her lack of information about her mistress would earn some penalty. “He came to bid you farewell, I expect.”

“You may go,” Sophie said coldly. Once the door had closed on the sniffing maid, she buried her bundle at the bottom of the cedar chest, where were placed her undergar
ments and nightclothes in neat, fragrant piles. Perhaps, like a dutiful wife, she should hurry to see if her husband had already left on his envoy's mission, bidding him a tearful farewell should she happen to be in time to do so. Her lip curled sardonically, but she left the chamber, making her way to the great square in front of the palace.

A troop of cavalry were gathered, their horses pawing the paving stones. Paul was standing at the bottom of the steps leading into the palace in discussion with Potemkin.

“I am in time to bid you farewell, Paul,” Sophie said pleasantly, coming down the steps. “Maria said you had been looking for me. I was with the Prince de Ligne, on the czarina's instructions.” Not so much a lie as a manipulation of timing, she reflected comfortably.

“It is such a shame that you must be separated again,” Potemkin said, his eye gleaming at Sophie. “But for such a delicate mission as this one, only your husband would do.”

He knows, Sophie thought, the illuminating discovery making her want to laugh out loud. Was Potemkin the cherub Adam had referred to? Such an unlikely-looking cherub! Her eyes danced, and laughter trembled on her lip. Oh, but Prince Potemkin was a powerful friend! Dropping her eyes hastily, she turned to her husband with formal words of farewell. He bowed coldly, mounted, and the troop clattered out of the square.

“A word of advice, Sophia Alexeyevna.” Potemkin turned back to the palace, speaking casually over his shoulder. “If one sleepwalks, it is always wise to wake from one's trance well before dawn.”

“How long will my husband's mission last, Prince?” Sophie, recognizing that the advice required no response, kept pace with him up the steps, asking her so natural question.

“I do not imagine Prince Dmitriev will be rejoining our little excursion,” Potemkin said airily. “When his mission to the Porte is completed, he will return directly to St. Petersburg.”

Oh,
such
a powerful friend! Sophie hugged her joy, and the last lingering tatters of oppression drifted from her, so many feathers in the wind. Paul would not be around when
she asked Catherine for permission to retire to Berkholzskoye for a spell. She would have her baby, safe in her own home, the home that would become the child's. Tanya Feodorovna would care for it.

For the first time, she allowed herself to think of the life in her belly as existing outside herself. She could make certain the child grew up secure, healthy, loved, in the home that had nurtured its mother. Even if she must deny herself parentage, she could make sure her child did not suffer. And there were still weeks and weeks before any more decisions must be made, any further action taken. Weeks and weeks of unhindered loving. And tonight…well, tonight she had something very special planned.

 

A yellow moon hung heavy in the luminous purple sky. The four officers sauntering through the palace gardens were in a reflective mood, each one touched by the exotic strangeness of their surroundings, the sense that in the very air they breathed existed almost tangible memories of erotic encounters taken place at a time long past between couples long gone, taken place amid the fountains and the jasmine where they strolled, entranced aliens.

“I've no desire to seek my bed yet awhile,” said one of the officers, tilting his head to look up at the sky. “I am full of the strangest yearnings.”

“An excess of suckling pig, Ivan!” said Adam Danilevski, chuckling. “It sits heavy on the stomach.”

“You're no romantic,” protested the major, slapping his friend's shoulder. “It is something in the air. Can you not feel it?”

“I have an exceptional vodka in my chamber,” Adam replied. “It is a fine cure for indigestion.”

Ivan sighed. “If that is all to be offered on such a night, then I daresay one must lower one's expectations.”

Laughing, the group turned through an archway into the palace, making their way to the former harem and Adam's chamber.

Adam opened the door. They all stood for a minute ab
sorbing the atmosphere—a languid sensuality flowed through the room, illuminated by the soft golden glow of oil lamps, scented with the bowls of jasmine and roses spilling in every corner. It flowed from a still figure, veiled in delicate, diaphanous gauzes, seated cross-legged upon a cushion on the floor at the foot of the divan.

“Do I dream?” murmured one of the men on a note of awe. “Adam, is she real?”

“Oh, yes,” Adam said softly, recovering his breath. “Quite real. Come in, gentlemen, into my own Arabian night.”

The figure on the cushion rose fluidly, glided across the room, a waft of rose and white gauze. Only her eyes were visible above her veil; outlined with khol, almond-shaped, they glowed deeply luminous in the dim golden light of the room. Her hands opened in a gesture of greeting, of invitation, and she moved toward the divan circling the room.

Mesmerized, the four men sat, sinking into the opulent comfort of cushions, their eyes riveted on the silent figure whose body beneath the translucent flowing tunic and wide-legged trousers, caught tight at the ankle, glimmered in tantalizing curves of pearl-pink and ivory.

“Where did you find her?” Ivan whispered, returning slowly to his senses.

“I bought her,” Adam said, his eyes narrowed. “From a camel driver.” The slightest quiver shook the slender frame as she brought a tray of vodka glasses over to the divan. Kneeling, she presented the tray to each man in turn, her eyes demurely lowered.

“Can we see her face?” Colonel Oblonsky reached a hand to touch the bent head.

“No,” Adam replied, stretching lazily. “She is mine, gentlemen, and only I may look upon her.”

“You dog, Danilevski!” exclaimed the fourth member of the group. “In a single afternoon you have created your own paradise.”

Adam merely smiled with a hint of complacence. His boots were being removed by the kneeling figure, whose skillful
fingers massaged each stockinged foot as she slipped its covering free. Rising again, she wafted across the room, returning with a pair of silk-lined slippers, which she eased upon his feet. Adam's eyes closed for a moment as he breathed deeply of the mingled fragrances in the chamber, of the jasmine twisted in the dark hair now so close to his chest as her fingers began to unbutton his braided tunic.

Stirred almost as much as if they were the recipients of these attentions, the others watched as if hypnotized.

“What is her name?” Ivan asked, his voice a little unsteady.

“Seraphina,” Adam replied promptly, sitting up so that she could remove his unbuttoned tunic. “And she was
very
expensive.” Her fingers were busy with his shirt buttons now, and he laid his hand over hers. “I think perhaps that is far enough for the moment.” Her head bowed in instant acknowledgment; standing up, she fetched his brocade dressing gown, maneuvering his arms into the long sleeves while he lay back, moving a little only when absolutely necessary.

“Does she talk?” asked Colonel Oblonsky, loosening the top button of his own tunic.

“In the company of men she speaks only the language of love,” replied Adam, resting his head against the back of the divan. Delicate fingers were massaging his temples, his eyelids, and when he looked into the luminous dark eyes so close to his he read a passion to match his own, her soul, her self, lost in the dream she was creating for them both. They were not Sophie's eyes, they were Seraphina's. He allowed his hands to drift, barely touching, over her body as she bent over him. The warmth of her skin beneath the translucent covering, the way she leaned into the caress, lending herself as if she had no other existence outside that bounded by his hands, destroyed his last hold on the world beyond the illusion.

“I do not wish to appear inhospitable—” he murmured.

Seraphina, a cloud of gauze, billowed to the door, opening it for them, bowing low as the three officers went out, their eyes lingering hungrily on the figure, head meekly lowered, hands clasped, body graceful, concealed yet not concealed,
the very embodiment of fantasy in this chamber fragrant with the promise of untold delight.

“Come here,” Adam commanded softly as the door closed. Sitting up, he drew her between his knees, unfastening her veil, before pushing his hands up beneath the loose tunic, cupping her breasts, running a fingertip over her ribs, dipping into her navel. “Put your hands on top of your head.” When she obeyed instantly, he loosened the drawstring at her waist. The gauzy trousers rustled to her ankles. For long minutes, his hand roamed at will while she stood before him, his to do with as he wished, immobile except for the rapid rise and fall of her bosom. Then he released her, and lay back again in invitation and demand.