Love Storm (22 page)

"Where
are
Mama and Papa?" Alex asked warily, not particularly in the mood to face either a distraught mother or a purposeful father.

"Lucky for you Papa is at the barracks, and Mama is with Georgi at the tailor's. He goes to Paris next month. He's almost eighteen now."

Alex reflected that he would have time to take care of Zena at her aunt's before anyone came home. He could face his parents after the problem with Zena was reconciled. One crisis at a time. And for Christ's sake, he was twenty-four years old and had had control of his own fortune for years.

He'd just have to soothe his mother's temper later. She always came around in the end, he reminded himself confidently.

Striding up the stairway to his apartments, Alex vaguely responded to Natalie's steady stream of chatter. His mind wrestled with the problem of convincing Zena to return with him. She was bound to be horrendously angry, and utmost diplomacy would be required.

He was in and out of a bath and into a change of clothes in record time as servants diligently scurried about their tasks.

Natalie perched on the edge of the tub and then on the bed, jabbering steadily as Alex swiftly bathed and changed. She was a cheerful distraction from the confusion of his thoughts, which ranged from anger to frustration to conciliatory musings and back again to resentment as he considered the trouble he was being put to for one saucy minx of a
mademoiselle.

Bending to see in the dressing table mirror, Alex quickly brushed his long, unruly hair back with twin silver-backed brushes, then threw the brushes down and turned to Natalie, who was seated on the enormous gilded bed. "Be a dear, my little heart, and tell
Maman
or Papa when they arrive home that I may be late for supper. I've some business to attend to. Can you remember that?"

"Of course I can." she retorted, keenly wounded.

"I guess you
Can
at that," Alex replied with a chuckle as he recalled her detailed report to him.
"Au revoir,
Tata." He bent and dropped a kiss on the curly mop of hair.

"Au revoir,
Sasha. Bring me back some candy," she demanded as he walked out of the room.

"I'm not going near a candy store," Alex replied as he walked down the hallway.

Skipping behind him, she leaned over the railing and, with childish optimism undeterred by his negative response, shouted as he descended the stairs three at a time, "I want coconut bonbons!"

Ivan in the meantime had discovered the location of Zena's aunt, and ten minutes later Alex was being ushered into the drawing room of a house on the Fontanka Canal.

A short, plump, tightly corseted figure with dyed red hair and the vacuous, painted face of a faded belle greeted him. "To what do we owe the pleasure, Prince Alex?" Baroness Adelberg simpered, fluttering her ring-bedecked, fat, little hands.

Since Alex was aware of the misery this woman had caused Zena for three years or more, he found himself unable to completely conceal his loathing. The usual sycophant, he thought angrily. "Where's Zena?" he churlishly demanded, choosing to ignore the deferential greeting.

"Zena?" the aunt questioned with amiable perplexity. She was puzzled and slightly alarmed but cautious still in the presence of such an illustrious visitor.

"Yes, Zena, your niece," he demanded, glaring at the toadying woman. "Did she come back here?"

In an instant the entire situation cleared as with a vision from above.

The baroness's eyes narrowed, and the cordial demeanor vanished as rapidly as a pebble in a pond. "So, that's where the little slut went," she sneered. "And now you've misplaced your doxy. Well, she isn't here. Prince Alex. She's smart enough, that one is, to know she's not welcome. After all I did for her, too, the ungrateful tart. Put up with her, that brat of a brother, and her drunken father for three years. Couldn't marry General Scobloff to please me, could she, the obstinate snit. No, had to embarrass me and run off. Well, if you find her, you're welcome to her. Don't send her back here!"

Alex drew himself up to his full, formidable height, looked down his well-bred nose at her, and said contemptuously, "Madame, rest assured there is nowhere on earth I would be less likely to send her."

Oblivious to the censure in Alex's retort as her mind dealt only with the affront to her own self-inrerest, the baroness irefully continued, "I knew she'd be a slut just like her mother. Blood tells," she said tartly. "Those Circassians are nothing but promiscuous savages. They have harems—
harems!"
she shrilled. "I knew Zena would be the same. All those savages have loose morals. So I tried to see her properly married off in order to nip that salacious tendency in the bud, nip it in the bud, I say," she righteously declared.

"To a seventy-year-old doddering fool?" Alex inquired sarcastically.

"She needed the firm hand of an older man," the baroness mulishly replied. "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree, you know. She had a mind of her own, the wicked girl, and was hard to control. It comes from being educated. It just isn't womanly. I told her father he was making a mistake instructing her like a man—imagine, Latin, geometry, pistol shooting!" she sniffed disdainfully. "Made her shockingly intractable, that's what it did. I told him it was a mistake. Never saw such a self-willed, stubborn girl. The little hussy had the nerve to argue with me for a month about her marriage to General Scobloff, refusing . . . refusing!" the outraged woman venomously cried. "The nerve when I had arranged such a suitable match!"

"Suitable!" snorted Alex witheringly.

Ignoring the snorted comment, she said primly, "I wash my hands of her, I tell you. I did my duty for the sake of my poor, departed brother (and his money, Alex thought cynically). But she's sunk beneath contempt now— nothing more than a harlot. I hope God punishes her for her sins," the plump woman zealously asserted.

Or perhaps God may punish you for yours, Alex reflected, which he would find infinitely more suitable on the scales of justice.

"Good afternoon,
madame,"
Alex said curtly. "You have set my mind at ease in regard to the concern and interest of Zena's relatives."

"I hope to say I did my duty," the baroness pettishly bristled.

"Zena is very young, after all, and faced with responsibilities of a brother," Alex reminded her coldly.

"Humph! The general would have taken care of her most satisfactorily."

I'll bet he would, Alex raged with silent contempt.

"She's made her bed. Let her lie in it!" The baroness's obstinately narrow-minded venality remained unmoved by Zena's plight.

Good God, Alex thought exasperatedly, the old bat was a veritable lexicon of trite
clichés.
"As you say,
madame,"
Alex said sardonically, "time waits for no man. There's no rest for the wicked," and bowing infinitesimally, he turned and walked out.

"What very curious things to say," the baroness muttered huffily. She knew the Kuzans were unconventional, but really, this young man was quite odd. No rest for the wicked? Indeed! If even half the stories circulating about Alexander Kuzan were true, he and Zena could go most conveniently to the Devil together. Luckily the little tramp was unaware of her father's quite comfortable fortune, which in the absence of his children rested very satisfactorily in the baroness's charge.

"Damnation!" Alex swore as he ran down the steps to the waiting troika. Vexed at not finding Zena, he was now compelled to retrace his steps to Moscow and start inquiries all over again. The trail would be two days old by then. Jumping into the sleigh, he gave directions for the Moscow Vauxhall and settled back, relieved to know Zena had not come back to the baroness, since her welcome there would have been scathingly callous.

For the first time since Alex had discovered Zena's disappearance, selfish irritation at her flight gave way to compassionate regard for the young woman thrown so mercilessly out into the world by her unfeeling aunt. Uncomfortable pangs of conscience smote Alex momentarily as he attempted to recall the events of their last evening.

He could be damnably rude and difficult after hours of drinking. He functioned well physically, but his attitude became dangerously and easily provoked, and Zena wasn't the kind to remain demurely silent. He supposed it was his fault, her running off; he upbraided himself mildly, but
merde,
who would think anyone would be silly enough to run away on a cold winter night, when the nearest town was two hours distant.

Zena's aunt was right on that count, anyway. The
mademoiselle
was the most rebellious, stubborn female he'd ever dealt with. Fool shouldn't go traipsing off by herself. It just wasn't done. A woman traveling alone could find herself in hazardous circumstances. Why, any number of men would just love to offer their assistance to a beautiful young lady alone.

Alex sat bolt upright and swore afresh. What if Zena accepted some stranger's assistance? She had been ready enough to assent to his advances. A fierce and overwhelming anger kindled precipitously. He'd kill any man that touched her.

Alex chose not to examine his motives for this unprecedented possessiveness. If he had scrupulously questioned this unusual behavior on his part, the results may have been disquieting to a libertine of his reputation. But since self-examination was uncustomary to the ancient Kuzan family, where self-indulgence had become both a family tradition and a fine art, Alex didn't question his reasons for going after Zena. He wanted the chit back, and he must have her back, and that was that. The principle now established, it was simply a matter of accomplishing the task efficiently and speedily, for in addition to their other charming, unrestrained qualities, the Kuzans were notoriously impatient.

"Vite, vite,
Ivan. We're back to Moscow." Learning forward, Alex rapidly filled Ivan in on his interview with the baroness. "The
mademoiselle
must have gone south to find her grandfather. She said she'd send someone in two weeks for Bobby. Evidently she expected help from someone. The only one left is the grandfather."

"Sounds reasonable," Ivan replied with his usual cool taciturnity. "We'll pick up the scent back in Moscow."

"I want a special train arranged. We'll be traveling with the stable car as well as my private car and another car for the trackers. That should do. I'll wire ahead, so we'll be met in Moscow with the horses, men, and supplies. It'll save us half a day."

"How far south?" Ivan asked, his blue-gray eyes staring ahead, his placid face quite imperturbable.

"Into
Daghestan.
The grandfather's village is somewhere near Gumuk."

"Nice country," was the laconic reply.

Before they left St. Petersburg Alex had a box of coconut bonbons dispatched to Natalie with a note of regret for missing supper.

Trevor was waiting at the Moscow station when they arrived.

Alex immediately commenced his catechism. "Twenty horses?"

"Yes, my lord." "Grooms?"

"Yes, my lord." "How many trackers?" "Four, sir."

"Food, supplies, clothes?"

"All arranged, my lord."

"Bobby and the nursemaids?"

"Having supper in your car, sir."

"Excellent, Trevor. Damn efficient of you on such short notice. Take a couple of cases of my Tokay for your private moments while I'm away."

"Very good, sir," was the placid reply, but both Alex and his majordomo knew the fine wine would be appreciated.

"Well, lead the way. Where's my train?" "This way, sir."

As they were striding through the train sheds, Alex exclaimed abruptly, "Hell! I forgot about money. Oh well, I can write a draft at Kharkov or Stavropol tomorrow. My credit will stand, I'm sure."

"Sir, I took the liberty of authorizing the removal of several bags of rubles from your desk. They're in your bedroom in the black leather
nécessaire de
voyage"

"You are a marvel, Trevor, a veritable marvel," Alex beamed.

"We try, sir." A faint smile shone briefly on the dignified face.

Bobby was overjoyed to see Alex, and the first hundred miles of their journey south was spent rearranging toy soldiers on imaginary battlefields spread out on the bed.

When Alex tucked him in for the night, Bobby said, "Papa, Zena gone. Where Zena?"

"She went to visit your grandfather. We're going to go see her."

The explanation seemed to satisfy the little boy, for he asked no more.