Love Storm (37 page)

Nikki's voice softened. "Now come to bed with me." Running his hand down the satin-covered curves of her waist he murmured, "How is it you haven't altered an inch since I met you twenty-five years ago?"

Alisa rose, threw her arms around his neck, and softly replied, "Because I starve myself five days a week to stay thin for you, lecher."

"Ah, that's what I like to see," he grinned, "a dutiful wife."

The day after Alex's return to St. Petersburg, the mantel in his bedroom was scattered with pastel, perfumed billets-doux reminiscent of his bachelor days. His behavior the first night home assured all interested females that Alex was back in circulation. He was completely unconscious of the stunning figure he cut in the stark black and white evening rig. Every feminine eye had followed his progress that night as the spoiled darling of the St. Petersburg set reclaimed his position.

They had all missed him dreadfully these past few months. It had hardly seemed the same without him. One matron dressed in gray bombazine and seated regally on a gilt chair, commanding a fine view of the Natazins' ball, was heard to remark to her friend, "I see Nikki's boy is up to his old tricks. From the day he left his tutors at home, he's been outrageous. No doubt he was in the nursery as well, if he's his father's son. Shocking rake drinks too much like all the Kuzans, plays high, and apparenrly left his
enciente
young wife in the country."

"Poor young thing, one can't help but feel sorry for her," the friend remarked. "Yet with a reputation like Sasha's one could hardly expect him to settle down and become a perfect paragon."

"With Sasha back rhe
on-dits
should be prodigiously more interesting," the matron in gray sighted. "Faith, in spite of his wildness, one can't help but like the engaging

young rascal. To tell the truth, with all the females that have chased after him since adolescence, it's a wonder Sasha's not more impossible than he is. When that boy strolls into a room, and insolently surveys the crowd through those narrowed, yellow eyes, he turns into the living image of Nikki. Do you think he matches his father's distinction in the boudoir?" the dowager in gray quizzed dubiously.

"He's given credit for acquitting himself with admirable expertise," her friend replied. And the two matrons fell into silence as pleasant memories of their youth materialized.

That initial evening back Alex graciously accepted the invitations of six of his former lovers to renew old friendships. All the pretty society women purred around him like a group of harem houris, vying with each other for the position of favorite, and behind his cynical eyes there was a twinkle of amusement. Alex flirted with them in a way that verged on the insolent, but they seemed enchanted. He needed amusement; he was bored with domestic fidelity. If your wife walks out on you, then
que
voulez-vous?
He didn't guide the hand of fate.

After a week bets were being placed in the clubs as to the exact length of time the Archer could sustain the grueling pace he was setting for himself. Such behavior could hardly pass unnoticed, and within days the whispers grew. Married only three months and already he had cast off his wife. It discredited the old saw that a reformed rake made the best husband. Tongues wagged and all St. Petersburg watched and waited to see if anyone would replace her.

One guess at the Nobles Club was heard to remark, "Could even the notorious Archer maintain such arduous amatory exercise?"

His companion replied dryly, "Oh, Archer'll manage the demands put on him by the ladies easy enough if he don't drink himself to death in the meantime."

No one dared ask what had transpired, and the young prince schooled himself to never mention his wife's name.

Wolf had returned three days ago, and the handsome half brothers were now rather systematically attempting to bestow the benefits of their very attractive persons throughout the length and breadth of St. Petersburg's boudoirs.

But there were many nights when Sasha returned home and rather than seek the solace of his bed was prone to endless pacing along the terrace outside his apartments. There was the liveliest apprehension about Sasha's moods, but most of the time he was his normal self, never making reference to his wife's prolonged absence.

His and Wolf's amatory excursions continued unfalteringly. Alisa held her breath, and Katelina cried repeatedly, while Nikki mentally kept lists of complacent and noncomplacent husbands and fathers in the event some rapid decision must be determined. It didn't hurt to keep up old ties with the royal family either. He paid visits to several grand dukes who could be counted on in the event a scandal required more pressure than the Kuzan name was able to exert.

After several weeks, when this reckless dissipation provided no calumny of horrifying proportions, Alisa began breathing more easily, and Nikki ran through his mental list only once a day. Katelina's tears were intermittent now and concealed more carefully. She had acquired a reserve and reticence wholly unlike her usual teasing vivacity, presenting a calm facade to the world. It was the usual moderately repressed scandal under which the Kuzans had lived for generations.

Alex and Yuri were desultorily playing billiards one afternoon when Wolf had slipped away to visit Katelina. They were out in the garden now with her children, where Wolf was teaching her young son Aleoysia how to distinguish the character of a track through grass.

Katelina and her daughter Elizabeth lay on the green turf and watched the lesson. When Wolf was at his charming best, he was irresistible. Since he had come back from
Mon Plaisir,
he had been civility itself to Katelina, never overstepping the bounds of friendship. The resultant frustration and strain on the bold mountain knight during his daytime, innocent courting of Katelina sought release at night in his reckless path through the bedrooms of the aristocracy.

"Wolf is certainly paying a lot of attention to Katelina," Yuri said. "Anything to it?"

Alex shrugged. "Her eyes are red all the time; it must be love. Natalie told me Wolf and Katelina had a terrible row weeks ago. Apparently my sister, in opposition to the general trend of acceptable social behavior, feels she should be faithful to her husband. Wolf had trouble understanding that. He went north for a while to cool off and seems to have accepted her restrictions on their friendship." Alex paused and snorted disgustingly, "More fool he. There are lots of women around."

"With a husband like Katelina's I'm surprised she feels an obligation to fidelity. The swath he cuts through the ladies is about as discreet as yours. Why does she put up with it? Your father could have a divorce for her in a few days' time."

"Katelina has some misguided notion about staying together, pardon the
cliché,
for the sake of the children. You can tell she doesn't have a drop of Kuzan blood in her veins. Maybe the steadfastness and attention to convention comes naturally. My mother's first husband, Katelina's father, was an old, wealthy merchant, I understand; he's long dead and forgotten now. Katelina was only five when my parents married and Papa adopted her. If you ask me, she's really acting too damn conservative about this all."

"By the way, speaking of conservative, what do you think of Miss Catherine Feodovna Riminsky? A dazzling charmer, wouldn't you say?"

"Most assuredly, but a bit too straitlaced to suit me."

"Not just straitlaced, but an impregnable citadel, my friend, beyond even your cultivated expertise."

Alex laughed. "Surely you jest. Impregnable, my ass. The sheer arrogance, my friend Yuri, of the concept makes one anxious to impregnate the wench just to discredit the foolish notion."

"Are you trying to say something, Sasha?" Yuri taunted in a cultivated drawl.

"Two days, Yuri," Alex said recklessly, "no more. I'll bring her to your place to do the dastardly deed, so there's no cause to doubt."

"Tsk, tsk, extremely ungentlemanly behavior even for you, Sasha."

"Don't read me any lectures, Yuri. Are you on, or aren't you? You should know by now I always rise to the bait when anyone says impossible. You can't cast a slur on my expertise, Yuri, and go unchallenged. Play or pay. Two thousand rubles says I can carry the citadel in two days." The prince coolly contemplated his well-kept nails.

"You're a blackguard, you know," Yuri declared.

Alex's eyes met Yuri's and he laughed, and suddenly Yuri understood how much all the highborn hussies mattered to him.

"I've been called much worse, dear friend," Alex grinned. "I'm quite immune." Lifting one black brow sardonically, Alex said, "I tell you it's useless to appeal to my feelings of decency and chivalry. At the moment I'm bereft. Used up every last shred in wooing my ungrateful wife, who has seen fit to fly the coop, as they say, without so much as one word of explanation." His eyes narrowed as he spoke, and his mouth became a grim, straight line. He seemed lost in his own musings for a brief moment.

Shrugging his shoulders as if to cast away the reflections, his eyes flickered open, and the cynical smile reappeared. "Well, on or no?" he said.

"Oh, hell. On, of course," Yuri assented cheerfully.

"Have clean sheets put on your bed, will you, Yuri? These young misses are of a fastidious bent. Comes from all the healthy hygiene they're taught nowadays in their lyceum courses."

That evening Miss Catherine Riminsky encountered the full assault of Prince Alexander Kuzan's considerable charm, which had been faultlessly schooled to perfection in every fashionable salon in St. Petersburg and Paris. She was dazzled. It quite turned her head.

The straitlaced Miss Riminsky had never been the recipient of such ingratiating, outrageously sensual flattery. Alex danced with her several times and by the end of the evening, the thoroughly fascinated young lady's body fairly tingled with exciting anticipation. A hitherto unfelt yearning to be caressed most intimately inundated the beautiful, pious virginal Miss Riminsky's mind. She hardly slept that night as enchanting visions of the lean, bronzed, muscular prince bewitched her dreams.

The next night Alex deliberately arrived quite late at the dance Miss Riminsky had mentioned she was attending. It never paid to look too anxious. A full twenty minutes after his eyes had met hers casually across the ballroom, Alex crossed the expanse of polished floor in a manner that was at once languid and yet held a very distinct hint of lean, coiled, predatory energy. As he reached her side a waltz was playing. The prince's cool, golden eyes rested thoughtfully on the pretty young Miss Riminsky. Then without asking he swung the lovely
mademoiselle
out into the crowd of dancers with a natural, fluid grace, bending to whisper softly in her ear that she was the most exquisite woman in the room.

"Dark hair and milk-white skin, Kate, a glorious combination."

As he adroitly twirled them through the moving mass of couples gliding effortlessly around the room, Alex's hand on the tiny waist slipped down her silken back. Exerting the most subtle pressure, he pressed the lovely Kate against his very rigid erection. Deep green eyes lifted to his and the prince, an experienced hunter, saw the acquiescence and smiled. Miss Riminsky melted against his broad chest as Alex maneuvered them near a small side door, where his carriage was waiting.

Fifteen minutes later a very hot and flustered young couple rushed up the stairway to Yuri's elegant
pied-a-terre.
As Alex was hurriedly undressing the tremendously agitated young woman, a rude twinge of conscience reared its unnecessary head. Alex groaned inwardly. Sweet Jesus, not now. In the carriage ride over his hand had been under Miss Riminsky's skirt, and she had a hot, wet quim just dying to get fucked. He was aching to get in her; conscience he didn't need now. Damn it, you can't be forcing a cunt as wet as that one. Any fool would know that.

As he lay next to her in Yuri's bed, young Kate was rubbing against him with tumultuous fervor, timidly touching his pulsing stiffness, and all Alex could think about was his caddishness. Guilt! he thought despairingly. Was he getting old?

Sighing deeply, he lifted her pretty chin so that she was looking directly at him. "Do you know what you're doing, Kate? It will be too late soon to turn back. Are you sure?" He needed the sop of her assent. Christ, since when did he have a conscience? He
must
be getting old.

"Oh yes, Alex," she cried feverishly.

Rolling over her, he shuddered in relief as he thrust gently at first and then surged forward to break through and bury himself in the wet, tight virginal passage.

Several hours later Miss Riminsky twined her delicious milk-white arms around Alex's neck and said, "You'll have to come home and meet Mama and Papa."