Love Storm (48 page)

"Don't tease, Sasha, I mean it."

Smiling warmly at her he said gently, "Ah, the bluestocking soul lives on. It's all right, dear. If you were a bubble-headed society miss, I wouldn't want you. They are quite literally available by the carriage load. Miss Bluestocking doesn't have to be locked away, dear, just because you're a wife and mother. Listen, sweetheart, if you want to be involved in the new wave of women's rights, I'll build you a women's college. Just name the site. It's yours. We'll have the most insufferably bright children in the empire. Or if you want to research those migration routes your father was interested in, do that. I'll put together whatever caravan you need. We'll spend the rest of our lives clinging to rocky mountain byways. Look, I'll go and pack right now." He grinned and began to get out of bed.

Zena pushed him back. "You're mocking me, scoffing at me."

"Christ, no, I'm being full of understanding and all those husbandly attributes. Well, one small favor, perhaps. Could you wait a week or so until our baby is born? The idea of you delivering my firstborn on some precarious mountain eagle's nest worries me somewhat."

Maybe he was teasing slightly, but at bottom, Alex meant what he said. He would give Zena whatever she wanted. Her happiness and pleasure were his delight. If it was bluestocking notions arid historical surveys, she would have them.

"And I'm not mocking you, little one. Good Lord, what do I have to do, anyway? Hunting in winter, war games in August, the social season in St. Petersburg and Paris—the life of an idle aristocrat I will gladly relinquish without a qualm. All those stale amusements only serve as change of scene in the endless tedium. If you could see your way to take a break or two in your life scheme of feminine progress to give me two or three children, I and the nursery will be more than happy to spend eternity as companions to you in a continuous trek up and down the mountain trails. So come here, my little suffragette, and tell me our itinerary."

"Sasha, really? You wouldn't mind?" Her eyes sparkled. Then her face dropped, and she looked dismayed. "But a little baby. It wouldn't work."

"Like hell, it won't,
dushka."
Alex lifted Zena's chin, and his golden eyes held her. "You don't know the power of the Kuzan fortune. I'll hire enough litter bearers to hand-carry you and Bobby and that little tyke of ours and nursemaids and nannies and governesses up and down every mountain peak and in and out of every mountain village and hamlet in the Caucasus. That's what I'm here for, to lean on, to rely on. I'll carry you myself, if need be, and do your walking for you." He took her beautiful, provocative face between his hands and said quiet simply, "I'll take you wherever you want to go whenever you want to. You're never leaving my sight again. I don't have the courage to face the awful agony of being separated from you. Promise me." He was very solemn. "Promise you'll never leave me."

An instant, unbidden joy pervaded Zena's heart. "I promise, Sasha," she softly whispered.

One powerful arm encircled her waist and, drawing her against his hard body, he covered her trembling lips with a tender, restrained kiss that spoke potently of his protective love. "I will take care of you, child," he murmured huskily.

They left for Biskra the next morning and spent ten glorious days cruising the Mediterranean, arriving back in Nice quite literally in the nick of time. Zena had gone into labor twenty miles out, and the engines were pushed to their maximum to rush back. Alex carried Zena to the waiting carriage and held her on the journey up the shore to the palace on the cliff.

The best doctors in Nice were in attendance and, after having heard the story of his birth numerous times over the years, Alex also took the precaution of assembling the best of Nice's midwives.

The crowd of assistants hovered over Zena's bed as she labored to deliver Sasha's child into the world. Alex never left her side, comforting her in his awkward distress as best he could. The sight of his beautiful, delicate wife enduring such agonies caused him the most penitent feelings of guilt. Good God, did all women go through this? Was he being too sensitive? Was this sort of pain supposed to be brushed off nonchalantly as part of living? He held her hand and watched, attempting realistic smiles of support when Zena searched his face with bleak, suffering eyes. Maybe they should consider adopting children if they wanted more, he thought. The travail was becoming unbearable for his fragile wife. Why weren't all these people doing something? he raged indignantly.

"Can't you do something!" he snapped at the illustrious assembly of prominent doctors.

"Madame is progressing extremely well, Prince Alexander," the spokesman for the black-coated array declared insensitively. "Husbands usually prefer to wait outside, my lord. Perhaps you'd like to step out
..."

Alex shot him a withering glance, and the sentence died ignominiously. His eyes searched the faces of the four mid-wives, not trusting the word of the doctors.
"Is
she all right?" he asked anxiously.

"Monsieur,
only a few minutes more, and her pain will be over," one old woman replied sympathetically.

Alex gripped Zena's limp hand fiercely and prayed the old lady was right.

Indeed, she was, and the old midwife was well rewarded for her competence. Five minutes later she presented Alex his son and heir wrapped in soft, white linen. "A fine, lusty boy,
monsieur."
Alex gratefully accepted the child, relieved Zena's ordeal was over.

She opened her eyes briefly and smiled at Alex weakly. "Is it over?" she asked.

"Over, my love, and thank you for a beautiful, strong son."

"A boy." She smiled triumphantly. "A boy like you," she murmured, shutting her eyes again. She drifted off to sleep.

Alex gently laid the wrapped child next to Zena in bed and thought ruefully, not
exactly
like me. The baby lying beside his wife had blond hair and blue eyes.

If his memory served him right and historical fact was accurate, there had never been a blond, blue-eyed Kuzan.

As a matter of fact, there had been a blond, blue-eyed Kuzan once, but if the circumstances had been known to Alex, they wouldn't have cheered him.

The tale is one of long ago and of great detail. Suffice it to say, several centuries ago, in the early years of the sixteenth century, an infusion of foreign, non-Russian blood produced a golden-haired, blue-eyed Kuzan—a Prince Kuzan, by the way, only by reason of Old Muscovy's code of jurisprudence, hereditary statutes, and the grace of a benevolent God.

The fair-haired Prince Kuzan's paternity, you see, would not have withstood close scrutiny.

On the day Alex's telegram arrived from Nice, Amalie had been visiting Yuri. They were partaking of tea and brandy in Yuri's study on a rather dull, cloudy, fall afternoon. Yuri's butler brought the wire in on a silver salver. After quickly perusing its contents, Yuri tossed it over to Amalie, who was avid with curiosity. A doleful expression slowly appeared on her beautiful face as she read the jubilant message.

"Damn!" she swore softly under her breath as she came to the end of the sheet.

Yuri lounged back in his chair, assessed the golden-haired belle through heavy-lidded eyes, and murmured commiseratively, "Slipped through your beautiful fingers, didn't he,
ma cheri?"

Amalie looked up and cast her soulful lavender eyes in Yuri's direction. "The marriage seems very certain this time." Her pastel eyes shone as a glimmer of an idea appeared. "Do you think the remarriage is for the sake of the child?" she asked hopefully.

Yuri noted the buoyant eagerness in Amalie's expression and felt a sadness for her. "Don't be a fool, Amalie," he said gently. "Sasha wanted Zena back desperately. He had finally recognized he loved her. It's not that his child's future didn't concern him, but if that were his only apprehension, money would have solved that dilemma very nicely."

The shining eyes dulled in gloomy understanding. "You can't have every man you want, little one," Yuri said tenderly.

"But I always have, Yuri," Amalie wailed. "Sasha's different," he said flatly.

"I know that," she replied unhappily. "Don't I know," Amalie sighed deeply.

"I'm twenty-two years old, Yuri," she cried piteously.

"You're talking to an old friend, Amalie, not a current lover," said Yuri. "Twenty-four. But at any age," he gallantly added, "you're a prime piece."

Too deeply overcome by her own morose reflections, Amalie overlooked Yuri's inelegant interjection. "What's going to happen to me? All men like young girls. I don't want to turn into some faded beauty who has to start chasing men. It's degrading. I've always had them come to me. I'm afraid, Yuri. Oh, Yuri, my whole life is a mess." Tears welled up in the exquisite lavender eyes.

He lowered his glance, because, for the first time in his life, he saw tears in hers.

"Never say the Golden Goddess is crying," Yuri teased, hoping to distract her morbid thoughts. But the tears astonished him, for he remembered the fifteen-year-old girl whom he had loved and who had loved him, giving birth to their daughter after a long and terrible labor of three days. Even then she had never cried, not once. From an early age she had been forced to be strong, compelled to take care of a father who was weak. She knew she must endure the delivery and then put it behind her. She had not allowed herself to be weak. Her future and her father's future depended on her.

Amalie wrung her white kid gloves distraughtly as Yuri pensively recalled the past. "I have feelings too, Yuri. Oh, Lord," she moaned, "I'm so unhappy."

Yuri viewed the stately, stunning beauty before him: classic, patrician features; high cheekbones; marvelous eyes; frankly sensual mouth; heavy cornsilk hair; and magnificent body.

"Don't cry, dear. Your stunning looks are quite unimpaired. The future's not as bleak as you envision. Twenty-four isn't old, little one," he whispered.

But the vision of the gorgeous beauty in burgundy was overcome by the image of the sweet young girl of fifteen, who had flung herself into his arms in the flower-strewn summer meadow and clung to him with the deep, sweet passion of first love. The slim, willowy' young girl was gone, replaced by this dazzling creation of nature and the consummate artifice of man. But underneath, he thought to himself deliberatively, there still remained at base the uncertain little girl who knew she had to be strong, who knew she must resolutely and unwaveringly persevere despite her fears and qualms.

She had carried the role indomitably for almost ten years. Now with Alex irrevocably gone the Golden Goddess had come to an impasse, the first defeat in a life crowned with successes. Her successes were attributed to the sure and positive managing of that great assest, her flawless beauty. It had brought her the much-needed rich marriage. It had brought her men fawning and fetching and dying of adoration for her. The ominous threat of perhaps other defeats in the future was terrifying and daunting.

"I'm afraid, Yuri," Amalie whimpered. "I'm afraid."

Yuri rose, crossed the small distance between them, picked up the tearful woman, and sat down again, cradling her in his arms.

Her body was warm and soft beneath his hands, and the sweet, musky scent of her hair brushed his nostrils as she lay with her head on his shoulder.

He was utterly astonished to hear himself saying in avuncular tones, "What the hell, Amalie. You know you can't stand Boris, and you can't have Alex; might as well settle for me. And since I can't have Zena, I might as well settle for you."

Amalie sat up with a start and fixed her piqued gaze on Yuri. "Zena?" she groused. "You, too?"

"She's quite a remarkable woman, dear, if you'd given yourself half a chance to know her—as courageous and tenacious as you with the most enchanting mind in addition to the obvious winsome beauty."

At first Amalie was affronted at the careless proposition, offered as almost a callous solution to their mutual deprivation. But the warm country girl still dwelt beneath the society facade, and she had never been able to completely erase the memories of that summer years ago.

"I don't know, Yuri," she said hesitantly.

"You could have married me ten years ago, you know," Yuri reminded her.

"You didn't have enough money," Amalie said.

"But Papa and his dangerous gambling fever are gone now. Right?" he drawled.

"Right," she sighed quietly.

"How about it, Rosie," he grinned, using her childhood name. "I'll have a divorce for you in a fortnight, and we can begin making more of those golden children."

"It'll ruin my
figure,"
she pouted playfully, making a pretty
moue
of distaste.