Susan Johnson (35 page)

Tamyr answered him in a flurry of indecipherable words, motioning for him to sit down.

Shaking his head, he brushed past her, strode out into the entrance hall, and surveying the wide staircase rising in three levels to the second floor, stood in the center of the hall and shouted Teo’s name.

A scurry of running feet responded to his raised voice and within moments the front hall was awash with curious servants gazing at him.

Swearing, he swept past them and, pulling the door open, strode outside, stood on the filigreed porch and yelled “Teo!” so loudly the birds stopped their singing.

A response so faint he questioned his hearing echoed through the trees.

He shouted again.

And the answer this time was the voice he’d ridden a month to hear. Running in the direction of the lake, he called her name once more, his heart beating like thunder in his breast.

He was halfway around the small lake when she appeared from a grove of birch at a run, waving, calling his name as she caught sight of him.

Seconds later she was in his arms and he was swinging her around and kissing her and laughing in sheer joy.

“You came,” she whispered, thinking Tamyr’s gods were superb creatures to have brought him here to her, when she’d given up completely.

“Did you doubt it?” he said, the way a man would, already forgetting his gloomy indecision in Milan, setting her down, smiling at her.

“Oh, yes—very much,” she replied, thinking of his letter and how she’d locked away her love and memories. “But I’m pleased to be wrong,” she gently noted, gazing up at him with a fine discernment. “Tell me how you decided to come, how you found me, how long you’ve been on the road, how you still love me madly,” she finished with a warm smile.

“I love you madly, you know that. How could you not know that?”

“Ten months,” she softly said, “temper one’s optimism.” She didn’t mention the women.

“I couldn’t come at first—I wrote.” He too didn’t mention the women.

“Are the wars over, then?” Her voice was bland. And while she shouldn’t ask so soon, in these first warm, breathless moments when he’d told her he loved her, she had to know.

“They are for me. I’ll tell you everything later—all the politics and cynical diplomacy. I don’t want to think about it now. Tell me about our son.”

It wasn’t a complete answer, but it was sufficient for a man who’d ridden across half of Europe and Russia to see her. She was consoled. “Come see him,” she said, taking his hand. “We were having tea down by the lake.” Talking with pride of their son, trying to come to terms with the reality of Duras’s presence, she led him through the rustling grove of birch to a green trimmed lawn shaded by towering willows. A sumptuous Isfahan carpet was spread on the grass, a silver samovar set on a nearby table, a tea service arranged on fine linen spread over the carpet. And reclining on the silken rug in a casual sprawl, a handsome man played with a plump baby. The man’s cropped chestnut hair gleamed in the sunlight, his lean, muscular body stretched indolently
across the crimson pile, and he was barefoot like Teo, Duras jealously noted. The baby was playing with the silver buttons on his shirt as the man smiled and talked to him.

With force of habit, Duras reached for his nonexistent saber. “Who’s that?” he growled.

“Pasha’s doctor.”

“He lives here?” His voice was whisper soft.

“Of course. What good would it do to have a doctor five hours away if Pasha becomes ill.”

“You could have an old doctor.”

Her eyes widened momentarily; the intrusion of an authoritarian male in her remote hermitage could alter the pattern of her life. “Are you jealous?”

“Damned right I am.”

“You needn’t be,” she mildly said. “We’re only friends. Come, let me introduce you to our son and Konstantin.”

She was incredibly naïve, he thought, restraining his temper with difficulty. There wasn’t a man alive who would aspire to be only friends with Teo.

His voice was gruff when he acknowledged the introduction.

The sound of Duras’s voice startled Pasha, who was at an age when any stranger entering his world was viewed with suspicion, and while observing Duras, he clung to Konstantin, his dark eyes wary.

When Duras made a move to touch him, he screamed, clutching the doctor so tightly, the man winced. “Should I take Pasha to the house?” the young man inquired.

“No,” Duras curtly said, his tone that of a general in command.

“Why don’t I hold him,” Teo suggested, dropping down on the carpet. Lifting her hands to her son, she took him from the doctor. “That’s your papa,” she softly murmured to her son, kissing his soft cheek, but after a quick peek at Duras, the baby buried his face in his mother’s shoulder.

“I’d like to be alone with my family,” Duras said, beyond manners and banal conversation after a twenty-five-day marathon journey, furious to find a man with Teo.

“Don’t be rude, Andre,” Teo said, her glance instantly censorious. How dare he.

“Forgive me, Doctor,” Duras said in a tone so rife with sarcasm, the baby looked up in curiosity.

“Thank you for your company, Konstantin,” Teo politely said, dismissing him, not wishing an audience with Duras in his autocratic mood. “Tell Tamyr the cook should set dinner back an hour.”

“Or two,” Duras murmured; he had plans to make love to Teo in the very near future.

Teo ignored him, and her warm smile for the doctor raised Duras’s level of displeasure.

“Will you be all right?” Konstantin quietly inquired as he rose, his glance briefly swinging toward Duras glowering at the border of the carpet.

“Yes, you needn’t worry. Andre forgets he doesn’t have an army here. If you’d be so kind,” she went on, overlooking Duras’s grim expression and Konstantin’s faint worry lines, “would you tell Tamyr I was thinking of roast duck for dinner? Do you like roast duck?” she coolly asked, turning to Duras.

“Food isn’t a high priority for me right now,” he brusquely replied.

By now Pasha was fascinated by the unusual undertones passing back and forth, the crisp nuances unfamiliar in his bountiful world. He regarded Duras with an open scrutiny although he was careful to maintain a firm hold on his mother’s shoulder.

As Konstantin withdrew, Teo heatedly said, “You’re not allowed such rudeness to my staff. It’s inexcusable. I hope you can control yourself at dinner.”

“Don’t count on it,” he growled. “I’ve a real problem with that young doctor living with you.”

Her eyes sparked at the insinuation. “He doesn’t
live
with me.”

“Damn right he does and I’ll bet you Napoleon’s war chest he’d like to become much better acquainted.”

“Every man isn’t like you, Andre.” She spoke quietly in deference to Pasha, but her voice was acid. “Konstantin is a true friend.”

Duras swore softly at the ridiculous female platitude. “Good, then he won’t mind if I don’t let him fuck you.”

“Don’t think you’re going to walk back into my life and start giving orders,” she said, bristling at his words. “I just found release from a marriage like that.”

“Don’t compare me to Korsakov,” Duras snapped. “The man was an animal. By the way, you can thank me for killing him.”

She shrank back before the dark violence in his gaze.

“Jesus, Teo,” he whispered, instantly expiatory, dropping to his knees on the carpet, his dark gaze rueful. “I’ve been riding day and night for almost a month to be with you. And I find you with this—this—”

“Doctor.”

“No, with this man who watches you with lust in his eyes. Don’t tell me you can’t see it.”

“I haven’t … I don’t. How can you say that? You’ve always been the only man I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then send him away.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I’m not interested in fairness. I’m interested in his departure. We’ll find an old doctor, a very old doctor,” he muttered.

“Konstantin stays,” she quietly said.

His head came up, his jaw clamped shut, and he stared at her with blazing eyes.

“You’re not the commander in chief on my estate. I own a tract of Siberia that takes two months to cross on horseback. I’m my own authority here.”

He exhaled in a long, slow release of air. “Why are we fighting?”

“Because you want Konstantin to leave and I won’t have it. If you expect me to exist under such rigid constraints, tell me you’ve been faithful to me all these months and we’ll have some basis for debate,” she declared, her green eyes challenging.

He didn’t answer. He shifted from his knees to a seated position, distancing himself in the process, putting an expanse of crimson lozenges and riotous rose designs between them. “You wouldn’t care to hear.”

“Well, then,” she said, surprised at the degree of her resentment when she’d known all along, “there’s no further need to discuss this.”

“I’m sorry, if that helps.
Very
sorry,” he quietly apologized, wanting to tell her how he’d always wished every woman was her, knowing how indefensible such a statement would be. “There’s no excuse.”

“Thank you,” she coolly replied. “I’d hate excuses.”

“Bonnay convinced me to make the journey here.”

“I’m not sure I care to hear this.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, instantly contrite. “I was sure you had married someone else by now.”

“I
have
had several offers,” she said with a rudiment of a smile, now that Duras’s contrition was warming her heart. “Konstantin, for one, asked me to marry him.” A small degree of revenge motivated her as well.

“I knew it, dammit,” Duras hotly exploded, contrition instantly eclipsed by quick-tempered jealousy. “I saw that.”

Teo shook her head. “He was just being nice one day after Pasha was born and I’d been crying for you,” she explained. “He offered to take care of us.”

“Thoughtful of him,” Duras dryly said.

“Mingen told him he had to get in line,” she went on, playful and teasing. “Mingen had offered to take your place as father too, as did my neighbor Prince Dyakov and—”

“Good God,” he interposed. “Am I safe from no one?”

“You’re safe from everyone, darling,” she said, no longer teasing. “I only want you.”

He absorbed the simplicity of her declaration for a long moment, studying her as though the veracity of her words would be exposed on her face. “Really,” he finally said, smiling faintly, appeased.

“Truly. From the first night you walked into the dining room of the burgomaster’s house in Sargans,” she softly affirmed, “I was lost.”

“You did have a notable effect on me as well.”

She smiled. “I remember.”

“So are you ready to get married?” he asked. “Now that my rivals have been refused.”

“Are you proposing,” she inquired oversweetly, “with such disarming grace? Don’t you know a woman expects a modicum of romance in these matters?”

“I thought riding three thousand miles in twenty-five days might be disarming enough, even romantic.”

She laughed and was joined a second later by Pasha’s gurgle of joy as he recognized his mother’s well-being. “I’m placated,” Teo murmured. “Even embarrassed by my thoughtlessness. One question more though—will this be a bigamous relationship?”

“No.”

Apparently he wasn’t going to elaborate. “Did Claudine take all your money?” Teo went on, vastly curious after meeting his wife. “She was threatening to beggar you as she was pulled screaming from your house.”

“Would it matter?” That lack of information again.

“Of course not,” Teo replied, amused by his resistance to discunsing Claudine. “Remind me to show you my gold mine.”

“And sexy too,” Duras drawled. “This must be nirvana.”

“Hush.” She glanced down at her son. “Pasha’s listening.”

Duras leaned forward. “Will he let me touch him?” he murmured. “I wore his thumbprint off the letter you sent.”

“When he gets to know you, he will. Did you notice how brown he is? Like you and just as beautiful.”

“I noticed,” he said, his smile shameless.

“Insolent man,” she said with a grin. “He will be infinitely more modest although he’s very clever already. He’s almost walking and he loves to splash in the lake and he says
Mama
.”

Hearing the familiar word, Pasha repeated it, and when Duras laughed and clapped his approval, he performed for his audience by repeating the word until both his parents were laughing with delight. Sensing Duras was a friend, Pasha pushed away from his mother and dropped to his knees, crawling across the carpet to pull himself up on Duras’s knee.

His father put out a hand to steady him, and when the baby clutched his fingers and smiled at him, Duras’s throat closed with a poignant ache. How lucky he was, he thought, to have a healthy young son, to be alive on this warm summer day, to have Teo’s love. “I suppose the doctor can stay,” he said.

“I suppose he can,” Teo retorted, “unless you want to sleep alone tonight.”

“I wasn’t planning on waiting until tonight. Actually this carpet is rather soft.”

“
Andre
. Have you no discretion?”

He didn’t of course. “Does the baby ever nap out here?” he calmly asked.

Teo smiled, remembering his boundless will. “If you walk him, he’ll fall asleep.”

“Done,” he said, lifting his son into his arms and rising in a swooping ascent that caused a fit of giggles to bubble from Pasha’s mouth.

“He’s drooling on you.”

“I’m used to it; women do it all the time.”

She lunged at him and he sidestepped. “Now, now, keep your hands to yourself for a little longer while Pasha and I discuss an afternoon nap.” And then he surprised her by singing an array of lullabies with a husky sweetness that tugged at her heart.

This was the same man who led his men into battle, she thought, and defied death a thousand times; the man who defeated the armies of the Coalition when no betting man would have given him a chance. And now he held his son with such tenderness. Pasha’s lashes were drifting shut in erratic small bursts of movement, his breathing changing into the soft rhythms of sleep. Duras smiled at her over Pasha’s head and blew her a kiss.

When he carefully placed Pasha on the carpet some time later, Teo covered the baby with her shawl.