"I know, Stefan," Lisaveta breathed, her voice almost inaudible, the quiet of the room surrounding them like silken solace. "I know what you're feeling. Life and living mean so much more to me now for haying almost died. But I won't…" she quietly added. "Please…" Her eyes were the color of warm sunsets and not pleading so much as patient. "Just thank you… I mean it truly. Thank you for everything."

She knew her feelings were becoming too involved with Russia's most exalted hero. He was so much more than his grand and valorous public image. She was drawn to his wit and intelligence as well as attracted to his harsh beauty, while his gentleness and expertise as a lover were pure perfection. She could never stay, so she must leave before her feelings were so deeply committed he would be forever in her heart. Her chin lifted a scant distance and her voice took on a new determination. "I'm going upstairs to rest before dinner and I intend to leave in the morning."

"You're sure?"

"I am."

He smiled. "And nothing I can say will change your mind?"

"Stefan," Lisaveta said, returning his smile, feeling more confident with her decision made, "you can have any woman in the Empire. You don't need me." Turning to go, she couldn't resist the obvious pointed barb. "Besides, Nadejda's here to entertain you."

It was not a pleasant thought. "Bitch," he whispered, the word ambiguously caressing.

Lisaveta grinned. "I couldn't resist. Forgive me." But her apology was lighthearted and unapologetic. "Until dinner, mon chou" she buoyantly said, feeling new strength in the rightness of her choice, and blowing him a smiling kiss, she left.

"Until tonight, mon chou" Stefan softly breathed. He'd make love to her then and convince her to stay, the best soldier in the Tsar's army vowed. And he'd never lost a campaign in his life.

Chapter Four

Nadejda wore lavender crepe de chine with diamonds in her hair at dinner, and were it not for her disagreeable tongue she would have been the picture of radiant beauty. She had, however, since being seated, complained of the heat, taken issue with the servants' casual behavior and condemned the country style of food numerous times. Her patience curtailed by yet another remark about its quaintness, Aunt Militza coolly said to her, "Stefan has a Georgian palate and refuses to have a French chef."

"We have always had a French chef," Nadejda replied, as though her wishes were primary, as though she were already running the household. Her mama had assured her she would have total control since men preferred detachment from household functions.

"Perhaps you should think of adding a Georgian chef, as well," Militza retorted, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. Her family had been royalty for a thousand years before the Taneievs had been elevated to princely status.

"Surely Stefan enjoys French cuisine, don't you, my dear." Nadejda turned to Stefan with her winning smile, the smile she felt had successfully gained Stefan's attention in Saint Petersburg six months ago.

Stefan, dressed comfortably in the embroidered silk shirt and loose trousers native to his mother's land, was sprawled back in his chair, his wineglass in hand. His expression had remained unreadable while Nadejda had complained, Militza had seethed and the two women had discussed him as if he weren't present. While he appreciated Militza's advocacy for his taste in food, he could only see the disagreement escalating, and Nadejda's opinion on food or anything else was really rather incidental to him. He'd chosen her for a bride because her family was well connected at court, not for personal reasons. After the irregularity of his own childhood and his father's disgrace and loss of the Viceroyalty of the Caucasus, Stefan didn't care if Nadejda Taneiev liked African chefs, as long as the stability of the Taneiev family was intact. He was marrying that dependable stability, the court attachments, the conservative background. But he disliked the cattiness of Nadejda's tone and her grasping possessiveness as much as the thought of continuing disagreements over dinner when all he wanted to do was relax and drink his favorite wine from his own vineyard.

"I eat anything," he said blandly. "Militza, you know that. Nadejda can keep her French chef by all means. When you've campaigned as long as I, you learn to eat anything." He was the perfect host, pleasant, affable, ready to step in and smooth over controversy. "Georgi, more wine for the ladies." His major-domo, who stood beside Stefan's chair, signaled for a footman.

"Oh, no," Nadejda refused, waving away the servant. "Mama says a lady never has more than two glasses." Her lavender eyes, cool as her disdain, cast a scornful glance at Aunt Militza, who'd been keeping up with Stefan's consumption over dinner.

"Your mother was from the north," Militza curtly said, her brows drawn together in nettled pique, "where all they drink is tea to keep warm. Leave the bottle," she added to the young footman filling her glass.

Stefan couldn't help but smile at Militza's snappish answer to Nadejda's prudery. It could be a battlefield of a dinner, he thought, managing to hide his grin behind his uplifted wineglass. When he raised his eyes a moment later as the glass touched his lips, his gaze met Lisaveta's, and immediately memories returned of the bottle of wine they'd shared one morning in an enormous wooden tub set out on a flower-bedecked terrace. The sun had been warm, and they warmer still, hot with need and tumultuous passion, and the wine, chilled in a nearby mountain stream, was ambrosia to senses already attuned to pleasure. They had made love endlessly and then much later laughed with silliness and frivolous intimacy, as if they were the only two people in the world. Tonight, he thought, he'd touch her again and kiss her and make her laugh and give to her the enormous pleasure she'd given him.

Lisaveta dropped her eyes first before his dark gaze, more concerned with appearances than he. Stefan never cared about comportment; in that he was his father's son. Only his betrothal to Princess Taneiev was an aberration in personality. No one on either branch of his family had ever been practical. There had been no need with their wealth and status, but then, none before him had seen their father die in slow degrees, consumed by drugs, none had seen their father die a broken man living in exile at the spas of Europe. So Stefan was going to be practical in the one facet that had been his father's downfall. He would have a wife beyond reproach; he would have children with a legal patrimony from birth.

"Do you like my wines?" he asked Lisaveta. "They say some of the Georgian sun is captured in each bottle." He spoke to her as though no one else existed at the table.

"It does warm one's senses," she replied, her smile enchanting. After several glasses of wine Lisaveta found herself relaxed and without rancor. In fact, after listening to Nadejda over dinner, she'd actually begun feeling sorry for Stefan. The young woman was devoid of amusement or charm, fastidious only of her position and the refined affectations of society. How dreary for Stefan, who loved to laugh.

"It reminds me," Lisaveta went on, holding her glass up to the light, its golden contents rich and sunshiny, "of a special wine from Tzinondali Papa and I once had. Papa called it Angelglow because one's blood turned warm."

"Those," Stefan said, smiling back, "are my vineyards."

"My papa prefers French wines," Nadejda interjected. "He says only French wines are of superior quality and fit for the palate of a gentleman." She spoke to the table at large as though she were delivering news of importance. "The Emperor, you know, only drinks French champagne."

Stefan knew better-Tsar Alexander had a fondness for his vintages and they'd shared many bottles together over the years-but Nadejda's insipidity wasn't his concern. "I'm sure you're right," he said in a detached way, more interested at the moment in the beautiful flush on Countess Lazaroff's cheeks. Had her smile been as suggestive as her remark or was he imagining her response? His eyes took in her azure gown and the way Militza's pearls at her neck and ears set off her sun-kissed skin to perfection. Considering the haste required of the dressmaker in Aleksandropol, she'd done exceptionally well, and his glance drifted down to the provocative splendor of Lisaveta's breasts displayed so enticingly by the low-cut décolletage. Even her skin exuded warmth; it glowed like his wine with fragrant allure, and he could almost smell its heated perfume.

Shifting slightly in his chair to accommodate his arousal, he glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty-four more courses to go. A brief half hour, he hoped, in conversation in the drawing room, and then everyone could retire. He was impatient and restless. Lisaveta was near enough to reach over and touch, but he couldn't. Because this stranger who was his fiancée had decided to spend several days in residence while her family visited the Viceroy in Tiflis.

Militza had to ask him twice whether Archduke Michael had returned to Saint Petersburg, and when she did finally gain his attention, his answer was brief. He didn't participate further in the conversation, and after all the discussion of his taste in food, he hardly ate, as though he were host by requirement but detached from the actual proceedings. Georgi, on an informal footing with his employer, coaxed him to try the sturgeon, which Stefan did to please him, but he wouldn't be cajoled to taste anything more until the sorbet-a lemon ice, Georgi reminded him, he'd favored since childhood.

He seemed very different here tonight, Lisaveta thought, a prince in his palace, familiar with deference, accustomed to being waited on, intent on his own interests, polite to his aunt with a genuine warmth but no more than civil to his fiancée, although he had every intention of spending the rest of his life with her. None of the casual intimacy she'd seen last week remained in his character; none of the animated banter or amused laughter she'd come to know was apparent. Not even a critical comment materialized to make him seem more human. And when Stefan rose directly after the lemon ice, she wasn't surprised.

"Forgive me, ladies," he said, excusing himself, "but I promised Had some time after dinner. Thank you all for a pleasant evening," he added, then bowed politely and left the table.

As the door closed behind him, Militza said, "He was bored."

"Stefan isn't one for conversation," Nadejda retorted, as if she were the expert on Prince Stefan Bariatinsky after a week's acquaintance.

Poor child, Lisaveta thought, remembering their heated conversations on subjects as esoteric as Kurdish shaman mythology or as trivial as the state of dressmaking in Aleksandropol. She'd found Stefan a charming conversationalist, but if today was any indication of his attachment to Nadejda, he'd treat his wife abominably. She felt a sudden sympathy for the Princess Taneiev.

"If you don't mind," Nadejda declared, addressing Militza in a tone that suggested she didn't care if she minded or not, "I'd like to take charge of the dinner for my parents tomorrow night. Papa will not eat this-" her pouty lips curled upward in reproof "-native fare. I'll have a chef brought over from the Viceroy's palace."

Lisaveta's sympathy instantly evaporated at Nadejda's insufferable tone and priggish demand. Stefan might not deal with his future wife affectionately, she reflected, but his wishes in turn weren't of the slightest interest to her. Their bargain for a marriage of convenience apparently was equally made. Princess Taneiev didn't love Stefan, it was obvious. She didn't look at him with affection or longing. She seemed immune to his sensuality-a startling revelation to Lisaveta, who found his attraction so powerful it outweighed all perceptible logic. But Nadejda was very young and perhaps simply unawakened. Or more likely, as her prudish comments on a variety of subjects denoted, she was very much attached to her mother's primly artificial views on life. She would probably find the concept of love too emotional. Mama no doubt would have a homily to that effect.

A shame when Stefan was so very easy to love.

A shame, she thought with a flashing spontaneity of feeling, when she could love him so very much.

"Bring over the entire staff if you wish, my dear," Aunt Militza replied, her voice suspiciously warm. "Stefan won't mind at all," she added with an innocence that was entirely out of character.

"Very good," Nadejda replied in a tone one would use to a servant. "And if you have other plans, I'm sure we won't need you in attendance tomorrow night." It was a blatantly rude dismissal. Nadejda was extremely self-centered, a personality trait humored by her parents, who had allowed her whims in every instance save those that might interfere with theirs. She had been pampered, spoiled in a small-girl way and schooled in the normal studies considered proper for refined young ladies, which meant that she was, in effect, uneducated. Her world was luxurious but narrow, and she considered her wishes preeminent because no one had to date disabused her of that notion. Stefan had a tendency, it seemed, to be abrupt and caustic, if today was any indication, she decided, but Mama had warned her of men's moodiness and told her it was best to ignore or simply smile it away and then later…do as you wished. She thought Mama's advice quite sensible, and certainly everyone agreed her smile was radiant. She used it on Militza.