Susan Johnson - Golden Paradise

And he smiled for the first time since waking, a man once more in control.

Fifteen minutes later-ten minutes too late for General Prince Orbeliani-Bariatinsky, who had sat mounted, snapping orders, since Haci and his men had arrived on the run-the troop of mounted men galloped out of the stable yard. Sweeping around the west wing of the palace, kicking the carefully raked gravel drive into shambles, they found themselves on a collision course with the carriage waiting for Nadejda. She was late and only now strolling down the bank of marble stairs, her parasol up against the mild morning sun.

Upon sighting Stefan, she stopped poised on the first landing and delicately waved her white gloved hand.

Oh, hell! Stefan thought. Damnation! They could have swerved around, avoiding both the carriage and his tedious fiancée, but, influenced by years of good manners, he hauled Cleo to a sudden skidding halt, his troopers followed suit in a chaotic rearing stop behind him.

Delicately fanning away the cloud of dust rising from milling horses, Nadejda smiled in greeting, as though she and Stefan were meeting on a promenade. "Good morning, Stefan. Isn't it a delightful day?"

Hell, no, Stefan thought, banal phrases, in his current mood, only further ignition to his anger. Nadejda made an incongruous picture on his palace steps. He'd never thought of her as actually living in his home. A fiancée seemed apart somehow-a name one referred to in conversation, a distant future, as in someday-ay-ay-ay, bride. His only memories of her were as his beautiful companion at balls and parties in Saint Petersburg. But she would be actually physically installed in his home. The second small fissure in his staid and practical image of matrimony appeared. Nadejda at table last evening had been the first appalling crack.

Cleo, recognizing perhaps Stefan's impatience, was sidling nervously, dancing in staccato prancing agitation at the base of the stairs.

"Give my regards to your parents," Stefan said with civility if not good humor, but he couldn't bring himself to extend his greeting to their host, the Viceroy. Although he and Prince Melikoff often met in public since both were prominent figures in the Caucasus, Stefan's enmity toward the usurper of his father's post was undiminished. Melikoff was essentially a courtier, neither a soldier nor a diplomat, and he treated the native tribes with the arrogant disdain of that clique. With his own heritage from his mother's family closely linked to the native tribes, Stefan not only resented Melikoff s parochial vision but took personal affront at his ethnic slurs.

Nadejda stood twirling her parasol in what seemed to Stefan an irritating affectation and Cleo was about to take a nip out of someone if he didn't get moving soon. "Darling," Nadejda replied, her lashes lowered and raised in some ridiculous flirtatious parody, "you can offer your regards to Mama and Papa yourself. I'm on my way now to fetch them."

Luckily Stefan couldn't see his troopers' expressions behind him for they were exchanging amused glances after having just been hauled away from their breakfast in order to accompany their Prince on a scorching chase after his escaped lover. Being Muslim, they saw no ethical problems in having more than one woman; they were allowed four wives. None of them, however, quite understood what their Prince had seen in the blond woman with the lavender eyes and too-sweet voice. He normally had better taste in women. Having served him as bodyguard for years, they were in a position to know his tastes.

"I'm sorry to have to miss your mama and papa, but orders came in this morning and I must leave." Stefan's voice was mild, but his grip on Cleo's reins was straining the muscles in his right arm.

"Nonsense, Melikoff can rescind any orders. I'll simply tell-"

"No." His voice interrupted, restrained and taut. "Melikoff gives no orders to me."

"Don't be silly, Stefan, he's the Tsar's representative for the entire Caucasus." She spoke as though she were informing him of one of life's basic facts.

"I take orders directly from the Tsar, not Melikoff."

She made the mistake of stamping her foot. It was exactly the wrong thing to do in the current circumstances, although with Stefan's personality, perhaps it would always be objectionable. "You can't go," she unmistakably said.

Stefan's eyes widened momentarily, Cleo felt the stab of the bit in her mouth, and then Stefan said very softly, "I must."

"You'll be back for dinner certainly." The parasol had stopped its languid twirling and her pouty lips were pursed.

"I'm afraid not." Each word was clipped.

"I'm bringing over Melikoff's staff," she angrily declared, "to serve."

"I'm sure Aunt Militza will appreciate it," he curtly replied, angered beyond words at her presumption. No one replaced his staff; they were like family, new generations replacing the old and serving the Bariatinskys or Orbelianis through the centuries. "Move this carriage," he snapped to the coachman. "Immediately!" It was a gesture of authority only, for his men could ride by in smaller formation, but it pleased him to exercise his power in her presence. Bitch, who did she think she was? was his first spontaneous thought. His second thought, more rational and hence more disconcerting, was that once they were married, she would be ordering his household.

"Good day, mademoiselle," he said grimly, and swinging Cleo around, he rode past the carriage. His men followed him in good order, smiles on their faces, looking forward to the chase. It was a perfect morning for a ride; they always preferred a hunt to simple riding.

As they swept down the drive, the sprawling city lay before them, nestled in its cradle of hills… a series of villages, citadels and bazaars swarming up and down the cliffs and conical hills, divided by the gorge of the river Koura. Stefan maintained what he considered a restrained pace through the steep streets of the Nari-Kala, the Persian citadel with its Armenian quarter. He led his troops across the bridge to the center of town, where the Russian or Europeanized buildings had been constructed fifty years ago, and holding Cleo in with effort, he continued past the theater, the Nobles Club, the public gardens, administrative buildings and shops selling all the luxuries of Europe. As his troops ascended into Avlabar, the Georgian town with its fortress and the church built by Vakhtang Gourgastan, the founder of Tiflis, Stefan began counting the streets as they passed, his jaw clenched tight, his breathing controlled. The last dwellings of the Gypsy quarter straggled away finally into dusty wastes, and letting out a whoosh of breath, he relaxed his grip on the reins and gave Cleo her head.

Sensing his restive mood she tossed her head, caracoled a dozen paces as if to say, I understand, and then, stretching out in a racing drive, flew down the road.

The fast-moving troop gained on Lisaveta slowly. Each post stop on the Georgian Military Road delayed her, while Stefan's own horses were ridden in relays without stopping. Each trooper led a string of mountain ponies ready to be swung onto at a gallop, an effortless action for men considered the best riders in the world.

Stefan was silent, riding full-out, all his energies concentrated on arresting Lisaveta's flight. She was more determined than he expected but not, he brusquely reflected, likely to outrun him, Nadejda's interference notwithstanding. And thoughts of Nadejda, Melikoff, her parents, her damnable affectations, all added fuel to his already heated temper. Haci made the mistake of mentioning once that riding the horses to death wouldn't accomplish their mission, but his warning, however gentle, gained only a flinty look from Stefan, and he too fell silent.

Lisaveta traveled at a leisurely pace through the rich Georgian lowlands, then as the road began to ascend, the carriage wound upward slowly through sombre defiles, past forts and ruined castles, the snow-covered mountains all around on the far horizon. She was in no particular hurry, mildly fatigued from her sleepless night and perhaps at base reluctant to be leaving.

She had to depart, she knew, but that fact didn't obliterate her disinclination. How nice it would have been to stay if she could have quashed all sense of pride, if she could have reconciled herself to the recreational position Stefan required.

He needed surcease from the war, a sensual holiday to mitigate the impact of twelve weeks of campaigning. She was opportune and convenient. Perhaps there were women willing to be only a convenience for Stefan.

She found she could not.

She'd also found Nadejda a deplorable obstacle. Or perhaps the extent of Stefan's casual resolution to marry Nadejda was the more potent stumbling block.

There was a small voice inside her brain saying to all her logical assessments, You'd be so much better, and she smiled at the sheer bravado of such audacity.

Better for what? Better in which way? Better than the hard and practical reasons Stefan had for marrying Princess Taneiev?

Hardly.

But better able, she admitted with a small sigh of regret, to love him.

From that disastrous thought she was determined to distance herself, and distance herself as well from the physical allure of Prince Bariatinsky.

The driver was singing at the top of his voice. Gazing out the window, she smiled. It was a glorious place they were driving through, reddish cliffs hung with ivy and crowned with deep green pines, far above them the gilded fringe of snows and far below the river thundering out from a black misty gorge to become a silvery thread glittering in the sun. She should be grateful-for the beautiful day… for her memories.

Stefan was swinging onto his fifth mount since Tiflis, dropping into place without checking the horse's galloping stride; he rode bareback as easily as on his padded saddle and had the calluses to prove it. Even as he strung out the long braided lead, allowing the riderless ponies to drop back, he glanced at the sun swiftly and then at the road descending into the valley below. The Georgian highway, which had been hacked through the mountains in a titanic five-year struggle, clung to the rock face of the mountains, descending and mounting through valley after valley, through gorges and defiles, each as familiar as his own landscaped acres.

She couldn't be too far ahead now since they'd been on the road for almost three hours. His blue lacquered coach was distinctive and Lisaveta noticed as well for her beauty; each post stop knew exactly when the carriage and lovely lady had passed. She was, according to the ostlers at Tskhinval-the last fort before the Krestovaia Pass-no more than fifteen minutes ahead.

Stefan nudged his Orloff mare into more speed, and Haci, waving the men behind them forward, whipped his own mount to close the distance between himself and Stefan.

Ten minutes later they caught sight of a vivid flash of royal blue disappearing over the crest of a rise and Stefan smiled, a wolfish smile not entirely without malice. He was hot and tired, dusty after three hours on the road and in the mood to blame someone other than himself for this morning pursuit. Sliding his Winchester from his saddle mount, he fired six rapid shots into the air and then slowed his horse to a canter. His driver and outriders would recognize the signal.

The chase was won.

"Why are we stopping?" Lisaveta asked the mounted man outside the carriage window, apprehensive after hearing the rifle fire to find the coach coming to a standstill in the middle of the road. Bandits were still prevalent in the mountains, and if they were being attacked, surely they shouldn't be stopping.

"Were those shots?" she added, hoping the way a child might for a reassuring answer.

"The Prince, mademoiselle,'" he said, resting both hands on his saddle pommel and smiling. He had begun the trip addressing her with the rigid protocol required by many nobles, but she had resisted being called "Your illustriousness" and he had deferred to her wishes.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"But we're over four hours out of Tiflis."

"Almost five, mademoiselle," he corrected.

"Why would 'the Prince'-" she duplicated his pronunciation "-be riding north?"

"I couldn't say, mademoiselle" the young man politely replied, although he had a pretty fair notion why, having lived in Stefan's household all his life.

"Need we wait?"

She could have been asking him, "Is there a God?" so startled was his expression. But, of course, she understood as well as the astonished young outrider why Stefan was on the road to Vladikavkaz.