Susan Johnson - Golden Paradise

His smile was unselfish and accommodating. "Sleep, darling, as long as you wish." He had twenty days left in paradise.

After Haci and the troop were dismissed the next morning, the days of their holiday continued in delight and…innovation. It was also a time of unalloyed happiness. In some small ways the Prince came to understand the nature of Lisaveta's independence. At least he tried, she indulgently thought. But steeped as he was in the culture of the Caucasus, Oriental in its social and political traditions, he had deep-seated traditions to reconcile.

His mother's family, while Georgian for centuries and thus Christian, were Persian in heritage and suzerains over large Kurdish tribes-nominally Muslim in religion, although their shaman past was still an integral part of life. These native tribes of Central Asian extraction were warrior cultures in which males were supreme, training for war a way of life and women's concerns incidental to their existence. Stefan had grown up in their midst.

His father had been born in Saint Petersburg, but he'd spent his adult life subduing the Caucasus and then ruling it for the Tsar. Field Marshal Bariatinsky had loved the mountain region and its exotic, exuberant, often violent life. The warrior culture spoke to his own soldier's soul.

Conditioned as Stefan was by a society in which harems were the norm, where warfare was the only occupation for a man, where the larger concerns of imperial expansion overrode personal interests, he was making conscious adjustments in his sentiments to accommodate Lisaveta's different perception of the world. He was trying to accommodate her notions of equality, her inexperience outside of the sphere of literary scholarship, and what he considered an idealistic vision.

She noticed his tolerance for her beliefs and his constraint when he couldn't agree. He tried not to argue, although their philosophies were at times starkly opposed. She, too, trod tightly when discussing controversial topics.

For the first time in her life, Lisaveta was experiencing a time spent purely for pleasure. For many years, she'd dealt with solitary scholarship and dusty tomes, with linguistic detail, not with this dizzying, intoxicating delirium of feeling. She was, as it were, on holiday from the circumstances of her life.

For his part, Stefan experienced not so much a break from the amusements of his past as a heightened awareness of what pleasure could be. A pleasure amplified beyond the physical, a pleasure so intense and joyous he woke at night and gently hugged Lisaveta to assure himself his sensations were real. In the days of their mountain retreat he felt again the unconditional happiness of his early childhood before he grew old enough to realize his family wasn't like others: His mother wasn't married to his father but to another man; his grandparents were his legal guardians to protect his legacy from the unknown man his mother had once married; his parents' profound love was mysteriously measured by a society as quick to punish as adore. And his long-held and dearly bought cynicism diminished in direct proportion to his happiness.

They bathed in the flower-bordered pool dammed up above the courtyard, warmed by their love to withstand the brisk temperatures of mountain streams, and rubbed each other dry amid moss-covered stones and verdant ferns, only to fall prey to the sensations provoked. The pool was their garden of Eden, their own green paradise, and they swam in the sunlight and moonlight and made love in the cool slipperiness of the water and on the scented banks of the stream.

"Will I last twenty days?" Stefan gasped one afternoon as he collapsed beside Lisaveta, his passion momentarily spent but his desire for her insatiable.

"At least I know why your reputation is so formidable," she sweetly replied, her own breathing ragged.

Her tone brought his head around and he looked at her from under his hand thrown across his forehead. "Are we being catty?" he replied, his mouth lifted in a grin.

"How do you ever find time to fight the Tsar's battles?" she said in a tone that was definitely feline.

"It's your fault," he bluntly said, although the kiss he gave her mitigated his words.

"Don't blame me for your satyric ways. I met you only a fortnight ago while your reputation has been circulating about the Empire for years."

"Much exaggerated, dushka," was his negligent reply.

"Oh, really… this is an aberration, then."

"Yes, darling, Lise," Stefan said, exhaling deeply, "you definitely are."

"I don't know," she playfully said, pleased he wasn't so enamored with all his other women, pleased her wanted her more, pleased with a female vanity she hadn't realized she possessed that he couldn't satisfy his desire for her, "if I like being called an aberration."

"Would you prefer seductive witch?" He was up on one elbow now, gazing at her as she lay beside him on the green mossy bank, his dark eyes amused.

She pursed her lips in mock disapproval. "It smacks of evil."

"Well, this pleasure is certainly not that. Do you like-" he traced a light finger down the column of her neck "-delightful nymph?"

She considered for a moment, as if this discussion were one of substance, then with reservation said, "Too poetical, Stefan, darling. I'm an archrealist."

He could have argued with her assessment. The unreality of their holiday together was so far removed from the mundane that he questioned at times whether he'd died and gone to heaven. "Delectable charmer," he pleasantly offered, "or captivating enchantress?"

Her eyes narrowed transiently at the ease with which his descriptions flowed. "Do you have many of these?" she softly inquired.

"Thousands," he teased.

"In that case I'm leaving," she responded with a hotness not altogether feigned. He'd said all these things before to too many women, and green demons of jealousy ate at her reason. Even the beauty of his body, as he lay, nude and virile, irritated those feelings. How many women had seen him so? Relaxed and charming, perfection in face and form.

"Going where?" he mildly inquired, his gaze surveying the mountain peaks surrounding them.

"Away… home… into some other man's arms," she heatedly said, wanting revenge for all his past lovers, in words at least.

"In that case, I'll have to tie you to my bed."

His calmness more than his statement shocked her. "You wouldn't!"

"In a minute," he said, his eyes having lost their amusement at talk of another man.

"I don't believe you," she replied.

"Leave then and test me." He hadn't moved in his lazy sprawl, but a new alertness was evident, as though he were coiled to spring at any suggestion of movement.

"You mean it, don't you?" she softly asked, astonished at how little she knew the man she'd been in constant company with for more than two weeks.

"I'm a possessive man," he replied as quietly as she. He was, but never before with women. He chose to overlook the significance of this discrepancy, knowing only that he wouldn't let her leave. Too many generations of royal blood, both Russian and Persian, flowed through his veins, too many tribesmen owed him obeisance, too many regiments obeyed his commands, to nurture humility. He would take what he wanted and keep it until he no longer wished it.

"I want to be alone," Lisaveta whispered, this new image of Stefan a chill shock to her senses.

"Don't go far" was all he said, as King Darius might have commanded a harem girl centuries ago.

And when she rose from his side and walked away, he watched her, no benevolence visible in his eyes.

Lisaveta sat on a window seat in a small parlor on the far side of the lodge, away from Stefan and Stefan's room. Wrapped in a soft mohair robe, her knees drawn up to her chin in a contemplative pose, she was trying to come to terms with the fact that she loved a man who was anathema to many of her most fervent beliefs.

How was it possible, she thought, her fingers smoothing in an unconscious gesture of indecision over the soft white wool of her robe.

She'd always assumed one fell in love with someone who idealized those principles one most cared for oneself, a man who was handsome but also kind and loving and imbued with a certain humanity. Was that all fantasy-the ideal, the perfect Prince Charming melded into her naive image of love? Was this even love she was feeling? Perhaps it was only sensual infatuation for Russia's most lionized hero. Was this overwhelming need to be close to Stefan love or merely obsession from another female hero-worshiper?

She wished she weren't so unpracticed and unfamiliar with the sensation. Since she'd never been in love she had no guidelines or experience to draw on. And Stefan never spoke of love. He spoke of adoration and enchantment, of need and desire, but never love.

That omission, she realized, was the dilemma in her own uncertainty. If his declarations were of love, would she even be questioning her feelings? She wouldn't, she sadly thought. She would be joyously oblivious to this unhappy speculation…

So how did she deal with her emotions in the absence of any reciprocal declarations from Stefan? The one she'd wrung from him to love only her for their holiday time had been carefully worded-although in truth, those days ago, her demand had been as inchoate as his answer was glib.

Can you love a man who not only sees a woman in an inherently subservient role but is quite literally deluged with submissive women willing to love him on any terms?

Her answer, she sorrowfully realized, was yes.

Can you love a man who not only is engaged to be married but is callous and selfish enough to leave his fiancée in pursuit of his own pleasure?

That answer too, after a minimum of introspection, was also yes.

Can you love a man who plans to leave you when his furlough is over with nothing more than a goodbye?

She touched the texture of the native rug covering the window seat, as though an answer lay beneath its rich and glowing color like a jinni in a bottle. It had been woven, Stefan had said, in Haci's village, and its colors were the favorite deep scarlet of the local tribes, contrasted with decorative detail in the expensive indigo carried overland from the East. Her pale hand lay on the stylized flame motifs, their crimson tones like blood, juxtaposing the fluffy white mohair of her robe and the rug's dramatic geometric designs, a stark contrast in color and tactile image, a contrast, too, of metaphoric innocence and the austere symbols of Stefan's tribal world. She didn't have the hard resilience of Stefan no matter how much she favored independence; she would never understand completely the primitive savagery of his background. She was a scholar, and he was a man of action.

Who unfortunately saw women as only adjuncts to his life- minimal adjuncts.

She sighed dramatically because she was alone and the sensation was comforting, and then she sighed again because there was satisfaction in her silliness. She smiled a little after that, thinking she was indeed being melodramatic beyond all sensible proportions. It wasn't as though she'd been deceived about Stefan's intentions from the very beginning. He'd been careful to promise nothing.

Now she wanted to blame him for her own vast affection when he wanted neither love nor blame. He only wanted the pleasure of her company.

Papa had once said years ago, on a rare occasion when he spoke of Maman that he treasured the time they had together as a gift from God and he had Maman always in his memory. Maybe she should deal as appreciatively with her time on Stefan's mountain. Maybe life didn't always transpire exactly according to one's wishes. Maybe she was as selfish as she accused Stefan of being for wanting him to change his life for her.

Stefan, on the other hand, didn't question his feelings of happiness. Lisaveta was superb, she was beautiful and passionate, she entertained him with her charm and intelligence, she was grace and elegance and also girlish innocence in scintillating variations he found forever exciting. She wasn't a woman with a predictable personality and manner-the kind he always grew bored with. He'd experienced no sense of jaded ennui with Lisaveta and they'd been in continual company for more than two weeks. If he'd contemplated the novelty of that circumstance, perhaps their feelings would have been more in accord. Prince Stefan Bariatinsky, however, prided himself on his hedonist principles, and contemplation of any kind was nonessential.

He thought instead in practical terms. The Countess was unhappy and pouting or pouting and angry or any combination thereof, all of which could probably be satisfactorily relieved by a handsome gift or two or ten. Since his mountain lodge was often used for his amorous entertainments, and since females were prone to emotional outbursts and tears, he kept a ready supply of restorative baubles on hand.