Love Storm (40 page)

"She wasn't a virgin?" Alex exclaimed. He narrowed his eyes consideringly. "And how do you know that, may I ask?"

Yuri shrugged evasively.

"The Golden Goddess?" Alex said in astonishment. "Never say you were the first?" "The first," Yuri acceded quietly. "When?" Alex inquired.

"We were both fifteen," was the pensive reply.

"Good Lord, she was a fool," Alex declared. "Amalie knew even then that she must marry for money. Her father's gambling debts were notorious throughout the empire. She must have realized when you sell yourself for that high a price, the buyer ar least expects a virgin."

"You know Amalie, Alex. Do you think that kind of sensual passion could have been kept chaste until she was eighteen?" Yuri quirked one eyebrow derisively.

Alex emitted a short, hard laugh. "As you say, Yuri, I stand corrected. How did it happen?"

"Our estates ajoin, as you know. We spent that summer together; I gave Amalie her first lessons in love, having the advantage of a two-year start on her. In our remote area of the Ukraine, although
droit
du
seigneur
was no longer legal and hadn't been for generations, old traditions die hard, and I, as my father's heir, was offered at a very young age the pick of our peasant girls. They had some misguided notion that sleeping with the Batiushka or the Batiushka's son enhanced their reputation. So I was well schooled by fifteen.

"It was a beautiful summer, Amalie's and mine. We explored each other's bodies with infinite joy and leisure. Unfortunately too soon, the usual consequences ensued. Amalie became pregnant. I would have married her, but my wealth didn't suffice. Damn her father's black soul. In the seclusion of the country the next spring our daughrer was born. Since Amalie had still to sell herself to the highest bidder, a child was an impossible encumbrance.

"I took the baby and raised her. Betsy isn't my niece but my daughter," Yuri confessed.

"I and everyone else know that, Yuri," Alex said quietly. "The only question has ever been, Who's the mother? Besty's a darling and remarkably like her father. But now that I know who the mother is, I can say also remarkably like the mother. Does Amalie ever see the girl?"

"Quite often. They're good friends, although Amalie visits as an acquaintance of mine. I told Betsy long ago her mother died in childbirth."

"Now that Amalie's father is gone to his reward and can't amass any more debrs, do you ever think of marrying Amalie?"

"God, no. We've known each other too long and too intimately. Familiarity, you know, breeds contempt. She scorns my loose ways and wild, licentious living, and I've never been able to understand how she could have sold herself to that soft slug Boris. Filial piety has its limits, it seems to me. Betsy's rather spoiled anyway; we're a very good team, my beautiful daughter and I. And marriage hasn't exactly agreed with you, my fine stud. What makes you think I'm interested in that misery?" Yuri jibed.

"Touché,"
Alex grunted. "Marriage and living with one woman is an unnatural state."

"I'll drink to that," Yuri laughed. Reaching for the decanter, he poured two brandies and handed Alex his. "To the natural state of bachelorhood."

They both drained their glasses.

"Well, what's on the agenda tonight? Do we check the flesh on display at Orenburg's ball or straight away to the Islands and the accommodating gypsies? What say, Alex?"

"Let's skip the simpering society masses," Alex said, wrinkling his beautiful aristocratic nose. "I'm not in the mood tonight to offer even the barest civility for a fuck. The gypsies will suit me well. With them it's a business arrangement—no distasteful emotional outbursts, no spurious tender sentiments, so much more convenient.

"Let's see if Wolf
s
up yet. I lost him last night almost as soon as we entered Princess Nagarin's party. She dragged him away, and neither one of them had reappeared by the time I left with Amalie. Kitty certainly didn't play the perfect hostess last night. Well, no doubt she did to one of her guests," Alex amended laughingly. "Let's go find Wolf. He'll be interested in the Islands tonight." And so the diligent quest to elude boredom continued.

A week later at a small card party lorgnettes were raised, pince-nez adjusted, brows delicately quirked, and eyes narrowed as the room's aristocratic occupants carefully scrutinized and assessed the bald temerity of the young Kuzan heir. No one had ever conceded that Alex had pretty manners; he had very little at all, and although fully noted for his reckless, impudent manner of address, he had, in this latest remark, far surpassed a hitherto notorious reputation for plain-speaking.

As Alex had been introduced to a stunning brunette visiting from Paris, a guest of the hostess, he had declared in a resonant carrying baritone,
"Honore
Consrance, as I live and breathe, what a damnable pleasure to see you again. And how are the softest, most delectable thighs in Christendom?"

The lady in question had good-naturedly tapped his cheek lightly with her ivory and lace fan and replied sweetly, "The same old Alex, I see." Then lowering her voice to a seductive murmur, she added, "And how is the best tool of pleasure in Christendom,
mon
amp."

Their eyes met over her fan, and Alex replied quietly with a gallic shrug and a small smile, "I'm staying in practice,
madame,
so as not to lose my fine edge."

Her eyes gleamed appreciatively.

"Taking pity on all the languishing, inviting St. Petersburg females, Sasha?" she queried flippantly.

"Pity?" inquired the prince delicately, his gleaming eyes half closed in amusement. "I've found, my dear," Alex drawled sardonically, "it's something quite different they're after."

Honore
trilled a soft, musical peal of mirth, then directed a frank, open glance into those amused eyes. "But you're married, I hear," the gorgeous Frenchwoman said.

"That I am," Alex replied unreservedly. "A fate which befalls all of us eventually. And you too, I understand. Are you and
monsieur
la comte
happy?" he asked with a comic look in his cat's eyes.

"Together you mean? Sasha,
really,
such
naïveté
for an abandoned reprobate like yourself," she chided. Her eyes twinkled. "But my marriage has its advantages."

"Such as?" Alex drawled.

"Monsieur is never home."

"How convenient," Alex murmured. "We seem to have similar marriages. Princess Kuzan prefers the salubrious air of the mountains to the company of her husband."

"In that case, Sasha,
mon ange.
Perhaps we can console each other in our privation," and she allowed her radiant eyes to meet his with a challenge.

The prince was not slow to take it up.
"Honore,
my darling," he whispered softly. "I have always admired your tenderhearted compassion. Your scheme of mutual commiseration has an intriguing appeal. How soon can you leave this dreary affair?"

Honore
rippled a low laugh of satisfaction. "An hour?" she suggested with a quirk of her charming mouth.

"An hour?" Alex lamented jestingly. "Have pity, I detest bridge parties."

"Thirty minutes, then,"
Honore
allowed charitably with a tilt of her beautiful head.

"Ten," Alex said, and his eyes met hers with unreserved ardor.

"Ten," she whispered, shaken by the candid sensuality and by memories of the prince's passion.

And so they consoled each other quite assiduously, for they were old friends.

Alex, schooled in the Kuzan tradition of private tutors and university on the Continent, had first met
Honore
six years before, when he had spent two years in Paris. Outside the obligations of his university tutoring in law, he thoroughly enjoyed the wildly dissipated counter-culture available in Paris during
La Belle
Epoque,
conducting himself in the normal fashion of a healthy, young Russian prince.
Honore
Constance, the daughter of an ancient but genteelly impoverished French family, had warmed Alex's bed for the two years of his sojourn. Alex had protected
Honore
from malicious remarks and any would-be traduc-ers during the years of his friendship, for no one of even the dullest intellect chose to publicly come to verbal blows with a Kuzan. On one occasion when
Honore
had chided her young lover on his intimidating address to a French count of her acquaintance, Alex had replied, "I am a prince,
mademoiselle.
It is my prerogative to be intimidating."

When it came time for the prince to return to Russia upon completion of his studies, he left a suitable fortune as gratitude for
Honore s
fidelity and passion. The magnitude of the wealth entailed on her continued to protect
Honore
in her lover's absence and served as well to assure her conrinued entree into even the most conservative homes, although it was common knowledge that Prince Alex had first ruined her and then installed her as his mistress. France was ever a nation with a shopkeeper's mentality, and gold spoke powerfully at all levels of society. No doors were closed to
Honore
Constance
de
la Garonne, and her fortune assured her a splendid array of marriage suitors.

A fortnight sped by that summer, as
Honore
and Alex renewed their friendship, but much as he enjoyed her company, when it was time for
Honore
to return to France, she left no great emptiness in his heart.

The next week he resumed his amorous attentions to the ladies of St. Petersburg, but within days the old depression returned. No matter how he devoted himself to pleasure, his discontent and boredom mounted. No matter how many times the evening ended in some woman's arms, he was never satiated. The woman he had each night wasn't the woman he wanted. He told himself he was a pleasure seeker by choice but found uneasily that the pleasure was never more than the most fleeting fulfillment.

Despite his best efforts to the contrary, he was missing Zena. Many women had been uncomfortably chagrined as the inebriated prince had on numerous occasions addressed them as Zena in ardent phrases of passion.

It was more than six weeks now since Zena had left. Every pregnant woman he saw made him wince in dismay. Strange, he had never noticed pregnant females before, and now it seemed wherever he looked his eyes espied the blooming form of an
enceinte
woman. He was tormented with memories of their idyllic retreat at the
dacha.
Visions of her laughing smile, her delicate winsome face, and her perfect form all touched him with remorse.

Then for the first time the veneer of his self-absorption seemed to crumble and he thought with new stabs of pain how she might be suffering. He began to worry, imagining her in countless discomforts of poverty. Could she take care of herself and Bobby? Was she the victim of some brute who abused her? Was she healthy? Was she happy?

Lord, he missed her. He finally admitted to himself that he missed her, and he really cared about her. This is what caring is, he thought, wanting the person near you always. Love was enjoying an intimacy that wasn't fleeting, but deep and enduring and, as he'd found out, often difficult. Was it too late for them? Did she hate him now? Had she turned lightly to another man? Had she forgotten him already? The harsh, cheerless questions were achingly unpalatable.

He checked at his bank, and no funds had been withdrawn by his wife. The news left him slightly shaken, but he cautioned himself to composure. If she had gone ro her grandfather, there was no need for money. But no one was absolutely certain she had gone there. He sent a telegram south. To hand deliver it the distance to the mountain aul took some time. Six days later he had his reply. Zena was not there.

He panicked then. She was out in the world alone, or at least without him. In fewer than four days it would be September. In fewer than two months his child would be born, and he didn't even know where Zena was. His wife and child were vulnerable in the midst of a perilous, treacherous world. He was frantic to find them and make them safe. Detectives were set on the trail almost two months old. The results were negative. All inquiries came to naught. His agents had drawn a blank.

Anxiety for Zena became a very real fear. The most frightful visions tormented him. How could she live without funds? How could she support herself and Bobby without using his money? She couldn't keep a job when she was almost eight months pregnant. What if she had placed herself under some man's protection? His rage would mount furiously at the prospect.