Sweet Love, Survive (7 page)

Hell, he thought reasonably, it wasn’t so uncommon. Many wives had lovers of their own, and in a sense Peotr and Kitty’s arrangement had never been a marriage. In any event, Apollo decided sensibly, it was nothing to lose sleep over. He had wanted her, he had taken her, he had found her company enjoyable and felt no regrets over the enjoyment. In these uncertain times, one took one’s pleasure where one could. It had been a pleasant, very charming three days, that was all. Now back to the war. Back to the damn war they were losing inch by inch, mile by mile.

•   •   •

Kitty stood at the bedroom window watching Apollo ride away. He sat on his horse with a careless arrogance, broad-shouldered under the heavy marten officer’s coat, all the accoutrements of war buckled and belted on once again. Apollo was riding hatless in the chill December morning, and his long, golden hair shone like a saintly aureole in the blue-gray light preceding the dawn. She had curled her fingers in those golden waves, Kitty recalled vividly; had been lured into the smiling depths of Apollo’s great tawny eyes.

Pensively, she wished she were a gypsy or peasant girl or one of the new Cossack women who fought as soldiers, so she would have dared to ride away with Apollo. It would have been joy to travel by his side, sharing the pleasure of his presence; she envied Karaim and Sahin. But it didn’t really matter, any of her wishes … because Apollo hadn’t asked her to come with him. Hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing her again. Of course he hadn’t, she quickly told herself. Even if he had wanted to … And a hundred excuses for his reticence poured into her brain.

In any event, she wasn’t a gypsy or peasant or Cossack girl. No matter what happened, she still remained Princess Kurminen and Countess Radachek, was very much married, and carried sole responsibility for the land that had passed unaltered in these adjoining estates through fifty generations. No, she couldn’t leave, no matter how pleasing the dream. Her audible sigh broke the stillness of the room.

Kitty’s small hand let the lace curtain drop back into place, obscuring the distant figure of Apollo behind the delicate filigree. She turned away from the window and turned away from the man who had given her warmth and laughter, had taught her the vital spirit of passion. A man who smiled easily, charmed irresistibly, emanated the very essence of life. Kitty looked at the white birchwood bed where she had learned to love and knew she would never be the same again.

    In little more than an hour Leda covered the short distance to Zadia’s, and Apollo dismounted before an elegant marble
pavilion, architecturally derived from Madame Pompadour’s Petit Trianon, the dalliance ground of an earlier courtesan of splendid taste—and in those opulent terms Zadia styled herself, despite the remote geographic situation of Niiji. Wild and uncivilized the terrain might be at the base of the savage Caucasus foothills, thousands of miles from the leading cities, but Zadia’s was not even marginally provincial. It had the advantage of being scant hours from Besh-Tau and Kislovodsk, the richest spas in the world.

Apollo turned to whisper briefly into the mare’s ear, soothed the long, silky mane with a leather-gloved hand, then handed the reins to Karaim. The two bodyguards remained behind as Apollo strode up the gentle rise of marble stairs, slightly numbed from an hour’s ride in the arctic temperatures. Heavy wooden doors opened at his approach—Zadia prided herself on her liveried staff of servants—and Prince Apollo walked into the familiar travertine-floored foyer. Hovering footmen divested him of his weapons, coat, papakha, and gloves, and at his request ushered him into the small breakfast parlor in the east wing.

Moments later, as Apollo was contemplating a serving of curried eggs, his solitude was broken by several companions of his cavalry unit. His cheerful greeting was met by a variety of responses, individually dependent on the exact nature of the addressee’s alcohol consumption the previous night. Some were genial, others slightly subdued, a few merely acknowledged Apollo with a short nod of recognition—verbal exercise, at the moment, being beyond their capabilities.

When Prince Kadar Guirey sat down at the linen-covered breakfast table, his thin Tartar lips drew into an assessing smile. Slowly stirring his glass of tea, he said, “Lost your way, eh, Apollo? Knowing you, we didn’t send out a search party. She must have been superior to interest you for the entire three days. Anyone I know? But then, you’ve always been a shade careless where you’ve slept, haven’t you?” The leer was almost too obvious.

Fitting his shoulders comfortably into the curve of the Chippendale chair, Apollo leaned back in an elegant sprawl.
Smiling pleasantly, he merely said in a noncommittal way, “She’s shy.”

“I didn’t think you liked them shy.”

Apollo’s mouth twitched. “I like ’em any way.”

“Regardless of age—right, Apollo?”

“Leave off, Kadar. That was a bet. Anyway, Helene wasn’t that old—in her forties, probably.”

“Try fifties!” his mirthful interrogator genially replied.

Apollo digested this. “Really?” he said, amazed for a moment. “Well, regardless, it turned out rather nicely. In fact, I had lunch with her a few months ago, before she closed up her house and left for Europe.”

“
Just
lunch?” Kadar was in waggish good humor.

Apollo shrugged. “What can I say—Helene’s in marvelous shape. And—” his eyelids lowered suggestively—“there’s something to be said for years of experience.”

“You’re incorrigible, Kuzan.” There was more than a hint of disapprobation in the languid drawl.

“Hell, no. Just willing to taste indiscriminately from the, er, ‘smorgasbord’ of life.” Apollo’s face was bland.

Prince Guirey drew in his breath sharply. Flushing under his swarthy skin he hissed, “Apollo! You promised not to mention that!”

“Relax, Kadar, my lips are sealed.” A slow smile creased Apollo’s sardonic face. “By the way, how is your sister?”

“Fine!” Prince Guirey snapped, his face reddened.

“Good. Happy to hear it,” Apollo lazily drawled. “It’s not often brother and sister get along so famously.”

A party several years ago had gotten out of hand, and when someone drunkenly suggested the lights be turned out and partners picked in the dark from a smorgasbord of willing, unclad females, a roar of young voices riotously agreed. When the lights were restored hours later, Kadar was aghast to find the young lady he had been making love to so long and so blissfully was none other than his sister.

“So then,” Apollo went on convivially, his teasing tormentor neatly set down, “it looks as though everyone had an entertaining time without me.” His smile widened as his
clear, alert, golden eyes regarded the variously slouched and sprawled officers. Only a few were eating breakfast; most chose to cradle their heads in their hands and stare at their coffee or tea. Moans and groans greeted his remark.

“Christ, Apollo,” exclaimed one extremely young coronet. “How the hell do you always look so goddamn fresh?” The speaker’s face was pale and of a distinctly greenish cast. Apollo threw him a commiserating look.

“Mostly, Kolya, because I love the ladies, and it, ah, works out better if I pass out after the tumble in bed rather than before—so I pace my liquor. When you get older,
mon pauvre
, you’ll iron out the sequence.” Suddenly a small smile tugged at his mouth. “Although”—Apollo’s mind drifted back to his initial encounter with Kitty—“the sequence of events is not necessarily inflexibly rigid.”

Another officer, arriving in time to see the roguish grin play across Apollo’s face, asked, “So who is she? I see that pleasingly smug smile. Don’t be selfish now, Apollo. You know how things are—here today, gone tomorrow. Give us a name, anyway, so we can warm her bed if you’re blown off your horse.” It was a sentiment silently entertained by more than one man there that morning, for Apollo’s standards concerning women were deliciously diverse, and always high.

Apollo shrugged eloquently. “Sorry, Mahomet. Courtesy forbids me.” He arched one brow, the pleasant smile still in place.

“Damn. So you found a high-class whore. Some people have all the luck!” Mahomet Shamkhal was a Baku Moslem, and in his culture, harems protected refined females. He didn’t understand the western distinctions regarding upper-class women and love affairs—the distinction that protected a lady’s name, but not a peasant girl’s. In Mahomet’s milieu, any female allowing herself to be touched by anyone but her husband was a whore.

“Mahomet, you have no delicacy in matters of the heart.”

“Since when does heart have anything to do with it, Apollo? You know damn well it’s a different piece of female anatomy
that you’re interested in. So tell us the name of your society hussy in case you reach Paradise before us.”

“The lady’s name,” said Apollo in an unmistakably honeyed voice that did nothing to hide his lethal thoughts, “is not open to comment.” He fixed a cool eye on the Baku Moslem who had offended him.

Never in anyone’s experience had Apollo been so discreet. His reticence suggested someone’s protected daughter, at the very least, was the cause of his absence—a delicious virgin, no doubt. Formerly, of course. With those sorts of deductions racing through everyone’s minds, Apollo’s response was a foregone conclusion. A dozen pairs of eyes rested on him.

“I would appreciate a retraction of your remarks, Shamkhal.” The smile suddenly vanished from Apollo’s face, and with it all his cultivated graces. Skull, flesh, and muscle, every fluent line and stark shade of Apollo’s face betrayed the mountain savage. There was a cruel edge to his voice in the formal use of surname enunciated in frigid accents. Damn Moslems, anyway, Apollo thought irritably, keeping their women in cages like dumb animals. A lady who enjoyed lovemaking had never seemed less of a lady in Apollo’s opinion, and he was quite ready to defend his convictions with his
kinjal
.

Apollo’s reputation with kinjal, the prescribed weapon for duels in the Caucasus, was formidable. Mahomet Shamkhal, brave against ordinary standards, wasn’t foolhardy. He’d rather die in a cavalry charge or expire worn out by his harem than be cut to pieces with Apollo’s mountain dagger. Mountain duels were to the death, there were no half measures.
⁵
But more than anything else, more even than Apollo’s notorious reputation as a dueling opponent, the supreme confidence in his voice convinced Mahomet. There were flashes of unguarded violence in Apollo that it didn’t pay to provoke. Mahomet decided the name of the aristocratic whore wasn’t worth his life.

Having withstood the pale gaze for as long as self-respect demanded, Mahomet shrugged and said smoothly, “Of course. Retracted, by all means.”

“Thank you,” said Apollo with simplicity, quite calmly and quite unlike his habitual response to a challenge. More than one mind decided that whoever the aristocratic tart was, she certainly had a soothing effect on their quick-tempered friend.

A blood-letting had been only narrowly averted. A quiet sigh wafted around the table; tempers were always short the morning after a carouse, and one never knew how far the demands of honor would go. The irregular troop was diverse in religion, culture, and language, but all the men were warriors, imbued with a warrior’s sense of affront.

Apollo, stretching casually, broke the uneasy silence, inquiring in a once again pleasant tone, “Is Peotr up yet?”

A curly-haired subaltern found his tongue first. “Breakfasting with Zadia.”

“You know how possessive Zadia is with him,” declared someone halfway down the table.

“Haven’t seen him since we arrived,” a third voice added.

Apollo had considered himself beyond conscience after so many years of taking his pleasure with a great variety of women, but it pleased him momentarily not to have cuckolded a faithful husband. To view Peotr as even passingly faithful was ludicrous, but with Kitty, somehow, it had seemed different. Apollo didn’t want his thoughts of her tangled up with disturbing implications of ruining some happy marriage. Peotr obviously had enjoyed himself outside the conjugal bonds in his usual manner these last three days; Apollo need have no fear of having pleasured himself with someone’s dearly beloved wife. In fact, if his conscience needed salving—and it bothered him briefly that the notion even crossed his mind—it was perfectly clear the pleasuring had been mutual. There. That neatly disposed of any faint stirrings of scruples. He closed his mind to the issue.

So a half hour later, when Peotr finally came down from Zadia’s boudoir, Apollo had no problem at all looking him straight in the eye.

“Good morning, Peotr.”

“Apollo!” Peotr smiled warmly. “So you’re back. Found a friendly bed en route to Zadia’s, eh? Was she good?” Peotr
winked cheerfully, his spirits ebulliently refreshed after three days of Zadia’s sympathetic expertise.

“Of course.” Apollo smiled. “Would I stay so long if she wasn’t?”

“So. Recuperated, then?”

“Admirably.”

“Unlike some of this troop, I see.” Colonel Radachek’s splendid dark eyes swept the room, taking in the full array of health and vigor—or lack thereof. “I suggest extra coffee or tea, gentlemen, for those whose heads or stomachs rebel at the thought of hours in the saddle. It’s only eight o’clock, and I know the war shouldn’t start before ten, but unfortunately Wrangel’s a purist, not a sybarite. We leave in an hour. First to the depot at Divnoie. From there we entrain for Kharkov. The Savage Division is being used to guard the troop trains retreating south, since the Green guerilla bands are becoming bolder and attacking troop and Red Cross trains. It’s up to us to serve as rearguard. In an hour, men.” Turning to Apollo, he said, “Come into the library. We’ll check the newest front on the maps. I talked to headquarters earlier this morning.”

Minutes later Zadia joined them in the library, gliding in gracefully in a familiar cloud of jasmine scent, a pretty diversion in peach organdy and silk. She was tall, auburn-haired, fair-skinned, and although in her thirties had preserved the vivid, arresting sparkle of her youth. Ever since Apollo could remember she had reminded him of a glittering butterfly.