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Gregory Orlov shrugged. "Maybe he lives. Maybe he dies. Is not important."

He sauntered away. The cossacks began to ride up and down the line and harnesses began to rattle and male voices rang out with hearty glee. I climbed into the troika and closed the door. The driver clicked his reins, and in a moment the long runners began to slide over the ice and we were moving again, leaving the village just as the first gusts of heavy snowflakes swirled from the pewter sky.

LUCIE SIGHED AS WE STEPPED FROM THE POSThouse into the brilliant morning sunlight. Her gulden brown hair fell to her shoulders in a gleaming mass, and her lovely young face was petulant. Like me, Lucie was growing weary of this constant travel, and it didn't matter that we were within a week and a half of our destination.

She glanced at our troika as though it were a torture chamber and said that she guessed she'd have to endure it, she was far too lazy to ride her horse this morning.

"At least it's not snowing," I said. "It's a gorgeous day."

She gave me a look that implied I was disgustingly illinformed and walked on to the troika. Despite her mood she was lovely in soft gray fur and a violet brocade gown embroidered with silver flowers. Though not anticipating another long day of travel any more than Lucie was, I felt quite refreshed after a good night's sleep in a wonderfully comfortable bed and the sumptuous breakfast.

After leaving the village twelve days ago, we had found only one posthouse destroyed by fire, the others undamaged, and as we drew nearer St. Petersburg I was delighted to find that the posthouses grew more and more comfortable. The one in which we had just spent the night was as pleasant as a good English inn, fireplaces in every tidy room, a spacious taproom downstairs. The roads were better, too, much wider, smoother, and while before it had seemed we were the only people in the world foolhardy enough to travel across the country in this weather, we now encountered other travelers on occasion.

"You sleep well?" Vanya inquired.

Lost in thought, I hadn't heard him approach. I nodded, smiling.

"And you?" I asked.

Vanya frowned. "Me, I am most foolish. I drink too much vodka. I play cards with Leo, Nikolai, and others. Nikolai cheats. I lose much money. Nikolai loses half of one ear. I slice it off when we fight with knives."

"That's dreadful!"

"Not to worry. Nikolai is very ugly fellow. It makes him prettier."

"You're terrible, Vanya."

"This I know. I saddle Natasha for you this morning?"

"I believe I will ride her," I told him. "Lucie is not the best of company this morning."

"She is young. She is bored. She brightens up when we reach St. Petersburg. I go saddle Natasha for you now."

The ferocious-looking cossack departed, and I looked up at the sky, relieved to see a clear blue-gray vault without a sign of clouds. We had been through two very severe blizzards, the first coming upon us just after we left the village.

Our progress had been reduced to a snail's pace, and after the second blizzard, four days later, we had lost half a day while the men wielded shovels and cleared away an enormous snowdrift that made the road impassable. Today, though, was going to be beautiful. Although it was bitterly cold, as usual, there was no wind, and the radiant sunlight seemed to caress my cheeks as I stood there in front of the posthouse.

I was wearing a deep topaz silk gown and a cloak of lustrous golden brown sable Lucie had loaned me. The red fox cloak had been packed away. I doubted I would ever wear it again. The garment had too many unpleasant associations for me, and even now, twelve days later, I shuddered when I thought of the horror of all that had happened.

Hearing someone coming from the posthouse behind me, I turned. Gregory Orlov paused for a final word with the innkeeper, handed the man a bag of coins and then continued toward me. He wore high black boots, snug navy blue velvet breeches and tunic and a waist-length black fur cape with matching hat, looking superbly handsome, if somewhat strained when he saw me standing beside the path.

He forced a pleasant smile onto his lips. I forced one onto mine, feeling as strained as he. Count Orlov had been as friendly, as considerate as ever since that day in the village, but there was a remoteness in his manner that had not been there before. It was as though an invisible wall had been placed between us. He no longer sought me out, seemed to avoid me, in fact, and when we did speak he was a bit too polite. Both of us were embarrassed now by this unexpected encounter.

"You are ready to leave?" he inquired.

"I'm waiting for Vanya to bring Natasha around."

"I see. You ride again today. It is beautiful day for this We will make very good time, I think."

His voice was friendly, his manner extremely polite, but the invisible wall was undeniably there, locked in place, preventing both of us from really communicating. Though apparently relaxed, he was clearly eager to move on, and I was finding it desperately hard to think of something to say.

"The posthouse was very comfortable," I finally managed.

"Yes. I'm glad you have a good place to sleep. The jour ney has been very difficult."

"I –I really haven't minded."

"In five days' time we come to the estate of my friend Count Rostopchin. We stay there a day or so before going on to St. Petersburg. You will enjoy the rest."

"It will be welcome, I'm sure."

"Do not ride the horse too long today," he cautioned.

"You do not want to tire yourself."

"I won't," I said.

He gave me a polite nod then and moved on in that long, brisk stride of his, boots crunching the ice, the short black, cape swinging from his shoulders. I had ambivalent feelings as I watched him depart. I was relieved, for it had indeed been difficult to find anything to say-as much for him as for me, I suspected-but I felt a curious disappointment as well. I missed that easy warmth, that intimacy, that sense of my being someone very special to him that he had conveyed before. Orlov had withdrawn from me, and though I told myself it was for the best, that it was precisely what I wanted, a subtle discontentment marred each day.

It was my own fault, of course. I had as much as told him to let me be when he stopped to speak to me just before we left the village. I had been cool, withdrawn, and Orlov undoubtedly

felt he was obeying my wishes in adopting this new, remote politeness. We had reached an impasse, it seemed, and I had no one to blame but myself.

Vanya was walking past the line of troikas, leading a prancing, saddled Natasha. With Vanya's assistance I swung up into the saddle. Feet planted firmly in the stirrups, I adjusted my skirts and the hang of my cloak, eager to start riding.

Signals were given. Orders were shouted. The line of troikas began to move slowly down the road, gradually picking up speed. The cossacks yelled lustily and waved their sabres, filled with their customary high spirits. The posthouse receded in the distance, growing smaller and smaller, out of sight now, and the frigid white beauty of the Russian countryside glistened all around.

Natasha was thrilled when I let her race and romp up the line, expending all that marvelous energy. Though I couldn't keep up with the cossacks, nor did I try, I was a skilled enough rider now to give the capricious creature free rein without the least fear of my tumbling off- -as I had done a humiliating number of times when Vanya had been instructing me. Sitting securely in the saddle with back straight and my hands loosely clasping the reins, I moved with her, the two of us a single unit.

My hood fell back. My hair flew free. The icy air smote my cheeks and stung my brow, and it was exhilarating as we covered mile after mile and the huge troikas sped along with bells jingling, harnesses jangling, a merry noise splintering the somber silence of this desolate land. An hour went by, two, and though still rowdy, the cossacks settled down to a vigorous gallop, and I forced a disappointed Natasha into a steady, sedate gait. Vanya rode past us and grinned fiercely and swirled his sabre at us, and, from the window of our troika, Lucie glanced out at me with a bored expression.

Count Orlov rode at the head of the line, a handsome centaur on the powerful black steed whose coat gleamed like polished ebony. The horse was larger, more muscular than any of the others, a truly magnificent beast as befitted its rider. A superb horseman, Orlov rode with total authority, dominating the gigantic stallion with casual ease. He seemed as immense, as mysterious, as subtly menacing as the land itself-harsh, cruel, beautiful, and perpetually fascinating.

How did I feel about him? How did I really feel? I had been appalled by his savage cruelty to Pulaski, but I knew in my heart that, from Orlov's viewpoint, the cruelty was completely justified, even necessary, and I knew as well that that cruel streak had always been there. I had sensed it beneath the warmth, the jovial facade. It seemed to be an intergral part of the Russian character, seething beneath the surface, just waiting to be unleashed. They all had it. Even the gentle, teasing, protective Vanya could change into a monster of cruelty when provoked. I had seen it happen. Could I blame Orlov for something that was clearly inherent? The Russian male looked upon such matters as pain and punishment and death with a much harder, more practical eye than his more civilized English counterpart.

Joseph Pulaski would have killed me without a moment's hesitation, had planned to leave me bound and gagged under the frozen shrubbery, perhaps to die. He had planned to take me as a prize to the demented peasant who was his leader, to rape me repeatedly on the journey. He was a vicious troublemaker, stirring other peasants to violent rebellion, was savage, brutal, demented himself.

Wasn't his punishment entirely just? And hadn't part of Orlov's harshness been because I myself had been Pulaski's victim? "I do this for you," he had said. "I do it for every well-bred woman in Russia who is threatened by Joseph Pulaski and his kind."

Orlov was right-I didn't understand these matters.

With my heritage, my background, my upbringing, I was incapable of seeing them from the viewpoint of those who belonged to this strange country. I had been too hard on him, I told myself. I was responsible for that invisible wall that had come between us, and, as the icy air numbed my cheeks and nose, as I forced Natasha to a slower trot, I finally acknowledged that the invisible wall bothered me a great deal. Far more than I would have liked to admit. I missed the warmth, the tender concern, the attention.

I was attracted to him, strongly attracted. I couldn't deny that. It was, I knew, a purely physical attraction that had been there from the very beginning-first stirring that evening we had dined in the gold and yellow room-and it had steadily grown ever since. Sensibly, I had ignored it, being quite cool and reasonable. . . and then he had kissed me and I had known the full strength ofthis attraction and the full strength of my need for solace, for reassurance, for a remedy to counteract Jeremy Bond's betrayal and all that it had done. Ready at last to take the powder, to throw all caution to the winds and savor anew the sweet splendor his fierce kisses had stirred inside me, I had drawn back, horrified by his cruelty, and then that damnable wall had come between us.

It's just as well, a cool inner voice told me. You were on the verge of making a very bad mistake, and you're well out of it. Attracted to him you may be, but any relationship with Gregory Orlov could only lead to complications you're not prepared to deal with. In a short time now you'll be in St. Petersburg and three months later you will be on your way back to America and all this will become a distant memory.
Use your head, Marietta.
Leave things as they are. I gripped the reins in my gloved hands, listening to that sensible voice, knowing it spoke without emotion and with wisdom I must heed.

A commotion ahead pulled me out of myself and brought me back to the reality of the moment: the powerful horse beneath me, the cold air numbing my cheeks, the immense white snowbanks and ice-encrusted trees on either side of the wide, level road. Orlov had raised his arm overhead, signaling the party to halt. The cossacks had unsheathed their weapons. Something was obstructing the road ahead, something large and gray and shapeless, a kind of barricade, it seemed. I rode foward slowly, foolishly, too curious for caution, and as I drew nearer I saw that it was a large sleigh overturned in the middle of the road, blankets, bags and rnothy-looking furs scattered around it. The horses that had pulled it were nowhere to be seen.

Orlov saw me approaching. His face was thunderous.

"Get back!" he ordered. "Have you lost your mind? It might be an ambush!"

I halted Natasha, but I didn't retreat. Orlov and seven cossacks slowly approached the sleigh, weapons at the ready. There was a groaning noise. A black-gloved hand suddenly appeared on the top side of the sleigh and then a head wearing a thick black wool hat pulled down low over ears and brow. The hat had a frivolous black woolen ball atop it, and the face beneath was lean, attractive and unquestionably English. A pair of fine blue-gray eyes watched the menacing approach with considerable surprise.

"I say, chaps! Easy on!"

The words, in English, had no effect whatsoever on .

Orlov and his men. They continued toward the sleigh. Its former occupant shrugged and raised his hands in the air to show that he was unarmed. A half-amused, halfdismayed smile curled on a wide mouth with full lower lip.

He moved out from behind the sleigh, hands still raised, not at all frightened. There was something jaunty, almost playful in his manner, an undeniable cockiness in the tilt of his head, the curve of that mouth.

"My Russian is rather limited," he said in that language,

"but I assure you I shan't attack. Odds are hardly in my favor, are they? Are you chaps always so grim?"

"He's English!" I called. "Put down your weapons."

The men ignored me. Silent, sober, they advanced, completely surrounding the sleigh. The Englishman shrugged, lowered his hands and thrust them into the pockets of his heavy black wool coat. Belted at the waist, it was a fine coat, exquisitely cut by the best English tailor, but it was a trifle shabby. His black leather cavalry boots were deplorably skuffed, and the dark gray English cord breeches that clung tightly to his very long legs were just short of threadbare.