Silver Nights (24 page)

“What do you see?” she asked into the night, without turning her head.

She was obviously not as absorbed as he had thought. Adam smiled. “You. In your own world.”

“Yes, it is mine,” Sophie said, quietly matter-of-fact. “I do not think I could bear to leave it again.”

And if you have to? But he did not say it; instead, he sat back again and wrestled with the demons of frustration and helplessness. How to reconcile this bone-deep love and its need to protect with the knowledge that in all essentials he was powerless. He could not take her to Mogilev. His family estates were now under Russian hegemony and a declared adulteress could be removed by her husband with the full force of law—moral, religious, and legal. He could not go into exile with her. To do so, he would have to desert from the Russian army, abandon his family and estates, renege upon every duty and responsibility entrenched since he could first stand. He would have to become a different person to do such a thing; and that different person, sullied by betrayal and deceit, could not love and be loved by this bold, brave, honest Cossack woman.

“Here we are.” Sophie drew rein. “You have been having sad thoughts, but you must not have them here.” She placed her gloved hand over his, her eyes seeking the truth as they
raked his face. “For now you must lose yourself in the wonder, Adam. It is not in the nature of idylls that they should last. But they spoil, crumble, if put to reality's test. We have what we have, and it must be sufficient unto the moment.” Her eyes held his until she read his acceptance, and he nodded, touching her lip with a caressing fingertip.

Sophie stepped from the sleigh, tethering the horse to a scrawny, bare thorn tree. Adam picked up the skates; she took his hand. “Come. Close your eyes.” When he did so in laughing obedience, she led him across the snow, then stopped. “Now you may look.”

Adam opened his eyes. He was standing on the brink of a deep basin, snow-covered sides rising steeply from the glistening floor of ice. There was not a mark to scar the smooth virginity of it. It was as if they had stumbled upon a place never before penetrated by the crassness of mankind. For a moment he hesitated, stunned by the beauty, afraid to think of despoiling it. Then he knew he had to become a part of it. “How do we get down?”

Sophie patted his bottom. “Simple.”

“How do we get up?”

“Not so simple. Come on.” Sitting on the edge, tucking her skirts tightly around her legs, she launched herself, squealing with a mixture of fright and exhilaration, down the slope.

Adam sat down, raised his eyes heavenward, offered a quick prayer, and pushed off, holding the skates on his knees. The snow was so dry it barely clung as he tobogganed, with his body as sleigh, after Sophie. He heard his own involuntary cry, echoing, bell-like, around the basin as his speed increased, the air rushed past him, and he was engulfed in a terrified exultation. The slope ended, but his momentum carried him onto the ice until he came to a gentle stop somewhere in the middle, beside Sophie, who was still sitting upon the ice, gazing about her in wonder.

“Look up,” she said, softly insistent, as he slid to a halt.

He did so. They were encapsulated in a bowl of white, lidded with velvet black and silver starshine. There was not a
sound. The life of the steppes continued above them, outside their bowl.

“They call it the Devil's Punch Bowl, but I think it has too much of heaven for that,” Sophie said. “Perhaps it is to remind Lucifer of the time before he became the fallen angel.” She took her skates from his lap. “I told you it was magic.”

“Or is it God-given?” He strapped the blades to his boots.

Sophie shrugged easily. “There is enough mystery in the Russian Church to allow for both.” She stood up on her skates, drawing in a deep breath of the pure air cutting clean as a knife through her chest. Pushing off with an apparently gentle, gliding movement, she slid away from him. But the power behind the push became clear as he watched her travel on a one-foot glide way to the other side of the lake. He watched, spellbound, as she curved around in a long slow arc, resting on the outside edge of the blade, changing to the inside, carving an elaborate design on the clean surface. She beckoned to him, and he skated across in the silence.

“See if you can make your initials twine with mine.” she said, her voice muted as if in deference to the peace.

He looked down at the
S
and
A
inscribed on the ice, frowning with concentration. Then he nodded, seeing how it could be done. The design flowered beneath his whispering blades until he stood to one side, examining his handiwork.

Sophie slipped her arm into his. “See, we have a coat of arms.”

“Until the snows melt,” he said.

“I have it in mind to invite Princess Dmitrievna to accompany us on this state visit to the Crimea, Grisha.” The czarina finished the line she was penning as she said this. She looked up affectionately at her roaring, one-eyed lion. “You have gone to such pains to ensure that the journey will be an unqualified success, providing pleasure for all. I think it is time the princess enjoyed herself a little. I will appoint her lady-in-waiting.”

“A position which will keep her more in your company than in her husband's,” observed Prince Potemkin from the couch where he was lounging, nibbling on a dish of salt fish.

“If some estrangement still exists between them after her visit to her grandfather, then this will give them breathing space in which to heal the breach,” said Catherine blithely. “It was wise of the general, I think, to send her to Berkholzskoye after that little…misunderstanding. But clearly the separation cannot continue; it would imply that Dmitriev has repudiated his wife.”

Potemkin regarded his empress thoughtfully. “Are you certain he has not?”

“Why ever should he have done so? Sophia Alexeyevna was guilty only of a little, very natural, dismay at certain…certain aspects of marriage.”

Potemkin shrugged, lethargically putting his large, heavy body into motion. He stood up. “For which you took the husband to task.”

“Would you have advised against such a thing, Grisha?” Catherine looked surprised.

“Had I been asked, Madame, yes,” responded the prince, with the petulant flash of annoyance that the czarina knew well. Potemkin, in addition to being her most trusted and dearest friend, was her adviser in all matters, including who should be selected to occupy the favorite's apartments. Since Potemkin had first entered the czarina's bed, Russia had had two rulers, and although the fire of carnal passion had died down between them years ago, he continued to govern, albeit unofficially, at her side, and he could become extremely piqued if he considered his opinion had been slighted.

“I did not think the matter of sufficient importance to trouble you with,” the empress said placatingly, even as she thought with a quirk of irritation that this sublime politician could behave like a ten-year-old sometimes. It was an oft-recurring thought, but when one was in the presence of genius, and particularly temperamental Slavic genius, one was obliged to accept minor exasperations.

“I am more familiar with General Dmitriev than you, Madame,” Potemkin replied with haughty dignity.

“I should have asked your advice.” Catherine smiled winningly. “Do not be cross with me, Grisha, and tell me whether you approve of my plan to take Sophia Alexeyevna to the Crimea.”

Potemkin smiled, his mood changing with customary abruptness. “Yes, as it happens, I do think it a good idea. Such an educational journey in the close company of such dignitaries as Prince de Ligne, diplomats such as Comte de Ségur, can only have a beneficial influence. She is an unusual and intelligent young woman. If her husband does not appreciate her, there is no reason why others should not.”

“Yourself, for instance?” asked the empress with a wicked gleam.

Potemkin laughed with sudden sensual mischief. “I will admit that my thoughts have strayed in that direction. It may well be that an intelligent and experienced lover will complete her education.”

“It would certainly appear her husband does not come into that category,” mused the czarina. “Yet Dmitriev is no fool, and he has had enough experience in such matters, one would have thought, to know to treat a virgin with a little gentleness and consideration.”

“Paul Dmitriev does not have a gentle, considerate bone in his body, Madame,” Potemkin informed her with an arid smile. “But he is no different in that regard from the majority of husbands. Gentle consideration is the province of lovers.”

Catherine's gaze rested softly on the door to the favorite's apartments, and she smiled. “Yes, how right you are, Grisha.” Then she became all briskness. “Well, I shall put this matter in train by telling General Dmitriev of my intention. When we reach Kiev, I will send a messenger to Berkholzskoye, bidding the princess join our suite. You still intend to leave in the morning?”

Potemkin bowed low. “If I am to ensure that only perfection awaits my sovereign on such a magnificent venture, I must leave within the hour.”

 

General, Prince Paul Dmitriev listened to his sovereign's flattering intention to appoint his wife lady-in-waiting for the state visit to the Crimea.

“You do my name great honor, Your Majesty,” he said with his thin smile. “Princess Dmitrievna will be overjoyed.”

“You will be accompanying Prince Potemkin, I understand,” the empress said. “It will be an opportunity for you to become reacquainted with your wife.” She smiled benevolently. “In a holiday atmosphere, my dear Prince, I am sure your differences will be resolved.”

“I venture to believe that they have already been so,” said Dmitriev smoothly. “Before Sophia Alexeyevna went on her visit to her grandfather.”

“Oh, that is splendid.” The empress's toothless smile widened. “It was wise of you to permit her to make a journey that I know she was most anxious to make. When we reach Kiev, where we must wait out the remainder of the winter
before continuing to the Crimea, I will send for Sophia. I am looking forward to seeing her again.” She inclined her head in graceful dismissal, and the prince left the imperial presence.

Sophia Alexeyevna would not be at Berkholzskoye to receive the imperial summons, the prince thought. She must now be a winter-bleached corpse somewhere under the infinity of snow covering the land. The czarina's messenger would be told that Princess Dmitrievna had never arrived. Since, of course, she had not been expected, news of her failure to appear would not have been transmitted to her husband, who had spent the winter in St. Petersburg, secure, it was to be assumed, in the knowledge that his wife was safe and sound in her childhood home.

It was all most satisfactory, reflected Dmitriev. He would appear the distressed widower and begin to look around him for another wife. At least he now felt purged of his rage and hatred for the Golitskovs. Revenge had brought him peace, in addition, of course, to that vast inheritance. The Golitskovs and all they owned would be subsumed under the Dmitriev name, the family ceasing to exist with the death of the old man. Yes, it was all most satisfactory.

 

The royal progression set out on the first stage of the journey in a style that would have amazed Sophie, in the light of her own recent travels along the same route. The sleighs resembled little houses on runners, furnished with cushioned seats, carpets, divans, and tables. Six hundred horses awaited for the change at each relay point. Servants boiled samovars in the snow during afternoon halts and moved among the sleighs with cakes and tea. Prince Potemkin, ever the superlative planner, had bonfires lit across the featureless white landscape to mark the route. There were no post houses for this party. Nightly accommodations were to be found in houses specially furnished for the occasion and prepared by the servants who preceded the imperial party to each resting place.

It still took four weeks to accomplish the distance from St.
Petersburg to Kiev, and at the beginning of February the procession entered the city to wait for the ice on the River Dnieper to melt.

 

The lovers at Berkholzskoye, unaware that their assumptions about winter journeyings were inaccurate, continued in their idyllic isolation. They hunted duck in the freezing dawn, took sleigh rides across the steppe, skated and tobogganed, tumbling in the snow like children. They read aloud before the fire in the evenings, played cards, at which Sophie continued her blatant cheating, and chess and backgammon, at which she could not.

Old Prince Golitskov watched his granddaughter bloom beneath love's nurturing, and his heart ached for the loss she was sure to suffer. He also saw Adam's anguish, the darkness that crossed his face sometimes when Sophie was not looking, and the old prince guessed at its cause. Adam Danilevski was an honorable man, and he was loving another man's wife. To be unable to declare his love openly, unable to stand by that love in the eyes of the world, unable to protect and shelter the object of that love, would destroy such a man eventually. Once this enclosed fairyland was breached, he would have to face these limitations and make the only decision possible. He would return to his regiment, and Sophie…That would depend upon her husband's next step.

The dream was broken one snowy afternoon in mid-February. Adam stretched his long legs to the fire's blaze and yawned. “It is very strange, but I have always found restfulness to be one of the most attractive qualities in a woman,” he remarked plaintively. “Why I should now find myself in thrall to the most restless creature on this earth I cannot imagine.”

“I am not restless,” Sophie denied, pausing in her pacing. “It is just that we have not been out all day.” She came over to perch on his knee, cajoling. “Come for a walk.”

“There is a blizzard blowing, Sophie. Or have you not noticed?” He sat back in his deep chair, holding her hips
lightly, laughing up at her. “If you wish, we could go upstairs for a little indoor exercise.”

“It is not a blizzard! Just a few snowflakes.”

Adam turned to the window. A white swirling mass was all that was visible. “A few snowflakes,” he mused. “Yes, of course. How foolish of me.”

“Oh, don't tease! We can wrap up.”

“I did just offer you an alternative.”

“If you come for a walk first.”

“There are some counters with which I will not bargain, Sophia Alexeyevna,” he rasped, shockingly harsh. “You do not agree to make love as some kind of bribe or reward.”

Sophie looked aghast. “I did not mean that.”

“That is how it sounded.” His voice was clipped, his face closed, his knees shifted beneath her in unmistakable rejection.

Sophie stood up, as stunned as if he had struck her. “I will go alone then.”

The door shut softly. A log slipped in the fire. He recalled Eva's complaining voice, then the note of resignation as he coaxed her, then the hard edge, as, duty done, she demanded some favor. Eva's body had been her bargaining counter in every dispute. But she had given it freely to someone…. Or had she bought something with it even then?”

The bile of disillusion and betrayal roiled anew in his belly, made more corrosive by remorse. He had let the past touch Sophie—a woman so different from Eva they could almost belong to different species. And he had smirched her with his bitterness. He jumped to his feet, intending to go after her, but as he reached the hall Gregory was closing the front door.

“Has Sophia Alexeyevna gone out, Gregory?”

“Yes, lord,” the watchman replied stolidly. “But she'll not be out long in that.”

Adam was not so sure as Gregory, but he returned to the library, reasoning that by the time he had dressed himself for the weather she would have disappeared into the storm and pursuit would be futile.

Sophie, head down, battled against the snow blowing into her face, blinding her, freezing on her eyelashes. It took her no more than five minutes to realize that the impulse had been foolish, yet she kept walking, trying to dissipate against the elements her confused hurt.

Once or twice before, Adam had bitten her head off when she made some flippant remark, but usually it had to do with Dmitriev, and she could understand that, even though it hurt. But what had just happened in the library could not be laid at her husband's door. It seemed somehow part of that darkness she sensed in Adam's soul when the shadows crossed his face and he did not think she had noticed. Delicacy had kept her from probing. If he wished her to share those thoughts, he would have confided in her. That was what one did, after all. Everyone had their secrets—both good and bad. He had confessed to bad memories on one occasion in St. Petersburg, but insisted they belonged to an irrelevant past. She could not possibly pry; it was not in her nature. Yet, on this occasion, she had been in some way responsible for that painful misunderstanding. It had been just a misunderstanding, hadn't it?

Deciding that this walk was impossible, Sophie turned around to retrace her steps. The blasting snow quickly plastered her back, and the force of the gusts almost lifted her off her feet. A horseman, leaning low over the neck of his mount, materialized out of the white blanket as she neared the house. He half fell, half jumped from the horse before the front door. Sophie plowed toward him. “Do you have business at Berkholzskoye?”

“A message from Her Imperial Majesty for Princess Dmitrievna,” he mouthed. The words disappeared into the storm, but not before Sophie had heard them. An icy stillness enveloped her.

“I am Princess Dmitrievna,” she said. “You may give me your message and take your horse to the stables. The serfs there will care for him and show you to the kitchen.”

Relief scudded across the man's expression at these crisp orders promising deliverance from the storm, fires, vodka,
and a full belly. Digging into the leather pouch at his waist, he drew forth a letter. “Here you are, Princess.” He presented it to her with a bow while the snow swirled around them.

“Hurry along now,” she said, taking the letter. “The stables are behind the house. Your horse needs tending.”

Her Highness seemed to show disproportionate concern for his horse, thought the messenger, rapidly leading his mount in the direction of the rear of the mansion.

Sophie went around to the side of the house, where the little door was unlocked. She slipped inside. The letter in her hand seemed to burn with a dreadful menace. The imperial seal pressed against her palm. Why was she receiving missives from the empress in the middle of a blizzard?

Presumably Paul had been obliged to account for her disappearance, which would explain why Catherine assumed she was at Berkholzskoye. But why? She turned the letter over in her hand as if she could divine the contents, much as she had done with the other one, way back at the beginning of time it now seemed. That summons had led to misery. Why should the outcome of this one be any different?