"Good." Silver turned on her heel. "I want to talk to Nicholas too." The click of her heels echoed on the parquet floor as she strode briskly from the study and across the foyer to the parlor.
Mikhail hesitated and then slowly rose from his chair and followed her. He was in time to see her throw open the door of the parlor and sweep into the room like a storm wind across the steppes.
Valentin and Nicholas were sitting by the fire and looked up, startled, as Silver marched across the room to stand before them.
"I'm going to court," she announced tersely. "I'll need your help. Will you give it to me?"
Nicholas gazed at her and the surprise on his face was replaced by a brilliant smile. He rose slowly to his feet. "Silver . . ." His glance traveled lingeringly over her flushed cheeks, taking in the blazing vitality that emanated from her. "You're looking well."
"Of course I'm looking well," she said with a shrug. "I haven't been ill for months. You know that, Nicholas."
"Do I?" His smile was faintly bemused. "Oh, yes, I guess I forgot."
Silver turned to Valentin, whose expression reflected a bewilderment similar to Nicholas's. "I've been thinking and I believe you may be the one to guide me, Valentin. Nicholas seems to have no liking or understanding of the people of the court, while you appear to know how they—" She broke off, gesturing impatiently with one hand as she tried to convey her meaning. "You can read the signs."
"Nicholas can also read the signs," Valentin said. "In many ways he's far more experienced at anticipating their reactions than I am." He paused. "Just what are you asking me to do, Silver?"
"I want to be accepted by all those people I saw when Nicholas took me to meet his mother. I want them to think of me as one of them. Can you help me learn to do this?"
Valentin glanced uneasily at Nicholas. "I'm not sure."
"Why?" Nicholas's smile had vanished and his face was totally expressionless. "Why is this important to you?
"Because I want it." Silver met his gaze with defiance. "Do you find it odd that a half-breed would want to show your fine friends she can be as civilized as any of them?"
"No, I don't find that at all odd." Nicholas's smile was bittersweet. "My dear maman has held that particular ambition before my eyes since the moment of my birth."
"But I'm not like your mother," Silver said fiercely. "I don't care—" She fell silent.
Nicholas's gaze narrowed on her face. "You don't care about what?"
"It doesn't matter." She turned back to Valentin. "Will you help me?"
Valentin shrugged. "It will be difficult. St. Petersburg society doesn't welcome newcomers readily, and we'd have to find a way to lure them to come to you. We'd have to make you . . . unique."
"She's already unique," Nicholas said dryly. "You'd merely have to make them aware of the fact."
A glimmer of interest lit Valentin's face. "You know, it would be rather a challenge to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." Then he grimaced sheepishly. "Merde, I'm sorry, Silver. I didn't mean you were a sow's ear. I meant only—"
"I don't care what you call me as long as you do what I've asked. Now, how do we go about it?"
"Rubles, style, and boldness," Valentin answered. "Quantities of all three. I'd say we'd have no trouble with the latter two." His gaze shifted inquiringly to Nicholas. "Rubles, Nicholas?"
Nicholas didn't reply for a moment, his gaze fastened on Silver's face. "I'll give orders to my man of business that she have whatever she wants."
Silver turned to him, the color burning brightly beneath the dusky gold of her cheeks. "I ... thank you." Her words were halting. "When this is over, I will try to pay you back."
"Over? That's a rather peculiar word," Nicholas said slowly. "Would you care to elaborate?"
She took an impulsive step forward. "Nicholas, there's something I want—" She stopped suddenly and her eagerness was replaced by wariness. She shook her head. "Not now."
Nicholas's gaze moved from her face to Mikhail's. The Cossack stood just inside the doorway across the room. "How mysterious. I suppose I must resign myself to learning patience." His glance shifted to Valentin. "Guard her well. There are wolves with very sharp teeth in the gardens of the Winter Palace."
"You'll have to show your support. They won't accept her without it."
"Oh, I'll be in attendance." Nicholas smiled crookedly. "I wouldn't miss one second of Silver's rise to the heights of that dung heap. However, it seems she's relegated me to the background for the present. Isn't that right, Silver?"
Silver's eyes were glittering in the firelight, and for an instant they reflected a curious torment as she looked at him. Then she glanced away and nodded jerkily. "Valentin can help me more now. I don't need you."
"But you do need my money. How fortunate that I have something you want." He turned his back on her to stare down into the fire. "Well, what are you waiting for, Valentin? I'm sure Silver is impatient to begin. Get the hell out of here and make your goddamn plans."
Valentin frowned in concern. "Nicholas, are you sure this is what you want?"
Nicholas didn't answer.
After a moment Valentin shrugged and turned to Silver. "He's right, you know. We have a lot to do. We'll have to go to the best seamstress to outfit you with a wardrobe that will dazzle the court. Do you dance?"
"They tried to teach me the waltz at school, but I didn't pay much attention to the dancing master. I saw no sense in learning something so useless."
Valentin shook his head. "We'll have to correct that immediately. Come along to the ballroom and we'll begin your lessons." He grasped her elbow and propelled her toward the door. "Of course, the first dance you must learn is the polonaise. It's more of a formal march than a dance, on the order of a minuet. Every imperial ball is opened with the polonaise."
"Then I'll learn it," Silver said. "It should pose no problem. It sounds much like the tribal dances I learned in my village as a child."
Valentin chuckled. "I'm not sure our glorious tsar would delight in that comparison. I really wouldn't mention it to him if you should happen to fall into conversation with His Majesty."
"I thought you told me that protocol forbids casual chats with the tsar."
"It does, but there are exceptions to every rule and it will help our cause if the tsar favors you."
"Is that possible?"
"Quite possible. Alexander always has an eye for the ladies."
Nicholas didn't turn around but his voice cracked through the room. "You might remember you're preparing her for acceptance in the imperial ballroom not the imperial bedchamber, Valentin. I have no intention of acting the cuckold."
Valentin glanced back over his shoulder. "You know Alexander never goes beyond a casual flirtation. He's been remarkably faithful to Catherine."
"I have no desire for Silver to prove the exception."
Silver turned at the door to gaze gravely at him. "I wouldn't take your money and then dishonor your name. It is not my way."
"How comforting," Nicholas said ironically. "For God's sake, get her out of here, Valentin."
Silver still hesitated, her troubled gaze fastened on Nicholas's tension-taut back. Then she turned and followed Valentin's gentle urging to swiftly leave the room.
The parlor was silent except for the crackle and hiss of the logs in the grate.
"I suppose you know why my wife has this sudden desire to go to court?" Nicholas asked Mikhail without turning around.
"Yes," Mikhail answered.
"And you don't intend to tell me?"
"No." Mikhail paused. "But it is not the same desire that drives your mother."
"Then what in hell—" Nicholas broke off and was silent for another moment. "This isn't going to be easy for me. I'm not a patient man."
"I know."
Nicholas reached out, his hands closing on the edge of the marble mantel. "She's so damn wary of me. It's even worse than it was before she lost the baby."
"She does not trust easily."
r />
"I know, but ..." Nicholas's words trailed off. "I guess I'd hoped for something more."
"She is no longer asleep. You said that was what you wanted."
"Yes." Nicholas glanced at him over his shoulder and smiled faintly. "She's awake and I thank God for it. God and you, my friend. Whatever is ahead, it can't be worse than standing by watching her as she was before."
"I cannot know what is ahead."
Nicholas's glance sharpened. "You still have apprehensions?"
"Yes, but it is done now."
"What's done, for the sake of—" Nicholas broke off and muttered a curse seething with frustration. "All right, all right, I'll ask no questions." His grasp on the mantel tightened. "For now. But I don't know how long I'll be able to keep to this docile role you and Silver seem to want me to play."
"Docile?" Mikhail's lips quirked as he gazed at Nicholas. There never had been any sign of meekness in the Nicholas he had known through the years. As a boy he had been wild and, growing to manhood, he had become even wilder, more reckless. His willing-ness to temper his recklessness for Silver's sake said much. "I would not be so foolish as to expect you to be docile."
"Unfortunately, my wife doesn't appear to be so perceptive regarding my character." Nicholas whirled away from the fireplace and strode across the room. "I've got to get away from here." At the door he asked over his shoulder, "Are you coming with me?"
"Where are you going?"
"Didn't you hear her? I'm neither needed nor wanted at the moment. Perhaps we'll go to Apothecary Island and drink good Cossack vodka and listen to the Gypsies." He motioned to the footman standing in the hallway. "Our cloaks, and tell them to ready a boat." His dark eyes were blazing then as he turned back to Mikhail. "And perhaps I'll find a woman there who requires neither docility nor patience. I'm sick to death of both."
"Perhaps," Mikhail said mildly. "I do not suppose it matters to you that it is foolish to go out tonight? It is snowing hard and getting colder by the minute. The river may freeze over."
"Good." Nicholas shrugged into the fox-lined cloak the footman was holding for him. "I could use a little ice to cool me." He whirled toward the door. "Are you coming?
"Yes." Mikhail took his cloak from the waiting servant. "When have I not followed you?"
Nicholas didn't answer. He had already turned and was striding out the front door of the palace into the stinging, snow-laden wind.
***
In a fellowship of free men
Never shall a quarrel rise.
Volga, Volga, Mother Volga,
Take the beauty as your prize!
The words of the song were bellowed in a tone half mournful, half belligerent, and the baritone voice rendering them was unquestionably that of Nicholas's.
"Hush now." It was Mikhail's low voice. "You will wake the house."
Silver sprang from her bed, grabbed her robe, and ran across the room. She threw open the door she had left ajar when she had retired for the night a good six hours earlier.
Nicholas was standing, no, swaying, in the hall outside the door. Mikhail's arm around his shoulders was half supporting him. Star-shaped crystals of snow dusted Nicholas's golden hair, and he was obviously very, very drunk. "Ah, my sweet bride, how kind of you to stay up to welcome me home from the storm."
"I didn't stay up for you. Why should I do a foolish thing like that? If you're idiot enough to go out in the ice and snow and risk frostbite and—"
"You were worried about me." A delighted smile appeared on Nicholas's lips.
"I was not worried," Silver denied, her eyes blazing. "I just thought it lacked courtesy not to tell Valentin or me where you were going."
Nicholas bowed and Mikhail caught him as he lost his balance and would have fallen. "My apologies. I went to Tania's on Apothecary Island, where the Gypsies play and the vodka flows.... I would have invited you to come along, but you were busy." He waved his hand vaguely. "Did you learn the polonaise?"
"Yes."
"I'm sure you do it very well. You have a grace beyond—"
"Go to bed. You're drunk as a skunk."
Nicholas looked pained. "You have a cruelly eloquent way with words. But you've raised an interesting question. Do you suppose skunks do become inebriated, Mikhail?"
"I have never seen one. Come along, Nicholas. It is late and you are tired."
"I'm not tired." Nicholas began to sing again.
"Shhh." Silver stepped into the hall. "That caterwauling will wake Etaine."
"I'm not caterwauling, I'm singing." Nicholas said with dignity. "It's a fine Cossack song about Stenka Razin, a very intelligent man who threw his bride into the Volga to avoid displeasing his men. They thought she had robbed him of his senses."
"He obviously had no more sense than you do to lose." She flinched as he began to bellow again. "Hush. You sound like a coyote with a bellyache. Etaine will wake and—"
"She can't hear me. Etaine sleeps with her door closed," Nicholas said. "Only my firebird can't stand to be confined and leaves her door ajar every night. Do you know how many times I've passed your open door and thought about . . ." He trailed off and shook his head to try to clear it. "What was I saying?"
"That you were tired and wanted to go to bed," Mikhail told him. "Let me take you to your room."
"I don't need help." Nicholas drew himself up majestically and shrugged out of Mikhail's grasp. "A Savron can drink anyone under the table. Vodka is nothing to . . ." He swayed and Silver instinctively stepped forward to steady him.
He smelled of fresh air, tobacco, and something else, something cloyingly sweet.
She suddenly planted one palm on his chest and pushed him away with such force that he staggered and would have fallen if Mikhail hadn't caught him. "You stink of perfume."
"Do I? I don't remember. It must have been sweet Gypsy Tania." He sniffed before nodding solemnly. "I smell it too. Very heavy. Heavy breasts . . . heavy thighs . . . heavy perfume."
"Bed," Mikhail said quickly. He lifted Nicholas in his arms and carried him down the hall as if he were a misbehaving child. "Open his door, Silver."
"For God's sake, let me go," Nicholas protested. "I'm no infant to be scooped up and put to—" He suddenly began to laugh. "Mikhail, you big fool, I'll find a way to . . ." He trailed off and began to sing again.
Mikhail stopped before Nicholas's room and looked back over his shoulder at Silver, who had not moved from where she stood. "The door?"
Silver reluctantly marched down the hall and threw open the door. "You should toss him out in the snow to sober up." She wrinkled her nose distastefully. "It might wash some of that foul stench off him."
"The perfume is not so unpleasant." Mikhail crossed the room, placed Nicholas on the bed, and began to unbutton his coat.
"He stinks." Silver stood in the doorway, glaring at both of them. "I will not go near him."
"Then go back to bed. I have no need of you."
"I will." Silver remained in the doorway, watching Mikhail take off Nicholas's coat and toss it on the bench at the foot of the bed. "I certainly wouldn't help a man who acts like a pig who's swilled too much at the trough."
Nicholas broke off singing. "Now I'm a swilling pig . . . Have you ever heard a more tender wifely discourse, Mikhail?"
"Never." Mikhail stripped off Nicholas's shirt and dropped it on the floor by the bed.
"She's a firebird, you know," Nicholas whispered confidingly to Mikhail. "She can soar to heaven or rend a man with her claws. Which do you think . .." Nicholas closed his eyes. "She's a firebird."
"Fairy tales." Silver crossed the room to stand over Nicholas. "I may not have a clever tongue to tell pretty stories, but I don't drink until I have no sense or fornicate with whores who smell like—" Silver broke off and drew a shaky breath. She couldn't remember ever being this angry in her entire life. It made no sense to feel this wild aching sense of betrayal. Nicholas did not belong to her. She was staying with him only as long as it took to find out
who had caused her child's death, and nothing else should occupy her attention during this time. Why should she worry about who Nicholas bedded?
Nicholas opened his eyes; they held a curiously wistful expression in their ebony depths. "Fornicate. What a deliciously wicked word." He gazed into her eyes. "I wanted to fornicate tonight."
Pain lashed through Silver. She couldn't stand to know. She blocked the thought almost before it began and turned and almost ran toward the door.
"But I couldn't . . ." His words were almost inaudible, only a faint breath of sound, but they resounded in her ears like a great bell. She stopped and whirled to face the bed.
Nicholas's eyes were closed again, and at first she thought he was asleep. He turned on his side, his lean, powerful body as supple and graceful in relaxation as it was when he was fully alert. "It's a curse. After the firebird touched me, I couldn't ..." He was asleep.
Mikhail pulled the heavy velvet coverlet over Nicholas and stood looking down at him with a tender smile on his lips. "He's going to have a head as big as a Hitman's samovar in the morning."
"He deserves it." Silver's voice was oddly lacking in conviction because the relief bubbling through her was making her a little lightheaded. He hadn't bedded that faceless Gypsy woman with the heavy breasts and thighs. "He shouldn't have guzzled so much liquor."
"Sometimes there are reasons why a man drinks too much."
Silver's hands slowly closed into fists at her sides. Guilt? Oh, Lord, let it not be guilt. Let Nicholas not be the one who was responsible for the potion that had taken her baby's life. "Yes, sometimes there are."
Mikhail was still looking down at Nicholas. "I know you have a great hurt inside you, but you must not let it blind you, Silver."
"What do you mean?"
"Let yourself heal. Do not keep the wounds open."
"I'll let them heal." She turned away. "When I've finished with what I have to do. Good night, Mikhail."
6
"Count Marinov requests that you come to Her Highness's chamber at once," Rogoff announced from the doorway, looking straight ahead. "If Your Highness pleases."