Prince of Dreams

  She went with him into the bedroom, where he shed his robe and sat naked on the bed. Spreading his knees, Nikolas drew Emma to the edge of the mattress. She stood before him, holding onto his shoulders, while he pulled the hem of her gown up to her hips. His warm palms coasted up the sleek outline of her thighs, his fingers skimming her taut buttocks. He pressed his mouth to the curve of her breast. Suckling through the delicate fabric of her gown, he felt the small point of her nipple rise against his tongue. Emma moaned and leaned against him, her slender hands coming up to touch his head. Blindly she urged his mouth to her other breast, gasping as he bit the soft peak into stinging readiness.

  When Emma could no longer stand, Nikolas lowered her to the bed, stripping away the gown. She put her hands on his back, finding the pattern of scars, stroking lightly as if she could heal all the long-ago wounds. He dragged his mouth over her throat, breasts, stomach, his tongue skimming secret places that made her body tense and trembling.

  He kissed the thatch of cinnamon curls, his breath stirring through them. Emma whimpered in dismay and delight, not knowing if she should allow this, not wanting it to stop. Her hands found his hair, her fingers sifting through the thick locks in a shivering caress. The world narrowed down to the flickering movement between her thighs, his expert, teasing mouth. She rose against him in awkward, ardent surges, while each small breath became a plaintive cry.

  Nikolas raised his head and lifted his body over hers, spreading Emma's thighs apart. He began to enter her, and she winced at the unexpected tightness. “Careful,” she whispered in a sobbing breath. He was very gentle, pushing slowly inside her, waiting until she relaxed beneath him. They began a languorous rhythm, pressing together with increasing hunger. Emma's head fell back, and Nikolas kissed her throat and shoulder, whispering guttural phrases in Russian.

  Their long bodies entwined, limbs wrapping around each other, muscles flexing and gripping as they strove for a release that hovered just out of reach. It broke upon them in the same startling moment, a sweet convulsion of sensation. Nikolas thrust deeply and held himself buried tightly within her, while Emma shuddered in aching relief. When the fierce pumping of his blood had subsided, Nikolas rolled onto his back. Emma followed, throwing an arm and a leg across him, pressing her head to his smooth, damp chest. She went completely limp, draped over him like a drowsing cat.

  Nikolas lifted a hand to her tumbled hair, stroking softly, while his eyes remained wide open in the darkness. A strange mixture of emotions flooded him; all at once he felt desperate, wanting to crush her in his arms and yet also to shove her away. The peaceful weight of his wife's body, her contented sigh as she snuggled next to him…it made his chest hurt. He couldn't let himself relax, couldn't accept the easy affection she offered. If he let himself be vulnerable, even for a moment, the floodgates would open, and everything he had steeled himself to endure and forget would finally overtake him.

  Easing himself away from her, he left the bed and groped for his discarded robe.

  “Nikolas?” she murmured sleepily.

  He ignored her and shrugged into the robe. Quietly he left the room and went to his dark, empty suite at the other end of the wing.

  Emma sat up in confusion, pushing her hair off her face. Why had he gone so suddenly? What had she done wrong? She bit her lip to keep from crying. She wasn't a child, she was a married woman, and she didn't have the luxury of tears.

  “You chose this,” she told herself grimly. “Now you have to make the best of it.” It was a long time before she lay back down again, and longer still before she fell asleep, her body curled in the center of the large bed.

  PART II

  Who cares if this locked heart holds unforgotten

  pictures…

  —PUSHKIN

  Five

  N IKOLAS WAS DISTRACTED from his work by the sounds of shrieking outside the library window. He shot up from his desk, although Mr. Meadows and Mr. Bailey, a pair of estate agents he had been conferring with, remained in their chairs with bemused expressions on their faces. Reaching the window in three strides, Nikolas looked outside at the damp October landscape and went still.

  “Your Highness?” Meadows asked uneasily. “Has someone been injured?”

  Nikolas shook his head. “It's my wife,” he murmured. “Taking her daily exercise.” He watched with a faint smile as Emma, dressed in a white blouse, boots, and breeches, romped on the manicured lawn with her dog, Samson. Anyone who didn't know her might have been moved to suggest that the princess should be institutionalized. Emma chased the mongrel over flower beds and parterre hedges, her red hair flying in a tangled banner behind her back. In a flash, she whirled around and ran the other way, while the ungainly dog bounded after her.

  In the past month of marriage, the Angelovsky household and tenants had become accustomed to Emma's uninhibited ways, even to the sight of her striding around the estate in men's clothes. Walking through the house hand in hand with an elderly chimpanzee had also become a commonplace occurrence. Frolicking on the lawn with her dog was mild in comparison to everything else.

  Nikolas said nothing about his wife's eccentric behavior, for the simple reason that he enjoyed it, especially when it shocked others. He relished Emma's agile and unconventional mind, her straight-forwardness, her lack of pretension. She had the boundless energy of a child, working herself to near exhaustion and then releasing her tension by riding her horse at neck-breaking speed, or sprinting across the fields in pursuit of Samson.

  Nikolas enjoyed almost every moment of being with Emma…except for the times when she turned unexpectedly quiet and sweet, wanting to snuggle close to him and rest her curly head on his shoulder. Then he was forced to pull away from her, before he was consumed with blind panic. Emma had no idea of the way she threatened him, the promise of destruction she brought with every smile. He would not—could not—love her. But neither could he ignore his need for her, and so his relationship with her was a complicated balance of attraction and repulsion.

  Nikolas was about to turn away from the window when all at once Samson reached Emma and jumped on her, his saucer-sized paws hitting her slender back. She fell forward onto her stomach and didn't move.

  Nikolas was filled with a sudden blast of energy. Without a word to the two startled men, he raced across the room and sent the French doors bursting apart as he took a shortcut to the outside grounds. “Emma,” he called harshly, running to her still figure. He dropped beside her, his knees digging into the soft green lawn.

  She was making choking noises. He turned her over, the blood draining from his face as he saw her struggle to breathe. “Emelia—” He hovered over her, unfastening the top three buttons of her blouse.

  “I'm…all right,” she wheezed. “Wind…knocked out…” She tried to sit up, and he pushed her back to the ground.

  “Quiet. Just relax. Does it hurt anywhere? Are you nauseated?”

  Emma shook her head while he checked every-where for signs of blood or broken bones. “No,” she gasped, trying to push his searching hands away.

  Nikolas scowled as Samson approached them. The dog whined apologetically and snuffled in Emma's hair. Impatiently Nikolas shoved him aside. Samson retreated a few feet and lay down, moaning anxiously.

  “Your Highness?” came the butler's voice from several yards away. Evidently the servants had been alerted to the mishap. “Shall I send for a doctor?”

  “Not yet,” Nikolas replied, staring at Emma's pale face. “We'll see how she is in a few minutes. Go back inside, Stanislaus.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  To his surprise, Emma began to giggle as she regained her breath. “We were playing,” she said, taking in weak, rapid gulps of air. “I fell on my stomach…that's all.”

  “Yes, I saw.” Nikolas pulled Emma across his lap, bracing her shoulders. He smoothed back the curls that had fallen over her face. He was quiet, listening intently as her breathing evened out. With one fingertip he stroked the surface o
f his wife's cheek, which had gone from snowy white to vivid pink. He lingered on a few golden freckles, brushing them with a gossamer-light touch. It crossed his mind that others might be watching the spectacle on the lawn, but he couldn't seem to make himself let go of her. “Do you feel like sitting up?” he heard himself ask.

  “Please.”

  Gently he helped her to sit, his arm locked around her back. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Emma whispered. Her blue eyes were soft and confused. Their faces were very close, their breaths mingling.

  Nikolas meant to admonish her, to demand that she be more careful, but all he could do was stare at her parted lips…so soft, so tenderly curved…

  “Nikki?” she murmured, her hand fluttering to his chest, where his violent heartbeat resounded.

  With a low sound he kissed her, fastening his mouth over hers, yielding to the dark passion that drove him. Emma was pliant and weak in his arms, submitting without a sound, her fingers inching to the back of his neck and sliding delicately into his thick hair.

  Nikolas's response was sure and swift, his flesh rising hard against the tight restraint of his trousers. He wanted to pin her to the ground and thrust into her, here, now, grinding her hips into the fragrant earth beneath them. He wanted to make her shudder in climax, until she tore the clothes on his back in an effort to touch his skin. Just as he reached the point of exploding with lust and emotion, he jerked back and pushed her off his lap.

  Emma sat on her heels, staring at him in bewilderment.

  Nikolas made his voice as crisp as possible. “Spare the household any more of your antics today. I have work to do. In case you intend to spend your afternoon with that flea-bitten mongrel, I advise you to take a bath afterward. At the moment, the two of you share the same remarkable smell.”

  Emma stiffened with offended pride. “Samson may smell a little strong at times, but he doesn't have fleas!”

  Nikolas glanced at the dog, who was scratching industriously with his hind foot. With a sardonic snort, Nikolas stood and left.

  Emma leaned over to pat Samson's rough head, and glared at her husband's departing form. “He's an impossible man,” she informed the wriggling dog. “Don't pay any attention to him. We don't care about his opinion.”

  She shook her head as she wondered what had come over Nikolas. One minute he had kissed her passionately, and the next he had pulled away as if burned. After three months of marriage, Nikolas was still very much a stranger to her. It was seldom that he explained his actions or decisions, and rarer still for him to reveal his feelings. But in spite of Emma's exasperation, she was fascinated by her husband.

  Nikolas could be devilishly entertaining, provoking laughter, astonishment, and sometimes horror at the stories he told her of his life and the people he had known. He listened patiently when she read aloud her occasional correspondence to and from Tasia, and he was even comforting when she was depressed about her strained relationship with her family. But he could also be callous and unbearably cold, for no apparent reason. She attributed many of Nikolas's nasty moods to the fact that he drank too much. It was his nightly ritual to consume several glasses of wine with supper, and half a bottle of vodka after. Yet she had never seen him drunk. Alcohol made him soft-voiced and guarded, and cuttingly perceptive.

  Most of society regarded Nikolas as one of their own, an aristocrat who devoted himself to leisurely amusement and played at business merely to amuse himself. Emma had quickly learned that nothing was farther from the truth. Nikolas was busier than any man she had ever known, even her father. He managed his fortune with assiduous attention, making investments and launching financial enterprises so complex that it almost frightened Emma to see them written out on paper.

  The interminable business of entertaining wasn't bad at all, since Emma had to do very little of the planning. The routine had been established years before, and the servants were amazingly efficient as they maintained the house, prepared and served meals, and saw to the needs of every guest. As Nikolas had promised, Emma was able to spend most of her time caring for her animals and working for her causes.

  There was an endless parade of visitors at the Angelovsky estate, which seemed more like a hotel than a home. Their dinner table was constantly filled with foreign guests, many from Europe and America and even a few from principalities in Russia. The after-dinner conversation of the men was devoted exclusively to the subject of business, percentages and profit, shares and investment and taxes. Sometimes Emma took a seat at the fringe of the complicated discussions and listened quietly. She was amused by the awe with which others regarded her husband, the way they desired to be his friend and feared him at the same time…and she had a touch of sympathy for their dilemma.

  Nikolas could be beguiling one moment and incredibly scathing the next. He was cruelest to those who tried to flatter him, and told them with a lethal smile that he cared about no one but himself, and that anyone who believed differently was a fool. He didn't seem to want anyone's friendship, and ironically that seemed to make people even more eager to be close to him.

  For her part, Emma had learned to curb her impulses to be affectionate to Nikolas. It seemed to annoy him when she kissed him casually. He was a gentle and skillful lover, but he was never inclined to hold her in the aftermath of their lovemaking. On one of the nights he had visited her, when she had dared to rest her hand on his arm for a minute, he had left the bed with a muffled exclamation of annoyance. Touching, caressing, was acceptable only when he initiated it, and even then it never lasted for long. Emma had come to accept the distance he imposed between them, and had even convinced herself that it was for the best. She was much better off without love, and without all the heartache and longing it brought.

  The stale air was stirred as Emma and the two Sidarova girls, Rashel and Marinka, dragged an unwieldy trunk from the corner. Having discovered five locked storage rooms on the top floor of the Angelovsky manor, Emma had asked Nikolas what they contained. He had shrugged indifferently and replied, “Old family possessions from the palace in St. Petersburg. Dishes, carvings, ornaments—nothing very remarkable. Look through them if you like.”

  Emma's curiosity ran rampant at the idea. She requested the key to the rooms from the housekeeper, Mrs. Evstafyeva, a rotund and cheerful woman who ran the household with remarkable efficiency. “Take the Sidarova sisters to help you,” she had suggested. “Whatever you wish to have carried downstairs and cleaned, they will do it. Good, strong girls, both of them.”

  Emma had liked the suggestion. Rashel and Marinka were remarkably similar. Both girls had chestnut hair, winning smiles, and cheerfully pragmatic temperaments. Using tools purloined from the carriage house, the three of them settled in one of the storage rooms and opened crates and trunks, knocking off small gilt hinges and locks. To Emma's delight, they uncovered some relics of the Angelosky past—a bear rug trimmed with gold braid, a lady's silver toiletry set, a carved wooden box filled with embroidered veils.

  “How beautiful!” Emma exclaimed, gingerly unfolding one of the frail lengths of silk. “I wonder what these are for.”

  The Sidarova sisters exclaimed in pleasure and examined the contents of the box. “They are used to cover a woman's hair, Your Highness,” Rashel said. She reached past the veils and extracted a gold circlet that had been bent on one side to form a delicate peak. A single tear-shaped ruby dangled from the point. “Shall I show you how it is worn?” she asked.

  Emma nodded and remained sitting on the floor, while Rashel stood to drape the pearl-encrusted veil over her hair. Next she arranged the diadem so that the ruby lay against the center of Emma's forehead. “Married women must cover all their hair, to hide it from a stranger's eyes,” Rashel explained, standing back to view her with satisfaction. She gave Emma the hand mirror from the silver toiletry set. “But a maiden arranges the cloth so the top of her head is left exposed.”

  Emma squinted at her reflection in the cloudy, distorted glass. “I fe
el quite exotic,” she said with a laugh, reaching up to feel the ruby on her forehead.

  “It is pretty on you,” Rashel commented.

  Marinka nodded in agreement. “You look very Russian, Your Highness.”

  “Let's see what else we can find!” Emma removed the diadem and veil and continued to dig through the trunk. There were beautiful woven shawls and squares of lace, antique combs made of bone, faded silk shoes and purses covered with glinting gems. “Look at this,” she said, holding up one of the little jeweled bags. The rose silk was embroidered with a Russian Cyrillic character that resembled the letter E.

  Rashel examined the purse closely. “That may have belonged to the wife of Prince Nikolai the First. Her name was Emelia.”

  “Really? Nikolas mentioned her to me once. She was his distant grandmother, wasn't she?”

  Rashel nodded. “Dah, Emelia was a peasant woman from a village near St. Petersburg. Would you like to hear the story of Nikolai and Emelia?”

  “By all means,” Emma said, crossing her legs and settling herself more comfortably. By now she had noticed that the Russian household servants all shared the habit of telling entertaining tales at every opportunity. They always began the same way: Once, a very long time ago…Or sometimes, Once, in an age long gone by…Emma looked at Rashel expectantly, waiting for the story to commence.

  The maid's eyes sparkled with enjoyment. “Once, long ago, there was an iron-willed prince named Nikolai. He was the most valiant of boyars, and so handsome that even the sun envied him for his brightness. But Nikolai was never touched by love. Over the years his heart grew a shell of hard, cold stone.

  “When it came time for Prince Nikolai to marry, he commanded that all the young maidens from Moskva and surrounding lands be brought to him, and he would choose from among them. Five hundred beautiful maidens came in hopes of becoming his bride. He moved among them and dismissed one girl after another, bestowing a gold coin on each one.