Kuzan Dynasty 02
Love Storm
Susan Johnson
Part I
The Meeting
1
ST. PETERSBURG, JANUARY 1899
"Damn it, Amalie!" Prince Alexander hissed into the soft pink ear so close to his lips as he twirled the tall, queenly, blonde beauty through the crowd of elegantly dressed, coiffed, and bejeweled nobles dancing in the gilt-and-white rococo ballroom of the Dolgorouky palace. "You said Beckendorff was leaving town three days ago!"
Amalie, eminently sure of her loveliness tonight, dressed in an exceedingly low-cut, figure-hugging violet velvet gown, the stylish train sweeping out around her as Alex faultlessly swung them among the dancing couples, lifted seductively lashed lavender eyes, coyly smiled up into the rather forbidding saturnine face regarding her, and softly placated, "But, Sasha darling, how was I to know Boris would win two nights running at the Yacht Club gaming tables? He stays yet another night to see if his luck holds."
"With him it has to be luck; a more heavy-handed player I have yet to see," the prince churlishly retorted, the hours of drinking at the Yacht Club that afternoon and evening not conductive to moderating his unbridled Kuzan temper.
"Now, sweet, not everyone can be as devilishly fortunate as you at cards," she said, and smiled winningly into the chill golden eyes glaring down at her. Amalie was a consummate flirt and seductress and had put her considerable skills to the ultimate test in retaining the fickle interest of Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Kuzan for five months. His liaisons rarely outlasted the new moon.
"It's not fortunate, my dear," the grim-faced man rebuked, "but practice and skill honed to a fine pitch through constant application. After gambling daily for ten years with a great variety of devout gamesters, one acquires a certain expertise. Your stupid husband's the exception to the rule," he discourteously concluded.
"Boris doesn't have to be clever, love; his father's estate in the Urals produces half the annual world output of platinum."
"The Kuzan gold mines in Siberia have long precluded a need to worry about money, my dove, but our family still expects a certain degree of intellectual proficiency in their offspring. To simply put wineglass or spoon to lips is not enough."
"Don't be so cruel, Sasha. Boris has always been a bit overweight, true; but then, see how much more I appreciate your lean virility." Countless Amalie Beckendorff delicately stirred her voluptuous body against the tall, muscular form of the prince and, her action having the desired effect, smiled complacently as she felt a rising hardness press into her belly.
"Damn you, Amalie," Alex groaned softly. He'd been anticipating a session in bed with the countess for three days. "To hell with Boris. If we can't go to your place, come to my town palace. My servants are scrupulously discreet. I'll have you home before Boris leaves the Yacht Club."
Clever and artful as Amalie was at dalliance, in the time-honored way of reigning beauties used to have men fawn over them, this time she miscalculated in assuming she had snared yet another admirer who could be teased and toyed with. She should have known better. Anyone acquainted with Prince Alexander Nikolaevich's amatory exploits—and many were, since discretion was not a Kuzan trait—should have exercised more prudence. Centuries of wealth, imperiousness, and arrogance had made the Kuzans impervious to the niceties of polite society; they did as they pleased, boldly and flagrantly, and if scandal dogged their heels, they never deigned to notice.
Despite the prince's notorious reputation for callous fickleness, the legions of pursuing women did not seem to be deterred; and he, for his part, delighted in their adulation, dispensing his favors with a democratic generosity. Beautiful, passionate women attracted him, and he was a most charming lover. Liberal with both himself and his wealth, he was unutterably irresistible. On one point alone the prince became intractable: He had a marked dislike for possessive women, and when the pretty faces attempted to cajole or coax him against his will, they very swiftly found themselves coolly and quickly displaced.
Countess Amalie was not prudent, and did exactly the wrong thing. In her monumental vanity, thinking to enthrall the prince more deeply, to draw him, in his need, more closely to her, she teasingly withheld her favors yet a third night. "I can't tonight, love, I'm sorry," she whispered.
Prince Alex was a practiced man about town—refined, sophisticated, supremely handsome, and incredibly wealthy. He had early on learned the rules of amatory courtship and was known, when the whim moved him, to genteelly court some striking belle for a fortnight or two; but no one in even the most optimistic state of mind would ever go so far as to declare that any of these capricious courtships were, even remotely, undertaken by an enamored man. He had never been enamored; the concept or feeling was totally foreign to his basically selfish, self-indulgent nature.
Alex had enjoyed the voluptuous charms of Amalie for an unheard-of five months precisely because those charms were voluptuous. She was in bed the exact antithesis of the cool, distant, golden-blonde goddess she portrayed in public. She was a wild, rapacious, adroit, and accomplished wanton whose technical proficiency, in conjunction with her natural inclinations, often boggled the imagination and most certainly elicited the ultimate sensual pleasure in the ageless dance of love.
"You can't or you won't, Countess Beckendorff?" Alex spat coldly, never missing a step as he effortlessly glided through the throng of dancers.
"I would if I could, Sasha," Amalie mendaciously cooed.
"Come to my palace, then. I'll have you home in two hours," he curtly responded, his eyes cold as ice.
For the first time, a tinge of doubt appeared in Amalie's mind. The proposal of two hours smacked very crudely of a rendezvous with a prostitute or a gypsy girl rather than with a woman by whose beauty and person the prince was bewitched. "I'm sorry, Sasha, I really can't," Amalie murmured and, continuing in the style that had been so successful in the past, offered him a warm, alluring glance from under heavy lashes.
"Bitch!" Alex exploded furiously. Disengaging himself, he turned on his heel and stalked across the room, pushing and shouldering his way rather rudely through the mass of dancers.
The stately, gorgeous Countess Beckendorff was ignominiously left standing in the center of the ballroom floor, while the heads of all the guests within twenty feet swiveled to stare as Alex's explicit denunciation resounded through the room. Audible gasps escaped those near enough to hear, and other dancers turned to watch.
Amalie's temper flared at the insult. Damn Sasha's black soul! He'd pay for this evening's work, she swore heatedly to herself. Mustering her dignity, she pressed her lips into a semblance of a polite smile, raised her classic chin, and walked slowly off the floor, trying to ignore the malicious, spiteful titters of the gossips that broke out immediately after their momentary stunned silence.
Alex raced down the red-carpeted marble staircase to the ground-floor foyer, oblivious of the craning necks and speculative glances that followed his precipitous descent, Reaching the foyer, he imperiously snapped his fingers, summoning a footman to bring his sable topcoat, and seethed inwardly with a cold anger as he waited what seemed an interminably long time for the task to be accomplished.
Bitch, damnable bitch of a courtesan, using her contrived theatrics on him! Two nights he had waited for her! Good God, he didn't need any woman that badly. Females were a necessity to him, but never a compulsion. He could very nicely survive without Amalie, he reflected, while yet raging at her teasing artifice. Hell, there were gypsy women by the hundreds on the Islands, and plenty of soft, accommodating society girls and young wives, as far as that went, all equally willing. Still…Amalie was damnably pleasing to ride.
The apologetic footman finally arrived with the coat, a
nd Alex shrugged his broad shoulders into the luxurious fur. A curt nod of dismissal; then he paused for a second, chastised himself for taking out his ill humor on the servant, and reached into his pocket and tossed the man two gold rubles, apologizing with a rueful grin. "Sorry, little brother; a cursed woman has put me out of temper."
The servant broke into a wide smile as he pocketed the money, and with an eloquent shrug, he replied, "No woman is worth a second thought. Find a gypsy, Your Excellency; she will warm your blood and soothe your temper."
Perhaps he's right, Alex mused briefly; a couple of gypsy wenches and a fortnight at his favorite retreat near Moscow would dispel his churlish mood. It would be relaxing to have a few weeks' respite from these feverish, enervating, ridiculous, disagreeable social activities. He and Ivan would do some wolf hunting. His mind, racing ahead, was already deep in contemplation, deciding which of his new guns he would bring along; and he mustn't forget two or three cases of the very fine old Tokay he had just purchased. And, with the perverse inconsistency and monumental optimism of youth, Amalie was quite forgotten.
By the time the footman swept the door open before him and the prince stepped out into a swirl of blowing snow, his black mood had already lifted, replaced by an exhilarating anticipation of the beauty, peace, and sybaritic pleasures a stay in the country offered. He had left orders with his driver, Ivan, to have his troika at the ready in front of the entrance, having expected to be leaving early with Amalie. Now, as he raced down the torchlit steps toward his waiting troika, he shouted jubilantly, "Ivan! Ivan! We're off to Podolsk—now, this instant!" and his heart soured with irrepressible exultation.
2
Another guest from the Dolgorouky ball was also out on the entrance steps in the lightly falling snow; but her mood was distinctly at variance with that of the man who was striding toward his beautifully accoutered red troika with such exuberance. This other guest was morose, partially frightened, and beginning to shiver as the wind blew cold gusts through the folds of her light cape.
Zena Turku had accompanied her aunt, Baroness Adelberg, to the ball with express orders to make herself accommodating to General Scobloff, who had asked for her hand in marriage. Zena had railed, cried, and cursed but had not moved one whit her aunt's resolve to marry her off to that hateful, fat, lecherous old general, who had already buried two wives during his sixty-one years. There was no love lost between Zena and her widowed aunt.
After Zena's beautiful Daghestani mother died in childbirth three years ago, her father had sunk into a lethargic despair from which he never recovered. He, Zena, and the infant had left their prosperous, picturesque country estate in Astrakhan one week after the funeral and come to St. Petersburg. Baron Turku had turned to drink and gambling in an unsuccessful attempt to exorcise his melancholy, only rarely appearing sober enough to notice that Zena needed him, at which times he would solemnly promise to go back home. But only painful memories awaited him there and he could not face them, any more
than he could face the sight of the boy child whose entry into the world had been the cause of his darling wife's death. One early dawn six months ago, Baron Turku, unable to endure another day of living, had put pistol to temple and blown the top of his head off.
Zena and her young brother, Bobby1, were left alone with the baron's hateful half-sister, who took control of what was left of the Turku fortune, reminding Zena constantly and spitefully that she should be grateful for a roof over her head, as her father had gambled away practically every ruble.
Just three weeks ago, when Zena turned eighteen, Baroness Adelberg had informed her that she was to be married to General Scobloff, since the baroness no longer cared to support such an ungrateful niece. She hoped Zena realized how fortunate she was, for penniless maids were not resplendent catches on the marriage mart, while the further taint of a Circassian mother was practically insupportable.
Zena ignored the barbed jibes concerning her mother, having been as proud of her enchanting mother's heritage as of her father's more conventional nobility. Baroness Turku's father was a powerful mountain chieftain whose clan had ruled in the Caucasus for centuries.
The last three years since her mother's death had been sadly unhappy as Zena watched the slow, lingering disintegration of her once proud, vigorous father. He had hardly seemed the same man after his wife's death. Almost overnight the baron had changed into a remote, detached, perfunctorily polite figure of a man.
Baroness Adelberg had constantly and bitterly badgered the young girl, who was turning into a rare beauty in a gloomy and solitary environment. On infrequent occasions, when her father had still been alive, he would come out of his room in the afternoon and his eyes would mist over as he discerned in his growing daughter a startling resemblance to his beloved wife. The reminders were too poignantly wounding, and he had brutally avoided his young daughter more and more in the last few months of his life.
The week before the Dolgorouky ball had been a turmoil of vicious emotional altercations between Baroness Adelberg and Zena, the furious older woman finally threatening to throw her selfish ward out of the house if she did not agree to wed the general. Zena was still adamant; more stubbornly inclined than ever to do anything—anything, at all—rather than marry that hateful old man, with his florid face and tiny, evil repellent eyes that looked upon her so lecherously. He had been hovering near her every evening, whispering sweet phrases that were ludicrous coming from a man old enough to be her grandfather; touching her in a disgusting, familiar way when her aunt wasn't looking; leering at her undisguisedly as he informed the baroness that he wished the engagement to be short.
Having to dance with the general this evening had further hardened Zena's determination to resist marrying him at any price. He had held her too intimately, pressing his flabby paunch against her rib cage; and, shuddering with revulsion, she'd had to steel herself to keep from running from the dance floor. The minute the dance ended, she had begged to be excused for a moment to refresh her hairdo, and practically bolting from the room, she had rushed down the stairs and impulsively asked for her wrap, a driving need to get away from the contemptible old general outweighing all considerations of etiquette.
Zena had been standing on the steps of the palace now for several minutes, frantically searching her mind for any possible avenue of escape from the future her aunt had planned for her. Fleetingly, she'd even considered throwing herself into the Neva, but had rapidly discarded the idea when she realized that jumping from a bridge onto the frozen ice of the river would probably result in broken legs and a slow, freezing death. Zena was still youthfully optimistic enough to desire life rather than death; in any case, Bobby needed someone to care for him. With an energetic mind, a young, healthy body, and a resourceful personality, surely she could survive. She would survive! But first she must take herself as far away from St. Petersburg, and pursuit by a vengeful aunt and a lecherous suitor, as her wits would allow. After swiftly appraising the minimal options open to an eighteen-year-old woman with a three-year-old brother in tow, she came to a decision: She would go to her grandfather in the mountains. Somehow she would find him.
3
"Ivan! Ivan! Wake up!" The young noble was shaking his sleeping driver, who, muffled in fur carriage robes, had dozed off. "Ivan, wake up! We're off to Podolsk. Vite, Vite.1" The tall, dark-haired prince chuckled indulgently as he vigorously shook the burly peasant.
Podolsk—that certainly was far enough away from St. Petersburg! Zena speculated tersely. A split second later, the decision made, she prepared herself to approach the stranger, then hesitated, all the training of a lifetime opposed to such shameless behavior. But, when she saw that the driver was now fully awake and the horses were prancing in their harness, in desperation she ran down to the sable-clad figure and tugged at his arm.
The prince swung around in surprise, and his heavy-lidded golden eyes swiftly appraised the slim young girl standing before him, wrapped in a much-worn gray cashmere cape with bl
ack lamb trim. The top of her head scarcely came to his shoulder, and lifted to his gaze was a beautiful, delicate face with large, deep-blue, imploring eyes.
"Well?" he said impassively.
Zena raised her hand, distractedly pushing aside a heavy tress of auburn waves that had fallen over her forehead, and shook the long cascades of hair back with a nervous shake of her dainty head. "Please, monsieur ..." She spoke haltingly in French, paused, then took a deep breath and
plunged on rapidly: "Please, sir, could…could you allow me to go with you to Podolsk?"
Her lashes fell before the prince's bold, deliberate scrutiny, and she held her breath in an agony of embarrassment and trepidation. Oh, God, how could she have sunk so low as to ask a perfect stranger for a ride? Humiliation overwhelmed her; then, with a vacillating seesaw of nervous anxiety, her mind swung full circle, desperation overcoming any wavering scruples. Holy Mother, what would she do if he said no? Sweet Jesus, let him say yes and she would be far from St. Petersburg and the repellent general by morning.
Alexander Nikolaevich coolly surveyed the young girl. She couldn't be more than sixteen, he decided, with her petite, innocent beauty. Not particularly young for a woman of the streets, however. Many of them commenced their trade at twelve or thirteen; at sixteen she was probably a practiced veteran, and in another three years her beauty would begin to fade. These fair flowers of the night withered rapidly.
"So you want a ride with me to Podolsk. Why?" he asked, as his eyes insolently raked her slim form from head to foot and slowly returned to the pale face.
"I ... I can't say," Zena stammered, and her eyes fell again before the candid regard of the tall, handsome aristocrat towering above her. She involuntarily shivered as another gust of wind whirled the snow around her satin-slippered feet, and she tugged the cape closer for warmth.