Silver Nights (18 page)

Adam, in a fever of anxiety and impatience, was obliged to accept the hospitality, to answer all his general's searching questions, and it was not until nearly three o'clock in the morning that he was able to make a move to the door. “I trust Princess Dmitrievna is keeping well.”

There was an infinitesimal silence, then the general replied casually, “She expressed a wish to visit her grandfather. She will leave later this morning.”

No, Adam thought with cold certainty. She has already gone…in haste and secrecy in the middle of the night, traveling in that wretched sleigh. It was obvious why Dmitriev had lied to him. No man in his right mind would send his wife off in the middle of a snowy November night, so it had to be given out that she had left at a civilized hour.

Clicking his heels smartly, Adam saluted and left his general. With the greatest difficulty, he forced himself to think before chasing off in pursuit. He could not depart St. Petersburg without permission from the empress, and he could not get that until daybreak. An urgent message of distress from Mogilev, delivered during his absence in Moscow, should provide excuse. He was planning with military precision now as he considered the proper preparation for such a journey. Boris Mikhailov, whose injuries, sustained during his recapture, were now healed, would accompany him, and Khan, of course, although it would be too cold for Sophie to ride the stallion. Extra furs could not come amiss. What had she taken with her? What might she lack?

They were questions impossible to answer, so he decided to take as much extra protection as he and Boris could manage to carry. They would need weapons, plenty of ammunition; in addition to the usual hazard posed by brigands, there would be wolves to contend with.

The remainder of the night passed in a fever of preparation, and at seven o'clock the czarina, working in her dressing room in the quiet of early morning, was informed that Count Danilevski desired audience most urgently. Reflecting that it must indeed be urgent if the count could not wait until nine, when she gave audience to those with problems, the czarina received him in her bedroom. One look at his face was sufficient to convince her that some tragedy had occurred.

“Why, Adam, you look positively distraught,
mon ami
,” she said, rustling across the room toward him in her white silk taffeta dressing gown. “How can I help you?”

It was not difficult to appear distraught, Adam discovered, since it was an accurate reflection of how he felt. Every minute that Sophie traveled without properly armed escort, with every verst drawing her farther from the capital and into the wilds, the danger increased. Riding hard on good mounts, he and Boris could catch up with the sleigh without difficulty, but it would still take at least half a day.

“Madame, I have received most disturbing news from home,” he lied smoothly. “My mother is ill, at death's door, if my sister is to be believed.”

“Then you must go to her immediately,” cried the empress, whose soft heart, while it could never be allowed to rule her political head, frequently governed her personal actions. “Go at once, and we will not expect you to return until the spring.” She waved him away as if his urgency were her own. “Hurry now. You must not lose a minute. It is a very sad thing when one cannot attend the sickbed of one's parents.” A shadow crossed her face as she remembered how she had been prevented by the czarina Elizabeth from attending her own father's funeral, let alone his sickbed. No one should accuse Catherine of such inhumanity. She saw the grateful colonel from her bedroom and returned to her work, well pleased that she should have begun the day with an act of kindness.

Sophie had lost track of time. There was little sensation of movement in the sleigh, sliding slowly over the snow, drawn by its sluggish horses. The sky was so leaden, the light so gray, it was hard to believe it was daylight. Indeed, so little outside light penetrated the grimy windows of the icebox in which she shivered, it might just as well have been night.

She supposed she ought to tell her escort to halt at the next post house they came to, but she felt neither hunger nor thirst and knew that the muzhiks had their own food with them. When she had needed to leave the sleigh just after daybreak, they were eating raw onions and black bread, and the smell of vodka hung around them.

She could no longer feel her feet, and it was too much trouble to keep her eyes open. At one point, during the dreadful reaches of the night, she had begun to cry. The tears had frozen on her cheeks and to her horror she had felt her eyes freezing, icicles forming in her nose. The sleighs at Berkholzskoye were equipped with braziers, stoves, chamberpots. Couches piled high with furs kept the traveler as warm as within doors, and she had always loved winter excursions across the virgin snow of the steppes, where the white ground merged with the white sky so that they voyaged within a dazzling, shining capsule of absolute purity. If she kept her eyes closed she could be there, now, warmed by her grandfather's smile, hearing his voice as she snuggled into her furs. She was perfectly warm, and so deliciously sleepy…

The sound of shots barely penetrated her trance. The sleigh
lurched to a halt; there was confused shouting. Her eyes opened for a second, then closed again. What did it matter if it was brigands? She was too sleepy to care, and that wonderful white world beckoned…

“Holy Mother!” Flinging open the door, Adam stared in horror. Sophie, no longer tightly wrapped in her cloak, lay back on the wooden bench, her eyes closed, hair tumbling loose from her hood, her cloak hanging open, revealing the thin satin of her gown. “Sophie!” He climbed into the freezing interior, pulling her up. “Sophie! Wake up! Wake
up
, damn you!” He shook her vigorously. Her eyelids fluttered, and the force of his relief set his knees trembling.

“What is it?” Boris's head appeared in the doorway. Then he, too, swore as he took in the sight and its implications. “Got to get the blood moving, Count.”

“I know!” Adam said between his teeth. “Sophie!” He shook her again. This time her eyes opened fully, but there was no recognition, no awareness in them.

“Leave me alone,” she mumbled. “Want to go to sleep.”

“You are not going to sleep.” Taking her wrists in one hand, he jerked her up into a sitting position, then, with carefully judged force, he slowly and deliberately slapped her face with his gloved hand until her eyes focused, and he read anger behind the sleepy bewilderment.

“Adam?” She stared at him. “How…? What…?” Then the anger blazed, pure and clear. She touched her smarting cheeks. “You struck me! How
dare
you?”

“That's better.” With a great sigh of relief, he spoke over his shoulder. “Bring me the pelisse and the boots.”

“Got 'em already,” said the imperturbable Boris, handing the required articles through the door.

“Put these on.” Kneeling, Adam pulled off her thin evening shoes and began to rub her feet vigorously between his hands. “Can you feel anything?”

Sophie shook her head, slumping back against the bench, her eyes closing. Another stinging slap brought her upright with a cry of fury. “That's going to happen every time you close your eyes,” Adam told her with the ferocity of desper
ation. “You
cannot
go to sleep, Sophie. If you do, you will never wake up. Do you understand me?” His eyes raked her face. “I am not going to lose you…not now.”

The gray eyes pierced the white world that beckoned her into oblivion, sent it scurrying backward into the shadows from whence it came. His words, spoken with such savage intensity, seemed to take on shape and solidity, to form the reality to which she was now returning. She had no idea how he had got here, or even where here was, but such issues were supremely unimportant.

“I do not want to be lost,” she said, managing to twist numb lips into the tiniest of smiles.

“Then cooperate.” He kissed her hard, until warmth and life came back to her mouth, before resuming his rubbing of her feet.

As life returned to her body, she began to shiver uncontrollably, her teeth chattering. “It's so cold suddenly.”

“It has always been cold,” Adam told her, his tone short with worry. “You had just reached the point where you could not feel it any longer.” He pushed her feet into the deerskin boots lined with Siberian fur, and muttered, “How long did that murdering savage expect you to survive?”

“Not I…I…long!” Sophie agreed through the frantic clattering of her teeth. “I have never been so cold.”

“Put this on.” He pushed her arms into the heavy pelisse, buttoning it securely. A thick fur hat with attached earmuffs went over her head, mittens on her hands, so that she was cocooned in fur. Adam inspected his parcel with a critical frown. “I do not see any gaps,” he pronounced eventually. “Now you are going to run.”

“R…run!” Sophie exclaimed. “I am not!”

“Oh, yes, you are.” He stood up. “Come along.” Hauling her to her feet, he stepped backward out of the sleigh, lifting her down beside him.

Sophie stood, weak-kneed, blinking in the snow's dazzle, shaking and chattering her teeth. The two serfs who had formed her escort lay in the snow, their bodies at strange angles that seemed not to resemble a human position. Her
eyes went to Adam. “It could not be helped,” he said curtly. “They could not be allowed to take this tale back to Dmitriev.” Sophie shuddered at the implication, and the complexity of this turmoil swam into her head with sudden clarity. Adam's tone softened. “They fired to kill, Sophie.”

Obeying their master's orders, Sophie thought. And there were always casualties in battle. If they had not met their deaths, she would have met hers. Then a wave of light-headedness banished the moment of clarity. “I want to sit down…. Please, Adam, my legs feel strange.” She looked at him in appeal.

“You have to get the blood moving in your body again,” he said. “I am sorry, sweetheart, but you are going to run. He drew her over to his horse. “Trust me.” With a swift movement, almost as if he hoped she would not notice what he was doing, he fastened her right wrist to his stirrup with his scarf.

Sophie, mute with disbelief, looked at him, then at her wrist. She tugged it, shaking her head. “What are you doing?” Her voice sounded frightened in its confusion.

Adam cupped her face and kissed her. “I know what I am doing, sweetheart.” He swung onto his horse, shook the reins and the animal started forward.

Sophie stumbled with the surprise she should not have felt, but her ability to connect actions with consequences seemed to have become shaky, like the rest of her. Of course, she thought numbly, if one is tied to a horse and it starts to move one is going to move with it. The recognition brought another surge of anger, as her pace increased perforce to keep up with Adam's mount. “You are detestable,” she yelled from her furry cocoon, running through the snow. “I loathe you!”

Adam chuckled. “No, you don't. You love me.”

Sophie gasped, then closed her mouth rapidly as the air lacerated her lungs. Amazingly, she could feel the warmth returning to her body, reaching the extremities, setting her toes to tingling in a painful but blissfully reassuring fashion. Her stride lengthened as her sluggish blood resumed its customary speed and flow.

After ten minutes, Adam drew rein. He dismounted and swiftly released her wrist. “If we cannot contrive some form of heat for the sleigh, you must become accustomed to running every hour. Even in the furs, you will become chilled to the bone.”

Sophie did not immediately respond. For the first time, she realized that they were not alone. While she had been running, the sleigh had been following, driven by…

“Boris Mikhailov!” Her voice rang joyfully across the deserted, snowy landscape. “Why did I not know you were here, also?”

“Didn't know anything at all,” Boris said gruffly. “Not in the state you were in. See who else is here.” He gestured to the back of the sleigh.

Sophie looked, then she was running again, plowing through the snow. “Khan!” The stallion, tethered to the rear of the sleigh, snorted his own pleasure and recognition, tossing his head in the needle-sharp air. “Where is his saddle? I will ride him.” She turned eagerly to Adam, yet keeping her hand cupped over Khan's velvety nose.

Regretfully, he shook his head. “It is too cold for riding, Sophie.”

“But you are!” she exclaimed indignantly, huddling into the stallion's warmth.

“Boris Mikhailov and I will share the driving, with hourly changes,” Adam said. “The other horses will be tethered to the sleigh. It is imperative that they keep moving, and that we keep as warm as we can.” He was hustling her toward the sleigh as he spoke. “In you get.”

Sophie found herself bundled inside. Adam followed in a few seconds with an armful of furs. “When did you last eat?” Sitting beside her on the unyielding bench, he piled furs over both of them, drawing her against him.

“Yesterday sometime,” Sophie murmured, snuggling, as a wave of peace washed blissfully over her. “But I'm not hungry!” The last was a wail, because Adam was moving away from her.

“I know it was impossible, but I wish we had been able
to carry a samovar,” he muttered, jumping to the ground again. He was back within a few minutes with a hamper. As he opened it, the sleigh began to move forward. “Red currant syrup.” He handed Sophie a bottle.

She wrinkled her nose. “I would rather have vodka.”

“Not on an empty belly. Drink the syrup. The sugar will be good for you.”

“There's sugar in vodka,” Sophie persisted, peering into the hamper. “Look, you have some there.” She reached for the bottle.

Adam sat back, watching as she took a deep draught of the fiery liquid. There had been times in the last months when he had feared that Sophia Alexeyevna Golitskova was vanquished and vanished, Paul Dmitriev's puppet permanently in her place. But the woman sitting beside him now was the woman he had first known. He was filled with an overpowering joy.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked laughingly at him. “That is much better. Red currant syrup is for milksops.”

“Maybe so,” he replied, laughing back, relishing his moment of secret delight. “But at present it is still better for you than vodka.”

Sophie drank again, then passed him the bottle. The glow was back in her eyes, even a hint of mischief as she asked, “May I go to sleep now?”

Adam returned the vodka to the hamper before drawing her across his knees, holding her tightly beneath the nest of furs. “You may.” He kissed the tip of her nose, the only feature readily available.

Contentedly, Sophie allowed her eyes to close, her mind to drift. Vodka curled warmly in her stomach. Even through the layers of clothing she could feel the steady thump of Adam's heart against her cheek, his arms enfolding her. The night terror had exhausted her spiritual resources as the fearsome cold had exhausted her body. How or why this miraculous rescue had occurred somehow did not seem to be of any interest. Only the fact was of importance. She was awash
with contentment, with peace, with utter languor, secure in the absolute certainty that her present position, locked in love, had been ordained from the first. There had just been a rather irritating delay in the inevitable…

“No…no, don't go! Where are you going!” Deprivation broke into the blissful world where she drifted, half in sleep, half lost in daydream. The arms were moving away from her, a cold space replacing the vibrant strength of the body supporting her.

“Boris Mikhailov must come inside,” Adam told her, smiling at her sleepy indignation. “He has been driving the sleigh for over an hour.”

“But if you go, I shall freeze again.” She sat up, shaking the bemusement from her head.

“Then you will have to run, won't you?” Adam said cheerfully, tucking the fur around her. “Give Boris the vodka and make sure he wraps up well. He'll be very cold.”

Sophie instantly forgot her selfish preoccupation with Adam's presence. It had come from the mists of sleep and had no place in present reality. “Yes, of course.” Reaching for the hamper, she took out the vodka. “I hope this is not the only bottle. It has a miraculous effect on the body's temperature.” She raised the bottle to her lips.

“I always knew you had hollow legs.” Adam jumped to the ground. “There is plenty, but just make sure you do not drink so much that you do not know what you are doing.” The gray eyes burned suddenly; the laughter left his voice. “The time is not far off now, Sophia Alexeyevna, when I will want to be certain you know exactly what is happening, when all your senses are at their sharpest.”

Sophie shivered, but not with cold this time. Although that declaration of intent had been understood between them, the time to which he referred, the sense of hovering on the edge of a commitment, the consequences of which could not be computed, was suddenly terrifying. Love was a terrifying emotion. Her dark eyes lifted to his face, outlined against the gray-white horizon.

“I love you,” she said quietly. “You need have no fears I will lose sight of that in the vodka bottle.”

Slowly, Adam smiled. “I am reassured, Sophia Alexeyevna.” He turned from her, finding Boris Mikhailov standing behind him. The muzhik was regarding him gravely, as if not a nuance of that exchange had escaped him. Then Boris nodded, a fractional movement of his head, but it was clear to Adam that he had just been given permission. Which was just as well, he thought, grinning ruefully to himself as he swung onto the lead horse. If Boris Mikhailov chose to interpose himself between a man and Sophie, only death would remove him.