"Does Stefan know Nadejda's parents are visiting the Viceroy?"
"I didn't tell him, but he found out," his aunt said, blunt as a hammer blow, "from the servants."
"You wouldn't have told him?" Lisaveta's words were blurted in astonishment. She had been reared to honor simple truth.
"I wanted him to find out from his fiancée. She has such an irritating way about her."
"He may not find her irritating."
Militza treated Lisaveta to a candid stare. Her eyes were dark with kohl in the fashion of the Caucasus, and brilliant with derision. "He hardly notices her."
It was unkind, but Militza's words consoled her; had Stefan adored Nadejda she would have been… what? Unhappy? Dejected? Jealous? Taking a serious grip on the reality of the situation, Lisaveta reminded herself that her feelings were incidental to the facts. Stefan was engaged; Nadejda was his fiancée. Whether she or Militza envisioned problems in the marriage was irrelevant. But a niggling voice wasn't so easily acceptant of rational argument, and she found herself saying, "Have you tried to talk to him about…well…his feelings for Nadejda?"
And she knew that one thoroughly unrealistic part of her longed for Militza's answer to match her own ideal.
Was it the wine? She'd always considered herself immune to fairy tales. But then Stefan had opened a new world to her in the days past, a world in which poetry took corporeal form and creative fancy was dream and fantasy and extravagant, breath-held actuality all in the same moment. Maybe she'd begun to believe in fairy tales after all.
"I've talked to him a hundred times," Militza said, arranging the used silver on her dessert plate as if their balanced placement might somehow carry over into Stefan's life. "I've tried every imaginable argument," she went on, exasperation and remorse equally audible in her voice, "in the months since his engagement took place. I've tried reasoning with him- about the merits of at least a mild affection as basis for marriage. I've suggested he consider spending some time with his fiancée before he makes a final decision. I've pointed out to him the negative aspects of his future in-laws in terms of their humanity-or lack of it. He listens without argument, but he's obstinately determined in his course.
"He says love is dangerous.
"He says most of his friends have married for dynastic reasons…most of society, for that matter.
"He says the kind of love he wants is readily available… and he doesn't have to marry it.
"He says his marriage is a pragmatic step-a career decision." Militza sighed again, wishing she could transfer wholesale to her nephew all she knew of the beauty and fullness of love, and then promptly apologized for her pessimism. "You must think me addled to first tell Stefan to marry and then complain of the style of his choice, but I want more for him than what he chose," she said in a quiet voice. "I want more for him than a career decision. And, frankly, I'm at my wit's end. Do you know how close he is to marrying that… that-"
"Beautiful prig?"
"You're too kind." Militza's snort of disgust at the vacuous young Nadejda flared her fine nostrils. "I'd use harsher words, beginning with empty-headed and stupid."
"She's very young." Lisaveta felt obliged to try to maintain a certain impartiality.
"That's no excuse. You're not much older but your brain functions."
"My education was-" Lisaveta paused, considering the numerous inadequacies of her nonfeminine instruction "-a man's education, I'm afraid. While I've always appreciated the variety of my schooling, much of a female nature was neglected. Nadejda, no doubt, has superior skills in those areas." Beginning when she was seven, her father had drawn up a liberal educational schedule for his only child. It had been balanced: languages, eight ultimately; poetry, of course; mathematics, engineering, literature, experimental agriculture and carpentry-to give her a practical bent. But he'd overlooked the feminine refinements.
"You needn't be so gracious." That kind of intrinsic compassion reminded Militza of Lisaveta's father. He'd been an outrageously benevolent man. "Nadejda does not possess superior skills, save those of arrogance."
"You must admit she experiences no discomfort in arranging an entire viceroyal staff. I couldn't say the same for myself. There are times, particularly now that I've seen Stefan in situ as 'Prince,' that I feel Papa and I led a very unsophisticated life."
"That was Felix's fault," Militza asserted. "He should have had you brought out in Saint Petersburg." Although, she mused, perhaps Lisaveta's attraction to Stefan was that precise lack of feminine accomplishments, the kind he'd seen used to inveigle and entrap, the kind he'd learned to evade with such practiced finesse.
"Papa was always too busy on a new project to take the time. I've never been to a ball, not a real one," Lisaveta said. "The parties in the country were informal gatherings."
"You do dance?" Militza mildly interrogated, considering a new tack in her offense against Nadejda. The Countess was the only woman Stefan had ever brought home; even his note referring to her possible visit had held within its spare language a sense of happiness. Perhaps the beautiful Countess could open Stefan's eyes to the deficiencies in his fiancée. Perhaps the lovely Countess could prevail where reason and logic had failed.
"Yes, Papa hired a dance master from Paris to teach me." Lisaveta smiled at the memory of her father taking time each afternoon to watch her at her lessons. "Now that I've learned Papa was such a fine dancer, his interest in that single modish skill doesn't seem so odd."
"Marvelous!"
Militza's response was so forcefully expressed that Lisaveta's brows rose in surprise.
"Stefan likes women who dance well," Militza said in answer to Lisaveta's startled reaction.
"From his reputation," Lisaveta levelly said, "he apparently likes women for a variety of reasons."
"You'd understand that better than I." Militza's smile was warm.
Lisaveta blushed…from her décolletage, past her pearls and up her throat to her cheeks.
"You needn't be bashful." Militza's gaze was direct but cordial. "There's nothing nicer in the world than love and lovers."
"Now I am embarrassed." The rose flush on her face turned more vivid, and Lisaveta's expression was one of artless misbehavior.
"Nonsense," Stefan's aunt retorted, her voice genial. "You're perfect for Stefan and he's obviously enamored, since he brought you home. He's never done that before." How sweet her innocence, Militza thought, and how rare; Stefan must be enchanted by such chaste virtue.
"I shan't be staying." Lisaveta spoke as David might have to Goliath, with resolution starching an inherent uncertainty.
"Why not?" Militza was genuinely shocked. After Stefan's extraordinary invitation into his home, she didn't think a woman alive would refuse his hospitality.
"I have responsibilities at home." In exactly that manner an angel might refuse the devil's temptation.
"I suppose it's Nadejda," Militza said bluntly, realizing she wasn't dealing with the usual style of aristocratic paramour Stefan favored, who would have found Nadejda no more than a minor inconvenience.
"As a matter of fact, yes," Lisaveta answered as bluntly, omitting mention of a variety of other reasons impelling her departure, reasons less clearly enunciated, less intelligible.
Reasons having to do with desire and temptation and a man who could raise the temperature of the Arctic with a smile.
"I do wish you'd reconsider staying," Militza said, dismissing Nadejda's presence in much the same way her nephew had. "Dinner tomorrow should be interesting."
Interesting, Lisaveta thought, was a mild word for the collision of forces about to take place. "You're attending?" she asked, wondering if she'd misunderstood.
"I have a feeling," Militza said with soft sarcasm, "my bridge party will be canceled at the last minute. Nadejda," she went on, her voice dangerously smooth, "doesn't realize who she's up against with Stefan."