Bending over the small still form a moment later, Stefan decided she was merely unconscious rather than dead. Her breathing was faintly visible in a slight rise and fall of dusty drapery… although, jettisoned at a full-out gallop, as she had been, she could be severely injured. She was dressed in the conventional layers of clothing native women affected, the yards of enveloping black chador, the veiling dresses, vest and pantaloons. Reaching beneath the black and tentlike chador, he found her wrist and felt for a pulse… a pulse he discovered a moment later beating in a strong regular rhythm. Perhaps all the layers of clothing and flowing yards of material had cushioned her fall.
Carefully lining the shawl concealing her face, he scrutinized her briefly through the masking dirt and gray clay dust indigenous to the region. A superficial survey suggested she wasn't very old, probably quite young, since this rugged land aged one prematurely. Her hair, as he had noticed earlier, was considerably lighter than the customary native color. Perhaps she was Kurdish with that shade of hair, or maybe she had antecedents nearer Tiflis, he abstractly thought in a thoroughly useless reflection, as if it mattered what her parentage was.
"Damn," he softly swore in the next breath, impatient, bone tired and inherently selfish. Whatever she was or whoever, she meant problems and delay. But in the next instant, more humane feelings superseded his first moody reaction. Sliding his hands beneath her shoulders and knees, he lifted her slight weight into his arms.
Standing under the blazing sun, he glanced at the empty horizon, swept an observing eye over the flat, arid landscape looking for signs of his men. Nothing stirred except the glimmering flux of the heat waves. Knowing the traditional enmity between his own Kurds and the Turkish Bazhis, and with the possibility of plunder inspiring his troopers, he realized their hot pursuit might reach the walls of Aleksandropol. Which left him to deal with this problem alone. Merde, he thought disgruntledly, the last thing he needed right now was a dirty, half-dead native girl who might require medical attention-not exactly a reality in this wasteland-and restoration to her family, if they existed in this war-torn country.
What he needed was restoration himself to the silken comforts of civilization, he reflected grouchily, minus the burden of this female. He shook the girl slightly, optimistically hoping she'd wake and say, "Thank you for rescuing me. My family lives conveniently near and I'll walk home." Instead she continued breathing in limp unconsciousness while sweat ran down his face and back and chest and ultimately into his black kidskin boots.
Deuce take it, what the hell to do with her other than stand here melting? He could leave her with the caravan of Armenian refugees they'd passed on the road some time ago. But that, unfortunately, would require retracing his journey. Not a pleasant option in the scorching heat.
Since Aleksandropol was his destination for today's travel, she would have to be content with that, as well, he thought, refusing to backtrack when the ultimate comforts of Tiflis and his Gypsy lover, Choura, beckoned. His decision made, he walked the few paces to where Cleo stood. Placing the girl in front of the saddle, he mounted behind her and resumed his journey north.
A slight cooling breeze seemed to spring up as if in affirmation of his decision, and for the first time since sighting the Bazhis, he smiled. His smile altered the moody features of his face, softened his strong jaw and well-defined cheekbones, modified the scowl drawing his heavy brows together, even touched his dark flinty eyes with a brief flash of levity. Lifting his arm, he raked his fingers through the ruffled black silk of his hair, raised the damp curls resting on the silver-encrusted collar of his uniform and felt the blessed coolness on his neck.
A few miles more, he thought with relief. And then a bath.
The same breeze refreshing Stefan drifted over Lisaveta's face as she lay in the crook of his arms. Her eyes fluttered open. Immediately in her line of vision was a bronzed, austere male face, dirt streaked, unshaven. With a terrified start she wondered if she'd been recaptured by the Bazhis. But as her panic-stricken gaze moved downward, she saw the silver insignia of regiment and rank on his uniform collar and shoulder and the frenzied beating of her heart subsided fractionally. He was clearly in the Russian army, but his looks suggested he could be a native warrior. Was he wearing a trophy of war? Without moving, she allowed her gaze to slide downward. He wore a ring on his right hand, a large unfaceted emerald, and that hand was resting on a thigh encased in filthy white leather breeches. Thank God! The natives didn't wear jewelry and would never wear tight-fitting breeches for riding. He was Russian! She was saved!
Her heartbeat slowed to normal and a strange lethargy overcame her, as though all signals to her brain had received the message of her salvation. She lay for a few moments more without speaking, feeling utterly safe, feeling as if she were waking from a sleep, her gaze fixed on the man who held her. The officer's face, framed by the brilliant light, was streaked with sweat, and his dark eyes of a distinctive Tartar cast were narrowed against the hot glitter of the sun. He had a surprisingly young face, she thought, for the general's rank on his shoulder, a classic aquiline face with an etched handsomeness enhanced somehow by the dark stubble of beard shading his jaw. He had a compelling masculine severity of face and form, a mythological pagan quality of animal strength and grace despite the dirt and sweat. He also looked surprisingly familiar.
And then she found herself staring into midnight-black eyes, saved from absolute opacity only by curious golden flecks near the pupils.
His gaze was both benign and dismissive, but his deep voice when he spoke was courteous. "How do you feel?" he asked in the local dialect.
Her lashes lifted completely so the tawny gold of her eyes was visible to Stefan for the first time. His reaction was immediate, instinctive: Kuzan eyes. His friend Nikki Kuzan had eyes like that, slightly oriental, tilted marginally like hers and of the same unusual shade. And then he remembered she was a native girl three thousand miles from Saint Petersburg. She could hardly be related to a Russian prince simply through a coincidence of eye color.
"I feel marvelously alive, thanks to you," she answered in French.
"Ah," he murmured in surprise. "You speak French." French was the language of the Russian aristocracy, but she hardly qualified. Was she a teacher of some kind?
"And several other languages as well, all of which I'm appreciative in," she informed him in a voice unshaken and calm. "The caravan I was traveling with was attacked and I was abducted," she continued in a firm declarative way. "If you hadn't come to my rescue, there's no doubt I would have been those bandits' victim. I'm deeply in your debt and will surely reward you at my first opportunity."
She spoke so assertively it startled him for a moment, as did the style of her speech. Obviously she wasn't a native. He glanced at her again with a less desultory curiosity. Maybe she was the wife of a merchant or some minor official; her dress was too modest for any higher position. Stefan's tastes, although catholic in rank or status, were inclined toward lush females with silken skin and feminine ways, so his scrutiny of her was brief. She didn't pique his interest in any of these areas. Furthermore, he took mild offense at her offer of a reward. He was Prince Bariatinsky on his paternal side, the only noble family directly related to the Tsars, while his mother's family, the Orbeliani, had been the wealthiest and most powerful dynasty in Georgia since the third century. He took issue at being offered a reward like some bourgeois shopkeeper when he justifiably considered his act no more than simple chivalry. She would do well, he peevishly thought, to learn the accepted way of the world. In his milieu, men gave and women took, not the other way around.