He lifted his head a scant distance and glanced at the clock on the mantel. "No," he said, lowering his head again to kiss her.
"We should stop," she murmured, "before it's too late." She could feel his smile on her lips.
"Good idea," he breathed in the minutest exhalation, "if it wasn't too late already."
"We could just have a small wedding." She reached up a caressing hand, her small palm and delicate fingers sliding up the side of his dark-skinned face to glide into the heaviness of his black hair, her words vibrating on his lips. "I don't need a gown or flowers or music." Her mouth curved into a smile. "We'd save a lot of time."
He raised his face a small distance from hers and his tongue traced a wet warm path up the bridge of her nose. "We'll postpone it an hour." His mouth touched her eyebrow in a brushing caress, then her lashes and the high sweep of her cheekbone.
Lisaveta's wedding gown was selected an hour and a half later from an array of fashionable dresses summoned by fiat from every important modiste in Saint Petersburg. It was handmade lace of enormous value and heavy enough to support the thousands of pearls embellishing its rose-patterned texture. Cut very simply, it was a maiden's gown with a modest décolletage, small bow-trimmed sleeves and a froth of gathers draped into a bustle and lengthy train.
Stefan said, "I like it," when Lisaveta asked; she looked rosy-cheeked and young and so beautiful he felt a small catch in his chest, but then he began breathing again and smiled at his own bewitchment.
He saw that Lisaveta bought all else she needed for her trousseau, as well, and he wasn't without opinions, but they agreed on most styles, as they did later with the tradesmen interviewed for jewelry and flowers and specialty foodstuffs necessary for a wedding on short notice. They argued briefly over the flowers. Lisaveta wanted lilies. Stefan said lilies reminded him of death. Why not orange blossoms or violets or orchids? Orange blossoms were out of season, as were violets, but they took what the florists in Saint Petersburg had in their forcing houses, and they compromised on orchids.
"Small orchids," Lisaveta said, "not the enormous ones."
"Some large orchids," Stefan insisted. "They remind me of Grandmama. Her palace was filled with them." And she agreed because she loved him and he had loved his grandmama enough to have her flowers at his wedding.
When she inquired how their guests would know when to arrive, since the time had been changed twice, once to accommodate themselves and once to accommodate Stefan's temperamental chef, Stefan only said, "No problem." His regiment on staff in Saint Petersburg was transporting the messages, and she hadn't realized until then how familiar Stefan was with boundless power, how unhumble his background, how royal his prerogatives, until he'd added, "It's my cavalry corps."
She suddenly understood he answered to few men in the world. Considering his unique friendship with the Tsar, perhaps it was safer to say he answered to only one man. His position as cavalry commander didn't fully encompass the additional native tribes pledging allegiance to his family, and on the eastern frontier, the fealty of the nomadic tribes constituted an army in itself. The Chiefs of Staff knew that, the Grand Dukes knew that, and he was treated with careful deference.
The power and authority he wielded was almost unreserved and explained a wedding accomplished with such speed and finesse.
No one refused him.
He had but to indicate his desire and it was accomplished.
He was very different from the man she'd come to know on their journey from Aleksandropol to Tiflis or in the informal surroundings of his mountain lodge. Even his palaces in Tiflis and Saint Petersburg were run without undue pomp. He was human, warm, a natural man without formality. This new image of Stefan as master and commander of all he surveyed made her question for a moment whether she really knew the man she was about to marry.
Chapter Sixteen
Five hours later, the chapel was filled with expectant guests, delighted to have been called away from previous engagements to witness the sudden and startling wedding of Stefan Bariatinsky to a beautiful young lady who'd been hidden away from society until short weeks ago. A lady who'd been introduced into society by no less a figure than the Tsar, a lady of the prominent Kuzan family, known over the centuries not only for their wealth but for their unconventionality…a polite word for what the less courteous called excesses. The scandal of his broken engagement to Nadejda, of course, only added piquant expectancy to the festivities.
Those more perceptive of the guests in the chapel noted the absence of all of Stefan's previous paramours.
"It must be love," they whispered to one another.
"But for how long?" the more cynical replied.
"She's a Kuzan," some others murmured, insinuation delicious as sin in their voices. "I'll give it a year."
But Stefan had never been noted for the longevity of his infatuations, and Kuzan or not, no one risked their money on a day more.
Countess Lazaroff's suitors weren't invited, either, they noted. He was jealous. Stefan jealous? The thought was novel. Stefan had always been known for the number and variety of his women. The unspoken comment was in everyone's mind. Would one woman satisfy him?
The site of the wedding was an exuberant baroque chapel dedicated architecturally to an earthly approximation of heaven. Built of white marble, it was accented with tall polished pilasters of lavender amethyst rising to support a cornice leafed in gold under a frescoed ceiling and decorated with a profusion of statuary and gilded motifs. The luxury of material and style combined to give the sanctuary an intensely emotional appeal, like a flamboyant architectural melody. Incorporated into this variation of baroque grandeur was the very Russian addition of thousands of candles, votive and otherwise, in chandeliers and candelabra, in display cabinets of great beauty.
And as if the splendor of marble, amethyst and gold, of frescoes depicting the dazzling light of heaven gleaming on angels and cavorting putti, all illuminated by flickering candlelight, wasn't enough to suggest heaven on earth, orchids, large and small, stark white and delicately hued, were massed in great arrangements throughout the chapel. They tumbled in faultless disorder over the altar, twined up candelabrum stands and torchères, were tied into garlands with angel fern and hung in luxurious swags between pilasters. In contrast to the sumptuous display of flora, each row of gilded chairs in the nave was fronted by a tall basket of stately lilies. "For my wife," Stefan had said to the florist, "but I want colored lilies. The white ones are too funereal."
It was done.
As everything he requested was done. As was the customary procedure with Stefan Bariatinsky's wishes.
And now in white dress uniform, tall, dark and spectacular, he stood before the gratified eyes of Saint Petersburg's aristocracy, the Savior of Russia, the most decorated soldier in the Empire's history, the man who'd loved hundreds of ladies but never for long, waited to be married.
He seemed remarkably composed, the cynosure for three hundred pairs of eyes, chatting quietly with his priests, smiling occasionally, putting his hand out in casual greeting to a junior prelate who came in late, immune apparently to his guests' curiosity.
A small fanfare of muted horns announced his bride, and when he turned to her, it was plain for all the world to see that he adored her, and she him. The bride and groom smiled at each other, an intimate smile that ignored their guests, the avid curiosity and indeed the world. For that evanescent moment they existed alone, separated by only a white satin carpet strewn with rose petals.
And then in a curious gesture of tender welcome and intrinsic command, he held out his hand to her.