Seized by Love (11 page)

For them there was only the
wonderful, passionate, extravagant present. Young lovers lost to the world,
conscious only of each other's presence. They drew every sensation from every
transient hour, from every exquisite touch, look, caress. Their sexual
pleasures were of the simplest, old-fashioned, natural, a unique bond of
affection enhancing the rapture as they satisfied their lusts in a simple
variety.

As an accomplished
aficionado of Eros, Nikki had long ago learned the pleasure of afternoon
amours.
One was refreshed from having but recently risen from one's night's sleep and
eaten a light lunch. The mind and body were fresh, vital, vigorous, not staled
by hours of drinking or gaming, as was the case with a midnight rendezvous. Not
that he was adverse to late-night assignations, but he knew that he performed
more ardently, more zealously, more re-siliently in the gentle hours of afternoon.

The second afternoon Alisa
timidly inquired as she lay in Nikki's tender embrace, "Do you think
perhaps—that is to say—do you think you should use some precautions?"

Nikki opened his eyes,
lifted his head a scant inch off the pillow, and said drowsily, "French
letters? Condoms? They spoil the pleasure; I never use them." He reached
out to touch her hair. "You wouldn't like them, my love." His eyelids
fell and he dozed off, still holding her tightly to his rugged form.

Alisa knew she should force
the issue for her own safety and protection, but she didn't want to spoil their
little remaining time together. Nikki hugged her closer and they both slept.

Instinct told Nikki, when
he was alone and away from Alisa's tempestuous excitement, that he was getting
in too deep this time, that this wasn't another light flirtation or trivial
affair, but regardless of this premonition, he plunged boldly in. He hadn't
enjoyed himself so much for months— more—years. It was a time of deepest
content.

Alisa, too, lived in the
bewitching, sensual present, grasping at the opportunity to postpone the end of
these halcyon days. If time could just stand still.

She resolutely refused to
consider the future. She wouldn't, she wouldn't, yet she cried inwardly when
conscience raised its unwanted head above her repression. She deserved some
gaiety, some brief taste of love, she told herself, and for the most part,
Alisa was blissfully happy. Since living in
"durance vile"
for six years, who could blame her for ignoring the admonitions of her
conscience, the call of duty?—when charming, handsome Nikki was bathing her
senses in rapture and extravagantly indulging her caprices.

No such irresolution or
discordant meditation preyed on Nikki's mind, for he'd long eschewed regrets as
both useless and fatiguing. He had quite simply decided that he would bring
Alisa back to Petersburg when he returned and install her in a comfortable
house on the Quai des Anglais. If the neighborhood was good enough for the
Emperor's mistress, it was good enough for his.

Nikki never pondered over
or curbed his selfish wishes. He had never had to. Alisa was delightful,
lovely, vivacious, intelligent (the latter quality hitherto avoided in Nikki's
amorous adventures). But her overwhelming qual-ity, the major attraction, the
most fascinating enticement in this week of tumultuous pleasure, was purely
sensual. This woman roused him, teased him, fired his jaded senses to new,
exquisite limits. Her spontaneous response as he instructed her in the delights
of the flesh, her first tentative, then more assured forays into the game of
love, her guilelessly greedy appetite for pleasure, stimulated and whetted
Nikki's weary spirit.

Surely he would be a fool
to walk away from the pleasures Alisa offered him. She was the fetching,
enchanting antidote to the ennui that had threatened to engulf him.

Over the years Nikki had,
with caution and skepticism, scrupulously avoided any permanence in his
relationships with women, preferring married women of his class, already
lawfully tied, or else expensive tarts and actresses easily satisfied with
lavish gifts and generous purses of gold. He avoided the obligation to provide
an establishment for any one woman for even the transitory duration implied in
those arrangements. Nikki's fierce independence had survived all attempts to
ensnare, and clinging women had always been anathema to him. He turned quite
cold and remote when pressed by the importunities of an ardent female. But now
Nikki was quite willing to make the necessary adjustments to his normal,
selfish regimen. To have Alisa comfortably settled convenient to his town
palace would offer him the most pleasant recreation.

One afternoon, as Alisa lay
nestled snugly in Nikki's arms, drifting back from the idyllic depths of
pleasure, he quietly said, "Today must be our last day at the lodge. I
received a message this morning that necessitates my attendance with the
Chevaliers Gardes at the Emperor's review Sunday. You must come with me. Pack
what you need tonight; I'll send my carriage round for you in the
morn-ing."

Alisa wished she'd
misunderstood, but knew she hadn't. Nikki had simply said, "Come with
me" as if it were the most natural thing in the world, nothing more, no
promises, no assurances; she was to him merely another woman of a certain
class.

Happiness that he wanted
her was overlaid with shock and dismay. But the thing that shocked her most—the
daughter of landed gentry, well-bred and gently reared, was that she wished
with all her heart she could disregard her conscience, her parents' ideals, and
answer simply—I will come.

If she hadn't a daughter
who must have opportunity for a normal life, she might have been even more
tempted to say I will.

Sighing unhappily, Alisa
reminded herself that she'd known this all must end when Mr. Forseus returned
home. This "pleasant interlude" (what a deceptively benign term for
these tumultuous stirrings of her heart) had merely ended a few days earlier
than expected.

"I can't," Alisa
softly replied.

Nikki's complacency was
abruptly shattered.

"Why not?" he
questioned in faint irritation, unused to negative replies.

"I have a daughter to
consider" was her straightforward answer.

Nikki hesitated
momentarily. Of course, he should have remembered—what was the child's name? It
escaped him. A girl, she had said. After a short pause Nikki replied
decisively, "Bring her along."

"No, I can't,"
Alisa repeated.

Now fully awake, Nikki
asked with a sort of baffled impatience, "Why ever not? You shall have as
large a house as you wish. I'll hire a niania and a governess—an English one,
everyone seems to prefer English ones. There, that's taken care of," he
said with satisfaction.

God, why couldn't she just
say yes. Nikki was so good to her, and God knows she deserved some happiness
after all those miserable years. Why couldn't she say yes? Even when Nikki
tired of her, Alisa knew his generosity wouldn't allow her to become destitute.
With all her heart she wanted him. The precepts of a lifetime held firm,
however.

"No, Nikki. It
wouldn't do," Alisa retorted with a quiet sadness.

Nikki's irascible temper
was rising. Was she like all the rest after all? Holding out for a larger
prize, for more remuneration, jewelry perhaps, maybe a more sumptuous house,
the right kind of horses and carriage? Had he been deceived by the artless
sincerity and air of innocence? He thought not, but apparently he had.

He'd pay her price if it
wasn't too high. He wanted her and, hell, he gambled vast fortunes at a single
throw. Certainly he could afford whatever her asking price was.

"Tell me what more you
want, then," he drawled coolly, determined to outbid her demands.

"I don't want anything
from you, Nikki," Alisa's unhappy voice replied. "You've given me one
week of blissful happiness, and I knew it would have to end when Mr. Forseus
returned from Helsinki. I'm sorry. I must think of my daughter."

"You told me yourself
you won't stay much longer with that sadistic lecher." Nikki spoke
accusingly, for Alisa had in the course of the last week, to her own immense
surprise, confided to Nikki the whole wretched story of her marriage when he
had questioned the vestiges of bruises on her tender flesh. (That first
afternoon in the meadow, events had moved too rapidly for him to be certain,
but the following encounter, the next afternoon, in his bedroom at the lodge,
when time and the lack of spectators permitted a leisurely appraisal of Alisa's
beautiful body, the faint discol-orations were apparent.) Alisa had, at first
reluctantly and then more volubly, as the pressure of six years' enforced silence
were lifted, described her coerced marriage at fifteen, Forseus's bizarre
aberrations and cravings for a nubile young girl-woman to rekindle his flagging
desires, his abrupt rejection of her for several years after the birth of their
daughter, and his renewed sadistic demands that he had forced on her twice
lately.

Alisa's ungainly body
during pregnancy had repulsed Forseus, and after Katelina's birth he'd
fearfully shunned the baby as an incarnation of the devil's child. Forseus's
religious fanaticism (often mutually complementary to sexual deviation) had
convinced him that a birthmark on Katelina's leg was the devil's sign. He'd
been appalled by the pale pink birthmark in the shape of a half moon and from
the day of her birth had refused to have any contact with the child.

Nikki was enraged at her
story. That old man was the man who possessed Alisa, owned her, slept with her,
touched her, caressed her, abused her. God, how could she, he thought angrily.
And, damn him, Forseus was a savage monster even by the none-too-exacting
standards of humanity afforded contemporary husbands.

"I know I said I would
leave him someday, but I must first find some employment," Alisa explained
patiently.

"Damnation!"
Nikki was furious now. He wasn't having his way. "Work?" he
incredulously inquired, his face blank for a moment with disbelief. Immediately
denying the staggering heresy, he demanded, "Why work when I'll take care
of you?"

He really didn't
understand, Alisa thought with a feeling of despair. For Nikki, a woman's
dignity, her pride, were at best nebulous, and more aptly much overrated. In
his experience women almost universally opted for security rather than
independence. Rich or poor, highborn or low, they were all the same to him. But
Alisa was not cut from the same mold. She, too, had a stubborn inclination and
an inordinately determined will of her own. How else had she survived Forseus?

"You wouldn't
understand, Nikki. There's such a thing as a woman's dignity and pride. I'm not
a whore to be acquired for the price of a house and a governess and a
nanny."

"Damn right I don't
understand!" he said through clenched teeth, trying to control his rage
while groping vaguely for some reason for Alisa's violent affront, the entire
issue of a woman's dignity and pride beyond his comprehension. Woman's pride?
Sweet Jesus! Their pride was between their legs!

"You won't come,
then?" he continued hotly, furious at having his wishes thwarted,
irritated at Alisa's monumental naivete that presumed there was a whore in the
world he would have offered the luxurious, privileged existence he'd offered
her. By God, he'd even consented to allow her damn brat to tag along.

"No," she replied
stiffly.

"Very well," his
voice was steely, "allow me to thank you for a pleasant week." Nikki
rolled over and pulled open a drawer on the bedside table. Taking out a purse
of roubles, he tossed them on Alisa's naked belly.

"It's been
amusing," he said coldly, one sardonic eyebrow raised.

Alisa lifted the purse from
her stomach, gently set it on the floor, rose from the bed, and dressed as
rapidly as her numerous petticoats permitted.

Nikki watched sullenly, not
uttering a word. He let her go and then laughed scornfully at himself for
allowing passion, once again after all these years, to overcome his usual cool
reserve. Stupid fool! he chastised himself.

Seconds after the door
closed behind Alisa, Nikki reached for the bellpull and when the servant
arrived, requested in a dangerous voice, "Three bottles of brandy,
immediately."

As the afternoon shadows
turned to evening dusk, even the three bottles of brandy failed to dislodge or
dull the cold fury of his thoughts.

Damn inconsiderate slut!
He'd offered her a pampered, luxurious life, the considerable influence of his
protection, and a damn sight less sadistic treatment than that peasant she was
married to gave her. I am not a whore, she had said. Insufferable arrogance—
Why, oh, why would none of them ever admit to being what they were?