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lover.
Tears came to her eyes and spilled over onto their entwined hands.
    Above all, their love must
not be lost, he said. No hazard was too great. He wildly promised her anything
she wanted. He waited for her answer.
    But it was impossible. All
her life Soronina had unques-tioningly accepted the dictates, the refined
etiquette, and protocol of exclusive Petersburg society and would no more
consider ostracizing herself from the comfortable confines of that world than
she would consider becoming a circus performer. She tried to explain to Nikki
that one must do what's expected of one's class, understand the necessity for
society's conventions, serve as an example.
    Even at that young age
Nikki was sufficiently his father's son to curl a well-bred lip. When he broke
in contemptuously, standing erect, and spat coldly at her to spare him any more
of those inconsequential platitudes, Soronina was grief-stricken and the young
boy's heart reached out and longed to give her comfort, but he couldn't give
her what she wanted: security—safe, comfortable, snug, luxurious security. She
cried harder when the door burst open and Nikki's father and servants once more
dragged young Prince Kuzan away. She wept bitterly and whispered, "I'll
never be the same."
    The young Prince was never
the same either. What shreds of romantic illusion and idealism and naive belief
in happiness he had managed to retain in the brittle society in which he lived
were swept away that night and eventually obliterated during the next two years
he spent in Europe.
    Prince Mikhail had not
taken any chances of losing his only child to some dueling pistol held in the
hands of an irate husband. He had kidnapped Nikki to save him. And after his
confrontation with Soronina, Nikki was unhappy, disillusioned, and consequently
could be persuaded to sojourn away from Petersburg.
    "You will forget her,
my son," his father had said, and he was partially right. Once in Europe,
nothing was too rash to attempt. Morality, never of great concern, was gone
from his mind. Unfettered feverish activity prevailed, and before long the
pursuit of this wildly dissipated life served to dislodge most of his old
romantic memories, but not without its price of self-torture.
    Two years later a much
wiser, more cynical young man came back to Petersburg, cool, restrained, elegant,
guarded. He took his place in society and never again was persuaded to turn
from a confrontation. He was, in fact, extremely quick to take offense, indeed,
provocative to an unnerving degree, soon bordering on the notorious after his
fifth duel in the same number of years. Nikki could even manage to meet
Countess Plentikov in public and blandly pass the time with her as if their
tempestuous
amour
had never been. It took an effort, for one never
quite forgets the sweetness of first love, but he had grown up and civility
demanded that much from him. One must set an example, he would mirthlessly
remind himself.
    But the unhappy affair set
the direction of his future liaisons. Never again did he expose his heart,
swearing that the ignominy of offering his heart and soul only to find them
refused would never be repeated. Women became merely an amusement, a convenient
receptacle for his passions when the need came over him, or else a frivolous
pursuit to idle away the measured tedium.
    ----
Chapter
Two
THE SEDUCTION

     
    Lightly jumping across the
gurgling expanse of water, Nikki silently walked up behind Alisa. She was
seated with her back to the water, a sketchbook on her lap, rapidly capturing
the woodland scene in vivid watercolors.
    "Nikolai Mikhailovich
Kuzan at your service, my lady," he said softly (and unthinkingly in the
habitual French spoken by the Russian aristocracy; it was not the language of
this area of the duchy).
    Alisa jumped up, wildly
scattering her sketchbook, paints, and brushes in the process.
    "How do you do,
sir," she stammered, replying in the same language, but totally flustered
by the unexpected