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handsome stranger looking down at her. She flushed uneas-ily
under his close inspection.
    Nikki lifted one eyebrow
quizzically, smiled slightly, and calmly waited for her to introduce herself.
The silence lengthened.
    Nikki prompted her.
    "I believe I've seen
you on occasion in Vüpuri, but, unfortunately, always at a distance," he
said smoothly. "I fear I don't know your—"
    "Of course,"
Alisa blurted out, embarrassed at her lapse in manners but shaken by meeting
the piercing scrutiny of those pale golden eyes. "I'm sorry, forgive me,
Monsieur. Mrs. Valdemar Forseus at your service, sir," she responded
rapidly, and bobbed a quick curtsey.
    I certainly hope so, Nikki
said to himself. His eyes swiftly swept her bowed figure as she gracefully
executed the curtsey.
    Nikki's former glimpses of
Mrs. Forseus hadn't done her justice. She wasn't simply another wholesome
country lass, merely pretty and vivacious. She was breathtakingly beautiful.
Her hair at a distance seemed to be copper. It was in fact a scintillatingly
luxuriant golden-red; her eyes were large, dark violet, seductively lashed; her
lips inviting (still slightly parted in surprise); her creamy complexion was
flawless; her figure full-bosomed and slender-hipped. She was a lovely sight,
and Nikki viewed her with a slow smile of sheer aesthetic appreciation. On
second thought, alas, only partly aesthetic, for she had an opulent, ripe
lushness about her that generated a surge of pure lust in Nikki's libertine
soul.
    Her long-lashed eyes
lifted, bright with a startled vivacity, and meeting Nikki's gaze, she
encountered a hungry look that made her creamy skin glow again for an instant
with rose.
    For a man of his experience
and jaded appetites, Nikki felt, ridiculously, a crazy, youthful elation as he
contemplated the beautiful upturned face, a stirring of desire that comes on
one at the sight and scent of a perfect master-piece of female flesh. This
little seduction should prove to be tantalizing, he speculated pleasantly to
himself.
    "You must be related
to the Prince Kuzan who owns the hunting lodge," Alisa remarked a little
unsteadily, feeling she must say something to break the spell of those
magnetic, unnerving tawny eyes.
    "One and the same,
Madame," he carelessly retorted in a deep, husky voice. "Allow me to
retrieve your sketching materials which I so heedlessly forced you to
scatter," Nikki continued agreeably as he dropped to one knee and began
gathering her supplies.
    "Oh, no, Monsieur,
that's not at all necessary," Alisa quickly responded in supreme
embarrassment, "I can do it myself." And she, too, knelt down and
frantically began picking up the pencils, brushes, and paint containers.
    The
Prince Kuzan
here! It was horrifying! It quite shattered her composure. Rumors and gossip of
his eminence and escapades had penetrated even her confined, retired world. She
would simply die of mortification if she stammered one more time; she must
certainly appear as the most gauche, discomfited girl he had ever met.
    At one point their hands
accidentally brushed as both reached for the same object. Nikki was amused to
see her drop her eyes self-consciously and snatch her hand back as if burned. A
true innocent? Nikki reflected. Impossible! She was married to that old
misanthrope Forseus. No doubt she was merely an accomplished coquette who could
very effectively blush on cue. Whatever the case, he thought, innocent or
actress, he'd know the answer before three days were past.
    All the artistic
paraphernalia properly replaced in Alisa's small basket, Nikki disposed his
lean form comfortably on the grass, remarking politely as he scrutinized her
landscape sketch, "You're a most accomplished artist, Mrs. Forseus. Are
you self-taught or have you studied with someone?"
    Alisa didn't answer.
    "Please sit
down," he requested cordially, and patted the grass as she remained
kneeling. "It's such a pleasant spring day, I impulsively decided to taste
the pleasures of nature, and upon