Susan Johnson - Golden Paradise

"No reward is necessary," he replied in a mildly repressive tone. "Think nothing of it."

"But I'd feel so much better if I could show my appreciation."

And under ordinary circumstances when Stefan heard those words from a woman, his reaction was predictable.

But this woman was too plain and unattractive, so for the first time in his life he rejected that invitational phrase. Inherently polite, he declined with courtesy. "To know you're unharmed, madame, is reward enough," he said.

"Mademoiselle," she casually corrected.

"I'm sorry. Was your family-" He didn't precisely know how to ask if her family had been killed in the attack.

"Oh, I was traveling alone," Lisaveta said, interpreting his hesitancy.

After a life significant for a wide and varied profligacy, Stefan considered himself beyond shock, but he found himself momentarily confounded. Young unmarried women didn't normally travel alone, although he realized the war had raised havoc. "How is it," he inquired, both curious and mildly astonished, "you were traveling alone in this war?" He was not a martinet for protocol, but he did not consider a war zone exactly the safest place for a single young female.

"I didn't begin my journey alone," Lisaveta explained. "Javad Khan sent an escort with me…"

Stefan immediately recognized the name. Javad was a power to be reckoned with in western Azerbaijan. Was she one of his harem being sent home on a visit? No, he decided, glancing at her peasant clothing. Javad's houris would never be so poorly dressed, nor would he send them out in this no-man's-land. And, he thought next with masculine bias, Javad Khan's taste in women was much superior to this female in his arms.

"But we were so close to Aleksandropol when we met the caravan," Lisaveta went on, oblivious to Stefan's assessment, "that I insisted Javad's men return to Turkish territory. I was on Russian soil now and traveling in sufficient company for safety. Who would have thought Bazhis were in the vicinity, so few miles from Aleksandropol?" She looked up at him then with a translucent gaze reminiscent of an artless child.

A simple woman, he thought, so naive in the ways of the world. And dressed like a peasant, yet sent out under escort by Javad Khan himself. Nothing quite connected.

"Do you live in Karakilisa?" he inquired, thinking perhaps she was a special member of Javad's household staff-a favored housekeeper or cook or harem servant.

"No, I was only visiting Javad, studying his Hafiz manuscripts, when the war broke out," she answered plainly, just as she'd answered all his questions. "He'd granted me permission to use his private archives and I was planning on staying several months more to take advantage of the opportunity, feeling that in that time the campaigns would have moved west anyway, but then… well… circumstances required I leave precipitously."

Now any one of her disclosures would have been enough to startle him, but in the entirety the result was stupefying. First, women were rarely scholars-particularly of Persian erotica. Second, women weren't allowed any freedom of scope in Karakilisa. It was a provincial Turkish city and Muslim law strictly prevailed. Women lived in harems or under rigid restrictions. They didn't have free rein in a Khan's library. Actually, very few of them were literate.

"Did you say-Hafiz?" he carefully inquired, persuaded on further reflection that he must have misunderstood entirely.

"Yes. Do you know his work?" she asked blandly, as if he'd casually questioned the competence of her dressmaker.

He found his eyes drawn to her again when she reaffirmed her unusual activities at Karakilisa. Definitely unsightly, dirty and overweight. No, his first assessment had been correct. How odd. She and Hafiz. It made no sense. He wondered whether he'd been out under the hot sun too long. But she seemed to be waiting for his answer so he replied, "I know of him, of course. I've several of his works in my library, but frankly-" He stopped before he overstepped good manners.

She smiled and her teeth shone surprisingly white against the smudged grayness of her face. "I realize it's unusual," she said, answering his unspoken thought in what he was discovering was her habitually direct style, "but it happens to be my current area of study. And if you shouldn't mind, I'd very much like to see the copies you have."

No delicate wallflower here, he thought, not quite sure if he was offended or not at her forwardness. Both breeding and rank had made the Prince firmly a product of his age, an age that viewed women as pretty, gay, delightful amusements but looked askance at women who dared to be assertive.

"The fact is," she continued amiably as though she openly discussed Persian erotica with any stranger she met, "I'm Count Lazaroff's daughter, Lisaveta Felixovna." She pronounced her father's name with obvious pride, conscious it would be instantly recognized. And of course it was. The recluse count had been, before his untimely death three years ago, the premier Russian scholar of Persian manuscripts.

There, Stefan thought. An explanation for the plain dowdy woman and her unorthodox studies. It helped ease his sense of uncomfortable rapport. Women fell into distinct categories for him: female relatives he treated with kindness and friendship; beautiful women he treated as potential lovers with flirtatious charm; the rest generally received only polite civility on the rare occasions he noticed them. As for female scholars, he'd never met one.

"So you're following in your father's footsteps. Commendable, I'm sure," he said politely. "And you're welcome, of course, to make use of my library," he added in deference to good manners. "I still don't completely understand, though," he went on, inexplicably intrigued by the sheer bravado of this strange woman, "why you left the safety of Karakilisa to venture into the midst of the war?"

"I simply had to leave," she answered in that same clear, affirmative tone he now decided was what displeased him. It made her sound like a man. "Although my host graciously overlooked my nationality when I was detained by the hostilities, and I continued to work, his nephew Faizi Pasha, a colonel in the Turkish army, visited unexpectedly one day. On meeting me, he decided to add me to his harem. Naturally, I was opposed to the idea." Her voice was filled with cool disdain, as if she were saying, "I had to refuse my dancing master's proposal of marriage."

Stefan wondered what in the world the Pasha had seen in her that appealed to him, although the Turks did appreciate what he considered excess female flesh. "I understand your problem," he courteously replied, thinking soon he would be free of this decisive managing woman who grated on his nerves.

"So there was nothing else to do. I had to leave."

Again. That authoritarian certainty.

"And the combined forces of the Russian and Turkish armies be damned," Stefan found himself saying with only a mildly disguised sarcasm.

Lisaveta looked at him briefly, her gold eyes reflective. "I didn't care to consider a future locked in a cage," she said quietly, "no matter how gilded the bars."

Stefan immediately regretted his lapse in manners. "Forgive me." She had sounded very human for a moment and he reminded himself she had come through great danger. "And you escaped one peril only to face others."

"None so dangerous in my mind as Faizi Pasha's advances. There's a certain finality about harems… like a prison door shutting for life." Her voice held a winsome quality, and had he known her background of independent living, he would have realized how important freedom was to her. "And my host, Javad Khan, saw that I was well escorted with a dozen Afshar guides. When they left me with the caravan so near Aleksandropol-at my insistence, I might add-I assumed the rest of the journey would be uneventful."