Prince of Dreams (Stokehurst #2)(70)

Nine

A MONTH WENT by, the winter days passing for Nikolas in a dream. He had been given a new life, a chance to be someone else, and he slipped into the role with surprising ease. Qualities that had always been foreign to him, such as compassion, tolerance, generosity, now seemed to come easily. He envied no one, because at last he had everything he wanted. He was constantly busy, organizing meetings of the merchants in the marketplace posád, appointing more agents and stewards to manage the Angelovsky holdings, reluctantly sharing an occasional hard-drinking evening with Peter and the gentlemen of the court. Most of his time, however, was spent with Emelia.

His wife enchanted him, with her high spirits and strength of will. They went on sleigh rides across frozen rivers, summoned musicians and actors to entertain at their estate, or passed hours in quiet companionship as Nikolas read aloud from a novel. They made love for hours, each experience seeming to transcend the last. Nikolas was amazed at how much he needed her, how much closeness he craved after years of solitude. He had never allowed someone to know him so well. Emelia felt free to tease and play and make demands of him, and he was only too happy to indulge her.

He lavished her endlessly with gifts—gowns of vivid silk, velvet, and brocade, with overjackets sumptuously trimmed in lace. There were matching silk stockings, slippers, gilded and tooled leather boots, shoes with raised heels in which Emelia tottered around with awkward pride. For her hair, Nikolas had given her a gold-and-silver box filled with tortoiseshell combs, jeweled diadems, diamond pins, and a rainbow of ribbon.

“It's all too much,” Emelia protested one day as they sat in the parlor with Ily Ilych, a wizened, little old man who was known as the best jeweler in Moscow. “I don't need any more jewels, Nikki. I have more than I'll ever wear.”

“There is no such thing as too much,” the jeweler protested, spreading his wares more invitingly on a black velvet cloth before her.

“Why not a bracelet?” Nikolas suggested, hooking a glittering ruby circlet with his finger.

Emelia shook her head. “I have enough to cover both my arms up to my elbows.”

Ilych pointed to other precious objects. “A diamond-and-amber necklace? A sapphire cross to wear to church?”

She laughed and held up her hands defensively. “I don't need anything. Really!”

“The princess deserves something special,” Nikolas told the jeweler, ignoring his wife's protests. “Something out of the ordinary. What else have you brought?”

Ilych's wrinkled mouth drew up in thoughtful folds, and he began to rummage through his collection of velvet bags. “Hmm…perhaps she would like…yes, I think these will be pleasing.” He reached deep into one sack and drew out a selection of precious figurines, setting them on the table, one by one.

Emelia exclaimed in delight as she saw them. “Oh, how wonderful! I've never seen anything like them.”

A wondering smile crossed Nikolas's face. “Nor have I,” he said, although it was a lie. The menagerie of carved animals was the same set he had brought with him when he had been exiled from Russia. The white coral swan with its gold beak, the malachite frog, the amethyst wolf with gold paws, and amid all the rest, the centerpiece of the collection—the amber tiger with yellow diamond eyes.

Emelia picked up the tiger and examined it from every angle. “Look, Nikki. Isn't it beautiful?”

“Very beautiful,” he agreed softly, his gaze on her glowing face. He broke off long enough to tell the jeweler, “We'll take them all.”

Emelia laughed exuberantly and came over to throw her arms around him. “You're so good to me,” she said against his ear. “You'll make me love you too much.”

He brushed his lips across her soft cheek. “There's no such thing as too much.”

Amid the blissful days of his life with Emelia, a sinister shadow began to intrude. Nikolas was aware that whatever his relationship with Peter had once been, it had disintegrated into a friendship that was at best lukewarm. He had a sense of distant admiration for the man, but Peter's explosive temper, his ferocity, his unreasoning stubbornness, made it impossible for Nikolas to like him. And only someone in Peter's good graces would survive these precarious times.

Peter was now under tremendous pressure, waging a war not only against the Swedes but on his own people as well. He had conscripted hundreds of thousands of unwilling peasants to serve in the army and build St. Petersburg, earning the wrath of his subjects from every level of society. Discontent and treachery were everywhere, and few people were safe from Peter's suspicion. Secret police were constantly busy ferreting out information about anyone who breathed even one treasonous word against the tsar and the government. God knew how many innocent men had been accused and made examples of, sometimes even without a trial. The atmosphere around Moscow was ripe with intrigue, and Nikolas realized that he himself was the target of much dislike.

“Jealousy,” Sidarov, his steward, had explained matter-of-factly when Nikolas had remarked on the cold attitudes of the other noblemen toward him. “In their eyes you have been blessed with more than one man deserves. Your name and wealth, your fine looks—” He was interrupted by a sardonic snort from Nikolas. “Yes, you are very fine-looking, and you married a woman of great beauty as well. You gained the favor of the tsar because of your modern Western ideas, so why should any of the boyars like you?”