Seized by Love Page 8

  “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 naïveté 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 eye-brow 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?

  Chapter Six

  THE DENOUEMENT

  “Where the devil is she? I told you to keep watch over her!” Valdemar Forseus shouted wrathfully at his large, lumbering son.

  “She couldn’t have gone far without a horse or carriage,” the middle-aged son calmly replied to his father, who was livid with rage, having already harangued his son for several minutes. Forseus’s sparse gray hair was standing wildly about his bald pate, his small, sunken eyes flashed with anger, his carefully manicured, blunt peasant hands clenched and unclenched on his riding quirt.

  “We weren’t expecting you for six more days,” the son continued with the puzzled simplicity of a dull intellect.

  “That’s obvious!” Forseus thundered. “Is that devil’s brat with her?” Forseus asked suspiciously.

  “No, I saw Katelina out in the orchard with Rakeli.”

  “Very well, get out of my sight!” Forseus spat out irritably. “I should have known better than to expect any competence from you. You take after your mother, you lout!”

  Far from being disconcerted by this tirade, the simple, ponderous son merely turned on his heel and walked slowly back to the stables, where he was most happy and content, brushing, feeding and talking to the horses. After years of listening to his father’s fulminations, they scarcely made an impression on him.

  Forseus stalked into the house, threw his coat, hat, and quirt on the hall table, and bellowed for his butler.

  “Bring me some kvass into the study,” he instructed grimly. “Leave the door open,” he ordered as the butler set the pitcher of kvass before his master and retreated from the room.

  For forty-five minutes Forseus sat, sunk deeply in his leather chair, drinking steadily, his scowling beady eyes trained on the hallway.

  The object of this vigil finally opened the front door and walked into the hall. Alisa’s eyes widened with alarm immediately as she spied the coat and hat on the table in the center of the foyer. A startled catch of breath froze in her throat as an ominously calm voice spoke from the study.

  “Out for a stroll in the spring air, Mrs. Forseus?” her husband inquired smoothly as his eyes flicked shrewdly over Alisa’s figure, observantly taking in every detail of her ensemble. He hadn’t amassed a fortune as a merchant because of a lack of perspicuity, and at once noticed the rumpled skirt of the dress and the damp hem and slippers.

  “Down by the river, my dear?” he questioned suspiciously. “Rather a long way from the house, isn’t it?”

  Alisa stood frozen in her tracks. The unexpected arrival was quite out of character for the punctilious, meticulous Mr. Forseus. Her mind rushed through a hundred excuses, none suitable, that might allay the sinister direction of her husband’s inquiries.

  “Yes,” she flushed helplessly, unable to present a calm façade with the rising terror in her soul.

  “Yes?” he repeated softly, his anger flaring higher as fanatic jealousy displaced reason. Forseus had wanted Alisa as a collector might want a fine painting, in order to possess it. She was a showpiece, another possession to be flaunted and displayed as further indication of his wealth, but not valued more highly than any other representation of his fortune, no more than his blooded stallion or his antique carpets or his gun collection.

  He had also wanted her to demonstrate to the world that by virtue of his fortune, he was now august enough to marry into the gentry. He had also coveted the young girl because his flagging sex drive at sixty-one had required more and more stimulation, and young virgins were an obsession with him. After the novelty of the first few months of marriage had worn off, however, even Alisa’s young, tender body was no longer enough to rouse his ardor.

  Mr. Forseus had left her alone at that point, finding stimulation in the brothels catering to deviates who sought young girls. But even those had failed to satisfy him of late. Quite by accident, in a drunken rage, three weeks earlier, he had struck out in anger at Alisa and was astonished to discover that beating her had stimulated him sexually. Not sufficiently to consummate the act, but it became satisfaction in itself.

  “Perhaps, Mrs. Forseus,” her husband suggested smoothly, raising his obese bulk from the deep chair with some difficulty, “you would accompany me on a stroll, since you seem to enjoy the out-of-doors so much.”

  He walked up to Alisa, still frozen in her tracks, gripped her arm below the elbow in an iron grasp, and steered his frightened wife out into the waning afternoon sunlight.

  He forced her in the direction of the barnyard, relentlessly keeping up a trivial chatter that grated on Alisa’s raw nerves and tremulous fears. Opening the door of a shed with a key he kept on a chain at his waist, Forseus pushed her inside the empty granary and shut the heavy door.

  “Now, then, Mrs. Forseus,” he breathed with a fanatic gleam in his eyes as he stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, “we might discuss where you were this afternoon.”

  Reaching out to a hook on the wall, he took down a length of rope, tied a knot slowly and carefully on one end, let the knot drop to the floor, and wrapped the excess length around his hand.

  “Now, my dear, we begin. Where were you?” He swung the rope sharply and caught Alisa on
her shoulder. She shuddered from the pain, but spoke not a word, nor would she look at him.

  “Come, dear, lost your tongue?” he sneered coldly, lashing out again and striking Alisa viciously across her breasts. The strength of the blow dropped Alisa to her knees. God help me, she prayed silently, for she didn’t dare tell him the truth. He would certainly kill her then. If she could just tolerate the torture, steel herself to keep from screaming in agony, perhaps, merciful God, perhaps, after a time, she would be lucky enough to faint.

  Ten minutes later Forseus was breathing hard and just about to cease, when Alisa lost consciousness and sank gratefully to the floor and the beckoning solace of a black oblivion.

  After rolling down his sleeves, wiping his perspiring face with a silk handkerchief and carefully adjusting his suit coat on his shoulders, Forseus quietly walked out of the shed and locked the door behind him.

  • • •

  Much later that evening, after explaining to a suspicious and distrustful Maria that Alisa had gone to Viipuri shortly before sunset, he ordered a tray of food and a glass of wine brought to him in his study.

  When the house had quieted sufficiently and it appeared all occupants were sleeping, Valdemar Forseus carefully maneuvered his way through the moonlit shadows of the barnyard, unlocked the shed door, and deposited the tray on the floor beside his still-unconscious wife.

  Before departing, he drew a small vial from his waistcoat pocket and poured half the contents into the glass of wine.

  Chapter Seven

  THE NECESSARY OPTION

  Alisa woke in the early hours of morning and lay for a moment with her eyes still closed, flooded with a hopeless, bottomless despair so overwhelming, she could almost taste it. Her eyelids blinked open; she saw the knotted rope hanging back again on its hook on the wall and instantly renewed terror gripped her mind, tightened her stomach. Her one brief chance for happiness was gone, sent away by her own words. Any future offered only terror and abject misery. Her life ahead was completely empty of hope.

  She felt extremely weak, and when she moved to a sitting position, a sharp pain began to throb in her temple. Seeing the tray before her, Alisa reached out to soothe her parched, dry throat with the contents of the wineglass, but the food remained untouched.

  Almost immediately a vast drowsiness overcame her, but Alisa thought this the natural result of her battered and fatigued body requiring needed rest. Her violet eyes dropped shut and her breathing slowed into the labored cadence of a heavily drugged repose.

  Maria hadn’t believed Forseus’s lies for one minute and had solicited Arni’s assistance in trying to find Alisa. Rakeli wouldn’t be able to long allay the growing fears of Katelina.

  Early next morning, returning surreptitiously up the servants’ back stairway, Arni informed Maria of his findings. He’d seen Forseus as he emerged from the house at dawn and watched him go directly to the shed, enter the building and remain inside briefly. On reemerging, Forseus had carefully relocked the door, bidden a stable boy to saddle his horse, and left for Viipuri. Arni had discovered the destination upon questioning the lad.

  Peering through one of the cracks in the log structure of the shed, Arni distinguished the body of Alisa lying on the floor, apparently asleep. When Maria was informed, her alarm mounted.

  “What are we to do? He’s beaten her again, you can be sure.” Nothing went unseen or undetected by a personal maid who was also a loyal friend.

  “We must get her out. Mistress Alisa has been wanting to leave. We can’t wait any longer. Dare we steal some of Forseus’s horses and make our escape while he is in Viipuri?”

  “I don’t know,” Arni replied cautiously, “Forseus’s arm is long and his money can buy much. I think we should appeal to Prince Kuzan. He’s much more powerful than Forseus. He could protect Alisa where our poor credit could not.”

  Maria, Arni, and Rakeli, Alisa’s old servants from her parents’ home, had protected and aided Alisa as best they could in the years since she’d been forced to marry Forseus. Carefully concealing their loyalties for fear of Forseus dismissing them, they had been able to smooth some of the sorrow of her existence.

  They were all very aware of her relationship with Prince Kuzan since Maria had insisted Arni follow Alisa that morning when the carriage had come from Prince Kuzan, to insure their mistress was in no danger. After viewing the tender reconciliation in the meadow, Arni assured Maria that the Prince was not a dangerous villain intent on harming Alisa. On the contrary, he had brought an obvious ecstatic happiness to their young mistress, and her faithful servants were silently pleased to see Alisa singing again after years of quiet, hopeless despair.

  If the question of morals were to be raised, the inhuman marriage forced on the young fifteen-year-old girl they loved was the most immoral of acts in their minds. That union was a travesty of the bonds of marriage, obscene and repulsive.

  “You’re right, Arni!” Maria exclaimed with renewed hope. “Go quickly and tell Prince Kuzan. He won’t let our Alisa be hurt!”

  Racing down the back stairs and out to the stables, Arni saddled one of Forseus’s swiftest horses and was galloping down the long driveway in less than five minutes.

  That same morning, Prince Kuzan was being dressed for his return to the city. He was still in a black fury, kicking furniture about, cursing loud and long in three languages with a fluency that amazed even Yukko, abusing his steward and any other servant who was unfortunate enough to come within his line of vision.

  Nikki’s troopers who had accompanied him out to his hunting lodge were mounted in the courtyard, nervously eyeing each other and hoping Prince Kuzan’s rage didn’t descend on their heads.

  For the last twenty minutes, as their horses restively sidled and fidgeted beneath them, a steady stream of explosive invective had been issuing from the open windows of the lodge. Initially, the cursing had resounded from the second floor, and presently the main floor rang with violent verbal denunciations as Nikki descended to spread his wrath democratically on breakfast, butler, cook, and steward. The coffee was too hot, the eggs were too cold, the butler didn’t pour the brandy rapidly enough—the arrangement of luggage in the front hall grossly offended him, so the poor steward was frantically having footmen dispatching the offending luggage out of sight of their master. It was quickly loaded into the waiting wagon and sent out of view around the corner of the building.

  Ten minutes more and three healthy bumpers of brandy later, Nikki emerged from the front entrance and critically surveyed his troop now drawn up in parade-ground precision. Even the careful scrutiny found nothing to criticize. The Prince threw himself into the saddle and swept one more glance around his familiar environs. Each vista only served to further remind him of Alisa. We walked there. We sat down there. Alisa admired those flower beds. I showered her in rose petals from that climbing rambler. The sun was warm on their bodies that day. Damn her voluptuous memory! And that’s what it was, he irritably reminded himself, nothing more than a memory!

  The black bulk of his favorite horse, Koli, was comfortingly familiar beneath the saddle. Nikki made a soft clicking noise with his tongue, and Koli swung his ears back, anticipating his master’s command. Nikki’s grip relaxed on the reins and he moved his horse forward at a slow walk. There was no shouted command. A slight sigh was heard, a passing zephyr as the troopers inhaled a breath of relief. They were on their way at last! Saddles groaned as men gripped harder with their knees.

  Nikki could hear the harnesses of his men’s mounts jingle behind him and the pad of hooves on the soft dirt of the road. The troop traveled slowly in the warm air of the spring morning, following the road that curved languidly over pine- and birch-clad hills and valleys, traversing the vast Kuzan estate.

  Nikki’s thoughts were on Alisa. After three bottles of brandy, after a restless, tormented night of little sleep, after relentlessly reminding himself that he was a fool—after all that he wanted her still, and that insistent feeling couldn’t
be dismissed.

  Within twenty minutes the southern border of his hunting reserve was crossed. He must force thoughts of Alisa from his mind. Too much mental recrimination was debilitating. The past was gone. Their brief affair was over. Nikki gently spurred his horse to a trot. With the trot, the ring of metal harness intensified and softly resounded in the quiet morning air. As Nikki nudged Koli gently with his knees, they increased to a canter. Seconds later, feeling only the lightest of pressure from Nikki’s legs, the black stallion snorted, changed his pace with that faint encouragement from his rider, and the troop was in full gallop. Nikki surveyed the road ahead. He began to visibly relax as the comfortable rhythm of a familiar horse, the warm spring air, and the exhilaration a full-out gallop always evoked soothed his churlish temper. In seven hours of hard riding they’d be in Petersburg.

  Arni had ridden cross-country to the hunting lodge only to discover that the Prince had left for Petersburg thirty minutes before. Lashing his horse, Arni continued in frantic pursuit of the Prince. He couldn’t hope to overtake Prince Kuzan with that great a head start unless he cut over the fields and through the forests. Arni dug his spurs into Forseus’s bay mare. The horse leapt the first fence and charged across the plowed field.

  As Nikki’s troop was riding in correct formation, following the Prince’s blooded stallion, a rider became visible, galloping diagonally across their line of vision from east to west. They all granted he must be a fine rider to be forcing his mount that recklessly across that uneven field. Soon he could be heard shouting something, wildly waving his arms, but the message was lost in the morning breeze. As the man galloped hell-for-leather directly toward them, Nikki drew to a halt. A few moments later Arni thundered up, sawed his horse to a rearing stop before Nikki, who was firmly keeping his skittish animal in check before the flailing hoofs of the rearing horse, and gasped out his message, “Alisa’s in danger! Forseus has beaten her and locked her in the shed! She appears unconscious and—”