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the dreaded fears of approaching middle age that plagued Soronina,
only temporary relief in the arms of the young Nikki, who made her forget for
the moment the threat of the future without her beauty.
    Nikki's parents returned to
Le Repose after a month, but he stayed behind. He had come into an inheritance
from his grandfather on his sixteenth birthday which allowed him to further
indulge his propensity for independence. Nikki's mother attempted to persuade
her son to return with them. She felt he was being drawn in too deeply, after
having seen Soronina's overt, frankly loving gaze envelop her boy one evening
at a ball. It was so unlike the frivolous, shallow Soronina and terrifying in
its possible consequences. Much as Princess Kaisa-leena adored Soronina as a
friend, one did not care to contemplate her as a daughter-in-law. Prince
Mikhail kept his peace and forbore issuing any unwanted words of fatherly
advice, hoping that his reckless son would tire of the affair in due course. If
not, time enough then to intercede.
    That summer the affair
swiftly reached notoriety as Nikki, with blazing indiscretion, escorted
Countess Plen-tikov everywhere. He arranged his life to please her because it
pleased him also. When they went out he was at her side, masterful,
proprietary.
    However, on the rare
occasion when he would decide to leave town for a few days, no amount of
coaxing, either amorous or petulant, would change his mind. Regardless of their
easy intimacy, Soronina lacked her usual control. Nikki simply went when he
wanted to go. He never stayed long, and when he returned, she would look into
those tawny, brooding eyes and a shiver of pleasure would run through her.
    By the end of August Prince
Mikhail stepped in. The gossip and rumors were becoming serious. Never one to
pander to discretion, Nikki had practically installed himself in Count
Plentikov's town palace during that nobleman's absence. Dangerous rumors were
making the rounds of the clubs to the effect that the cuckolded husband was
about to ask for satisfaction from the young pup warming his wife's bed.
Because Count Plentikov's reputation as a superb sportsman was nonpareil,
Prince Mikhail didn't wish to contemplate a duel between such unmatched
parties. Nikki didn't have the experience to survive an encounter regardless of
his skill with rapier and pistol. His youth was quite dramatically a
disadvantage on the dueling field in contrast to its obvious advantage in the
bedchamber.
    One morning Nikki was
bodily removed from Countess Plentikov's city palace by four of Prince
Mikhail's body servants as he strolled down the marble stairway toward the
breakfast room to join Soronina. AH that day Nikki raged and stormed and
threatened his father as Prince Mikhail attempted to explain the seriousness of
the dilemma. Unfortunately neither party was open to reason.
    Late that night Nikki
managed to elude his jailers and immediately returned to the Countess, who was
distraught over the possible repercussions of this scandal. Having long adhered
to the aristocratic principles of unlimited dalliance so long as no hint of it
reared its ugly head, she was beside herself now with terrified misgivings.
What had come over her this summer to so wildly throw away all restraint and
discretion? Nikki's impetuous temperament had overcome her sensible prudence.
Dreadful forebodings of being cut from polite society plagued her.
    Pacing her bedroom chamber,
Nikki pleaded with Soronina to marry him, but she shuddered to think of a
May-December marriage between a youth and a woman old enough to be his mother.
She could not tolerate the ridicule. Then he begged her on his knees to go to
the Continent with him. He had plenty of money, they would have a glorious life
together, they would be happy. Again she shuddered—to be a kept woman was
beyond her comprehension. Nikki insisted he would then kill her husband in a
duel. Again she was appalled at the raw, passionate nature of her young