Princess Napraxine

Princess Nadine Napraxine rules her world with dazzling wit, icy self-possession, and a gift for turning every conversation into a contest of intelligence and power. Before luncheon she has already made herself the center of a glittering social circle, sparring with Prince Napraxine, Lady Brancepeth, and Monsignore Melville over finance, morality, sympathy, and the absurdities of society, while revealing how little room she allows for tenderness. Yet beneath her polished irony lies something fiercer and more elusive: when she rides, the vastness and speed of Russia awaken an ancestral force in her, suggesting a wild, passionate self hidden under aristocratic elegance. Around her, desire and humiliation quietly gather. Othmar leaves her consumed by hope and longing, wanting an all-absorbing passion rather than a conventional affair. Seliedoff, rebuffed after presuming on her hospitality, collapses into desperate confession and is dismissed with cold decorum. Yseulte, her foster-daughter, feels the fragility of beauty and innocence as she packs tea roses for England, while the Duchesse de Vannes confronts her over a secret jewel and discovers a rival in youth and beauty. Then comes the blow Nadine cannot quite deflect: Seliedoff has shot himself after a financial loss, and her husband's painful admission that the man loved her forces her, at last, to glimpse the damage her brilliance has left behind. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.