CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #2
It felt like he saw her—really saw her, through the facade she showed the world, all the way to the insecurities and regrets that twisted like snakes at her core. He saw, and he wasn’t afraid. If anything, he understood.
AFTER THE DINNER CONCLUDED WITH a selection of iced chestnuts and orange wedges, the men retreated to the smoking room.
Alix and the other ladies swept along to the card room, where a few of the older women poured discreet glasses of sherry.
Princess Maud settled at the piano as usual, but Alix’s gaze traveled to her cousins Missy and Victoria Melita.
Victoria Melita—known by her childhood nickname Ducky, since there were a half dozen Victorias among the cousins—stood near the fireplace, her slippered foot impatiently tapping the floor. Her sister Missy seemed just as restless, repeatedly retying the sash of her gossamer pink gown.
“Missy, Ducky! It’s good to see you.” Alix pulled her cousins into an embrace.
“It has been far too long!” Missy agreed, then lowered her voice. “Ducky and I need your assistance with something. We have been begging Mama to let us go riding in Hyde Park, but she says we cannot. Even with a groom as an escort!”
“It is true that some women ride,” Alix admitted. Like Princess Hélène. “But I usually go out in a carriage, if you’d like to join me?”
Missy gave a dramatic shudder that made her dark curls bounce. “I refuse to ride in a jostled, bumping carriage if I can be in the saddle instead!”
Alix couldn’t help smiling at that. There was something so disarming about Missy, the unguarded way expressions flitted across her face.
Meanwhile, Ducky watched Alix with a guarded curiosity. “It’s all right, Missy,” she said slowly. “When we go to St. Petersburg with Mama, Kiril and Boris will take us hunting.”
“You both go hunting? With the men?” Alix had seen how easily the sexes mingled in Russian society, yet she was still startled. Missy and Ducky were princesses twice over, granddaughters of the late Tsar Alexander and of Queen Victoria. They didn’t belong in the bloody chaos of a Russian boar hunt.
“Mother raised us more Russian than English,” Ducky replied with a shrug. “Speaking of Russia, Alix, is it true that—”
“Ducky, stop distracting your cousin with idle gossip.” Missy and Ducky’s mother—Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh—swept forward.
Marie’s voice was low and husky, and even now, after all her years as a British duchess, retained a Russian accent.
It was a distinctive voice, once as famous as her extravagant wardrobe.
Years ago, when she had come to London as the bride of Queen Victoria’s second son, people had talked of nothing but her Romanov jewels and her gravelly voice.
Before her daughter could answer, Aunt Marie turned to Alix with a forced smile. “Alix, my dear, may I borrow you for a moment?”
“Of course,” Alix agreed, a bit surprised.
“Let us take a turn around the room.” Her aunt started off, giving Alix no choice but to follow.
Marie was silent for a while. She led Alix past the enormous watercolor that dominated one wall, past wooden credenzas topped with candles—though Marlborough House had gas lighting, they were all lit, because nothing could replace the ambience of a candelabrum.
Only when she was halfway along the windows overlooking the garden did Aunt Marie speak.
“Since your dear mother is no longer with us, Alix, please forgive me for overstepping. But I need to ask what is going on between you and the tsarevich.”
“What do you mean?” Alix tried to sound innocent, but her aunt wasn’t fooled.
“Did you think your little trick with tonight’s seating would go unnoticed?
Ducky clearly saw, and I doubt she’s the only one!
Not to mention how much you and Nicholas have been out together recently,” Marie hissed.
“I expect better behavior from a young woman who is engaged elsewhere, and if your mother were here, I know she would agree.”
Bringing in Alix’s dead mother as a negotiating tool was deeply unfair.
“If my mother were here,” Alix repeated angrily, “she would remind you not to spread unfounded gossip. I am not engaged to Prince Eddy, and I’m sorry that everyone seems to think otherwise.”
Aunt Marie made an impatient gesture. “Whatever is between you and Prince Eddy is none of my business. I just want to help, Alix. Nicholas is not someone to flirt with lightly.”
“I’m not just flirting.”
“I’m sorry, how else would you characterize your behavior: cavorting around London, making a fool of yourself?”
“Nicholas and I enjoy each other’s conversation,” Alix replied, stung.
“Conversation, is that all that’s happened? I hope you know it can’t go any further. Whatever promises he’s made to you, Nicky is not free to make them.”
“He hasn’t made any promises—”
“Well, that’s a relief—”
“He doesn’t need to, because we’re in love!”
The words were out before Alix could think them through. She’d spoken in a low tone, but she might as well have shouted; Aunt Marie’s features were glazed in shock.
“You’re in love?” she repeated, as softly as Alix.
Alix felt heat rising to her cheeks. “I love him,” she replied, as steadily as she could.
“Oh, Alix.” Aunt Marie sighed. She’d clearly noticed the change in syntax, and understood what it meant—that Nicholas hadn’t articulated the truth of his feelings.
“You say you love him,” her aunt continued, “which means…what? You like attending parties with him, perhaps have even shared a kiss?”
Alix decided to ignore the bit about kissing. “Nicholas understands me; he makes me happy—”
“Let me tell you something about love, Alix. It is nothing like it seems in the novels: some elemental force that makes you dizzy and weak at the knees. That is physical attraction, and as wonderful as it feels, attraction will fade. If you want a relationship that will truly last, you need a foundation of shared responsibility. Of duty.”
“That’s not love; that’s just a—a partnership!” Alix stammered.
Marie lifted an eyebrow. “And what would you know about either?”
“I have seen enough royal marriages to know that most are as you say,” Alix admitted.
“A practical relationship where husband and wife exist in different spheres. They come together as needed, for children or official duties. And you’re right, those marriages function smoothly enough, but only because there is no common ground.
There can be no conflict if husband and wife never share anything genuine!
Love comes from living a joint life, with all the disagreements and ugliness that entails. ”
“Have you ever seen a relationship like the one you describe?” her aunt challenged.
Alix sensed that this was some sort of test—that a great deal hinged upon her answer.
“I have,” she insisted.
“Your parents?”
“I was too young when my mother died to remember much about their marriage. I only know about it from my father,” Alix confessed. “No, when I think of fierce, unrelenting love, I think of the tenant farmers I met outside Darmstadt several years ago.”
“A Hessian peasant couple,” Marie said flatly.
“They were bent down by age and hardship, yet their hands were clasped tight. As I spoke with them, I came to learn that no matter how little they had—food, medicine, firewood—each of them was determined to give it to the other. That is what I want my marriage to look like. A love so great that it puts the other person before oneself.”
She and her aunt were still walking, their progress around the edge of the room slow and stately.
After a long moment, her aunt sighed. “How young you are. I forget how immediate and vivid everything feels at your age.” She glanced over at Alix and added, “Did you know I was only sixteen when I met Alfred?”
Alix shook her head, waiting for her aunt to continue.
“He swept me off my feet, wooed me so beautifully. Oh, he came to St. Petersburg and recited sonnets, pleaded with my father, threatened to shoot himself if he couldn’t have me! It was all terribly thrilling,” Marie added wistfully.
Well, now Alix understood where Missy had gotten her flair for the dramatic.
“My father told me not to marry Alfred,” Marie went on. “ ‘You’ll end up unhappy,’ he told me. ‘You’ll miss Russia.’ I hate to say it, but he was right.”
“I’m sorry,” Alix said haltingly. It was disconcerting, hearing her aunt admit to being unhappy.
Marie looped an arm through Alix’s and gave her a squeeze—in support, or perhaps in warning. “I just hope you’re right, and that you really love Nicholas with the selfless devotion of that peasant couple. Because if you continue down this path, it will require unimaginable sacrifice.”
“We know it won’t be easy.” Alix spoke uncertainly; she hadn’t really discussed this with Nicholas.
“Oh no, I’m not saying that he will sacrifice anything.
You will.” Marie drew to an abrupt halt, turning to face Alix.
“If he proposes, if you find a way to get married—which will all prove difficult enough—Nicholas will go on living the life he has always led, while yours will be rocked to the core. My dear, surely you know that you will be forced to change everything. Your home, your language, your religion.”
Alix breathed once, twice, in and out, trying to think over the skittering of her pulse. Hearing it stated so bluntly didn’t make things easier.
“Ella is in St. Petersburg. If I were ever to move there, I would at least have my sister,” she pointed out, as much for her own benefit as Marie’s.
“And you would have me.”
Alix looked up in surprise, and her aunt smiled. “I don’t live in Russia, of course, but I am still a daughter of that court. You’ll need me when trying to navigate its twists and pitfalls.”
“Are you saying that you’ll help?”
“I’m saying that you need all the help you can get. Even if you can get Her Majesty to approve the match, which would take some doing, Sasha will be harder to win over.”
It was jarring, hearing Nicholas’s father, the Tsar of All the Russias, referred to by a childhood nickname. But then, Marie was his sister.
“Thank you,” Alix said fervently. “I am so, so very grateful.”
“What can I say? I have a weakness for romance, in spite of everything,” Marie said firmly. “And don’t thank me just yet. You have a long road ahead of you.”
“I know,” Alix agreed.
Then she thought of Nicholas—of his steadiness, his warmth, the way his eyes lit up when he smiled—and her fears disappeared like morning mist burned off by the sun.
Alix knew one thing for certain: she loved him. And it was as the Bible said: love hoped all things, endured all things, believed all things.
She could hope and endure and believe anything, if it meant she had a future with Nicholas.