CHAPTER THIRTY
Alix
“ARE YOU READY?” NICHOLAS ASKED, with a smile that betrayed his nervousness.
No, Alix thought wildly. Of course she wasn’t ready to tell the tsar and tsarina about their secret engagement.
Last month, after Nicholas proposed at Marlborough House, he’d suggested that they share the news with their families at Sophie and Tino’s wedding.
Or more accurately, they would share the news with his family, since Alix’s father was sending Ernie to the wedding in his stead.
Alix had agreed, because what other choice did she have?
This sort of thing needed to be discussed in person, and the wedding provided a perfect chance to do so.
Yet now that the moment was here, a cold panic had sunk its hooks into her flesh. The tsar and tsarina were stern under the best of circumstances; Alix couldn’t imagine how they would react when told that their oldest son, their heir, had gotten engaged without their knowledge.
She just had to hope they would accept the match once they realized how happy it made Nicholas. They loved their son; surely they would want him to love his wife, too.
“I’m ready if you are,” she told Nicholas.
He nodded and began leading her through the crowded reception hall.
Skirts hissed over the marble floors as guests exchanged gossip, their heads whipping avidly toward the entrance with each new arrival.
Through the windows, the colorful houses and towers of Athens were silhouetted against the golden sky.
They were at the Greek royal palace, which had been filling up all week as foreign kings and queens arrived in town.
Nicholas and his parents were lodged in the palace itself; but King George and Queen Olga simply couldn’t host everyone, so lower-ranking guests—like Alix and Ernie—were shuffled into the homes of various bewildered aristocrats.
Apparently King George had even commandeered carriages and extra servants from his court.
Alix had already heard Emperor Wilhelm of Germany snickering about the footmen’s mismatched livery.
But what the Greek royal palace lacked in size and scale, it made up for in antiquated ceremony.
Alix and Ernie’s carriage had pulled through the wrought-iron gates amid the fanfare of trumpets.
A pair of footmen had then sprung forward to marshal them through the front doors, up a sweeping staircase into the great receiving rooms.
Nicholas found his parents near the windows, surrounded by a cluster of other, less important guests.
The tsar was as sullen as Alix remembered; he stared imperiously around the room, as if this palace belonged to him rather than to King George.
Next to him, the tsarina nodded in assiduous agreement with whatever he said.
Alix felt the room growing hazy. No, she thought fiercely, she could not afford to faint now, in front of all these people.
She focused on physical sensations, trying to anchor herself in the present—the feel of her leather gloves over her palms, the smell of the salt air, which seemed to permeate Athens, even indoors.
The tsar glanced briefly toward his son, then returned to his conversation without a flicker of emotion, as if determined to make Nicholas wait, or beg. Minnie noticed the standoff but made no move to intervene.
When Nicholas’s patience had worn thin, he stepped forward and bowed his head. “Father, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to speak with you about something.”
“Then speak.”
Nicholas glanced sidelong at the other guests. “Could we have a moment in private?”
“You had plenty of moments in private, the whole time we were journeying here,” the tsar said drily. The onlookers chuckled.
When his son made no move to step aside, Sasha let out a resigned breath.
“Oh, all right, if we must.”
He turned without another word, leaving the tsarina to give their excuses to his companions. Nicholas cast Alix a pleading look, then hurried along after the tsar, leaving Alix and his mother to follow.
Their disjointed party made its way into a corridor, past guards standing at attention, until they reached a half-empty sitting room. Its gas lamps flickered as they opened the door, making shadows dance along the frescoed walls. The sight struck Alix as oddly sinister.
She wished she could reach for Nicholas’s hand but decided against it. No one had yet addressed her, or otherwise acknowledged her presence, though they were all obviously aware that she had joined their party.
“Father. Mother.” Nicholas turned to each of his parents. “I wanted you to know that Alix and I are engaged.”
There was a moment of hollow, echoing silence. Alix kept her eyes downcast, as a proper young woman should in this situation, though she itched to look up and see the tsar’s expression.
“Oh, Nicholas.” Minnie spoke in a forlorn breath, which was somehow more alarming than if she’d been angry.
It would seem that the tsar was angry enough for both of them.
“You are most certainly not engaged,” he told Nicholas through clenched teeth. “When you are, your mother and I will inform you of that fact. You are in no way free to make such declarations for yourself, especially not about some backwater German girl.”
At that, Alix couldn’t help but look up sharply. All three sets of eyes were trained on her. Sasha grunted, dismissing her, then shifted his attention back to Nicholas.
“You are not some commoner who can marry at a whim. You are the future Tsar of All the Russias, and your marriage is an affair of state!”
“And Alix will be a wonderful partner when I take the throne someday,” Nicholas said evenly. “I’m sorry if you had someone else in mind, Father, but it no longer matters. I have asked Alix to marry me, and she said yes.”
Sasha stared at his son in acrid disbelief. “I didn’t say yes. And my permission is the one you need.”
Alix knew the tsar and tsarina would find her impudent, perhaps even ill-bred, for speaking up. But she couldn’t stand here and let them discuss her future without comment.
She sank into an excruciatingly low curtsy. “If I may ask, Your Imperial Highness, why do you object?”
“Ah! Look, Minnie, the mouse can speak!”
Alix rose, her cheeks hot; the tsar must have seen her resentment, because he chuckled. “You hadn’t heard that nickname, had you? It’s what everyone in St. Petersburg has been calling you since you came to see Ella last year: the Hessian mouse. Speaking of your sister, she—”
The tsarina laid a hand on his forearm, and to Alix’s surprise, the tsar fell silent.
“Alix,” she said gently, “you are a lovely young woman, but you are not right for Nicholas.”
“We need someone higher-ranking than the daughter of a German nobody.” The tsar pretended to glance back over his shoulder toward the wedding. “Is your father even in attendance today, or was he not invited?”
Alix decided to ignore that question. Best not to get into the issue of her father, who had become reclusive—and, she had to admit, a bit eccentric—since her mother’s death.
“Higher-ranking?” she repeated. “I am a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.”
“Yes, and how many are there of those? Thirty?”
Twenty-two, Alix thought in frustration, but she knew better than to correct him.
To her relief, Nicholas cut in. “I’m sorry if you don’t approve of the match, but Alix and I are engaged. We are in love.”
“In love?” Sasha laughed—a great belly laugh, as if his son had made an uproarious joke. “I’m sorry, are you a peasant now, to marry according to your lusts?”
Minnie shot a warning glance at her husband, the enormous pear-shaped diamonds in her ears swaying with the movement.
Then she looked back at Nicholas with what seemed to be an attempt at sympathy.
It came out more like a grimace. “Please do not keep saying that you are engaged, Nicky. You have indulged in a bit of harmless flirtation, but that is all.”
“It is not just flirtation! We made a pledge—”
The tsar stepped forward and struck his son across the cheek.
Alix gasped and stumbled back a step, hands flying to her mouth. The tsarina’s expression flickered, yet she made no move to help her son.
Already a red mark was blooming on the tsarevich’s cheek.
In the ringing silence, Minnie cleared her throat. Her eyes were now fixed on Alix. “I hope that a pledge is the only thing you’ve made, Alix. I hope you haven’t been such a fool as to throw away your future on an engagement that can never be.”
Alix blinked. What did that mean, throw away her future?
Minnie spoke slowly, as if addressing an ignorant child. “Have you lain with my son?”
“What?”
The tsarina continued in the same deliberate, dispassionate tone. “Because if there’s a surprise coming in nine months, it won’t change anything. It won’t succeed in tying you to Nicholas. All it will do is ruin you.”
Alix could only stare at the tsarina in bewildered shock.
“Mother, this is beneath you. Alix is a young woman of honor, and I will not allow you to besmirch her reputation!” Nicholas exclaimed.
“But, Nicky, you’re the one besmirching it!
” Sasha interjected. “If you keep saying that you are engaged when you are not, Alix is the one who will suffer. She has already been linked to one prince who didn’t marry her.
A young woman whose name keeps being bandied about, with no engagements announced…
” He shrugged. “She might never end up marrying at all.”
“Eddy didn’t break things off with me!” Alix couldn’t help herself; it was impossible to hear the tsar’s words and not clarify. “I said no to him!”
Sasha smirked as if he found that distinctly unbelievable. “If you really turned down the future King of England, you’re even more of a fool than I took you for.”
“Nicholas, my darling, we just want what’s best for both of you,” Minnie pleaded.
“If you wanted what was best, you would listen to me!” Finally Nicholas reached for Alix’s hand, lacing their fingers in defiance of his parents.
“I’m sorry that we fell in love without consulting you, but your objections about Alix are unfounded.
Our family has married foreign brides for centuries!
Mother, you were a Danish princess before you moved to Russia, and you succeeded in learning our ways.
You can help guide Alix, teach her to become a great tsarina. ”
A great tsarina. The phrase filled Alix with foreboding, but she told herself she could handle it. It was the only way she and Nicholas could stay together.
As difficult as it would be, finding a way to live with him, she couldn’t bear the prospect of living without him.
“It’s not just Alix’s lack of position that concerns me.
I’m sorry,” the tsarina added, “but even in Russia, word has spread of your health problems. I fear that with your weak constitution, you would find the demands of being tsarina simply unbearable. Far better to stay close to home, where you will feel safe.”
Alix went cold; Nicholas cast her a worried, protective glance. Minnie noticed and pressed her lips into a thin line, as if they had just proved her point.
“I don’t know who has been spreading such gossip about me,” Alix forced herself to say. “Surely I’m not the first woman to need smelling salts because my corset was laced too tight.”
“Is that all it was? From what we’ve heard, you are afflicted with something much worse.”
Alix breathed once, twice, trying to think over the skittering of her pulse. She felt the familiar darkness hovering at the corner of her vision like an unwanted guest.
“Nicholas needs someone who can give him strong, hardy heirs. Not a wilting German flower,” his mother went on.
“I’m not—”
“The primary duty of a tsarina is to provide the next tsar,” Sasha said bluntly.
“The ceremonies, the public appearances—none of that is as crucial as the future of our family. And frankly, young lady, I’m not sure that you can handle any of it.
You will never marry Nicholas, not while I have breath in my body. ”
Shame flooded Alix, white-hot and corrosive. Her eyes stung, but she blinked away the tears.
The tsar turned to address his son. “What happened on your grand tour with Tino? Your mother and I sent you on that trip—at great expense, I might add—because you wouldn’t stop mooning after Alix after she left St. Petersburg last year.
You were supposed to pay court to foreign princesses, to get this”—he waved a dismissive hand in Alix’s direction—“this infatuation out of your system.”
Oh. A tiny corner of Alix was pleased to learn that Nicholas had been thinking of her all last year, too.
His feelings must have troubled his parents greatly if they’d sent him on a trip with Tino—who supposedly had no problem sowing his wild oats over multiple continents—to erase the memory of Alix from his mind.
Nicholas’s jaw clenched. “I am nothing like Tino.”
“To my eternal disappointment!”
The tsarina cut in, angling her body between Alix’s and the two men as if steering her toward the door. “I’m sorry, Alix, but I think it’s best you return to the party.”
Alix cast a helpless glance back at Nicholas, but he had crumpled forward in defeat. Feeling her gaze, he looked up, and the hopeless expression in his eyes broke something in her.
“I know this may seem harsh to you,” Minnie was saying, “but I promise that it’s for the best. Moving to Russia, assuming the duties of a tsarina: it’s not for everyone, even princesses who have trained to rule. Russia is a harsh land, full of violent contradictions and complicated history.”
“I could learn,” Alix said softly. She was a granddaughter of Victoria Regina; of course she’d been raised to manage palaces, to help her husband rule.
“I’m afraid not, my dear. If you persist in trying to marry my son, it will only end in heartache and disaster.”
The words fell from Minnie’s mouth like heavy stones, like the ominous pronouncement of some ancient prophetess. They made Alix shiver.
She grabbed her skirts in both hands and began running back toward the ballroom, no longer caring about appearances. Her slippers tripped on the scrolling carpet; she nearly tumbled to the floor, but caught herself.
It didn’t matter where she went, as long as she got out of here—away from these heartless people, from the cruelty and ambition and callousness that was at the heart of every royal court.
She tried not to think about the fact that her body, falling into a panic, was proving Sasha right.
Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be Empress of Russia.