Chapter Seven Alix
Chapter Seven
Alix
Alix had been looking for Nicholas for the past half hour, but she hadn’t expected to find him here. In the gardens, leaning close to Hélène, murmuring in her ear.
When she’d arrived in London several days ago, Alix had tried to ask Grandmama about this evening’s guest list, but the queen had brushed off her question.
It’s not my party, it’s Bertie’s, Grandmama had sniffed.
So Alix hadn’t known for sure whether Nicholas was coming.
Not until she arrived tonight and found Aunt Vicky, always the most loose-lipped of the family.
Vicky had been too distracted to notice how pointed Alix’s questions were.
She had merely shrugged and said, yes, the tsarevich was attending on his parents’ behalf.
Seeing her, Nicholas and Hélène stumbled apart, both hurrying to explain themselves.
“Alix! I’m so glad you’re here, I didn’t know you were in town—”
“Please don’t think this means anything. We hadn’t realized our parents were in talks, but of course, we will tell them no—”
At Hélène’s words, Alix’s stomach twisted with dread. Hélène’s parents and Nicholas’s parents being in talks could only mean one thing. They were arranging a marriage.
Alix remembered hearing how, two hundred years earlier, Peter the Great had repeatedly tried to marry his daughter to the child king Louis XV.
The French Regent, Louis’s uncle, had been perfectly content for Peter to send over a wealth of presents—furs, necklaces, slippers stiff with embroidery and jewels—only to laugh and reject the Romanov princess.
Perhaps the Russian royal family had never lost this obsession with France, if they still sought a French alliance.
It wouldn’t matter to them that Hélène’s father didn’t have a fortune to bestow on her as a dowry, that he didn’t even have a throne. They already had plenty of money and territory to rule.
The things they sought in Hélène were her unparalleled pedigree, her centuries of royal blood that went back to Charlemagne.
Other guests were streaming from the lawn toward the main house, where gossip and music drifted from the windows. Alix suspected that Uncle Bertie was about to make a speech.
None of their trio moved.
“Alix, I had no idea Nicholas was the man you loved,” Hélène said urgently. “I wish you had told me.”
“You must know that Hélène and I have no intention of doing as our parents ask,” Nicholas added.
“Are you going to tell them, then?” It hurt, asking this; Alix swallowed and tried again. “You’re going to let your parents know that the courtship is off?”
She saw Hélène and Nicholas exchange a glance. Then the tsarevich turned to her, his blue eyes beseeching. “It might help if we let everyone think that Hélène and I truly are courting. Just for a little while.”
“Why?” Alix’s question was sharp.
“It was my idea, Alix,” Hélène cut in. “I thought it might give me some time, while I figure out how to deal with…” With May, she didn’t need to say.
Alix understood at once. If May thought that Hélène had moved on, that she no longer cared about Eddy, then May might relax her guard. And Hélène could try to find her weak spot.
Hélène looked like she wanted to say more, but seemed to think better of it. “I should rejoin my parents,” she said tactfully, leaving Alix and Nicholas alone.
Alix waited until Hélène’s footsteps had receded before turning to Nicholas. “Why would you agree to such a thing? To let everyone think you and Hélène are truly courting, when none of it is real?”
“Because it would allow me to stay in London longer. Finally, we would be in the same place.” Nicholas reached for Alix’s hand, closing it in both of his. “I miss you so much, Alix. I just want to be near you.”
“Except that you won’t be with me; you’ll be with her.”
“Only in public. I’ll spend every moment that I can with you.”
Before Alix could reply, there was a roar of applause from the ballroom.
Everyone was clearly in there, lifting their champagne glasses as Bertie praised his long-suffering wife.
Alix could picture it: guests stepping on the hems of each other’s gowns, craning their necks as they glanced from the hosts to each other.
Her absence—and Nicholas’s—would soon be noticed.
“We should get back.” Nicholas held out a hand to Alix. “Come with me?”
She stared at him, brow furrowed. “I thought you just said you need to publicly court Hélène.”
“I think we can get away with a single dance,” he said softly.
It was true that no one would remark upon a single dance.
A young lady who danced more than three times with the same man would be considered fast, unless the couple were engaged; but a single dance was hardly anything, a handful of minutes in one of these long evenings.
There were plenty of women who would get a single dance from Nicholas tonight: his aunt Alexandra, his cousins, various noblewomen who threw themselves in his path.
For these few minutes, Alix could hold him with absolute impunity. Could rest her hands on his shoulders, look up into his deep blue eyes.
“Of course I’ll dance with you,” Alix agreed. As if she had ever been in danger of refusing.
They didn’t dare walk together into the ballroom; Alix followed a few beats behind. Some of the flowers that had been wound around the terrace’s iron railing were already wilting; a few petals had been crushed underfoot. Alix stepped over them and into the crowded ballroom.
Sure enough, Bertie’s booming laugh echoed around the room, which erupted in more applause.
The Princess of Wales stood next to him, as thin and impeccably dressed as ever, her smile fixed and immobile.
The toast was evidently concluding, servers moving through the room with empty flutes of champagne.
When the orchestra played the opening strands of a waltz, Nicholas greeted Alix as if seeing her for the first time. “Alix. May I trouble you for a dance?”
He stepped closer and set a hand on her waist. Even that slight sensation made her heart skip.
“I have missed you,” he murmured.
“And I you. So much.” She left it there, because she didn’t want to pester him when they were only just reunited, but Nicholas clearly sensed her unease.
“What is it?”
“I don’t…” I don’t know what we are doing, Alix wanted to say. I don’t know how long we can keep doing it, waiting for a resolution that seems hopeless. Instead she said, “When did you arrive in London?”
“A few days ago. You didn’t get my letter?”
“Your letter?” Alix repeated.
“I wrote to tell you that I was coming to London.” At the look on her face, Nicholas sighed. “So, they’re going through Misha’s mail. My parents knew that I was writing you, and told me to stop, so I asked Misha to post the letters.”
“We have a long road ahead if your parents are intercepting your brother’s mail to keep us apart.” Alix’s words were tight.
Nicholas spun her gently, and Alix’s gown, a cerulean blue shot through with threads of silver, fanned out around her. “I promise, we will find a way,” he murmured softly. “I love you.”
Alix settled back from the turn and Nicholas tucked her closer, moving his hand daringly low on her back. “I love you too,” she risked saying.
It was bold of them, whispering such things in a ballroom full of people, but Alix couldn’t bring herself to worry about that.
Nicholas was here—not in Russia, or on a ship halfway around the world, but in her arms. It was delicious and wondrous and at the same time, nowhere near enough.
Nicholas’s left hand was still in Alix’s, his right curled around her back.
She felt the air filling his rib cage with each breath, the warmth of his body, the tension of his muscles through the layers of fabric that separated them.
She was slightly alarmed to find that she wanted more of it, wanted to press away every last bit of space until there was nothing between them.
“I will try to call on you at Buckingham Palace,” Nicholas promised. Alix realized dazedly that the song was ending, the final chords of the waltz echoing through the ballroom.
With every ounce of will, she forced herself to step away.
“Hélène. How lovely to see you. Shall we dance?” Nicholas was looking behind Alix’s shoulder.
As she brushed past, Hélène leaned toward Alix’s ear. “I’ll bring him back to you. Once the baccarat games begin, try to linger near the coatroom.”
Near the coatroom. Alix felt herself flush as she realized what Hélène meant. It was hardly surprising; given how long Hélène and Eddy had kept up an illicit romance, she was clearly an expert in sneaking around. But Alix wasn’t brave enough for such wanton behavior.
Or was she?
Alix turned aside, fighting to suppress a smile. Maybe she was braver than she’d realized, because meeting with Nicholas in the coatroom didn’t sound frightening or wanton at all. It sounded wonderful.
After all this time, she and Nicholas were finally in the same place, and Alix was determined to make every moment count.