9. Katerina
A hundred years before
* * *
Inever expected that Alexei’s ploy would go on for three years.
My father was so excited about the prospect of my marrying the future czar that he didn’t shove any eligible men my way. Father took me to every single ball and event Alexei was reputed to be attending, and the more time I spent, the more in love with him I fell. The only real problem was that it was all fake. Alexei liked the charade almost as much as I did, because his mother stopped trying to fix him up with nobles from other families and countries.
We were both free.
Until the spring that I was turning twenty-one.
“It’s time,” my father says. “We’ve waited years now, because Alexandra has these stupid ideals of a women not being forced into marriage, but you will set the date for a wedding while you’re at the palace.” My father’s nearly salivating at the prospect of my marrying Alexei.
He has no idea that the groom’s the one opposed, so I have to put him off in some other way.
“I’m not sure whether?—”
Father shakes his head. “You’re there for a full two weeks, and you’re blessedly the only daughter from all the magical families of Russia. It’s a real stroke of luck that we started training all the children together after your mother passed. Your brother will be there to see that things progress properly.”
He means that Boris will be reporting back.
“But this year, Alexei has to?—”
“No more excuses!” Father flips an end table over, sending his disgusting snuff box flying toward the wall. “Katerina, I swear that if you do not come back officially engaged, I’ll find the next eligible man and marry you off this summer.”
What he means is that he’ll find me a disgustingly rich old man. Father has always motivated with threats. The reason they work is that I know he’ll follow through.
Which means I have about two weeks to convince Alexei that after pretending to like me for three years, he likes me for real. Luckily, I have an idea of how I might encourage him to commit. Last season, my friend Cassandra had a wealthy and impressive suitor who had casually pursued her for a full season, but never committed. . .until a young and dashing baron with a nice little estate started to pursue her as well. Once the original man saw that someone else wanted her, he committed.
The trouble in my case is in finding anyone in Russia who’s willing to even flirt with the woman the future czar has expressed an interest in. For the past three years, everyone has given me a wide berth. The last thing they want to do is alienate the Romanov family.
“I hope you have your trunks packed,” Father says. “Mr. Ivanovich is prepared to load them into the boot on the car.”
“Dad,” I complain. “It feels like we’re trying too hard. The palace isn’t that far. Have the trunks delivered, and I’ll just shift and run over myself.”
“Absolutely not.” Father’s eyes flash, and I worry about the other end table.
“But—”
“You will be seen as a lady, not as some unrefined hooligan who gallops anywhere she’d like as a horse.”
In the doorway, Leonid clears his throat. Luckily, he’s already in on the family secret—he and his father have been with us for more than two years now, and they were brought in almost six months after their employment began. It’s always easier for Father to trust people when they’re entirely reliant on our family for support.
But no one expected Leonid to fill out and grow up like he has. He’s taller and broader than both Father and Boris, and he’s only a year older than I am. His handsome face has become almost disturbingly beautiful. “Father has loaded the trunks already.” He inclines his head. He’s wearing the nicest clothes I’ve ever seen him wear—Father must have bought him a new wardrobe now that he’s our chauffeur.
“Perfect.” Father tosses his head. “Then you should go now.”
“I’m not expected until tomorrow,” I say.
“You’ll go today—early. Tell them you were confused. That’ll give you some time to spend with Alexei, alone. Leonid will go with you as your footman, and if you leave the palace for any reason, he’ll go as your chaperone and guard. The car will stay there with you for the duration.”
As some kind of misguided show of wealth, I’m sure. I can’t help rolling my eyes. “It’s not necessary for?—”
“They don’t see us as equals,” Father roars. “That’s been the issue all along. I’m not sure whether it’s Alexei or his parents who looks down on us, but we will observe all formalities. They’ll see that the Yurovsky family’s lacking nothing that the Romanovs have, and that my beautiful daughter’s a perfect match for their jumped-up popinjay of a son.”
When he gets like this, arguing is a total waste of time. “Yes, Father.”
I’m actually glad Leonid’s coming. He’s smart, and the more things I teach him, the more I realize that he might even be smarter than I am. He’s always insisted he was born to the Rurikid line, and maybe he was. He certainly looks the part—regal, assured, and commanding. Now that he can read and write Russian, English, and French, he actually sounds the part too. And every day, I find him reading more books that I didn’t even assign.
“I think it’ll be interesting,” Leonid says. “I’ve never been invited to accompany you during the palace weeks.”
“You know we’ll be practicing using our powers,” I say. “It’s not anything to do with politics or affairs of state.”
“But you said Rurik was supposed to be the first person who had these magical powers,” Leonid says. “I’ve always wondered whether I might be able to use them.”
It’s not the first time he’s pushed for me to show him what I can do. It’s clear he’s hopeful that he can learn to use magic. I even tried to help him once, more than a year ago, but nothing happened. It’s hard to know whether it’s that he’s never done something selfless that requires a sacrifice, or whether he has no ability to begin with.
I’ve grabbed my cloak—spring in Russia is still brisk—and I’m almost to the front of the house when our butler answers the door. My friend Sasha didn’t announce she was coming, but then, she almost never does.
“Oh, you haven’t left yet.” She claps. “I just wanted to wish you luck at the palace before?—”
Leonid has just walked down the stairs, his dark clothing bag in hand.
“Who’s this?” Sasha bites her lip and bats her eyes. “I’m one of Katerina’s oldest friends.”
She’s certainly not old, and we haven’t even been friends for that long. She is, however, quite wealthy. She’s one of the nobles in town that started coming around after Alexei expressed interest in me. In my mind, that makes her a little suspect. To my father, it makes her the very kind of person we should be interacting with more often. Her father’s one of the few Russian nobles who has actually grown his ample inheritance with good investments.
Not that anyone talks about wealth, honestly.
“This is Leonid Ivanovich,” I say. “He’s a direct descendant from Rurik himself.” I’m mostly teasing, since Father doesn’t even believe Leonid’s dad’s wild tales, but Sasha’s eyes widen all the same.
“How have we not met before?” She pretends to scowl at me. “You’ve been keeping him to yourself, haven’t you?”
Leonid’s eyes dart toward mine with alarm.
“I—I suppose I have.” I can’t help my suppressed smile. Irritating Sasha is too much fun. “I’m not very good at sharing.”
“Shame on you.” Sasha shakes her head. “You already have the future leader of Russia. You can’t have him and the most handsome man alive.”
The most handsome man alive.
I suppose that might actually be true of Leonid. Alexei’s beauty is just as bright, in my opinion, even if it’s not quite as obvious. It’s certainly more unique than Leonid’s, whose beauty is classic and flawless.
I like someone who looks real.
“Let’s go,” I say. “Leonid’s taking me to the palace.” I don’t say that he works for me, and Sasha about loses her mind that I’m traveling with my new, eligible bachelor friend, off to see my beau at the palace.
But that gives me an idea.
I’ve been wondering for weeks who I might use as a foil to inflame Alexei’s interest, and maybe the answer has been right by my side all this time. Leonid’s eager to spend time with all of us, hoping to discover whether he may fit in with us in more ways than one.
As we drive, I explain my predicament.
Leonid never knew that Alexei and I were faking, but he catches on quickly. “So he’s not interested in you, but the reverse isn’t true?” He quirks one eyebrow.
I sigh.
“And you think that you can somehow use me, a servant, to change his mind?” He doesn’t sound very confident.
“You’re a direct descendant of Rurik,” I say. “That means that Alexei’s actually your inferior.”
Leonid rolls his eyes. “Don’t say that around my dad, or he’ll go back to foaming and ranting.”
“He’s come a long way in the past few years,” I say.
“It’s amazing what abstaining from alcohol and regular meals can do,” he says. “I’m a little worried about what might happen while I’m gone.”
Leonid’s a pretty attentive son—even though his father’s an embarrassing mess, he always takes good care of him. It can’t have been an easy task. He surely could have abandoned his father years ago and done much better on his own.
But working as a gardener, his father has blossomed himself.
“Look, when we get there, instead of saying you’re my driver, why don’t we introduce you as an old family friend?” I tilt my head. “Father purchased you new clothing. We can tell them your connection to Rurik, and they’ll do their best to see whether you can use magic. That’ll give us a chance to see whether you might have powers.” I drop my voice just a bit. “It’s a win for both of us.”
Leonid’s eyes light up, and his hands grip the steering wheel tightly enough that his knuckles turn white. “Do you mean it?”
“It helps us both.”
He nods slowly. “I pretend to be interested in you, to make Alexei Romanov jealous.”
“At the end, we’ll tell them that what we said is true, but also that you work for me, so that no one gets upset about the lying.”
“What about Boris?” he asks. “He’ll tell them the truth immediately.”
“I lied to Father,” I say. “Boris wrote me to say he’s staying in France at least an extra week, maybe two.” He went to try and set up some trade agreements for our family, and he’s met a woman he really likes—he doesn’t want to leave until she’s agreed to return with him. That’s why he wrote to me instead of straight to Father. He wanted me to cover for him.
It’s why I wasn’t overly worried about him reporting to Father.
The rest of the drive, Leonid’s quiet. As we pull around the drive to the Romanov palace, he asks me a question. “What if, at the end of all this, I feel about you the way you feel about Alexei?” He shifts the car into neutral, shoves on the hand brake, and turns to face me.
“What if. . .are you asking what happens if you start to like me for real?”
Leonid shrugs. “Stranger things have happened.”
I suppose he’s right. “I—I don’t know.” Heat rises in my cheeks, because the idea of Leonid liking me is a strange one. He was my charity case. My project. The boy I met on a trip home from a ball and convinced my father to bring into our home as an act of charity.
He smiles then. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen.”
“How do you know?” I arch one eyebrow.
He leans closer, his breath warming my ear. “Just like that,” he whispers. “You need to blush like that, and talk to me like that, and look at me like that if you want to make him jealous.”
I was worried. Worried that Leonid, who has worked at our home doing odds and ends for years, would have no idea how to flirt or court or make Alexei jealous, in spite of his face. But apparently, it was for nothing.
“Who’s this?” Alexei’s voice is strong. Louder than usual.
I spring away from Leonid, not sure why I feel guilty. It’s stupid. I swallow. “Alexei Romanov, meet Leonid Ivanovich. He’s a direct descendant of Rurik himself.” Before I can open my own car door, Leonid leans across me and pops the door open himself.
“Katerina invited me to come.” Leonid’s voice is deeper than I remembered. “She said that I might be able to learn something.” His insouciant grin is exactly what it should be. It’s almost like he’d been preparing his entire life for exactly this role.
“Learn something?” Alexei frowns at Leonid and then turns to me, offering his hand to help me exit the car. “Learn what exactly?”
I step a little closer, inclining my head. “The same thing we’re all here to learn.” I widen my eyes. “My father told him about it, so you don’t have to worry. He already knows.”
“Your father—” Alexei’s mouth clicks closed. “He must trust him a great deal.” His nostrils flare, and it’s clear he’s not pleased. “I don’t recall reading that Rurik or his descendants were exceedingly handso. . .” He shakes his head. “Never mind. I’ll talk to Maria about finding him a room.”
We may have hatched our plan as an afterthought, and we may only be in the first few moments of it, but so far, it’s off to a promising start.