Chapter 1 #2
“I want you to become my lover again,” she whispered.
She released me and retook my arm, directing us back to the audience chamber through the gardens.
“While you were in prison, I had rooms readied for you. And I sent for your things. You can move in immediately.”
My back stiffened. When we had been lovers before, it had been occasional, casual, and done from obligation. When I escaped Ilyichia, when I escaped her, I vowed that I would never let myself be used like that again. And yet, what choice had I?
The doors that led back to the audience chamber loomed ahead of us. If I stepped through those doors and into the audience chamber with her on my arm without saying anything, I would condemn myself to a future of sexual servitude until either she or I died.
I could not allow that to happen.
Just before the doors, I stopped walking. She took another step before she realized I was not following, and she turned to me, her brows furrowed.
“Your Majesty, I....” My throat constricted.
“You’ve been very kind,” I started, easing her into this, although a stint in prison was not my definition of kind.
“I appreciate everything you have done, ma’am.
” Words aimed at survival tumbled from my mouth.
“I have missed being at court and being in your presence. I long to serve you however you see fit, but....” I held her gaze, praying that she understood my sincerity and listened to me as she had once pretended to do.
“Anna, please understand. I cannot become your lover now.”
“But I’ve done everything for you.” The excited animation of her plans for my future as her bedmate collapsed into confusion. “Everything.”
“I know,” I assured her. I let go of her arm and took her hand with both of mine. “You’ve been so generous and so thoughtful to consider all my needs. But I am still grieving. I need time. I do not wish to disappoint you, but I will since I cannot be all that you would have of me.”
“You will not be my lover?”
The word, though expelled in a whisper, came out clear and sure. “No.”
Her mouth opened just a little. She tore her eyes away from me and blinked several times in succession. Her composure returned, if not any indication of warmth.
I ventured, “You do understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, I understand.” She took my arm and then turned back to the doors.
We walked through the doors together and into the audience chamber. This time, those gathered paid me more attention, and most of them wrinkled their noses at me.
“I believe you all remember Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Karilitsyn.” The tsarina released my arm and turned to me, her hands folded in front of her. “Indeed, how could anyone forget him?”
Small noises came from the crowd, murmurs and rumblings of recognition passing through them like an illicit love note.
“I thought to forgive him for his transgressions,” the tsarina continued, “but upon my conversation with him, I am questioning his faithfulness and therefore his worthiness of my mercy.”
“I have always been faithful,” I protested. “To you. To Ilyichia. I served in Ilyichia’s military, ma’am. I took my state marriage vows seriously. I do not take upon such commitments with a half-heart.”
“Oh yes, you just love marriage, don’t you?”
“Your uncle forced me to marry Marfa. And whatever you may think, I have never stinted on service to you.”
“Is that so?”
“How may I prove it?” I asked, hoping she would not re-announce her desire to have me as her lover in a crowded room.
“I have been considering this very thing.” She stepped back from me and said, her voice loud enough to get the attention of all others in the room if indeed there were any others not attending yet, “All, do you see this faithful servant of mine?”
Murmurs rippled again.
“By his account, Mikhail has always been my faithful servant,” she said. “And as that is so, I have treated him most poorly. He deserves not the prison, but an honored place at my side.”
“I would settle for a bath and a change of clothes,” I said.
“You always could make me laugh.” She smiled a little too benignly.
“But fear not, I have a bath and new clothing already arranged for you.” She raised her voice again, not for me but for her audience.
“You see my mercy? Mikhail’s years of faithful service to me have not gone unnoticed.
And despite his betrayal of his empress by marrying without consent, and his betrayal of the country by denouncing The Kind and Fair and following the Great Holy for that marriage—”
“Neither action affected you or the country,” I protested.
“Ha! He admits his treasonous actions of his own free will,” she declared.
Treason? Of course, anything she wanted to be an offense could be. But treason?
“And yet, I am merciful!” The tsarina smiled at me, eyes soft, almost kind. “I will not kill him as one who has betrayed me rightfully deserves.”
The breath in my throat suspended there, suffocating me by neither entering my lungs nor being expelled. I took a step forward and guards — when had they returned? — grabbed my arms to keep me from progressing any farther.
“I shall forgive him and allow him to continue to be my faithful servant. Is that not merciful?”
Some of the crowd cheered, although most shifted uncomfortably with the uncertainty of what such a pronouncement might mean. Her words, however generous they sounded, did not bode well for me.
“My dear Mikhail,” she said as she breached the distance between us, “I do not wish to see you die, and I know you will continue to serve me in the future.” She turned away and threw up a hand, inviting the room to rejoice with her as she pitched her voice. “Behold! I have a new jester!”
“What?!” The shout of rage and confusion bellowed out of me before I could consider the wisdom of response. The guards gripped my arms to painful throbbing points with a force that would be visible later. This couldn’t be. “But I am a prince.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” she asked, turning to look at me over her shoulder. “Not anymore. And,” she returned to me and took my left hand, removing the gold wedding band from my finger, “you won’t be needing this.”
“Please,” I begged. “That’s all I have of her. Please don’t take that from me.”
“I think I’ll have it melted down into a brooch.”
“Please, Your Majesty. Please.”
She gestured to someone in the crowd, her thoughts completely distanced from the subject of my ring, and Alexei stepped out, sweating in his finery.
“Prince Alexei, do you wish to join your brother in his plight?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Then?” she prompted.
My younger brother’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Prince Mikhail—”
“Just Mikhail now,” the tsarina corrected.
“Mikhail,” Alexei gulped. “It grieves me that you have betrayed our empress and our country. Neither I nor the rest of our family shall have anything to do with you. You are no longer a Karilitsyn.”
If blood rained down from the sky, the floor turned to wax, the heavens crashed into our mortal plane, I could not have been more stunned.
The tsarina’s attention no longer on my brother, Alexei slunk back into the crowd and escaped while everyone’s attention centered on me.
“You can’t truly mean to do this,” I said, gulping around my horror.
“But I have already done it.”
I stopped fighting the arms that held mine. No physical constraint could bind me worse than my new status.
“Have my years of devotion meant nothing to you?”
“How you squawk!” She paused with that accusation and then laughed, her entire face lifting in almost girlish delight.
“If you squawk so easily, Mikhail, I will make sure you have plenty of opportunity to do it for everyone.” She flicked her eyes to the guards and waved her hand dismissively.
“Show him to his new accommodations and ensure he makes himself fit for his next appearance.”
My dry mouth prevented me from saying anything else, either in protest or my defense.
She hadn’t killed me, but I wished she had.