The Tsarina's Legacy (11 page)

“Don't.”

He struggled upright, wondering if he had miscalculated by challenging Zubov so soon.

“It is just you and me here now, husband. I invited you to the palace for supper, not as a performer in one of those circus sideshows that so enrapture the English.”

“It was necessary,” Grisha replied.

“You wanted to embarrass a rival. You should have spoken to me privately.”

“I tried. You would not listen,” he said. “You are too indulgent of your new pet.”

Catherine's diamond earbobs swung as she stepped forward. “I never interfered in your trysts, even when they broke my heart.”

He refused to be distracted. Not with an old argument. He had never engaged in any trysts until his heart had already been broken again and again by the widening gulf between an empress and a prince. No matter the long-buried scrap of paper that confirmed they were husband and wife. They had never been equals. “When the tryst involves you, it's a different matter than those that involve me.”

“Because I am a woman?”

“You know me better,
matushka
. You are an empress. Your choice of companion has consequences for us all. I have never interfered before. I've taken care with your favorites, taken them under my wing, just as you asked. This is no mere jealousy. It's heartfelt concern.”

“So that is all,” she said flatly. “You merely play the adviser?”

“I have always freely offered my honest opinion, as you asked of me.”

“You're obligated to tell me Platon Zubov is a preening fool giddy with power.”

“Don't attempt sarcasm when you speak plain truth.”

To his relief, she laughed. Her laugh hadn't changed. She used to turn to her pillow and make that sound when he'd joked at some poor courtier's expense. And then she would turn back to him, ready to open herself to him, body and soul. “You don't see Platon as I do. His gifts.”

Grisha couldn't defeat Zubov by sniping behind his back. “As you say.”

A gust of wind blew her white hair back from her face. She had neglected to bring a hat.

She drew her sable stole tighter around her shoulders, shivering in the cold, tired and drawn around the eyes. Catherine's appearance was far from perfect, not anymore. But then what dullard sought perfection in a woman when complexity was far more alluring?

“Perhaps I hoped there was more to it,” she said, “that your heart was involved. I dared to hope you had grown tired of chasing other women and were jealous at last.”

Grisha leaned in close. The scent of fresh leather on her gloves mingled with the rose-scented cream she used to soften her hands. “You make it difficult to speak the truth when you employ hypotheticals. Speak plainly, woman.”

“Don't expect me to share my heart freely. Not after all we've endured. I have an ego, husband. Surely you've taken note of it.”

He took her hand gently. When she didn't withdraw it, he lifted the flap at the edge of her glove and planted a light kiss on her wrist. Catherine's gaze lingered on the spot where his lips had pressed her skin. He thought she might ask for more time with him, but her gaze shifted and she extracted her hand from his. “No … that was only wishful thinking on my part. After our affair ended, you were never possessive. I could take a hundred lovers and you would only assume they all pale in comparison to you.”

“Do they?”

She tapped him lightly on the chest with her fan. Bells jingled as his carriage approached. His geldings held their snouts back to avoid the strong gusts of wind.

“I will not make your poor horses wait in this weather. We will speak again soon.” She lifted her skirts and ascended the stairs. Two of her chevalier guards waited outside the door, dependable as always in their silver and blue.

Behind them, in the blink of his one good eye, he caught a glimpse of the pasha, turban in hand, still dressed in pantaloons as though for the Ottoman court. The pasha lifted his chin, the regal gesture echoing Catherine's. The memory of the last failed attempt to negotiate flooded Grisha's mind, shaming him.

“And the mosque,” he called after Catherine. “You'll consider it?”

Catherine turned to him once more, frowning. “Always business, Prince?”

Her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It reminded him of their time together seventeen years earlier, after he had returned from the monastery. They would meet in one of the
banyas
deep in the basement of the Winter Palace to discuss the latest court intrigues, their skin pink and glowing in the steamy air, until they tired of chatter and the snap of birch twigs and fell into one another's arms.

“Business and pleasure together,” he said. “As always.”

Catherine let out an exaggerated sigh, likely for the benefit of the guards.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked. “How have I displeased you?”

“You're toying with me to get what you want. I see it in your eyes. You drifted off to another world. No doubt to another woman or perhaps countless others.”

He shook his head. “I am not toying with you. How could I even think of another woman when I'm in your presence? You eclipse them all.”

She lifted her small hand. “Leave your sweet words at your bedside and don't trouble me with them again. My heart cannot bear it.”

She regarded him one last time before gathering her skirts and ascending the steps two at a time, returning to Zubov. If she wouldn't back away from her young lover, then Grisha needed to take a direct route, to convince Zubov that he might entertain Catherine, but affairs of state were to be left with Grisha.

“I will never hurt you again, wife,” he murmured. “And I will never let anyone else hurt you either.”

Six

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Dr. Herrera will spend a week in St. Petersburg as a guest of the Monarchist Society and will make herself available for interviews as time allows.

 

ST. PETERSBURG
PRESENT DAY

“Reb Volkov is a blasphemer!” A disembodied Russian voice shouted over the static of the radio. “He broke the law. The deviant is getting what he deserves.”

Veronica rubbed her forehead, fighting the urge to tell the driver to forget all this, to turn around and head back to the airport. Her eyelids kept drooping. Irina had sped off from the airport in a hired car, so Veronica was now squished between Michael and Dmitry in the back of the taxi. The three of them had spoken little during the ride, only Dmitry's curt directions and the driver's grunts of reply. Veronica tried not to mind the stale tobacco and gasoline stink.

“But an archaic law, wouldn't you say?” a calmer, more cultured voice asked.

“Who cares? Let him rot in the
gulag.
”

Veronica could only see the back of the driver's massive blond head, but it shook at the word “gulag.” He tapped his gloved fingers on the steering wheel and veered to dodge one of the other smoggy little cars crowding the boulevard.

“Hooliganism,” another voice chimed in, “is hardly an archaic law. The government is within its bounds to protect citizens from dangerous influences.”

The driver's shoulders tensed but his gaze remained fixed on the road. Veronica opened a map of St. Petersburg and spread it on her lap, forcing herself to focus and appreciate Peter the Great's city. Golden streetlights, trios of round bulbs, flickered on, softening the gloom of storm clouds to gently illuminate baroque palaces, cathedrals, and snow-dusted bridges over canals. St. Petersburg rivaled Venice, an imperial city as elegant as any in Europe. Across the Neva River, she spotted the svelte spire of Peter and Paul Cathedral glimmering under the fading light in the pale sky. The remains of Nicholas and Alexandra and three of their children, the last Romanovs, were buried inside.

She wondered if her Romanov grandmother, the secret grand duchess Charlotte, would ever be buried with them, if she would even want to be buried with a family she had never known. Unfortunately, Veronica hadn't met Charlotte's son—her father. So Veronica would never know what Charlotte wanted.

They passed a neoclassical opera house painted pastel green with white Grecian columns adorning the entrance and a red, white, and blue Russian flag flapping in the wind. Slender birch trees lined the streets, branches naked and vulnerable. Veronica looked down at her lap again. Her hands shook. She'd fiddled nervously with the map of the city too long and her fingers had frayed the edges.

Michael put his hand tentatively on her knee, covered by the thick winter coat she had purchased for this trip. When she didn't pull away, he let his hand rest there. “You okay?”

“I'm okay,” she said. “This will be okay.”

But by the time they arrived at their hotel, Veronica was ready to collapse in a heap.

Dmitry had made preemptive apologies for the quality of the hotel, a Soviet-era concrete block. The lobby downstairs seemed pleasant enough, bland but welcoming, with staff who politely greeted them at the front desk and reproductions of paintings from the Hermitage Museum hanging on the walls. After a dicey ride in the shaking cage of an elevator, they arrived on her floor and the decor dramatically changed. Mildew stained the ceiling, cigarette burns pocked the threadbare carpet, and the ammonia stench of cat urine clung to the overheated air.

Michael kicked at something. Veronica cringed, hoping it was only a dust tumbleweed. “Was the roach motel booked?” he asked Dmitry.

“Irina claims this was best we could manage.” Dmitry put a subtle emphasis on the word “claims.” “She says Peter the Great disguise himself as common soldier and sleep with troops in barracks and tsarina should do same.”

“So much for
glamur
,” Veronica muttered.

Dmitry shrugged. “I will upgrade as possible.”

A
babushka
in a shapeless gray dress sat sentry near the elevator, staring at an old laptop propped precariously on a filing cabinet behind a crumbling fortress of a desk. In Soviet times, older women were hired to serve as floor attendants who doubled as “minders” to spy on foreign guests and prevent them from seeing anything they weren't supposed to see. Apparently, at least here, the practice had survived the transition to capitalism and beyond.

Veronica approached the attendant with the registration card she had received downstairs. “Hello.” Veronica used English by mistake instead of a friendly Russian
preevyet.

“
Shto?
” the old woman asked grumpily.

“You know perfectly well what,” Dmitry shot out in Russian. “The key.”

“Why not get in lobby?”

“When we asked for the key, they said you would help us up here.”

She crossed her arms in front of her ample chest and turned to Veronica. “You have two husbands per woman in America?”

“They're not my husbands.” Veronica wanted to say something wittier, but she was so tired she could barely think in English let alone Russian.

Michael smiled and cute little creases appeared at the corners of his eyes. Either he had managed to snag a nap on the plane or magical powers protected him from sleep deprivation. He leaned forward on the desk. The thin plywood made an ominous cracking sound.

“Room twelve thirty-eight,” he said in proper Russian. “At your convenience.”

Veronica knew the monotony of a desk job only too well. If she was sitting at her desk and Michael walked into her life, gifting her with that smile, she would have done anything he asked. The
babushka
appeared far less impressed. She frowned and waved a wrinkled finger in his direction. “You look familiar.”

“You mean she does?” He gestured toward Veronica.

“You.” She squinted. “I have seen you somewhere.” She didn't make it sound positive.

Veronica heard a familiar snippet of music and craned her neck to see the video playing on the laptop. The attendant was watching Veronica's favorite
telenovela
,
La Familia Rosa
, with Russian badly dubbed over the Spanish. “You don't watch the Russian
novelas
?” she asked.

The woman's eyes widened a little when she heard Veronica speak in Russian. “Not as good.” The woman nodded her round chin at the laptop. “My grandson showed me how to find the ones I like best.”

Veronica imagined her grandmother back home, trying to sew and twisting thread in her hands, fretting. Abuela would watch
La Familia Rosa
on her own this evening and then afterward, she would force herself to watch all the latest bad news: Reb's verdict, Russian incursions into Ukrainian territory, economic sanctions. Veronica had given up a boring but comfortable space in the world to travel to Russia. Surely a room and a decent night's sleep weren't too much to ask in return. If that meant she had to charm her way past this
babushka
, then that is what she would do.

“Have they revealed Ana's secret lover yet?”

The attendant still glowered but shook her head.

“Will you let me know when they do? I haven't had time to watch.”

“Neither have I,” the woman said, focusing on the screen and recrossing her arms.

“It's my grandmother's favorite show. We watch it together back home. I miss her.”

When Veronica said the word “grandmother,” the attendant's lip twitched. She opened her creaking desk door, fumbled around, and withdrew a large silver key with a gold tassel. She handed the key to Veronica.

“
Cpacebo
,” Veronica said, thanking her, and headed down the hall, rolling her luggage behind her.

“That's my girl,” Michael said in a low voice, following Veronica. He stopped her and took the luggage handle. “Let's get breakfast tomorrow before your meeting with Irina.” He turned to Dmitry, who was trailing just behind them, and gave a sarcastic little bow. “If that's okay with you. I'm sure you'll want to supervise us and all that.”