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manner of my grandfather, and not my father. I wish to bring back something of the Winter Palace I
remember as a boy, a place of elegance and compassion.”
Elegance and compassion, Emma thought. Two unlikely qualities to mention in the same breath
and it seemed, when one thought of it, that when elegance and compassion came together it added up
to nothing more than basic good manners. How extraordinary that Nicky would so willingly confess
that his father’s court lacked them.
“And what I most need is a partner in this quest,” Nicky added, his body straining toward that
of Alix. “I have prayed daily to God to bring me such a woman.”
All in all it was a strange appeal for a young man to deliver to the girl he loved, Emma thought.
No declaration of affection, no flattery or persuasion, and certainly not an attempt at an embrace.
Sitting across from each other on the red cushions, it looked as if Nicky and Alix were playing chess,
and they were, in a way. It was her move now.
Alix might have found this to be a rather passionless sort of proposal, but, on the other hand,
Emma supposed Nicky’s words might just as easily have warmed her heart. They were if nothing
else a bold declaration that Nicky was taking her seriously as a potential consort, and Alix was by
nature so solemn and bound to duty that she might actually be charmed by a rendezvous which began
with a visit to the scene of an assassination. Certainly no one could accuse Nicholas Romanov of
trying to misrepresent the challenges of his situation. It would be Alix’s situation too if she opted to
be his wife, although Emma was still not entirely sure what form that Nicky’s elegant and
compassionate empire would take. He could be speaking of bringing back the sort of reforms his
martyred grandfather had sought for the serfs, or he might have been merely planning to reconfigure
the dance protocol for royal balls. Either way, his words had made one thing quite clear: Nicky
resented and feared his father as much as the rest of Russia.
Alix had not yet answered.
“This is it,” Nicky said abruptly as they rolled toward a bridge. “The very place where my
grandfather was struck down.”
“And are we to pause at the spot?” Emma quietly asked the guard. “To allow the tsesarevich
and the princess to pay their respects?”
He did not turn away from the window to look at her as he answered, his shoulder so twisted
that she could barely see past it to the pale gray world beyond.