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Chapter Ten
The Winter Palace – The Premiere Ballroom
June 19, 1889
3:45 PM
“You fight me.”
“I promise you that I do not.”
The dance instructor dropped his hands from Emma’s waist and stepped back so that they stood
for a moment in silence, each considering the other. She had never met a man quite like him.
Eurasian, the term was. His straight black hair, pulled taut and knotted at the nape of his neck,
certainly gave him an Oriental look, as did his high cheekbones and deep set brown eyes. But his
height and pale skin were undeniably Russian. He told her he came from Siberia, that part of the map
which lay between the finely-detailed countries of Europe and the blank empty expanse of Mongolia.
His features, like the land, were a bit of a compromise.
He frightened her. Or perhaps it was the waltz itself. When Emma told Trevor she knew how
to waltz, she had anticipated a dance quite different from this. The English version of a waltz
involved standing straight up, with the man bracing the woman at arm’s length, the two of them
moving at a slow and measured pace through the shape of a box. She had not been in the ballroom of
the Winter Palace for ten minutes before she realized that what Konstantin expected of her was
something else indeed. Something swift, whirling, unpredictable in form and powerful in execution.
The Russians claimed their women like they claimed everything else – hips thrust forward and in the
pace of a gallop.
“The imperial family,” Konstantin said, pointing to the balcony level, “sits there. Everything
we do is to entertain them, so your face must be tilted upward. You know what this means?”
“I must lean backwards.”
A displeased toss of the head. “This is a myth, you know. The myth of the waltz. The woman
does not actually lean back. It is a trick of the eye. I will show you. Come here.”