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and grandparents were literally looking down upon them. If Ella and Serge were keeping their
decorous distance, Nicky and Alix were the opposite, with every gesture illustrating their mutual
affection. They leaned ever-so-slightly toward each other, even when politely chatting with others
seated around them, and young Alix was flushed with happiness. Nicky glanced at her frequently, his
own pleasure in her company equally evident, and the sight of them made Trevor somewhat ashamed.
His function during this entire trip was to collect proof that the country was unsuitable for the
Queen’s favorite granddaughter and the Russians were making his task very easy indeed. Three
murders in a week was scarcely a ringing endorsement for life within the Winter Palace. And the
Queen was right, of course, to wish a different future for Alix than the dreary fate which had trapped
Ella, and yet the sight of Alix and Nicky sharing shy smiles troubled Trevor. Only a fool would doubt
that they were most sincerely in love.
Trevor’s own table boasted the presence of the tsar’s elder daughter, Xenia, who looked to be
barely in her teens. He tried to remember what Emma had said on the ship during her lecture on
protocol, and could only recall that a princess, the daughter of a king, must curtsy to a grand duchess,
the daughter of a tsar. He wondered how many times Ella had supplicated before this pudgy,
nondescript child, and how far she was required to stand behind her husband’s niece on state
occasions. He suspected that her life was full of such small indignities and was only glad that the
obscurity of the German staircase had meant that very few foreign eyes had been treated to the sight of
the mighty Victoria inclining her own head - barely an inch, but still - to the Tsar.
Next to pick out the infamous Konstantin, which was simple enough. Emma had described him
as “Oriental, but not at all as you’d think,” and Trevor’s eyes were almost immediately pulled toward
a tall, elegant man at a seat a good deal more far-flung than his own. The only Asians Trevor had
ever seen were the chaps who ran the tailoring houses of London, and they were small, darting people
who seemed to be perpetually looking at the ground. This man’s height gave him presence, and the
absence of ornamentation on his clothing further distinguished him. And yet it was his strange
stillness which Trevor found the most compelling. Nothing in his manner betrayed even the slightest
anxiety, which was noteworthy in this room of incessant chattering and high, manic laughter, and
Trevor was forced to admit that it was easy to imagine all sorts of women being drawn to him. If
Serge seemed perfectly cast as the unfeeling villain in the piece, then Konstantin Antonovich was
equally well suited to play the role of exotic lover.
Tatiana was harder to find. Small and blonde and pretty was all he had to go on, and that
description could have been applied to a dozen women within his sites. The odds were she would
be sitting near her husband, but Trevor did not see anyone fitting Rayley’s description of Orlov at all.