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Another of her jarring changes of subject, but by now Tom was growing use to them. “I have<br />
certainly heard of Fabrege. He is the royal jeweler, is he not?”<br />
Although the room was Tatiana’s, Ella confidently went to a bureau drawer and opened it. “I<br />
want you to see something,” she said. “I had it commissioned weeks ago, on some impulse I could<br />
not have explained, and now Tatiana has agreed to hide it for me until the proper time.” She<br />
unwrapped a cloth of blue velvet and revealed a golden egg, about the size of her hand, the top of it<br />
crusted in rubies and emeralds.<br />
“It is the only one of its kind,” she said, her voice sinking to a whisper. “They are all<br />
individual, you know, created by the master to mark a particular occasion or celebration.”<br />
She handed it to Tom, who cautiously turned it over in his palm. There were not only the large<br />
jewels at the top, but the egg was covered with a profusion of carefully wrought vines, each one<br />
coming to bud in the form of a perfectly-shaped seed pearl. The value of such an item was<br />
inestimable.<br />
“You will take it, yes?” Ella said quietly. “To remember your time here in Russia?”<br />
This is a land, Tom thought, in which anything can be bought. A woman’s child. A doctor’s<br />
silence. The passage of a suspected murderer across a national border.<br />
“The grandness of the gift overwhelms me,” Tom said. “But I fear I cannot accept. It is my duty<br />
and my honor to serve your Royal Highness in any capacity.”<br />
“Your Imperial Highness,” she corrected.<br />
“It is my honor to serve your Imperial Highness,” Tom amended, wondering once again what<br />
sort of subtle psychological nightmares awaited Tatiana Orlov during her long dark autumn by the sea<br />
with this woman.<br />
“And have you seen this part? It is exceptionally clever,” Ella went blithely on, changing mood<br />
so rapidly that Tom wondered if she was not merely spoiled and self-centered, but somehow mentally<br />
unsound. Ella pressed a panel in the center of the egg and a small golden hen popped out of the top.<br />
“Many of them are like this,” she said. “Designed with some sort of surprise inside, whether it<br />
is a small portrait of the person giving the gift or perhaps some symbolic message. As in this case, do<br />
you see? The hen represents fertility and is thus a subtle way for a woman to tell a man that she is<br />
carrying his child.”
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