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“Don’t worry,” one of them called back up, a man who had removed his hat to reveal a bald
head and heavy-boned face. “We shall all be out of the way far before your rehearsal time. This
incident shall not affect the imperial waltz.”
Good god, he thinks I have come here because I’m worried about the waltz scene, Tatiana
thought and her eyes swept the room again, more slowly and carefully this time. Konstantin still did
not appear. But then again, he did not sleep with a member of the tsar’s private guard. Perhaps he
did not yet know that this “incident” had even occurred.
“I believe she asked you for their names,” came a voice behind her. Cold, self-assured. Tatiana
turned to see Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister-in-law to the tsar, and known as Ella to the
court, also making her way down the staircase. Tatiana sank into a curtsy and Ella nodded
distractedly. Her focus was on the scene below them.
Everyone claimed that Ella had been the prettiest princess of Europe, courted by royals from
every corner of the continent, but Tatiana had never considered the Grand Duchess especially
beautiful. Or perhaps it would be better to say that her beauty was not the sort of dainty femininity
that Russians men generally admired. There was a stony quality to Ella’s features, which were
prominent and even a bit masculine. This severity was echoed in the face of her attendant, another
Englishwoman, this one sent by the Queen, presumably to quell her granddaughter’s loneliness in this
land so far from her birth. Despite the fact that Ella’s acknowledgment of her curtsy had been
perfunctory, Tatiana remained in her pose of supplication, looking up through her eyelashes. The
woman above her was born to royalty, married to royalty, and stood far above the wife of a
bodyguard by every standard society could apply, and yet there is a meritocracy of nature too, is there
not? And in this ranking, Tatiana knew she reigned supreme. There was no denying the doll-like
symmetry of her face, the roundness of her breasts, the ringlets which formed, without coaxing, in her
hair. Taken in this manner, Tatiana’s deep curtsy might even be seen as ironic.
When the men on the stage remained silent, Ella answered her own question. “Their names are
Katya Gorbunkova and Yulian Krupin,” she said, the comments presumably directed toward Tatiana,
although her eyes had never left the stage below them. “Both of the tsar’s imperial ballet,” Ella
continued. “Chosen as leads at an age when their peers are still vying for an invitation to the troupe.
Their deaths are a waste of talent as well as youth.”
“We have not formally met,” Tatiana said, rising at last. “But I am Tatiana Orlov and will also
dance in the imperial waltz.”
“I may have seen you in the rehearsals,” Ella said, flicking her eyes in Tatiana’s direction then