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Chapter One
London - The Lawns of Windsor Palace
June 13, 1889
2:29 PM
The Queen was not pleased.
Her Most Royal Highness Victoria of the House of Hanover, monarch of the United Kingdom
and Empress of India, might have been regent to the largest, richest, and most powerful empire of the
civilized world – but she was also a grandmother. The impulse to protect beat strong in her chest,
especially when it came to Alix, who, of the Queen’s thirty-four grandchildren, had always been her
favorite.
And it seemed that Alix was determined to go to Russia.
The problem was that Alix’s request appeared so reasonable on the surface. Her older sister
Ella had lived in Russia ever since she married the Grand Duke Serge four years earlier. In her letters
Ella claimed that life in St. Petersburg was quite delightful - full of balls, hunts, and a continual
enjoyment of the fine arts. She was even making noises about converting to Russian Orthodoxy, a
threat that the Queen could only assume to be some sort of bizarre joke.
But Ella was the sort who would always pretend that everything was fine, no matter what the
actual truth of a situation might be. A whistler in the dark, adaptable and confident, a girl who knew
how to muddle through even in the midst of the most appalling cultural barriers. Alix was only
sixteen and different in every way from her sister. Besides, even if she were not, Victoria would
have opposed Ella’s plan to bring Alix to St. Petersburg for the summer.
The real problem, of course, was Nicky.
Ella might say she was merely inviting her little sister to enjoy a grand ball at the Winter
Palace, some celebration in honor of a Russian composer, a man with one of those long, ridiculously
unpronounceable Russian names. Ella might say that she only wanted to play hostess in her lavish
suite of rooms, to enchant Alix with the endless light of St. Petersburg in June. But the Queen was no
fool. She saw behind the charmingly-stated request of Ella’s effusive letter, which had begun with