The Diamond Secret (17 page)

Ivan approached her quietly, thinking that she looked every inch a princess, but not even an earthly one. Sitting there, so utterly transported by her reading, with the cherry blossoms blowing around her and the last of the light outlining her short blond waves, she struck him as having the radiance and otherworldly beauty of a princess from a fairy tale.

A twig snapped under Ivan's foot and Nadya looked up sharply, her head turning toward the sound. Her eyes narrowed with hostile suspicion when she saw him. "What do you want?" she demanded coldly.

"To explain."

"Oh, I don't think that's necessary," she scoffed with a cynical chuckle. "It's all pretty clear to me."

"Maybe it's not what you think," he suggested as he sat beside her on the bench. He saw she had been perusing a photo album filled with photographs of the Romanovs.

"I
think
that you deceived me to con a rich old woman into giving you a reward. How's that? Fairly accurate?"

"Completely accurate," he admitted grimly. "At least that's how it started, but along the way things changed."

"What things?"

"My feelings for--"

"What feelings?" she cried, standing. "You have no feelings! If you mean the romantic charade you've been performing to entertain yourself and to pump up that huge male ego of yours,
those
aren't feelings. I admit I fell for it at first but I see through it now, thank you very much!"

Ivan was at a turning point. He knew he could go one of two ways. He'd been on the verge of confessing his love for Nadya when she'd interrupted him. Her volatile outburst had presented him with another path, however.

If he had ever loved her, the feeling was never more overpowering than at this moment. She was so vulnerable, yet so strong in her anger. But if he loved her, he could not snatch away this new life from her. What kind of shallow, self-serving love would that be?

To confess his true feelings--as Ivan had almost done--would not be an act of love. He knew Nadya could be impulsive and emotional. He felt sure she loved him too, and so she would toss everything else aside for love. It was how she was--and he couldn't let her do it.

"You're right," he said, ridding his voice of warmth. "It's a hobby of mine; I like to see if I can get every girl I meet to fall for me. At first, you were such an ungodly mess I wasn't interested, but as you got better-looking along the way, you began to pique my interest."

Nadya's mortified expression made Ivan inwardly cringe, but he kept on. It would be better if she hated him; it would give him less of a chance to lose his resolve and beg her to come away with him. "Now I can add you to the list of my successes," he added.

Ivan's head snapped back as she slapped him hard across the face.

Mission accomplished, he thought with bitter irony as he rubbed his fiery cheek.

Tears racing down her cheeks, Nadya grabbed the photograph album from the bench and ran toward the estate, disappearing through a back door.

Ivan fought the impulse to go after her.

Instead, he headed back to the front gate and got the groundskeeper to let him out. He'd given no thought to how he'd get back to his hotel, but it didn't matter. He wanted to walk a while anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  

The Story Unfolds

Nadya clutched the photo album to her heaving chest as she stood in a dimly lit back hallway and allowed her tears to flow freely. What a truly terrible day this had turned out to be. She had been betrayed; her beloved doll was gone; even her meeting with the empress had not been the warm reunion she had hoped for. And now these awful, cruel words from Ivan!

Only the night before, her future had seemed full of hope. She was dancing in Ivan's arms, accepted by the guests and about to be reunited with her grandmother. How had things all gone wrong so quickly?

The empress stepped into a doorway at the end of the hall, leaning heavily on her cane. "I thought I heard something," she said. Quickly looking Nadya up and down, she realized her miserable state. "Are you crying? What's wrong?"

"I just fought with Ivan," Nadya admitted.

"Are you two in love?" the empress asked with the bluntness that Nadya was coming to realize was a hallmark of her personality.

"I thought we were. But it seems I was the only one in love."

Empress Marie nodded. "I see."

"I've been so stupid," Nadya said, wiping her eyes.

"Come closer so I can see you," the empress demanded.

When Nadya was beside her, Empress Marie noticed the photo album tucked under Nadya's arm. With a tightening brow, her eyes blazed angrily. "Where did you get that?"

Nadya reddened with embarrassment. "I'm sorry. It was open on your lap, and I started looking at it."

"How dare you!" the empress cried. "What did you hope to do, use what you learned in here to trick me?"

"No! Really, no!" Nadya insisted. "You were asleep, so I took the book to see if the photos would awaken any memories."

"And I suppose now you remember everything? Our life together in Russia, how lovely everything was, how you used to call me Granny," the empress said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Nadya shook her head. "No. Nothing came to me. I only felt sad that such a lovely family should have met so tragic an end."

The empress looked away sharply, as if studying something on the ceiling. When she turned back to Nadya, her eyes were rimmed in red. "Give me that book right now," the elderly woman barked fiercely.

Nadya moved to comply but then held back. "I must ask you about one photograph. Please, I need to know." Balancing the album on her hip, Nadya fumbled through to the page featuring the scarred man and held it up to the empress. "This man with the scar. Who is he?"

Empress Marie held her in an intense stare. "Why do you ask me that?"

"He was following me at the Trans-Siberian train station."

The empress gasped. "You saw him?"

"Yes, at the station."

"Then he's alive!"

Nadya nodded. "Who is he?"

"He was Rasputin's assistant, Lepski. Every bit as foul as his boss."

"Why have you kept his picture?"

"Because my Niki and Alexandra are in it. But I should cut those other two scoundrels out," she said. "You say he's been following you?"

"It seems that way. Do you know why?"

"Come into the library with me," she said with her hand held over her heart. "I need to sit. I will tell you what I know."

Empress Marie sat on the library couch with the album on her lap. Nadya settled into an upholstered chair across from her.

"Your mother loved..." Stopping, she scrutinized Nadya with narrowed eyes, assessing how to continue. "The czarina Alexandra," she amended, "loved her children very much, and she worried endlessly about Alexei's health. I don't know how he did it, but that devil Rasputin was the only one who seemed able to help him. This gave him tremendous influence with Alexandra. She gave him all sorts of gifts, but he was never satisfied."

"But if Rasputin could help, who could blame her?" Nadya sympathized.

"I understand, but she went too far," the empress said, shaking her head sadly. "Alexandra was a German princess, as was Marie Antoinette before she became the queen of France--another unfortunate victim of another bloody revolution. A priceless necklace that had once belonged to that ill-fated queen came to Alexandra through family lines. In a rash moment, when she was out of her mind with fear that Alexei would die, she promised it to Rasputin if he could cure the boy."

Nadya's hand crept to her throat as she listened in rapt silence. She did not fully remember her dreams, but she knew she had dreamed of a necklace of brilliant diamonds. "It was a diamond necklace?" she inquired quietly.

The empress was surprised. "How did you know?"

"I've dreamed of a diamond necklace. I think Rasputin and the czarina were in the dream."

"You've dreamed it? At night, while you slept?"

"Yes."

The empress's face softened for a moment before she tugged it back into stern lines. "The story was leaked briefly in the Russian newspapers before Niki had it suppressed. Perhaps you saw it. It ran with a drawing of the necklace."

"Perhaps I did," Nadya allowed. "It would have been from before the time I can remember."

"Well this insect, this Lepski, liked to drink, and when he was drunk he would brag that Rasputin was soon to come into possession of an invaluable heirloom. This story got to Prince Yuperov, who hated Rasputin with a passion--as did many others. It was he who eventually orchestrated Rasputin's execution. When he heard that Rasputin would get the necklace, he was outraged. He said it was state property, since Alexandra was the czarina of All the Russias. He intervened before Alexandra could hand over the necklace to Rasputin, and Niki took Yuperov's side in the argument."

As though jolted from her unconscious mind by Empress Marie's recollections, the images of this scene--the men and Alexandra struggling for the necklace--returned to Nadya. It made her nearly dizzy with emotion as she realized that she knew exactly what the empress was telling her, as though she had seen the whole thing.

This was no dream concocted from a newspaper report. She had seen this!

"My son sided with Prince Yuperov and Count Dubinksy, who aided the prince. He denied Rasputin the necklace. This fellow Lepski was more incensed over Niki's decision than even Rasputin appeared to be. He swore revenge on the whole Romanov family if the necklace was not given over. Apparently Rasputin had promised him the diamonds from the bottom strand."

"Why did Prince Yuperov spare his life?" Nadya asked.

"Before they attempted to execute Rasputin, they got him drunk. Lepski was there and became so inebriated that he fell under the table. He was roused by the commotion during the struggle with Rasputin, and he crawled away."

"What became of the necklace?"

"No one knows," Empress Marie replied, but Nadya was sure she had detected a small catch in the woman's voice, a split second of hesitation. No one else knows, perhaps, she thought, but you know, don't you? She decided not to press the subject, even though she was sure the empress was lying. What was the point in antagonizing her?

Empress Marie studied Nadya with a direct gaze. "I wish my eyesight were better and I could see you clearly," she said. "But this Lepski obviously believes you are Anastasia. He saw the girl many times--to my great displeasure, let me add."

"You think that's why he's been following me?"

"Why else?" the empress questioned. "That has to be the reason."

"What would he want from me?"

"The same thing your friends want? The reward?" the empress suggested.

"They're no longer my friends," Nadya said strongly.

"You really did not know about the reward?" asked the empress incredulously.

"I swear to you, I didn't. I came with them because anything would have been better than where I was. I hoped they would help me find my lost family. I would be just as happy to find my grandmother if she lived in a run-down cottage in the country. I'm so tired of being lost and alone."

Empress Marie reached out her soft, bony hand and laid it on top of Nadya's hand. "I am too," she said.

As Nadya looked into the empress's eyes, she felt sure this was her grandmother. It was an instinct, a kind of blood recognition. But could she trust it? The feeling might be mere wishful thinking. "I wish I could tell you for certain who I am," she said honestly.

The empress nodded. "So do I." Setting aside the album, Empress Marie stood. "Put on your best evening outfit. We will dine at The Ritz, and then I will take you to the Paris Opera House. Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, a fine Russian story, is being performed. Let's see what the other White Russians in Paris make of you."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  

The Scarred Man's Attack

So now it was done. Over between them. It was for the best. Ivan tried to convince himself of this as he followed the trail of the Seine River on his way back to the center of Paris.