The Diamond Secret (13 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
   

Anastasia Is Presented

Two nights later, Ivan studied his tuxedo-clad image in the full-length mirror. He had to admit that he looked good. This was the first time he'd ever worn such an outfit.

Downstairs, the quartet the count had hired for the party was warming up. Punching his fist into his open palm, Ivan began to pace anxiously. Either these aristocrats would accept Nadya as Anastasia or all three of them would be condemned as frauds. They'd convinced Dubinsky and his sister easily enough, but this would be the real test.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Ivan pictured how the evening might play out. Nadya would be overwhelmed and confused about how to behave with the aristocrats. She wouldn't know what fork to use for her salad or would fail to understand all their references to the sophisticated worlds of classical music and fine art. The guests would begin to look at Nadya askance and would speculate among themselves. They might think the girl was too common and uneducated to be the lost grand duchess.

Ivan pictured Nadya upset. He saw himself consoling her, telling her not to worry. At least they had found each other. They would return to Moscow together, never again to be parted.

Ivan stood abruptly and shook his head. "No!" It was not acceptable to wish for failure. He had set out to make a large sum of money and to change his life. He would take his half of the reward but would not return to Russia at all. He'd stay in Paris and begin life anew, without the threat of being arrested for deserting the army. Nothing could deter him from that, certainly not anything as whimsical and fleeting as an infatuation with a tavern girl.

And a tavern girl was exactly what she was; there was no point in convincing himself that she was anything other than that. If Ivan was being brutally honest, though, he had to admit that he had started to confuse Nadya with the girl he'd seen there in the woods.

Unbidden, a picture from that day returned to him. He saw the slim, sun-dappled figure in her gauzy dress as she had stood seconds before she fell. In slow motion, he remembered how Anastasia's arm had reached into the air, how gracefully her back had arched as she danced that hideous ballet with death.

Ivan remembered then what he had never before allowed himself to recall: a split second when they had locked eyes. She had looked to him as if asking for advice:
What should I do?

Ivan could not have helped. Aghast with horror, he had no plan of escape to offer her. But they had shared this terrible moment together--and in that split second, he had given his heart to her.

In that moment just before she'd died, Ivan had fallen in love with the grand duchess Anastasia Romanov. His was the last face she had seen. Hers was the face he would see over and over in his dreams forever more.

Sergei knocked on the door and stepped inside. In his tuxedo, he looked every inch the aristocratic count he'd once been. "Ready?" he asked cheerily.

"Aren't you the least bit nervous?" Ivan asked.

"No. She'll do just fine. People will understand that she's lost her memory."

"But do people with amnesia lose all memory? Do they forget what they've learned of art and culture?" Ivan asked desperately.

"I don't know," Sergei admitted. "I've never personally known anyone else with amnesia. But I'll tell you one thing she hasn't forgotten: She writes in the most exquisite script."

"Are you saying there's some breeding and culture in her background?"

"I don't know how else she'd write like that."

"Well, let's hope she draws on that mysterious background of culture tonight," Ivan said. "She'll need every bit of it."

They went downstairs together, as Count Dubinsky's guests were starting to arrive. Sergei knew many of them from the days when they'd traveled in the same aristocratic circles in Moscow. Ivan stood at Sergei's side, smiling blandly and shaking hands as he was introduced to the various counts, countesses, dukes, duchesses, barons, baronesses, and even princes and princesses. It hurt Ivan to see the pain in his friend's eyes whenever someone inquired after his wife and son. Each time Sergei said the same thing: "We became separated while fleeing the Bolsheviks. If you hear anything of them, please send word to Count Dubinsky."

There were close to a hundred guests assembled in the grand ballroom, eating small pancakes topped with caviar and sipping flutes of champagne, when a servant opened the painted doors on the far side of the room.

Irina stepped into the grand room, dressed in a black gown with a purple lace shawl, and addressed the crowd. "Thank you for joining my brother and me on this very special evening. Tonight, as promised, we wish to present you with a most wonderful surprise. It is our delight to present to you our guest of honor, a most beloved personage whom we had all despaired we would not see again. It is with the deepest joy that I present to you Her Imperial Highness, the grand duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna Romanov!"

An astonished gasp swept through the crowd of guests.

Ivan drew in a deep breath and held it.

Wearing an expression of utter panic, Nadya stepped into the doorway. She wore a shimmering strapless blue gown that skimmed her form like water as it flowed to her feet. Elbow-high white gloves accompanied the dress, and Ivan silently thanked Irina for her thoroughness in assembling the outfit. He never would have thought of gloves, and he doubted that Nadya would have, either, but it wouldn't have done to have her shaking hands with those work-worn, calloused palms.

Nadya's short blond hair was swept up in a slim blue headband and topped with elegantly small curls that Ivan knew had to be a hairpiece but looked lovely nonetheless. If they'd consulted him, Ivan would have vetoed makeup. But he had to admit, the light blush of rouge on Nadya's cheekbones highlighted them to dramatic effect, and he'd never realized her eyes were as startlingly blue as they appeared now, ringed with liner and mascara.

A moment of awed silence passed as everyone stared at Nadya, the phantasm returned from the grave. The silence was broken when a heavyset countess cried out passionately, "Das Vedanta! Hail to Mother Russia!"

The crowd took up the cry as they swarmed forth to embrace their lost princess, the living symbol of all that once had been. Many women and even some men wept openly and without shame. "Give her room. Let her breathe," Irina firmly cautioned, guiding Nadya through the affectionate, murmuring crowd.

Sergei chuckled with triumphant glee. "What do you think of our girl now, eh?"

Ivan didn't answer. His thoughts were on the image of a man he'd detected skulking outside a window. The man had peered in, riveted by the sight of Nadya as she had stood in the doorway, so much so that he'd stepped into sight, forgetting to hang back in hiding. Quickly, though, he'd recovered his wits and had darted back away from the window, but not before Ivan had gotten a look at him. He was a short, dark-haired man with a ragged, twisted scar curling across his face.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
   

The Face at the Window

Sergei watched from the party sidelines as Ivan leaped to the window, peering out frantically, as though searching the night for some threat. Setting down his untouched flute of champagne, Sergei hurried to join his friend at the window. "What is it?"

"The man Nadya saw at the station--I think he's out there," Ivan reported.

"Impossible!" Sergei asserted, but Ivan already was off toward the front door. Sergei instinctively followed. "Do you see anyone?" he asked, joining Ivan on the wide outdoor steps.

Jumping athletically to the bottom, Ivan swatted the adjacent bushes in an effort to drive out the intruder, but it was to no avail. "I swear he was there, Sergei. He had the most awful scar, just as Nadya had described him."

Sergei scanned the grounds, but all that moved were the rustling leaves stirred by the evening breeze. "Do you think it was the same man from the station?" he asked Ivan.

"It could be," Ivan replied.

"He must be after Nadya. He missed his chance to get her at the train station, and now he's biding his time since he's out of his jurisdiction," Sergei suggested. "Let's get back to the party. We've left her alone inside."

Together they raced back into the ballroom. Anxiously, Sergei scanned the crowd for Nadya and, with a sigh of relief, found her encircled by a group of fawning guests, chatting amiably.

Sergei could hear her bright, contagious laughter through the crowd, and it made him smile. He had come to know its sound so well. How radiant she was tonight! "She is every bit a grand duchess," Sergei said to Ivan.

Ivan didn't seem to hear him as he stared at Nadya with rapt attention. It was as though Ivan was spellbound.

A young man in tails crossed the room, bringing her a plate of food. Another approached from a different direction with a flute of champagne. Nadya smiled graciously at both of them before setting both the food and the drink on a nearby table. The two men didn't even notice that Nadya had set aside their gifts, she'd done it with such deft grace, smiling at them all the while.

The quartet struck up a waltz. Sergei watched as Ivan slid through the circle of admirers surrounding the radiant Nadya. With a quick but gallant bow, he invited her to dance. She smiled and accepted.

Ivan whirled Nadya out onto the dance floor, creating a buzz of excitement. He swept her along in time with the music, and the two melted together in an effortless flow of movement. How good they looked--he so handsome and confident, she the very image of grace and beauty!

The way Nadya leaned into Ivan's arms moved Sergei to think of other dances long ago when he'd held his Elana in much the same way. The two of them had been deeply in love, and so when he saw Ivan and Nadya together, Sergei recognized the body language.

With a pang of nerves, Sergei scanned the party's sidelines in search of this mysterious scarred man. He saw no one who fit the description--nor anyone who looked like Rasputin's assistant--and he gradually began to relax a little. The man had probably run off, realizing that Ivan had caught sight of him.

Sergei seated himself on a velvet chair to consider their situation. What a success Nadya had made of this evening! After tonight, word would spread like a rampant wildfire that a member of the Romanov Imperial Family had miraculously survived.

White Russians loyal to the Romanovs were scattered all over Scandinavia, Europe, and even Asia. Before this party even was over, word would most likely reach some of them via telegrams. By the morning, talk of counterrevolution--of reclaiming Imperial Russia with the czarina Anastasia on the throne--would probably be swirling. The excitement would be widespread. It was likely that the empress Marie would already be expecting them by the time they arrived in Paris.

For the most part, this was all good. The more the world embraced Nadya as Anastasia, the more at ease she would become. This general acceptance would encourage the empress to see Nadya as her granddaughter as well.

The immensity of what Ivan and he were doing impressed itself on Sergei for the first time, and he drew in a deep breath to calm himself. How had he not seen it before? Was he a fool? How had he not realized they were about to unleash a political whirlwind with tremendous consequences in Russia, possibly even the world?

They hadn't intended to start a counterrevolution!

It hadn't even occurred to them. But tonight, seeing the light of excited fervor that the sight of Anastasia had rekindled in the eyes of these exiled Russians, he knew they'd gotten themselves into something much bigger than they'd expected.

The sudden notoriety that would surely follow made the man with the scarred face even more dangerous. It would be all the more difficult to slip past him now.

Just how dangerous was he?

Out on the dance floor, Ivan had his left hand planted on Nadya's waist as he expertly steered her around the dance floor. He'd mentioned to Sergei that one of the many odd jobs he'd worked was as a ballroom dancing instructor's assistant. It showed. But Nadya--where had she learned to dance with such fluid ease?

Nadya
must
have been brought up and educated in a wealthy family. But then why had no one come looking for her when she went missing? Maybe her family was dead; the Bolsheviks had been merciless to the aristocracy and the upper classes.

The poor girl; she'd been through so much. It was good to see her so radiantly happy, as she appeared to be, there on the dance floor in Ivan's arms.

Were they bringing her to a happy life or ushering her into a strange world of political intrigue? Or--and this sent a chill down Sergei's spine--by having her pose as Anastasia were they as good as signing her death sentence?

The music stopped. Though the other dancers left the dance floor, Ivan held Nadya in his embrace. Her head rested on his shoulder as they swayed together to a love song only they could hear.