shoulder, unbidden, Alexei waved at his father and smiled, his blue eyes alight.
Hawke stood mute, staring at the door long after the nurse had pulled it closed behind her.
“Alex?” Anastasia said, stirring him out of his reverie.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to go for a walk along the lake? The snow has stopped and the light is lovely.”
“Yes. Fresh air would be good.”
“We can skate on the pond if you wish. The ice is perfect.”
“I’ve never learned. But I’d love to watch you.”
“Your coat is hanging in the entrance hall. I’ll run upstairs and get my skates and meet you at the door in ten minutes. All right?”
“Perfect.”
W atching Anastasia glide with such simple grace and style across the ice, Hawke could almost hear Tchaikovsky on the wind in the trees. He found himself remembering their evening together in Moscow at the Bolshoi, alone in the darkness of her father’s private box. The ballet had been Swan Lake, each member of the corps of ballerinas a perfect white swan, each one lovelier than the next, creating a rhapsodic fantasy in the air above the frozen wintry pond.
That night, in that privileged cocoon of privacy, with the music filling him up, she had told him she was pregnant with his child. She had been afraid it would make him run; he told her she had made him happier than he had ever been. It was true. That small moment would always be one he would treasure, the moment when the woman he loved told him she was carrying his child, his son.
Little did he realize then how that brief interlude would soon come to haunt his every waking moment.
J ust how long he sat there on that wooden bench, beneath a stand of bare trees beside the frozen pond, wrapped within his ridiculous bearskin coat, enraptured by the mere sight of Asia’s flashing silver skates, he would not remember. He would only remember what followed.
She flew toward him, her arms outstretched like slender white wings, one leg extended perfectly behind her. Suddenly she spun and stopped, her silver skates creating a small cloud of glittering ice around her. Then she was beside him on the wooden bench, bundled up in her long white mink fur, the hood pulled up, hiding her dark gold hair. Her eyes were big and shining, her cheeks aflame, her radiant beauty piped to the surface of her with the cold.
“I love you,” he said simply. “I always will.”
“And I shall always love you,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Until my last breath.”
He put his arm around her and drew her near.
“I will find a way, you know. I will find a way.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean? Find a way?”
“A way for us all to be together. The three of us. A way out of here. This prison, this frozen fortress. To go somewhere no one can find us. Ever. I will build a fortress around us. I will shelter you and Alexei. I will protect you from any harm. We will begin again. To love each other. To love our child. To raise him to become the-”
He felt her stiffen. And then convulse, her shoulders heaving. He heard her sobs from inside the cowl of white mink.
“What, darling?” he said, pulling her closer. “What is it?”
“It cannot be, Alex. It cannot ever be.”
“What cannot be?”
“What you want. Your beautiful dream. It is not possible.”
“Why? Why on earth do you say such a thing?” He felt his heart lurch within his chest.
She pulled away and looked at him, her eyes spilling tears.
“Oh, my darling Alex. You have no idea what you have done. By coming here.”
“Done? I have come to take you away. You and our child. What do you mean I have no idea-”
“Alex. Please. Listen.”
“I am listening.”
“I cannot go with you. I cannot ever leave here, leave this place. This is my home, Alex, my sanctuary. I am safe here. So is Alexei. Did you know there is a price on both our heads? The Tsarists in the politburo want Alexei and me dead. For betraying my father. Only Kuragin stands in their way. But he’s made sure that one can hurt us here. No one.”
“What are you saying? I don’t even-we love each other. We have a child to protect. We have-”
“We have nothing, Alex. Nothing.”
“Nothing? We have each other. We have Alexei! And that is nothing? God in heaven, Anastasia, what can you be thinking?”
Anastasia pulled away from him, stood up, and looked down at him, tears coursing down both cheeks, her lower lip trembling, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Alex, it’s Nikolai. General Kuragin saved me from a firing squad. He saved your son, Alexei, from infanticide. They were going to bash his head against the wall as soon as he was born. The grandson of a tsar, even a dead one, will be a political threat inside the Kremlin for decades to come. Think about it. The bastard son of the Englishman who assassinated their great and noble Tsar? They hate him!”
“Yes. I see what you are saying. But, surely-”
“Nikolai Kuragin is our only hope! He is our savior! He is Alexei’s and my only real chance of survival, Alex. You must believe me, because it is true.”
“I can protect you. I can protect you both. It’s what I do, you know.”
“You want me to believe that we will be safer anywhere on earth than we are here in this fortress? Do you not understand that? They want me dead. They want our child dead and out of their way. It is the Russian way. Centuries of Russian politics repeated.”
Hawke looked away for a moment, his mind reeling. For how long had he wandered in his wilderness of grief? Insupportable grief, yes, and loss. Years. And now Asia was here before him, alive, and he felt as if he were fighting for her love! Fighting for his own son! No, more, he was fighting for his life, the one that had been ripped from him on that island in Sweden.
“My resources are easily the equal of Kuragin’s. Vastly superior.”
“He will never allow it.”
“ He will never allow it? Stand between me and my family’s rightful happiness? No one can do that, believe me. Surely the general will understand us, Anastasia,” Hawke said, softening his tone, trying to keep the creeping desperation from his voice. He was shaken. He was beginning to doubt himself. And doubt was something completely alien to his being, his core. He took a moment to compose himself before speaking.
Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him, gazing directly into her lovely eyes.
“Anastasia, listen to me. Kuragin knows we love each other. Surely he can comprehend that it’s natural that we want to be together. Raise our child in some seminormal environment instead of some bloody barbed-wire prison. Listen, I’ll return to the palace and find Kuragin right now. He and I will straighten all this out, as gentlemen. I’m sure he will see reason. Why would he not? Why on earth would he keep the three of us apart, keep us from the happiness we truly deserve and-”
“Alex, please sit back down. There is something more I must tell you. Please sit. Now, before you say another word.”
“I can hear quite well standing up, thank you.”
She took a deep breath and let the dreaded sentence spill out all at once:
“Nikolai and I are married.”
“Married, you say? Don’t talk nonsense. He’s old enough to be your grandfather. It’s beneath you.”
“Listen, please. I believed utterly and completely that you were dead, Alex. I saw you from my bedroom window, facedown in the snow. I watched you bleeding to death before my own eyes. I wanted to die myself. Then, in prison, Alexei was born. I knew I had to survive in order to protect him. The grandson of the dead Tsar was suddenly a threat to many inside and outside the Kremlin who-”
“But how could you-”
