Prince Of Dreams (19 page)

About halfway through the crowd of prospective brides, Nikolas caught a glimpse of a girl with red hair, taller than the rest. She was standing several places down the line, noticeable because of her extreme stillness, while all the others fidgeted. Her face was turned away from him, but the way she stood with her shoulders slumped to conceal her height…

He strode directly to her. Sidarov followed in consternation, calling, “Prince Nikolai, you've passed over some of these very nice girls…”

As soon as Nikolas reached the young woman, he seized her by the arms, stared into her startled blue eyes, and shook her slightly. Mingled fury and relief coursed through his body. “Emma,” he snapped, automatically switching to English. “What's going on? What are you doing here?”

She shook her head in bewilderment and answered in flawless Russian. “Your Highness…I don't understand. Forgive me if I have offended you.”

Nikolas let go of her as if he'd received an electric shock. Emma didn't speak Russian. But it was
her
voice, her face and body, her eyes. He was quiet, baffled, staring hard at her while the rest of the assemblage broke into questioning chatter.

Sidarov took it upon himself to address the girl. “You with the red hair,” he said calmly. “What is your name?”

She replied while still holding Nikolas's gaze. “Emelia.”

“I want to talk with you,” Nikolas said in a low voice. “Now.”

Before anyone had time to react, he swept her out of the ballroom. The crowd of women swarmed in disarray, the line dissolving into a confused mass. Prince Golorkov began to laugh heartily. “Nikolai,” he called out, “you're supposed to wait until
after
the ceremony for that!”

Nikolas ignored the group and continued tugging at the girl's wrist. She followed more or less obediently as he led her to the first available room and closed the door behind them. Only then did she pull free of him, twisting her wrist hard in order to break his grip.

“What happened?” Nikolas demanded, looming over her. “We were arguing in the parlor, and Soames brought in the damned portrait, and everything went dark—”

“I'm sorry, I don't understand,” she said in Russian, rubbing her reddened wrist. She stared at him apprehensively, as if wondering about his sanity.

Nikolas was enraged by the fluid ease with which she spoke. “The last time I saw you, you knew fewer than ten words of Russian!”

The girl began to back away from him. “I don't think we've ever met before,” she whispered, her gaze darkening with alarm. “Your Highness, please let me leave—”

“Wait. Wait. Don't be afraid of me.” Nikolas snatched her back and held her stiff body close to his. Wildly he tried to collect his wits. “Don't you know me, Emma?”

“I…I know
of
you, Prince Nikolai. Everyone respects and fears you.”

Nikolas freed one hand and grasped the vibrant red plait hanging down her back. “The same hair,” he murmured. His fingers brushed the pale, downy surface of her cheek. “The same skin…the same freckles…the same blue eyes…” He felt a surge of deep pleasure at holding her in his arms, so beautiful, so familiar. Her lips, parted in dismay, were as full and tempting as ever. He bent and kissed her suddenly. She gasped in shock, offering neither response nor rejection. Nikolas finished the kiss with a gentle brush of his lips and lifted his head. “The same taste,” he said hoarsely. “It has to be you. Don't you remember me?”

There was a knock at the door, and Sidarov's anxious voice. “Prince Nikolai? Your Highness—”

“Not now!” Nikolas snarled. He waited until he heard the sound of retreating footsteps. Returning his attention to the girl in his arms, Nikolas pulled her tightly against him. He closed his eyes and inhaled the fragrance of her skin. “I don't know what's happening,” he said into the soft space just below her ear. “Nothing makes sense.”

Emelia struggled free with a burst of energy. Putting a distance of several feet between them, she stared at him and raised a trembling hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide and very blue. “Your Highness…have you chosen me? Is that why you've taken me aside like this?”

Nikolas was silent, trying to comprehend what was happening.

Somehow reading an answer in his expression, Emelia gave a little nod, as if something she had long wondered about had just been confirmed. “I thought you would,” she said gravely. “Somehow…I knew if I came to Moscow, you would pick me.”

“How did you know that?” Nikolas asked hoarsely.

“It was just a feeling. I heard the things they say about you, and I thought…I might be a good wife for a man like you.”

Nikolas moved toward her, and she countered with a small backward step. He forced himself to stand still, although he ached to reach for her once again. “What do they say about me?”

“That you are very intelligent and modern. They also say you are in great favor with the tsar because you spent some time in the West and you understand the foreigners. You even shave your face like them.” Emelia stared at the hard line of his jaw with open curiosity. “All the men in my village have beards.” Slowly she approached him, lifting her hand to his face. She stroked the surface of his chin once, twice, her fingertips soft on his skin. A shy smile hovered on her lips. “It's smooth, like a little boy's.”

Nikolas caught her hand and held the palm against his cheek. She was warm, real…too real for this to be a dream. “Emma, look at me. Tell me you've never been with me before. Tell me we've never touched, never kissed. Tell me that you don't know me.”

“I…” She shook her head helplessly, her gaze fixed on his.

He let go of her and prowled through the room in a wide circle, compelling her to turn in order to watch him. “Then who are you?” he asked in a low voice, feeling angry and hollow inside.

“I am Emelia Vasilievna.”

“What about your family?”

“My father is dead. My uncle and brother were taken from the village and sent to work on the new city on the Neva. I couldn't live alone in the village, and I didn't want to marry any of the farmers there.”

“Why not?”

“Most of the men were taken from the village by the tsar, to build Petersburg. The only ones left didn't want to marry me.” Faced with his questioning silence, she continued hesitantly. “My family was unpopular because of my father's political beliefs. But it didn't matter that no one offered for me. They're either too old or too young, and none of them is fit to work. And they're all poor. I wanted more than that.”

“More money?”

“No,” she protested. “I wanted someone to talk to. I wanted to learn things, and find out what the world beyond the forest is like.” She lowered her head and added in embarrassed honesty, “Of course, I wouldn't mind being rich. I think I would like to try it.”

Suddenly Nikolas laughed in a flash of genuine amusement. The comment was so much like Emma, a potent reminder of his wife's charming bluntness. “Well, such open ambition should be rewarded.”

“Your Highness?” she said, clearly perplexed.

Nikolas took a deep breath. “What I meant was, I'll marry you. I'll go along with this for a time. God willing, it will end sooner or later.”

“What will end?”

“The nightmare,” he muttered. “The vision. Whatever you want to call this. It all seems so real that I'm beginning to think I've gone insane. But there's not much I can do about it, is there? I choose you, Emma…Emelia…whoever you are. I'll always choose you, though you may damn me for it later.”

“I don't understand—”

“Never mind.” He extended a hand to her. “Just come with me.”

She hesitated and then reached out for him, her long fingers clinging to his.

Nikolas took her back to the ballroom, where Golorkov and Sidarov and the entire crowd of women waited expectantly. With an extravagant sweep of his hand, Nikolas indicated the blushing woman at his side. “This is my bride,” he said in a sardonic imitation of a pleased bridegroom.

Prince Golorkov applauded. “Excellent choice, Nikolai! What a fine-looking female! Surely she will bear you many healthy sons.”

Nikolas turned to Sidarov and arched a questioning brow. “When's the wedding?”

The inquiry sent Golorkov into a spasm of laughter. “Such wit!”

Sidarov tried to cover his worry with a thin smile. “Tonight, of course. At the Angelovsky house. Unless Your Highness wishes to wait—”

“Tonight it is,” Nikolas said abruptly. “I want to return home now.”

“But our drink…” Golorkov protested.

Nikolas made an attempt at a friendly smile. “If you wouldn't mind sharing one some other time?”

“Whenever you like,” the older man replied, still chuckling.

Nikolas was taken back home in his carriage, with Emelia nestled in the space beside him. Sidarov occupied the opposite seat. Emelia spoke little, except for her refusal to share the fur lap robe with Nikolas.

“I'm not cold,” she said.

Nikolas snorted sardonically. “Really? Then why are you blue and trembling?” He lifted the side of the fur and motioned for her to join him. “Your attack of modesty is unnecessary. I'm hardly going to seduce you with my steward sitting nearby—and in any case, we're going to be married in a matter of hours. Come sit next to me.”

“I'm not cold,” she repeated stubbornly, her teeth beginning to chatter.

“Fine. Don't blame me if you freeze to death before we reach home.”

“There is less danger for me out here,” she replied, “than under there.” She pointed to the lap robe significantly, then turned away to indicate the argument was finished.

Sidarov watched the exchange with speculation and a surprising trace of satisfaction. “You appear to have chosen well, Prince Nikolai,” he remarked. “A strong and spirited woman is what every man should marry.”

Nikolas gave him a sour look and didn't reply.

As soon as they reached the Angelovsky estate, Nikolas was separated from Emelia by a troop of servants bent on making preparations for the approaching ceremony. He secluded himself in his suite of rooms and demanded to be given a bottle of vodka and a tray of
zakuski
. The refreshments were brought to him speedily, along with a warning from Sidarov not to become too drunk before the wedding.

Nikolas wandered around the bedchamber, swigging vodka from the bottle in his hand. He could hear sounds coming from the rooms below—scurrying feet and rapid voices, an occasional burst of excited laughter. His mood worsened with each minute that passed.

Investigating his surroundings, Nikolas stared closely at the bed hangings, fashioned of precious Byzantine silk and bordered with gold thread and pearls. A huge Cyrillic
A
was embroidered in the center of the silk coverlet. The carved wooden chest in the corner contained a set of pistols with gold handles and dragon-shaped triggers, a pile of rich fur blankets, and an enameled bow case and gold quiver. None of the objects was familiar to him.

As Nikolas closed the chest and tilted the vodka bottle to his lips, the dull gleam of a painting on the wall caught his eye, the smoky antique gold and the brilliant red glow of a small icon. As he stared at the painting, the gulp of vodka slid down his throat in a painful lump. He had seen the icon before, thousands of times. It had hung on his nursery wall in childhood. He had moved it into his bedroom as an adult, and he'd brought it with him to England after he had been exiled from Russia. “My God,” he said aloud, stumbling as he walked toward the icon. “What is this doing here? What's happening?”

The elegant design was of the Prophet Elijah, surrounded by a brilliant ruby cloud as he ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire drawn by flame-colored horses. Nikolas had always cherished the icon for its vivid color and intricate brushwork. He had never seen another like it.

Recognizing the icon, solid and unmistakable, suddenly made it seem as if his other life, the real one, were gone for good. “I don't want this,” he said in a whisper that matched the intensity of a scream. “I didn't ask for it. I damn well didn't choose it!” He gazed at the red circle of fire, backed away, and hurled the vodka bottle directly at it. The bottle broke as it struck the icon, knocking it from the wall.

Immediately a servant knocked at the door and asked if everything was all right. Nikolas answered with a forbidding growl, and the servant retreated hastily. Standing over the fallen icon, Nikolas stared at the deep scratch that had just been made, marring the edge of the red cloud. Would that scratch be there a hundred years from now? A hundred and fifty, perhaps more?

What if all this was real? Perhaps he had died and gone to hell. Perhaps hell was having to witness the wretched history of his family from the eyes of his own ancestor.

A new thought occurred to Nikolas, and he felt his knees turn to rubber. He made his way to the bed and sat down heavily. If he really was Prince Nikolai, about to marry a peasant woman named Emelia, then history was yet to be made. Their son would be Alexei, and his son would be Sergei, followed by Sergei II and Dmitri…“And then,” Nikolas said aloud, “I'll be born. And Mikhail.”

If he could keep from having a child with Emelia, then the Angelovsky line would be broken. The abuse and murder of Mikhail wouldn't occur. And Nikolas's own sinful, pain-filled life would never take place.

A tremor of horror went through Nikolas's body. Perhaps he had been given the power to keep himself from ever being born.

In spite of Sidarov's insistence, Nikolas didn't bathe before the wedding, or shave, or even change his clothes. Barricading himself in his room, he drank steadily in an effort to make the nightmare disappear. It was impossible for him to go through with the ceremony. He might be many things, but a bigamist wasn't one of them. He wasn't Nikolai the First, he was Nikolas Dmitriyevich Angelovsky, and he belonged in London, in the year 1877…with Emma Stokehurst.

Sidarov's muffled voice came through the door. “The guests are here, Prince Nikolai. The ceremony will begin as soon as you decide. You won't keep them waiting long, will you?”

“I'm not going to marry anyone,” Nikolas said from his sprawled position in the chair.

There was a lengthy silence, and then Sidarov replied in an agitated tone. “Very well, Your Highness. But you must inform the guests—and the bride—yourself. I refuse to do it, even if you turn me out into the streets and I must die a miserable, frozen death. No, I absolutely will not tell them.”