The room was simple by Winter Palace standards—a cherrywood desk and a few cushioned chairs, lilac-painted walls, and cream drapes held back from the floor-to-ceiling windows by gold tasseled rope. It was unfussy and very much his mother’s style, and Pasha could breathe here, so he paused for a moment and tried to shake the tension from his shoulders. Then he continued onward, out the door and into a proper hallway, until he’d circled back around to the entrance outside the ballroom.
His father and mother stood there, tall and proud, her hand on his arm. Yuliana must have already entered, and the majordomo was giving her due time to enjoy the guests’ attentions before he announced the tsar and tsarina. Upon hearing Pasha’s footsteps, they turned.
“Oh, darling, thank goodness you’re here. They are about to announce us.” His mother wore a deep ruby gown brocaded in gold, with glittering diamonds and sapphires on her ears, neck, and wrists, and a crown studded with diamonds and pearls on the blond ringlets atop her head. She waved a jeweled red-and-gold mask on a baton, holding it as regally as if it were a scepter. She looked every bit the role of tsarina. If it weren’t for the cough that racked her body every few seconds, Pasha would have smiled. She had had the cough for months now, and it was not getting any better. Worse, actually.
“Are you sure you’re well enough to attend the ball?” he asked. “Perhaps you ought to rest instead.”
“It is your birthday, my love. I wouldn’t miss it if it killed me.”
“Mother.”
“Darling, don’t fret. It won’t kill me. I promise.” She released the tsar’s arm and glided over to smooth Pasha’s hair, which must have gotten unruly from the dances he had snuck in.
“Where have you been?” the tsar asked. Unlike the tsarina, he did not move to greet his son. He had also made no effort to change his usual attire for the masquerade; he’d donned his ceremonial military uniform as always. “Your Guard has been frantic, yet again, and frankly, I am weary of it.”
Pasha bowed low to the ground. “My apologies, Father. I required some time to myself before the festivities. I do not have your natural ease at being in the public eye.”
The tsarina patted Pasha’s arm. “It will come with time, my dear.”
“He turns seventeen tonight,” the tsar scoffed. “The time to grow into his position has long since come and gone.” He turned to Pasha. “You have already been inside the ballroom, haven’t you?” He scowled at Pasha’s hair. That traitorous, traitorous hair.
Pasha looked at the floor, in part to avoid his father’s glare, but mostly to avoid the disappointment he was sure had settled on his mother’s face. The scene of horses and soldiers woven into the carpet had never seemed so interesting before.
“You do realize how inappropriate your actions are, do you not?” The volume of the tsar’s voice remained low and steady, but the tone had picked up a bitingly sharp edge.
“Yes, Father.”
“Even the lowest-ranking nobility must be announced.”
“Yes, Father.”
“There are rules governing with whom you interact and how. Your sister has never had a problem comprehending this. And yet, after seventeen years, it has somehow still not been impressed upon you that the conventions and ceremony of the tsardom matter. You are the tsesarevich of all Russia. I suggest you start acting like it.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Now go upstairs and change.”
Pasha looked up from the carpet. “What? Why?”
“For a multitude of reasons, the foremost being that you have already been seen in that ridiculous costume, so if you march in as an angel now, the whole of Saint Petersburg’s nobility will know that you had previously slunk among them, unannounced, like a gutter rat. And also, your costume is unbecoming for a man of your station.”
“But it’s a masquerade. . . .” Pasha’s voice wilted. There was no fighting the will of the tsar, and he knew it. He had always known it, which was why he tried to live so much of his life when his father was not looking.
“It is a masquerade for all of them.” The tsar flung his hand in the direction of the ballroom doors. “But it is an imperial state function for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Nikolai had seen Pasha slip out a service door, but he had not anticipated such a long delay between the announcement of the tsar and tsarina and the official announcement of Pasha’s arrival. But when he saw his friend come down the marble steps, he understood the reason why: he was no longer the playful angel Dmitri but was instead the staid heir to the throne, complete with a forced smile and formal military uniform. No mask.
“The Tsesarevich, Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov!” the majordomo shouted.
Poor Pasha.