“He’s coming tonight, isn’t he?”
“I should think so,” she replied. But did he think that she oversaw the guest list?
“I ask because you two seem to have a special rapport, n’est-ce pas? Whenever we go out drinking together, the good Father Grigori speaks of your family often—but he talks about you more often than all the others combined.”
That he spoke of them at all was shocking to Anastasia, but she couldn’t help but wonder what it was he said about her. She was secretly flattered. Without her having to ask, Yussoupov obliged.
“He seems to think that you carry what he calls a ‘spark of holy fire.’ And if anyone should know about such stuff as that, it’s Rasputin.”
Anastasia was growing dizzy, though she couldn’t tell if it was from the twirling of the dance, the champagne, or the confusion she felt at the strange turns of the conversation. What did Felix Yussoupov want from her?
“Does he ever speak of me?” he asked.
“Not that I can think of. Why would he?”
“We are the best of friends,” he said, with feigned indignation, “that’s why. But he can have a wicked tongue on him, and I’ve just been curious to know if my name ever came up behind the closed doors of the imperial apartments.” His eyes, deep and dark and penetrating, were staring into hers, and she felt as if a wolf were sizing her up for dinner.
“I think I need to sit down,” she said, suddenly feeling unsteady on her feet.
The prince, without missing a beat, swept her from the floor and onto a gilded divan framed between a pair of floor-length mirrors. Two other ladies quickly moved to make room for their royal addition.
“Forgive me,” the prince said, bowing at the waist with one hand folded behind his back. “I fear my conversation has proved tiresome to Your Royal Highness.” Anastasia still had the sense that he was somehow mocking her. Mocking a grand duchess! “I’m sure our mutual friend will turn up any minute. Wherever the champagne is flowing, Father Grigori cannot be far behind.”
As he retired, the other ladies fluttered their eyes and tried to catch his attention, but to no avail. He was already hailing Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and gesturing toward one of the buffet chambers. And so the ladies set their sights on Anastasia, instead.
“You look very lovely tonight, Your Highness,” one of them gushed, and the other said, “But where has your mother gone to? Her dress was quite beautiful and I was eager to study it more closely.” She leaned closer with a smile and said, “That way I can get a better copy made when I leave for Paris.”
Flattery was something Anastasia, like any member of the royal family, was inured to. Her mother and father had brought her up, as best they could, to ignore it. For an honest opinion, there were family members one could turn to, and certain confidantes and retainers, such as Dr. Botkin, the French tutor Pierre Gilliard, or Anna Demidova, her mother’s maid who had served the Tsaritsa forever and whose loyalty and love were undoubted. And even though Jemmy was just a cocker spaniel, Anastasia knew that the little dog would love her just the same whether she was a grand duchess or a peasant girl. She wished that people could be more like dogs.
A servant offered her another glass of champagne, and with her mother nowhere in sight, she saw no reason not to take it. She was done dancing for the night—her left foot already ached a bit—and she chatted amiably with the two ladies, both of whom turned out to be the wives of ministers of something or other (ministers came and went so routinely that Anastasia never bothered to get their names straight) and began to wonder at her mother’s absence. The Tsar himself was holding court at one end of the ballroom, but it was beginning to dawn on Anastasia that if her mother had already disappeared—and Father Grigori had not shown up at all—there could only be one reason.
Alexei must have taken a turn for the worse.