The Diamond Secret (Once Upon a Time)

by Suzanne Weyn

  “I wasn’t in a convent,” Nadya confided, feeling she could trust Irina. “First I was in an asylum, then I lived on the street until I found work at a tavern. Ivan and Sergei thought it would be best not to tell the sordid details of my real life.” She went on to tell her about everything she could recall of her time in Yekaterinburg.

  As she listened, Irina blanched noticeably. “How awful.”

  “I don’t understand how I landed in the asylum,” Nadya said. “Do I seem deranged to you?” To lighten the moment, Nadya crossed her eyes and comically twisted her face.

  Irina laughed. “Stop that, please! No, I didn’t think you were unbalanced at all, at least not until now.”

  “Well see, there you are!” Nadya said, smiling despite the seriousness of the subject. “Maybe I’m not right in the head.”

  “Anastasia always was known for her joking. Your making light of this only further assures me that you are she.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Nadya admitted. “Though I do have the most frightening dreams.”

  “It makes sense, in a way, that you might be hidden in an asylum,” Irina allowed. “There you were, a young woman wandering around with no idea of your identity. Committing you would probably be the best way for the local police to ensure your safety.”

  “That makes sense,” Nadya allowed. “So you really believe I’m Anastasia?”

  “Yes. Don’t you?” Irina asked.

  “Sergei and Ivan are convinced, and I trust them,” Nadya said. “Other than that, I have no way of knowing. Sometimes Grigory Rasputin appears in my nightmares, but so do dragons, gargoyles, and other monsters. I once dreamed I was being chased by Lenin, and I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve heard, that he never knew Anastasia.”

  “I agree that dreams are not reliable.” Irina patted Nadya’s hand and smiled as if to put the conversation to rest. “If my brother is sure you are the grand duchess, then I am sure. Now you still haven’t answered my question: Do you love Ivan?” Irina pressed.

  “We’ve kissed,” Nadya admitted. “Just last night for the first time.”

  “So I was right. But do you love him?”

  “He can be very annoying,” Nadya considered. “He’s also stubborn and sometimes full of himself.”

  “I noticed,” Irina remarked. “But he’s very good-looking, and he becomes tender when he’s near you.”

  “Do you think so?” Nadya asked hopefully. There was that light frothy fizz rising inside of her again.

  “Absolutely. What’s his title?”

  “Title?”

  “Sergei is a count. My brother is a count. I am a countess. You are a grand duchess. What’s Ivan’s title?”

  The idea of this made Nadya laugh. She couldn’t imagine Ivan with a title. “He has none.”

  “You mean he’s just…a…commoner?” Irina said, clearly aghast.

  “His father drove the coach for the Imperial Family, and he used to accompany him. That’s how he knew Anastasia and why he’s so sure of my identity.”

  “He’s the son of a coach driver?”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

  Irina rose and headed toward the door. Her brow was furrowed in thought. “You look tired, Nadya,” she said. “Why don’t you have a nap before lunch?”

  “That sounds good,” Nadya said, stretching. “Irina?”

  “Yes?”

  “You seem worried. What are you thinking?”

  “You never said you loved Ivan, and I’m thinking that—in light of what you’ve just told me—it’s probably best that you don’t.”

  It took a moment for Nadya to fully register the meaning of Irina’s comment. She should not love Ivan because he wasn’t royal? That struck her as so terribly wrong!

  Nadya opened her mouth to argue but, instead of speaking, her nostrils flared as she suppressed a yawn. She was tired and her head was beginning to throb. She desperately needed to sleep. She would think about everything when she awoke.

  “I will see you in a little while, after you nap,” Irina said as she left.

  Snuggling under the bed covers in the middle of the day made Nadya feel divinely decadent. It was lovely, like drifting to sleep in the soft petal center of a rose. Somewhere in her buried past there had been a similar room. Where?

  As she worked to resurrect this forgotten memory, Nadya succumbed to the luxurious softness of the bed, letting it lull her to sleep.

  Nadya is in another sleeping quarters, which is aglow in amber light. Four plain cots stand side by side in a row. The room is empty. Because it is a dream, she cannot tell where she is in the room. Maybe she is in a wardrobe, watching. Perhaps she is outside, looking into the room through a keyhole.

  The sinister figure of Grigory Rasputin sweeps in and begins to pace with restless impatience. Nadya chafes with the powerful urge to spring from her concealment and chase him away, shouting with arms flailing, but she doesn’t dare. He is too terrifying. He emanates dark menace, almost pulling the light from the room.

  After more interminable pacing from Rasputin, the queen, Czarina Alexandra, enters. She shuts the door behind her. “This is not a good place to meet,” she whispers, clearly upset. “You’re not supposed to be in the girls’ quarters. Why are we meeting here?”

  “Because it’s mealtime, and I knew we would be alone. You had no trouble getting away?”

  “I said I had a headache.”

  “Well?” Rasputin asks irritably. He expectantly presents a gnarled hand with yellowed nails, palm out. “Where is it?”

  Alexandra draws a satin bag from the voluminous pleated sleeve of her gown. From it she takes out the most spectacular diamond necklace Nadya has ever seen. It hardly looks real! Three strands of outsize diamonds, each increasing in size as they approach the center, culminate in a rectangular-cut blue diamond of such brilliance that it appears to shine from within.

  The czarina places the sparkling gem necklace into Rasputin’s waiting hand. “This was my mother’s,” she says sadly. “It once belonged to Marie Antoinette.”

  Nadya expects Rasputin to be in awe of his prize, but he seems oddly unimpressed. “A small price to pay to preserve the life of the future czar of All the Russias,” he says in a mocking tone.

  Then Count Dubinsky rushes in with a tall, thin, princely personage dressed regally under a cape. “Prince Yuperov and I have come to stop you from making this terrible mistake,” Count Dubinsky tells Alexandra. “We had heard rumors that he was demanding enormous payment for helping poor Alexei with his illness. We have been watching him closely for days, and now we have caught him at it.”

  Rasputin possessively clutches the necklace to his chest.

  “This necklace is mine to give as I choose,” Alexandra insists.

  “The czar may not agree,” says Prince Yuperov. “It became part of the Imperial Estate when you were married. If news gets out that you have given the necklace to this charlatan, the people will be outraged. There is much discontent as it is over the amount of Russian wealth being bestowed upon this fraud.”

  The next thing Nadya knows, there is a scuffle as Prince Yuperov struggles to take the necklace from Rasputin. The necklace flies into the air, and then it shatters in an explosion of sparkling light as the jewels hit the floor.

  Rasputin, Prince Yuperov, Count Dubinksy, and even the czarina scramble to snap up the broken strands of glittering diamonds. “We will go to the czar and tell him about this!” announces Prince Yuperov, dashing from the room clutching a portion of the necklace. Everyone rushes out behind him.

  Nadya is alone again. From under the last cot, something shimmers like a fallen firefly, and she dares to leave the cover of her hiding place to approach it.

  Lying on her stomach, she slides under the cot and scoops out a single diamond that has come loose from its setting. The adults seem to have recovered all the other diamonds but this one.

  This misplaced yellow-tinged gem does not possess the showy grandeur of
the center blue diamond, but it is spectacular nonetheless, surely one of the larger stones from near the middle of the necklace.

  Suddenly a man steps in front of Nadya. It is the scarred man from the train station.

  Terrified, Nadya screams.

  Nadya awoke screaming. Quieting as she realized it had been a dream, she clutched her head in anguish. Would these awful nightmares ever stop?

  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 bush
es 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!