“Miss Danver! I’m so glad you could come.”
She was wearing a pink silk gown with rows of pink ruffles on the skirt. The gown was a bit rumpled, the ruffles limp. Her powdered hair was decidedly untidy, the chignon at her nape coming undone, stray wisps touching her temples and brow. There was a smudge of dust on her cheek, and the fingers of her left hand were ink-stained. Her desk was covered with a hodgepodge litter of books and papers and rolled-up documents, and at the moment Catherine of Russia resembled nothing so much as a plump, rather flustered German hausfrau fretting over the household accounts.
I made a deep, formal curtsey. She waved her hand to one side, indicating that we would dispense with formality.
“Give me just a moment,” she begged. “I must add a tiny postscript to my letter to Voltaire. Terribly rude of me, but if I don’t finish it now—” She smiled apologetically, picked up the quill, and scribbled furiously.
I watched, ill at ease. Sunlight streamed radiantly through half a dozen windows, filling the room with light. It wasn’t a large room, but the ceiling was painted a pale salmon pink and lavishly patterned with gold leaf. Magnificent ivory wainscoting, also patterned with gilt, covered half of the walls, the portion above the same shade of salmon as the ceiling. The furniture was elegant, white and gold, with chairs and sofa upholstered in silvery gray velvet. Several lovely vases were abrim with cut flowers, their scent filling the air, and books and papers were scattered everywhere, even stacked haphazardly on the floor. A fire burned pleasantly in the white marble fireplace.
Catherine finished her postscript, stuck the quill in a silver ink pot and stood up, wiping ink from her fingers with a lace handkerchief. Catching sight of herself in the mirror over the fireplace, she hastily dabbed away the smudge of dust on her cheek, then turned to me with another smile.
“You must forgive me, my dear. I’m afraid I lost all track of time—documents to read and sign, letters to answer, reports! Paperwork! I’m perpetually awash in a sea of paper! Being an Empress isn’t all roses, I can assure you. There aren’t enough hours in the day to take care of all my responsibilities. I should delegate, my ministers tell me—meaning I should turn everything over to them—but I prefer to do it myself. That way I can be sure it will be done and done properly.”
“I’m sure it must be quite taxing,” I said.
My voice was rather stiff. Even rumpled and untidy, she was still Empress, exuding power and authority, and I wasn’t certain how to react to her warmth and effusiveness. Aware of this, Catherine smiled, her deep blue eyes both friendly and amused.
“I’m not wearing my crown now, my dear. Relax. This afternoon we are just two women planning to enjoy a nice, long gossip.”
“It—it won’t be easy,” I admitted.
“I intimidate you?”
“A bit.”
She smiled again. “I promise not to say ‘Off with her head!’ Do relax, my dear. Tea will be here in a few minutes. Very English, it shall be. My cook almost went mad learning to make English scones and clotted cream, finding the proper strawberry jam. And watercress! You’ve no idea how difficult it was to find watercress for sandwiches. All in your honor. I wanted you to feel at home.”
“I’m very flattered, Your Majesty.”
“‘Ma’am’ if you must, ‘Catherine’ if you will, but for a couple of hours I really would prefer not to be ‘Your Majesty.’ I’ll have to put the crown back on soon enough—a meeting with my ministers this evening. I shall be terribly majestic and intimidating then, I promise, and have them all trembling. It’s the only way to keep them in line. There isn’t one of them who believes a lowly woman has the ability to rule. We are, you know, the inferior sex.”
“So I’ve heard. It’s never been my personal observation.”
“I knew it!” she exclaimed merrily. “The moment I saw you I knew you were a kindred soul, an intelligent, strong-willed woman with a mind of her own. You have that strength and independence I so ardently admire.”
“You determined all this in one brief meeting?”
“An Empress must learn to assess character promptly—and correctly,” she informed me. “I knew at once that you did not love Gregory, that you were very uncomfortable, that you were not overjoyed at the part you were playing in his little intrigue. Gregory, like every other man in my life, shockingly underestimates my intelligence.”
“I never believed you would be taken in by it,” I said.
“I am a jealous woman, alas, frightfully jealous—it’s one of the manifold flaws in my wretched character—but only over the man of the moment. Once I’ve let a man go he can sleep with anything in skirts for all I care. Gregory gave me almost ten years of physical bliss—and ten years of hell. I agonized over his infidelities, I turned quite gray, I finally said ‘Enough!’ and got him out of my system. It wasn’t easy,” she added.
There was a knock on the door, and a moment later a servant entered pushing a gilded white trolley laden with a sumptuous array of food. The servant withdrew silently, and Catherine looked at the food with glee. Here was a woman who savored all the pleasures, I reminded myself, be it a delicious iced cake or a muscular blond guardsman. The servant had left the trolley in front of a lovely sofa upholstered in soft gray velvet. Catherine asked me to please be seated. The teapot was an exquisite piece, the creamy white porcelain etched with delicate green and mauve flowers, a sculpted purple flower atop the gold-rimmed lid. Catherine poured tea into matching cups and, noticing my admiration, gave me a wry smile.
“This china was a royal gift from Denmark,” she explained, “especially designed for me in Copenhagen—there are hundreds of pieces. Notice the flowers.”
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
“They’re wild flowers! Weeds, to be more precise. Relations between Denmark and Russia were strained at the time, and the china was actually a subtle insult. Weeds to you, Catherine. How I laughed! The Royal Copenhagen is my favorite plate.”
She handed me a cup and settled down on the sofa beside me with much fluttering of limp pink ruffles. The gown had short, narrow sleeves, and her bare arms were plump and white and smooth, the flesh of the upper arms sagging ever so slightly. Reaching for a gold-rimmed plate with a particularly pretty brown and green weed etched in the center, she filled it with sandwiches, scones, tiny iced cakes and bade me to do the same.
“Poor Gregory,” she said, picking up a delicate watercress sandwich. “He deserves credit for trying, and I found his little intrigue quite amusing, much too amusing to spoil at once. Let him think he still has a chance for a while. Let him preen and plan.”
“He hasn’t a prayer, of course,” I said.
“Not a prayer,” she replied. “I am completely devoted to my other Gregory—Potemkin. I’m afraid he’s my dark obsession, and I’m hopelessly besotted. It’s not good, I know, it’s not even healthy, but—ah, the flesh, it’s so deliciously, deplorably weak.”
She sighed, thinking no doubt of that weakness, a half-smile on her round pink mouth. I sipped my tea and took a cucumber sandwich.
“He’s very accommodating,” she continued. “Potemkin makes me feel totally female—and it’s not easy for an Empress to feel female, my dear. All day long I rule—at night it’s nice to let someone else rule, let someone else be in command.”
Catherine ate her watercress sandwich, took a sip of tea, nibbled an iced cake. The fire burned cozily. Sunlight continued to stream through the windows in brilliant rays, making bright pools on the floor. The cut flowers and pleasant array of books and papers gave the room a homey, comfortable air the magnificent wainscotting and elegant furniture couldn’t rescind.
“He’s terribly trying at times,” she said. “He’s moody, overbearing and frequently quite brutal, but—Potemkin understands me and knows my every need. He will often bring a particularly virile, good-looking young man to my attention. Does my frankness shock you, my dear?”
“Not at all,” I replied.
&
nbsp; “All Europe considers me a horribly depraved woman—I’m fully aware of my reputation. I don’t feel particularly wicked—I suppose it’s because I determined a long time ago that I was going to be a survivor and would pay no attention to what people thought. When I arrived in Russia I was a very young girl, full of innocence, full of romantic notions, full of ideals. My mother accompanied me. She was soon sent back to Germany. I was left all alone. My life was completely taken over by Empress Elizabeth, not the most loving woman I’ve ever known, a tyrannical dragon, in fact, absolutely ruthless.”
The Empress paused to refill her tea cup and take another cake. Her blue eyes were cold as she remembered those other days.
“I was forced to marry a man who was little better than a drooling idiot, her precious nephew, Peter, heir to the throne. He was physically incapable of consummating the marriage—he spent his time playing with tin soldiers in bed or beating his cocker spaniels with a riding crop or, later, drilling his real live soldiers until they dropped. I endured—unspeakable mental and physical horror,” she said in a cool, level voice. “I was a foreigner, drab and dull, utterly despised, utterly ignored. My sole purpose was to provide yet another heir, and when it seemed that wasn’t to be I was despised even more.”
I was silent, sensing she rarely spoke of these things, sensing she needed to unburden herself and knowing it is often much easier to talk to a sympathetic stranger than to one’s most intimate acquaintance. She sighed and set her teacup aside, gazing at the fire, seeing another place, another time.
“Elizabeth was determined to have another heir and, as I mentioned earlier, she was absolutely ruthless. If her nephew was incapable of siring one, a substitute could be provided. She brought Serge Saltikov to me—he was like a god in my eyes—young and handsome, strong, virile, everything Peter wasn’t. I fell hopelessly in love—my first love, my first man. I lost my heart and, incidentally, lost my virginity as well. As soon as I was pregnant, Elizabeth sent him away. He was richly rewarded for the service he had performed, and I was turned over to a pack of doctors who watched me night and day and reported my every movement to Elizabeth. I—I wanted to die. I prayed for death. It seemed the only possible delivery from the misery crushing my soul.”
The Empress of All the Russias sighed and toyed with one of the limp pink ruffles on her skirt, silent for several moments, remembering, and finally she turned to me with a bitter smile.
“My prayers were almost answered. My delivery was an extremely difficult one, conducted in public, as is the custom. I was surrounded by gabbling women and bored courtiers and totally incompetent doctors. I was on a mattress, on the floor, in a stuffy, crowded room with closed windows and fetid air. After hours and hours of terrible pain I finally gave birth. Bells peeled joyously throughout the city. Lavish celebrations ensued. My son was bundled up and delivered to Elizabeth at once—I didn’t see him again for months. I was left there on the mattress, on the floor, totally alone in that horrible room. I was weak, bleeding, half-dead, but that wasn’t important. I had done my job and given the country another heir and was no longer of any value.”
The bitter smile flickered on her lips. She took another sip of tea and gazed at the gold rim of the cup without seeing it.
“Hours passed,” she continued. “I lay there on the mattress, dying, and the midwife staggered in to give me a glass of water, then staggered out again to drink more vodka and the candles spluttered out and I was in total darkness and something happened to me—I’m not sure I can even explain it. The drab, passive little German princess did die, I believe, and a completely different person took her place. Strength I never knew I had filled me, and as the rays of early morning sunlight stole through the windows I knew I was going to survive.”
She fell silent, gazing at the rim of the cup, and a full minute went by before she finally sighed and set the cup down.
“Empress Elizabeth was a doddering, gouty, dyspeptic old woman whose days were already numbered. My husband was a savagely cruel imbecile, utterly incapable of ruling. When I finally rose from that bloodstained mattress I was prepared to do anything I had to do to save my adopted country from the disaster that would ensue if Peter ruled. My son was born in 1754, and eight years were to pass before my opportunity came, but when it came—I was ready, and I was every bit as ruthless as I had to be.”
Had she had Peter murdered? Had he been strangled to death by one of the Orlovs, or had he indeed died of colic while held prisoner? I doubted anyone would ever know for sure. As Catherine drank more tea, I thought of the story she had just told me, and I could see the bloodstained mattress and smell the fetid air in that room where Catherine of Russia had supplanted the abused and neglected German princess. I knew that during the following eight years Elizabeth and Peter between them had turned her son completely against her. Catherine had rarely even been allowed to see him, had been allowed no say whatsoever in his upbringing. By the time she took the throne, Grand Duke Paul was a weak, petulant, moody child given to fits of insane temper, sadly resembling the man officially acknowledged as his father.
Now married and in his late twenties, he hated his mother, I knew, blamed her for Peter’s death, and was perpetually plotting against her, though far too weak and ineffectual to present any real danger. Grand Duke Paul was kept under firm control and, history repeating itself, she had taken over the training and upbringing of her grandson, Alexander, determined to make him a worthy successor to the throne. With all the grief and disappointment she had known, with all the abuse she had endured in those early days, was it any wonder she had become so strong and autocratic?
Catherine was silent, the blue eyes pensive now, her lips pink and soft. I felt a curious sympathy for her. The Empress of All the Russias was an extremely unhappy woman, I sensed, and I sensed as well that her rampant sexual indulgences were a kind of compensation for that first, lost love. Was Catherine unconsciously seeking to recapture that early bliss she had experienced with the man who had sired her son and broken her heart? I thought it highly possible and found it very sad, for I knew all too well that that first shimmering joy, once lost, can never be recaptured.
Catherine sighed heavily and, shaking off the pensive mood, turned to me with an apologetic smile.
“Heavens!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what came over me. I don’t usually talk so—so intimately about myself. Perhaps it was because I feel an unusual kinship with you. I feel you’ve experienced—many of the same disappointments in life.”
“I’ve had my share of them,” I said.
“Now,” she said, “about these scones! I must confess I’ve never actually eaten one. You must show me what to do with the clotted cream and strawberry jam. Does one just pile it on top?”
I nodded, and she prepared a scone and bit into it and declared it magnificent. Finishing it with relish, she licked her fingers and promptly prepared another, piling on the thick, sweet cream and jam.
“Now, dear, turnabout is fair play. You must tell me all about yourself. I’ve heard all sorts of stories, but I’m sure the truth is much more fascinating!”
“I—I hardly know where to begin.”
“Why don’t you begin with the first man,” she suggested. “I’ve found the history of a woman’s life is usually shaped by the men she has known.”
“I—I suppose that’s true,” I said. “If I hadn’t met Sir Robert Mallory, if he hadn’t raped me and then falsely accused me of stealing his wife’s jewels, I would never—my whole life would have taken a different course.”
And as Catherine ate scones and had another cup of tea, I found myself telling her about my life, about Derek Hawke and Jeff Rawlins and Helmut Schnieder, the husband I never spoke of, the man I had tried to blot completely from memory. I told her about Nicholas Lyon and Corrie and Em, about Jeremy Bond and all that had happened between us. I felt a strong rapport with this woman, despite her exalted position, and I found myself sharing intimate details with her as easily as I w
ould have shared them with Em.
“And—and that’s how I happen to be in Russia,” I concluded.
“What an incredible story!”
“There’s a lot I’m not proud of. I should never have agreed to participate in Gregory’s plan.”
“Nonsense, my dear! You would have been foolish to turn down all that money. A woman alone must fend for herself as best she can.”
Although I had been open about everything else, I hadn’t told her about the part Lucie played in my decision to stay, nor had I revealed any of her secrets. I had merely said that I was very fond of the girl and that my fondness for her had been responsible for my coming to Russia in the first place. I poured another cup of tea.
“You’re not going to have a scone?” Catherine asked.
“I’d better not,” I said.
“Self control! How I admire it. No wonder you have such a glorious figure. I lost mine years ago—not that I was ever so shapely. How fortunate it is you didn’t fall in love with Gregory.”
“He’s a fascinating man.”
“And absolutely phenomenal in bed.”
“True,” I said.
“Your Jeremy was better?” she inquired.
“I was in love with Jeremy. That makes all the difference.”
“You love him still,” she said.
“I hope he burns in hell!”
“Of course you do, and quite rightly, but that has nothing to do with still loving him. Rogues—” Catherine smiled and shook her head. “Why do we invariably find them most attractive?”
“God knows.”
“Your Jeremy sounds like a particularly dashing specimen. Would you believe I’ve never had an Englishman?”
“If hard pressed I suppose I could.”
Catherine looked at me in surprise, then threw back her head and burst into peals of rich, lusty laughter. I took a sip of tea, surprised at my own audacity.
“Oh, dear, I do admire dry wit. Most people would find me far too intimidating to make such a delicious remark. At any rate, it’s true—I’ve never had an Englishman. I understand they take their time.”
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