Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess #10 by Ann Hood

Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess #10 by Ann Hood

Author:Ann Hood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2014-10-15T16:00:00+00:00


Olga seemed taken by Alex’s story. “A long-lost cousin!” she said with delight.

But she refused to bother Papa with it that night. Instead, she showed Alex to a guest room, and brought him down to breakfast with her and the other Duchesses the next morning.

When Alex explained to the Tsar over breakfast who he was related to, the Tsar jumped to his feet and wrapped Alex in a big bear hug. Soon, Alex was joining the entire royal family on their morning swim in the sea.

Almost the entire family.

For most of that first week, Felix did not see the Empress or little Alexei, the Tsarevich. When he asked Anastasia about them she grew evasive.

“Oh, Mama likes to spend private time with him,” she’d say.

Or: “They have their own routines.”

Routines were the way of life here, Felix quickly learned.

Every morning, after a breakfast of bread and butter, everyone except the Empress and Alexei went swimming in the sea. Usually, the Tsar followed that with tennis while the Grand Duchesses knit or sewed or read until lunchtime. Lunch was the big meal, with a lavish spread of suckling pig, caviar, whole fish and smoked fish, soup, and fruit set out. After lunch, they went for long walks in the woods, always collecting treasures—twigs, nests, mushrooms, berries, flowers—for the Empress. Then it was teatime, followed by performances of the plays the girls wrote, or piano concerts, or poetry recitals. Supper was served late at night, and afterward everyone went off to bed.

The routine rarely changed, although a few times the Tsar took everyone by horseback to nearby villas. Felix found the sameness of the days comforting, and easily adapted to them. But he found himself more and more looking forward to those moments when he could be with Anastasia, writing little skits or just walking together on the grounds. By the end of the week, Felix knew that he had a big-time crush on Anastasia. And by the way she blushed when he spoke to her, or good-naturedly teased him, he thought she had a crush on him, too.

Meanwhile, Maisie spent all her time recovering in bed. Sometimes she heard the Empress and the Tsarevich talking together on the Empress’s balcony, their laughter carrying in the breeze. By the end of the week, Maisie began to sit on her little balcony every afternoon. From there she would see the Empress driving a cart pulled by a pony around the grounds, or wandering in the gardens. She looked sad, Maisie decided. How could someone live in this beautiful palace, surrounded by such a big and loving family, and look so sad?

But even as she wondered this, Maisie realized the answer. Little Alexei suffered from hemophilia. And that was the source of the Empress’s great sorrow.

At home, Easter used to be an egg hunt at the playground, Easter baskets filled with hot-pink and neon-green plastic grass with chocolate bunnies tucked inside, and a special brunch out somewhere nicer than the corner diner. No matter where they went, Maisie and Felix’s father always got eggs Benedict, his fancy brunch order.



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