A footman showed her into the small, cluttered drawing room. The flock-paper walls were full of paintings and nearly every table, sideboard or dresser was covered in little knickknacks, bits of china or porcelain – cups, jugs, dogs, cats and little cherubs. There were newspapers and magazines piled high on various tables and plates of nuts and sweetmeats at every turn. Alix and Anna had their backs to the door as they sat at the piano, squeezed on to one chair, only one buttock each firmly on the seat. They were laughing and bickering slightly over what piece of music to duet next. Militza cleared her throat. They both turned.
‘Your Imperial Highness!’ said Anna, immediately leaping out of the seat. ‘I am afraid I did not hear you enter!’
‘Militza,’ Alix said, smiling. ‘I am afraid you have discovered our terrible secret!’ She laughed a little.
‘Secret?’
‘Our awful piano playing and our even more terrible singing!’
‘On the contrary, I thought it very jovial,’ said Militza.
‘As did I.’
Militza turned around. There he was, sitting in the shadows, watching them.
‘Grisha!’ Her voice was unexpectedly high with surprise.
He nodded. ‘How was the wedding?’
‘Well—’ began Militza.
‘Don’t let’s speak of it,’ interrupted Alix, her thin white hand in the air. ‘I never want it spoken of again.’
Militza was about to say that Rasputin had himself blessed the union and that she herself had persuaded the Tsar to give his permission, but there was something about the adamant little hand in the air that made her realize some things were best left unsaid.
There was a pause. Militza remained standing, while Rasputin looked from one to the other. This was the sort of uneasy situation that amused him.
‘I met a very pretty young lady yesterday.’ He watched as all three women turned to look at him. He had their attention. ‘Very pretty,’ he added. ‘And so very young,’ he embellished, his pale eyes darting around the room, reading all their facial expressions. ‘Munia Golovina.’
‘Princess Paley’s niece?’ asked Alix.
‘Perhaps.’ Rasputin was not entirely sure.
‘She is a close friend of the Yusupov family,’ added Anna, nodding knowledgeably. ‘Some say she might marry Nikolai Felixovich one day. They are practically betrothed.’ Rasputin looked at her, his eyebrows raised with interest. ‘Although he perhaps has his eyes on another, someone who is already taken?’
‘Married?’ Militza asked.
‘I couldn’t possibly say,’ replied Anna, her round face shining with innocence. ‘I am not a woman who likes to gossip.’
‘Quite right,’ said Alix brusquely. ‘I can’t abide idle chatter. It’s the Devil’s work.’
‘She was most ardent in her questions,’ continued Rasputin.
‘Not as ardent as I, surely?’ asked Anna.
‘No one is more ardent than you,’ replied Rasputin. ‘No one believes quite like you, my child.’
‘Mama! Mama!’ The two eldest Grand Duchesses, with long blonde hair around their shoulders and large picture hats, came dashing into the room. ‘Please say yes,’ they began, their young hands clasped together in prayer. ‘Oh, please do, please say yes.’
‘What are you two up to now?’ asked Rasputin.
‘Oh Grisha!’ they exclaimed, not at all surprised to see him sitting there. ‘Do help us with Mama.’
‘Tatiana, Olga! Calm down!’ said Alix. ‘What on earth is going on?’
‘Just say yes!’ began Olga. ‘I am nearly twelve.’
‘And I’m nearly ten,’ added Tatiana.
‘What are you asking?’
‘Mr Epps has to go into town and he was wondering if we would like to go with him?’ asked Olga, extremely tentatively.
‘Whatever for?’ asked Alix, visibly thrown.
‘To buy buttons and ribbons?’ suggested Tatiana.
‘No.’ Alix shook her head. ‘Town? Don’t be so ridiculous!’
‘But we’ve been before,’ said Olga.
‘When?’
‘Yalta.’
‘That was different,’ said Alix.
Militza remembered that day so very well. They’d all, on a whim, decided to walk the few miles to Yalta to go shopping. The girls had been terribly excited; they’d skipped all the way, accompanying Alix in her large wheelchair. It was one of those very brief moments of freedom when no one knew who they were. The Empress had been told off for resting her wet umbrella against some display in one of the shops and the girls had been shocked to pay for their buttons and ribbons with roubles, only to receive change! They had no idea what money really meant. Unfortunately, their anonymity did not last long and as soon as they had left the shop, they were surrounded by well-wishers, keen to gawp at the Tsarina and the Grand Duchesses. They had to call for a motorcar to come and collect them.
‘Please?’ they now begged together.
‘No.’ Alix shook her head. ‘And if you carry on asking, you will make my heart painful and you don’t want me to have to lie down with a pain of two?’
‘No, Mama,’ replied Olga.
‘I hate pain of two,’ said Tatiana, well aware of how her mother liked to grade her levels of discomfort.
‘It means we can’t see you,’ added Olga.
‘Exactly,’ said Alix. ‘Now leave us.’
‘They should go,’ said Rasputin.
‘Yes,’ agreed Alix. ‘Leave us.’
‘Into town,’ he continued. Alix looked at him in astonishment. But she said nothing. ‘What harm could it do? A little trip to buy some frivolities? I see no harm in that at all.’
‘But…’ began Alix.
‘God does not take against the enjoyment of children,’ he said simply. ‘In fact, He delights in it. They should go. In the fresh air.’
The two Grand Duchesses looked stunned and stared at their mother, awaiting her response.
‘Well… Very well then,’ she said tentatively. ‘Very well. If you think so, Grisha.’
‘I do,’ he nodded slowly.
‘Thank you! Thank you!’ The girls could not believe their luck. ‘Thank you, Brother Grigory!’
‘Only for a short time,’ instructed Alix.
‘Of course, Mama!’ they promised.
They rushed out of the villa as quickly as they’d arrived.
‘How lovely! A trip,’ mused Alix, with a little laugh to herself.
‘Tea?’ offered Anna, picking up a large silver pot that had been brought into the drawing room.
‘Shall I be mother?’ offered Rasputin, getting out of his chair.
That evening, as the maid, Katya, attended to Militza’s toilette, brushing and piling up her long black hair with diamond pins, Militza stared at her reflection, running over and over again in her mind the scene she’d witnessed at the little yellow villa. Alix had let Rasputin overrule her. And there was something about Grigory’s manner as he sat in the chair, something about the way he’d looked at Militza, the way he challenged Alix, that she found disconcerting. He appeared powerful; worse, comfortable with those in power. Her mind wandered to the icon he’d taken from her. Was that the difference? Now that he had Philippe’s St John the Baptist, the angel of the desert, was he truly as untouchable as Philippe had foretold? But what was worrying her most was that he appeared not to need her, Militza, any more. She knew he visited Tsarskoye Selo without her, despite her protestations. But how often? And Brana had told her that he’d even turned up to the palace once or twice, completely uninvited. He passed by whenever he liked. If she really pulled rank, reminded him exactly who he was and where he’d come from, could she grasp back control? He was hers. Entirely hers. She’d made him. Perhaps she needed to remind him of that.