Free The Diamond Secret by Suzanne Weyn

only hope it's so. You know who he was, don't you?"
    "I know what I've heard people say."
    "But you've never met him?" Sergei pressed.
    "How would I have?"
    "You had a life before the asylum," he reminded her.
    "A life at the Imperial Palace?" she questioned skeptically. "In my dream I was at the palace."
    "I saw him once when I was a boy," Ivan said in a somber tone. "He was a bully and he smelled."
    "When you drove the Imperial Family alongside your father?" Nadya said, remembering Ivan's story.
    "Yes, then." He stuck to his lie.
    "The man from the train station was in my dream too," Nadya said.
    Sergei looked at her sharply. "This man with the scar, you dreamed he was at the palace? You're sure it was him?"
    "Yes, in the dream he was at the palace. I remember his hideous scar," she said. "It was probably just a crazy dream," Nadya decided. "The mind can concoct wild stories."
    "Maybe not," Sergei said. Sergei was sure this was further confirmation that Rasputin's assistant and the man at the train station were the same. "Ivan, we should tell Nadya what we suspect about the man being Rasputin's assistant."
    "We should," Ivan agreed. He told Nadya of their fears about the man. While they spoke together--Nadya full of questions that Ivan answered patiently and with reassurances that they would keep her safe--Sergei noticed that something between Nadya and Ivan had shifted. It was in the way they inclined toward each other ever so slightly, bending like plants toward the sun. There was a new softness in Ivan's eyes when he looked at her. Nadya's voice was gentler somehow.
    If these were indications of new love, as Sergei suspected they were, then he was not surprised. All that scraping and arguing, the teasing and playful antagonism, could mean only one thing. It was a sure sign of attraction.
    But now Sergei had a new worry. What would happen if this love blossomed? If everything went according to plan, what future could these two ever expect? None whatsoever; either their attraction to each other had to be stifled or their plan to pass off Nadya as the grand duchess Anastasia had to fail. Both events could not exist simultaneously.
    That morning, Ivan went back to plowing fields for the farmer. How tenderly Nadya waved goodbye to him! It would have been touching if it were not so ill-fated.
    Sergei and Nadya finished what they had left of yesterday's loaf of bread. Sergei went to a nearby stream to wash up, and when he returned he came upon Nadya seated on a blanket, her back to him. She was having a conversation with the small doll he'd noticed before. Unseen and unheard by her, he stood a way off and observed.
    "So my little friend, what do you think?" Nadya asked the doll. "Will this turn out well?" She tilted her head, as if to hear the doll's reply. "You hope so? Well, that isn't very helpful! Will we regain our family? Will I find true love? Will everything be 'happily ever after' for us?" She did more pretend listening before continuing. "Oh, you're sure of it, you say? I'm so glad! No matter what happens, I know I can always talk to you, at least."
    Sergei smiled gently, touched by how she loved this small remnant of her past. How many lonely nights it must have seen her through! Not wanting her to be embarrassed, he coughed loudly to announce his arrival.
    Nadya turned sharply toward the sound and set the doll aside when she saw Sergei. "So, where shall we begin my training as a grand duchess?" Nadya asked brightly.
    Sergei remembered how distressed she'd been the day before. "Are you feeling better about our endeavor?" he asked gently.
    "If there's even a chance that I'm Anastasia, I should find out--and who would know better than the only living person who knew Anastasia, the Empress Marie? While we were trying to find our way back before, Ivan assured me that there would be no danger to Anastasia in Paris. That's what I felt most afraid of, that no matter where I went, I could never be safe if I were really the