Free The Ice King by Dinah Dean Page B

Alexander Pavlovich resembles his mother, fortunately. Paul Petrovich was not exactly handsome. Rossi's mother was an Italian dancer.”
    Tanya digested these rather cryptic remarks in silence, and had little difficulty in working out the implications, as she was by no means stupid or ignorant.
    As they waited in the vestibule while a footman went to find the Kirovs' carriage, Tanya peered out across the snow covered expanse of Palace Square to where the shapeless stubs of the new building were just visible in the light of the street-lamps, and said, "You can see what M. Rossi meant. It will be much improved when his plans are carried out."
    “It'll take some time," Prince Nikolai replied, "for the scale is immense. I expect he'll build the Senate and Synod louses too – he's a determined fellow, and the Romanovs are great builders.”
    The carriage arrived at that moment, and Tanya gave the Prince her hand in farewell, smiling up at him, her eyes shining with delight at all she had seen and heard in the Palace as she thanked him again, and for a moment the melancholy look on his face softened in response.
    “However many people were there?" Tanya enquired on :he way home, thinking of the great crowds in the Palace. "They issue thirty thousand tickets each year," Countess Maria informed her, "and I'm sure they're all taken up!" Irina was carried straight off to bed when they reached home, and the others dined and then sat cosily in Countess Maria's little sitting-room. They were all very tired, having been to midnight service in the Kazan Cathedral the previous light, and, as Count Alexei remarked, there are few things more tiring than walking about on marble floors, looking at other people's fine things, so they were content to rest and read, or sew, or, in Tanya's case, just think about all the Beautiful and curious things they had seen.
    “How very kind of Prince Nikolai to think of it, and to let me meet M. Rossi," she thought. "Well, I suppose he always sets tickets for the family, as Maria says he thinks of them as his own, but I'm not – I'm just a stranger who will only be here for a few weeks, so that was sheer kindness," and she also thought she should search the dictionary for a few synonyms for "kind", for fear that Prince Nikolai might carry out his threat! The time seemed to be passing all too quickly for Tanya, but she made the most of every moment of it, spending much of the day going about the city, whenever the carriage could be spared, either with Fedor or Count Alexei, seeing as many buildings as she could, if only from the outside. Every evening and most afternoons were occupied in visiting or receiving visitors, and she attended as many as four balls in one week. Prince Nikolai appeared at many of the receptions and all the balls, and seemed to make a point of spending some time with her, particularly asking her to dance four times at each ball, as he had said he intended to do.
    Of course, this caused a good deal of whispering and many raised eyebrows, and on one occasion Prince Nikolai enquired, "Does the talk worry you at all?"
    “Not really," Tanya replied. "I shall be here for such a short time that it can do me no harm, and I'll soon be forgotten when I'm gone.”
    She was not aware of the note of regret and wistfulness in her voice, but the Prince noticed it. "Must you go?" he asked.
    “I have no choice. I've been offered a home, and I'm grateful for it. Maria Nikolaevna and Alexei Fedorovich have been more than generous – far more so than they can afford, I fear – and I shall never forget all they're doing for me, giving me this wonderful time here. I shall think back on this in years to come and be very grateful to them, and to you, and to all the others who've made me welcome and helped me to enjoy my stay."
    “At least you'll have something pleasant to look back on, even if there's not very much ahead," Prince Nikolai remarked. His voice was tinged with bitterness, and that cold,