Free Anastasia and Her Sisters by Carolyn Meyer Page A

believe he may have turned the corner.”
    Slowly, very slowly, Alexei began to improve. The doctors couldn’t explain it, but Mama could: it was all because of Father Grigory and his prayers. Nobody could possibly disagree with her. From far away Siberia, Father Grigory had performed a miracle. He had saved my brother’s life. Alexei wasn’t in mortal danger now, but he was very weak and tired, and so was Mama.
    We stayed another month at Spala while Alexei recovered. Kharitonov outdid himself preparing tempting dishes to coax him to eat, and little by little he regained some of the weight he had lost. Bit by bit Mama got her strength back. The rest of us followed our usual routines—French lessons with Monsieur Gilliard, English lessons with Mr. Gibbes, Russian lessons with Pyotr Petrov, held in one of the few rooms at Spala where a little daylight leaked in for an hour or two each day. Papa hunted with his Polish friends and played tennis with the army officers. Olga pined for her lieutenant.
    I was ready to die of boredom, when we learned of a family scandal. Papa got a telegram from his brother Mikhail—our uncle Misha—announcing that he had married Natalia Brassova. We hardly knew our uncle, and we had never met Natalia Brassova. We did know that Uncle Misha had been the cause of much scandal in the family, falling in love with “unsuitable” women. Papa had refused to grant him permission to marry those women and then sent him far away to keep him out of the public eye and, it was hoped, to put an end to the affairs. But now Uncle Misha had defied Papa and marriedNatalia without permission—after making a solemn promise to Papa not to marry her.
    Anya Vyrubova happily told us all about it. “A completely unsuitable woman!” Anya announced gleefully. “Twice divorced! Everybody says Brassova is beautiful and dresses very stylishly, but, my dears, she’s had two husbands! She was still married to the second one when she took up with Grand Duke Mikhail. He asked your papa for permission to marry her, but of course the tsar couldn’t allow that—it would have been scandalous!” Anya lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper. “They even have a child together, I hear. A little boy.” She paused to let us consider that shocking bit. “Then, when your darling brother was so terribly ill, they ran off to Vienna and were secretly married. Only after the deed was done did they inform your poor papa. What could he do? Why, he banished them, of course! The grand duke is forbidden ever to return to Russia!”
    We sisters looked at each other. Tatiana agreed that it was shameful. “Papa had no choice but to forbid them to marry. And I think it was very selfish of Uncle Misha to go against Papa’s wishes and break his promise.”
    “But they’re in love!” Olga protested. “It would be too cruel not to allow people who love each other to marry, just because she’s not appropriate —whatever that means.”
    “It means she’s a commoner. A twice-divorced commoner,” Tatiana said sharply. “And Uncle Misha is second in line to become tsar.”
    “One must always obey the tsar’s wishes,” Anya said piously. “And I hate to think what the Dowager Empress Marie has to say about it.”
    I thought I knew exactly what my grandmother would say. “ ‘I shan’t be able to show my face in public,’ ” I said, mimicking Grandmère Marie’s haughtiest tone. “ ‘It should have remained a secret !’ ”
    My sisters stared at me, and then burst out laughing. Anya, though, pursed her lips. “I do not find that at all amusing, Anastasia Nikolaevna,” she said.
    Anya had another bit of gossip to pass on. Admiral Chagin, the commander who had assigned Derevenko and Nagorny to be Alexei’s sailor-attendants, had come all the way from St. Petersburg. “He was terribly upset! He was in charge of your brother’s safety, and he’d chosen two of his most reliable sailors to look after Baby. He takes it very