Maybe it’s just as well that I got it over with quickly and left Theo to deal with it on his own. By the time we discuss my pregnancy again, Theo will have had time to come up with some jokes and some theories and all the other things he uses to shield himself. He’s more vulnerable than he lets on.
What will Paul say when I break the news? Although I know him more intimately—more than Theo, more than anyone else—I can’t imagine his reaction. But of course I have to tell him. My Paul was within Lieutenant Markov, a part of him, when this child was conceived.
“Your Imperial Highness?” my driver says. “Are you well?”
Only then do I realize I’ve started crying into my handkerchief. I just shake my head. Let the chauffeur make what he can out of that.
Walking back into the Suite Imperial at the Ritz feels like stepping within the walls of a gilded fortress. In some ways, I’m locked in, but at least the rest of the world is locked out tonight . . . or so I think, before I see the potted orchids on the desk next to a small yellow envelope. A card on the flowers says: With regards.
I rip open the envelope. When I pull out the thin yellow paper inside, I realize it’s a telegram, the first real one I’ve ever seen. Each word is written in flat block capitals. Yet before I read anything else, I see the name of the sender: WYATT CONLEY, NEW YORK CITY.
He’s a millionaire inventor in this dimension, someone this world’s Marguerite has never had the slightest contact with. So I know the sender isn’t this universe’s Conley, and the message isn’t meant for the grand duchess. It’s for me.
YOU FOUND A LOOPHOLE IN MY RULES -(STOP)- VERY CLEVER -(STOP)- DON’T TRY MY PATIENCE -(STOP)- COME TO MEETING AT THE HOME OFFICE WITHIN 48 HOURS AND THE FINAL SPLINTER WILL BE RESTORED TO YOU -(STOP)- DELAY ANY FURTHER AND WE WILL RENEGOTIATE TERMS LESS IN YOUR FAVOR -(STOP)- BETTER TO WORK FOR ME THAN AGAINST ME MARGUERITE REMEMBER THAT -(STOP)- GOOD WORK SO FAR -(STOP)-
The last sentence sickens me—or maybe that’s pregnancy nausea again. I don’t know. Maybe both.
It doesn’t matter whether I feel ready. I have to save Paul, and that means I leave tomorrow.
I’d go this moment, if I didn’t feel like I should speak to Theo one more time before we face Conley again. We need to present a united front—and right this second, if I leaped out of this dimension I’m not sure Theo would follow.
No, of course he would. He’d do it for Paul.
After I climb into bed, and only the one glass-shaded lamp beside my bed is lit, I take a deep breath. Finally I pick up the grand duchess’s sketch pad and open it. Drawn on the top page is the portrait I couldn’t look at before: Lieutenant Markov. Paul. The man who made me fall in love.
She’s etched him in the softest, most precise lines. Only hinted at color. Yet she has captured something in him that blazes with life.
I know the expression on his face; I even know where he’s standing, from the quality of the light. She drew this thinking of Paul leading her to the Easter Room where she could admire the Fabergé eggs. The portrait of my mother hung in the heart of a wine-colored egg he placed gently into my hands; I remember looking up from the intricate gold mechanism inside to see his face—strong, yet uncertain. Just like this. Like my Paul, too.
The next page is Lieutenant Markov again, this time standing at attention beside my door, the military uniform he wears outlining his broad shoulders and narrow waist, the scale revealing how tall and powerfully built he is.
Was.
One evening last month, when Paul and I were alone at the house, I asked him to sit for me. Since I’d ripped up the first portrait I’d painted of him, I needed to paint another one—a better one, that would capture the man I now knew so much better than before.
Unsurprisingly, Paul wasn’t a natural model. “I feel strange,” he said, sitting stiffly on the chair.
“Just relax.” I made sure the drop cloth covered my bedroom floor, then took up my pencil to start sketching. “It’s only me. Right?”
“Right.” But he stared forward as if he were facing a firing squad.
Laughing, I said, “It could be worse, you know.”
“How?”
“In my Life Drawing class last year, we had nude models.”
I expected him to be relieved that I was sketching him with his clothes on. Instead, Paul’s eyes met mine, and—very slowly—he reached for the hem of his T-shirt.
“Paul—” But my voice died in my throat as he pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the floor where it fell almost at my feet.
We’d taken things so slowly after the Russiaverse, and Paul had let me take the lead every step of the way. Or he had until this moment, when he began stripping down in front of me. I’d never imagined that shy, reticent Paul would take a step so bold—or that I’d find it so incredibly exciting when he did.
“You’ve already seen me naked,” he said with a shrug that wasn’t as nonchalant as it was meant to be.
“No, I haven’t.” There’s been a lot of touching since we got together in January. A lot. But relatively little looking.
“You’ve seen another me, then. And we’re the same, aren’t we?”
I started to argue with him, then wondered why I would do something so stupid. Besides, I told myself—I’m just drawing him. That’s all.
He continued, “You’re only painting me from the chest up, like most of your portraits, right?”
That had been the original plan. But as I tucked a curl behind my ear and tried to act casual, I said, “In Life Drawing, we usually tried to, uh, capture the entire figure. The whole body.” Then, more boldly, I added, “If you dare.”
Paul raised one eyebrow, rose from the chair, and unbuttoned his jeans; I stood there, pencil in hand, my cheeks flushed with heat. He let his jeans drop, but kept his boxers on—at least, for the moment.
Before this moment, I’d been smiling. No longer. Difficult to smile with your mouth hanging open. Don’t drool, I told myself. Keep it together.
But Paul’s body—he’s a big guy, and well proportioned, but it was the rock climbing that did it. All those hours scrambling up cliffs had carved muscles into his back, his abdomen, his thighs. Not in a creepy bodybuilder way—in an ohmigod freakin’ hot way. Even if he’d been some anonymous model from class, I would’ve been speechless at the sight of him all but naked, submitting to my gaze.
In Life Drawing, we sometimes asked the models for specific poses. At first it was awkward, but everybody got over the weirdness after a little while. Facing Paul that day, however, I wasn’t as cool. “Um, could you—if—um, could you sit on the corner of the chair, your back toward me?”
“You get to look at me, but I don’t get to look at you?” Paul said, even as he did what I asked.
“You get to look at me. Just—over your shoulder.” Slowly he glanced back toward me, gray eyes intense. When his face was at the ideal angle, I said, “There. Right there.”
For several long, silent minutes, Paul remained as still as any of the professional models. I sketched his perfect body with loving attention to every single detail: his broad shoulders, long-fingered hands, tapered waist. With my index finger, I smudged the lines slightly to create shadows and dimension; it was so easy to imagine really touching him.