They were both flushed and animated with the idea, sitting up next to each other, their faces close together.
Nadia dropped her eyes first.
She stood up hastily, brushing bits of grass off her shorts.
“Do you mind if we walk around campus a bit more?” she asked. “I’d like to see some of the other buildings.”
* * *
17
Nikolai
They walked all around the university campus—to the dining hall, the library, and the humanities building where Samara would have taken her literature classes.
Once Nadia had seen as much as she liked, Nikolai said he had something else to show her. They got back in the car, and he drove her over to the Tsar’s Armoury. The Armoury was in the Kremlin, on the edge of Red Square.
It was a little touristy, but he thought she would like it, since she hadn’t been to Moscow much, and probably hadn’t done most of the typical exploring.
As he expected, Nadia repeatedly remarked on the Byzantine architecture, the colorful woodwork and distinctive onion domes, so unlike the gothic style she was used to in Paris.
The Armoury itself was stuffed with all the old treasures of the Tsars, including Catherine the Great’s wedding dress, the ornate and intricate Muscovite guns, the ivory throne of Ivan the Terrible, the Orlov diamond, and innumerable pieces of jewelry and art that had belonged to the Imperial rulers.
Nadia marveled over it all. Nikolai loved her curiosity as she went from exhibit to exhibit. He wondered if that’s what had captivated him about her in the first place—he remembered her look of intense concentration as she’d examined the Crimson Heart in his father’s gallery. Then he’d interrupted her, and she’d turned that same look on him. And he thought,I want to be as interesting to her as that old egg.
Her interests brought such a brightness to her eyes. It illuminated her whole face. And that buoyancy seemed to be increasing in her day by day. At his father’s house she’d had a certain nervousness, a certain oppressiveness weighing down on her. Probably the influence of that idiot Maxim.
But she was opening up, day by day in Moscow. Nikolai wanted to be the sun and the rain on her skin. He wanted to make her bloom.
So he brought her to the room of the Armoury that he knew would be of particular interest to her—the room that housed the ten Imperial Eggs. It was the largest collection of Faberge eggs in the world. It included the Monument Egg, made of rock crystal so fine and clear that the egg was as transparent as glass. The Alexandrovsky Palace Egg, with its five miniature portraits of the doomed children of Nicholas ll. The Kremlin Egg, which was a music box, and the Trans-Siberian Express Egg, that contained a solid-gold model of a train.
“Oh my god!” Nadia cried, hurrying over to the cases. She read the descriptions of each one, lingering longest over the Clover Egg, which was made of pale-green transparent vitreous enamel, and was given by the emperor to his wife Alexandra.
“A symbol of their happy marriage and the union of two loving hearts,” Nadia read out loud. “What a beautiful gift.”
“When you have the right woman,” Nikolai said, looking down on her, “you want to give her everything.”
It was strange.
Nikolai knew he was supposed to be seducing Nadia. His father had given him the task of engaging her, so she might be useful in securing their deal for the Crimean Bridge.
And Nikolai had certainly organized this day with the intent of impressing her, wooing her, making her feel connected to him, indebted to him.
Yet, in this moment, none of it felt false. It wasn’t a scheme anymore.
He looked into her bright green eyes and he thought she truly was a woman worth any gift, any price.
He wanted Nadia Turgenev for much more than a bargaining chip.
He wanted her for himself.
“Is this the end of our adventure?” Nadia asked, smiling up at him.
“What?” Nikolai said, shaking free of those mad thoughts.
“I just wondered if that was all your plans, or if you wanted to go somewhere else?” Nadia asked.
“I had one more place in mind,” Nikolai said. “Have you ever been to a traditionalbanya?”
