***
Alexander comes again that night, with a fresh vase of flowers and a simple leather pouch. I pour the contents into my hand.
“Dirt?” I ask curiously.
“Soil from your homeland. I know how desperately you’ve missed being on German soil. Now you can carry it with you always.”
I don’t know what to say as I carefully pour the dirt back into the pouch. It’s a piece of home, in this distant land. How much trouble had he gone to in order to get it? That he knows me so well, that this would be his gift, it fills my heart with joy. This simple pouch of dirt is worth more to me than all the rubies and diamonds in Russia.
“Thank you,” I say sincerely. It doesn’t seem like there are words enough to express my gratitude, so I just smile.
“Happy birthday, Princess,” he offers meekly.
Alexander comes again the next night and the next and the next, sitting at my bedside, reading me tales and poems until I can almost feel the sun awakening from its slumber. And every night when he leaves, a sense of loss and dread fill me. I spend my days longing to see his face, and my nights staring into his eyes. He’s always a gentleman, despite the very nature of the meetings, and never makes inappropriate advances, though a very deep, very reckless part of me wishes he would.
Weeks pass slowly, a languid, calm pace. The new moon comes and goes, and comes again.
By the time full night has fallen and my ladies and maids have long since retired for the evening, I sit in bed, thinking of how I can send Alexander away. I am to be Peter’s wife, after all. How can I marry one man and long for another? It isn’t fair. All the things I thought I wanted now sit within my grasp, and I can only think of my own selfish desires and of the one man who makes me question it all.
I should end these meetings, bury my feelings, and forget about him. I know that. I’m just not sure how.
My good intentions aside, the moment Alexander steps through my door, all those thoughts evaporate like morning frost.
Seeing me, he grins, bowing deeply.
“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers if Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.”
His words, the words of my favorite poet spoken from his lips, soothe my troubled heart. Crossing the room to my bedside, he takes my hand, kissing it gently.
“Alexander, I must ask something of you,” I begin softly.
His eyes flicker up, a glimmer of fear in them. I feel the same fear in my heart, the fear that tonight will be the night that I send him away, and even as I think it, I falter.
So I say the only thing I can think of.
“I have been in this bed for weeks, and I crave a change of scenery. Is there some place you could take me, some place where no one will see us? These walls feel too constricting.”
Something else flickers in his eyes now, something I’m not familiar with.
Hope, perhaps? Or just surprise?
When he doesn’t respond, I waver, feeling silly. Had I mistaken his kindness and concern, for something it was not? Surely, like Peter, he was a flirt by nature, but I was so confident that he felt the same as me, had I been mistaken?
“Of course,” I mumble feebly, “I know it’s quite inappropriate to ask such a thing of you. Please, don’t think me ill-mannered—”
Before I can finish, he scoops me up, into his arms.
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