Deviation
On June 15, 1884—the day Waldemar completed his work on Heinrich’s romantic affairs—Nicholas II attended the wedding of his relative Grand Duke Sergei and there met the woman of his destiny.
Members of the Romanov house and their kin filled the gathering; among them was Alix, who had come to watch her second sister Elizabeth marry.
At the reception, while exchanging greetings with his Hesse cousins, Nicholas spotted a girl as pretty as a porcelain doll.
“A pleasure to meet you, Alix.”
“It is an honor, Your Highness.”
The moment he saw the young Alix, Nicholas felt a spark of liking and spoke; she answered readily enough to the cousin who seemed so kind. The longer he looked at the girl, the more the flutter in his chest grew, and he wanted to keep talking—yet Alix felt nothing particular toward the Tsarevich.
Whenever he approached she kept a polite distance and perfect manners. Nicholas regretted the coolness he sensed in her, but he could not monopolize a young cousin girl at so important an occasion.
Once the reception ended and a little free time appeared, Nicholas went looking for the girl who had stirred him. Through a servant he learned the route she took while walking the palace grounds, then arranged to meet her as if by chance. Each time Alix answered with courtesy, yet never showed the slightest wish to exchange true feelings with him.
How am I supposed to get close to her?
Hoping to win the favor of the young princess from Hesse, Nicholas even sent poems he had written himself.
“The Tsarevich sent this to me?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The Tsarevich’s advances only startled Alix; they produced no good result. Far from capturing her heart, Nicholas earned only wariness. So his puppy love ended in failure.
When Waldemar read in Alix’s letter that she had refused Nicholas’s courtship, he burst out laughing. He was certain of Alix’s affection. Had he not been, he would never have sent her to Russia at all.
Anyway, the fact that he showed interest in Alix means Nicky isn’t indifferent to women.
Waldemar decided to send women to his cousin Nicky. The impulse was not kindness. It was calculation: ruin Nicholas’s clean reputation and thoroughly block any variable that might still arise. He did not bother computing the odds of success. This was simply an investment.
After thinking it through, Waldemar summoned Schneider from the magazine company.
“Among the actresses we recruit in Russia this time, set aside two of the most beautiful and leave them in Poland. We will not use them as models.”
Schneider found the order odd. Had the young prince finally opened his eyes to sex? Come to think of it, it was hardly strange. Royal education was strict, yet royals who crossed that line were not unknown.
Waldemar possessed every convenient condition: independent finances, women within arm’s reach, almost no supervision. That he had stayed pure this long was the stranger fact. Schneider hesitated a moment, then made the hard decision.
“I shall prepare as instructed.”
His superior was a prince. When the employer spoke, one did not refuse.
Not long afterward Schneider left two young Russian actresses in Warsaw.
“Will they really place us with a noble family?”
The girls had come believing the promise that they would be raised as mistresses of aristocrats; being left alone in Warsaw made them fear the words had been lies.
Of course they were not simply abandoned. Schneider had secured a plausible villa and left servants and tutors behind. After a few days of thought at the villa the girls reached a quieter conclusion.
Still, it seems they haven’t forgotten us entirely.
That thought brought a little relief. While they stayed, the tutors Schneider had left behind drilled them in several things. The lessons themselves were ordinary—speech, manners, bearing, tastes—yet in every particular the girls were “corrected.” From a distance it looked like noble education; the reality was different.
In truth they were being trained to evoke Alix. Because the goal was not full aristocratic polish, the training did not take long.
“Smile, please.”
The girls offered only quiet, restrained smiles, exactly as Alix would have done. The tutors checked the results and sent a report to Schneider.
Is His Highness actually thinking of embracing a substitute for young Princess Alix?
Schneider kept the suspicion to himself and reported to Waldemar. Waldemar was satisfied with the crash-course results.
“They know nothing of our circumstances, correct?”
“At the recruitment stage this time we revealed no connection whatsoever to the magazine. They thoroughly believe they are preparing to become the mistresses of nobles.”
“Good.”
Waldemar read their detailed backgrounds, then gave the order.
“Then fabricate suitable identities so these girls can enter society.”
Changing identities was never simple, yet for Waldemar it was not impossible. Impersonating true nobility, however, was out of the question—not because it could not be done, but because the risk was too great. Without noble rank it would be hard to approach Nicholas, yet this had never been a venture that counted on guaranteed success.
An opportunity will come at least once.
Even if it proved impossible in the capital, St. Petersburg, it was possible on the frontier of Warsaw. There, men who could never cross the threshold of the Winter Palace in ordinary times could still approach the Tsar’s feet. And how could Waldemar be certain Nicholas would come to Warsaw?
Because under the present international situation the imperial family has no choice but to visit Poland.
The circumstance was temporary, yet Russia desired the stability of the Three Emperors’ Alliance even more than in the original history—France had grown weaker still, and the ruble had taken a heavy blow.
In that earlier timeline Russia had held talks for alliance stability in Warsaw. Against the same background a visit by the Tsar’s family was bound to occur within the year, even if it did not fall in the original September.
The two girls Waldemar had raised as Alix look-alikes soon made their appearance in Warsaw society. Before long they enjoyed a considerable reputation among the Polish elite. They were not only beautiful; they possessed the elegance and brilliance that high society required.
“Daughters of a capitalist who went bankrupt trading in the Far East? Not daughters of fallen nobility?”
Poles and Russian nobles alike in Warsaw found them intriguing. Precisely because their station was low, they were attractive partners—not for marriage, but as women one could take as mistresses. Suitors showered them with gifts and honeyed promises, yet the girls did not yield easily.
The teacher said that if we give in too quickly we will be treated like toys.
Their lofty reserve only sharpened the possessiveness of the Russian nobles. Soon the rivalry surrounding them reached even the uppermost tier of Warsaw society—men such as Count Iosif Gurko, the Governor of Warsaw.
“It is rather comic to watch the young men make such a fuss over low-born commoner girls.”
“Well, that too is youth, I suppose.”
So long as no one drew steel over an unequal match, such things remained temporary. After all, the previous Tsar, Alexander II, had fallen headlong for a young girl and staged a romance of the century, had he not? Count Iosif Gurko decided to leave the matter alone. At present he was far too busy with the impending imperial visit to waste time on society gossip.
The imperial family arrived in Warsaw on the eighth of September as scheduled. For the duration the city lay under tight security. The nobles’ social life, of course, remained an exception. To display the majesty of imperial rule and Tsarist power in Poland—the most rebellious kingdom of the empire—the court prepared a splendid ball. Nicholas himself was given the duty of receiving leading local figures.
When a ball more lavish than usual opened at the Łazienki Palace where the family was lodged, Warsaw’s notables thronged the halls. They revelled and offered blessings upon the Tsar’s reign.
The Tsarevich met military officers and Polish aristocrats who labored in Warsaw and thanked them for their efforts and loyalty. Just as the atmosphere reached its height, someone voiced regret that the “flowers of society” had not been able to appear that evening.
Nicholas felt no special interest in the flowers they praised, yet hearing every voice declare them so beautiful and so elegant stirred a contrary impulse he could not quite suppress.
There is no girl that fine except Alix. It must be a lie.
Still nursing the unfinished puppy love, Nicholas decided he must meet the girls if only to prove the boasts false.
On the twelfth of September Tsar Alexander III, seeing his son worn out by days of hard travel, granted him a short rest. In ordinary times Alexander III was a relentlessly strict father, yet when the education of the heir was not on his mind no one could be more tender. Nicholas seized the chance. Following the nobles who had boasted so loudly, he attended a modest gathering open even to commoners.
There he momentarily doubted his eyes. The elegant manner with which they received men, the expressions that recalled Alix, the beauty that seized the gaze at once—the girls Warsaw’s aristocrats called the flowers of society kindled his interest.
Without thinking, the Tsarevich approached and spoke. Whether they knew his rank or not, they answered with natural ease. Their speech was polished, yet a faint wariness lingered. Conversation with them felt exactly like those first talks with Alix.
Alix?
Before he realized it, Nicholas was searching for Alix in them. Speech, bearing, eyes, the turn of a hand—they shared clear points of resemblance. He concentrated harder, wanting to find still more. Studying their looks at length, he understood that they were far more mature and beautiful than Alix.
That was only natural. They were seventeen, their beauty in full bloom; Alix was still an immature girl of twelve. Though they had begun as shadows of Alix, the refined allure they displayed soon captivated him completely.
Thereafter Nicholas appeared at social gatherings with growing frequency, always in pursuit of the girls. Alexander III received reports from his aides and issued a warning.
“I will not tolerate you becoming debauched like your grandfather. Do you understand my meaning?”
Having cautioned his obedient son, the Tsar believed the matter closed. The situation was not so simple. As in the original history, once Nicholas fixed upon a love he followed it to the end.
Moreover the women opposite him were actresses ready to offer themselves the moment he reached out. And beside him there was no Alix to rein in his feelings. Thus, in the realm of private life, Nicholas began to move in a direction entirely different from the original history.