While the others play games, Alix sits in her compartment to watch Russia go by. Towns are infrequent now—it’s mostly woods upon woods, and more woods. Sometimes the train passes a field fenced with rough-hewn wooden boards, confining a few head of cattle, or a clearing with a small cottage and an even smaller barn. The afternoon grows misty, and the train crosses a lake on a long spit of land that splits the water into two pewter-colored halves. The farther east they travel, the more mysterious it seems. In Germany farms and lanes, towns and streets, are out in the open, known and mapped. Here the forests keep so much hidden. If Russia is the vastest country on earth, and Miss Jackson says it is, must it inevitably be, also, the most mysterious? What magical wonders unfold in the enormous, murky, remote stretches of land?
Of course, they won’t be staying anywhere wild and nameless. Papa says their home for the trip will be Peterhof, the seaside estate of the Romanovs, built by a tsar called Peter the Great. A bit like Osborne, Alix imagines, but with onion domes.
Late that evening, long after supper, they disembark at the Peterhof Station, a lofty stone structure like a small church. Serge is there, flanked by an honor guard. He embraces Papa, kisses Ella on each cheek, and when he reaches Alix, he takes both her hands in his. “Welcome, dear girl, to my homeland,” he says, his voice joyous, his face beaming. “I trust you will love it.”
They travel in two open-topped charabancs, with rows of benches to accommodate them all. It’s past ten o’clock but oddly bright. “The Russians call these June weeks the Beliye Nochi—the ‘White Nights,’” Miss Jackson says, as soon as they settle in their seats. “The sun will never properly set, children, you shall see. The sky will merely turn dark gray for two hours after midnight.”
No one would guess their governess is making her first visit to Russia.
They drive along a straight road and then up a steep hill, from which they can see iron-blue water on the left. “The Gulf of Finland,” Miss Jackson intones. “Peter the Great visited Versailles and desired the same for himself—by the sea. So he chose this bluff, only a hundred yards from the shore.”
They pass between high gates—golden, double-headed eagles topping the rails—and into astonishing grounds, so much grander than Osborne. Grandmama’s house has a single fountain, set on the pebbled parterre, above a smooth skirt of lawn. Here, the royal residence announces itself with tiers of fountains, shooting water high in the air, separated by broad waterfalls, studded with gold statues of classical figures and bordered by intricately patterned flowerbeds and rows of conical pines. The Grand Palace itself is massive. Her mouth drops open as they drive along the white-and-yellow façade to the entrance, a distance that must be twice, three times as long as the entire Neues Palais. Rows and rows of fretted windows are arrayed under a broad roof crowned by four cupolas and an enormous vase of dense, gleaming gold.
Under the strangely luminous sky, this palace seems to radiate pride, as if conscious of its rarity, as if a bold, living heart beats somewhere deep in the cold stone.
Alix hears Victoria, on the bench in front of her, say quietly to Louis: “All this, in a country where millions toil for pennies a day? Disgraceful!”
Alix frowns. How rude to cast aspersions when you are the guest, and how disrespectful to scorn such high-reaching grandeur. At least Irène thinks as she does. “It’s as if we’ve stepped into some beautiful dream,” she whispers to Alix.
Clambering down, Alix feels the cool breeze off the sea and tastes salty freshness in the air. They have come such a long way, and at journey’s end, distant Darmstadt, although dear, seems suddenly so dull and ordinary as to be almost pitiful compared with the magnificence of Peterhof.
The next morning, when they are to meet the tsar and his wife—Uncle Sasha and Aunt Minnie—Alix is anxious. It can’t be right, she thinks, as Orchie braids her hair, to appear in plaits today. But her nurse, in a fluster about the unpacking, won’t like complaints, so Alix lingers behind as everyone else heads downstairs. With nimble fingers she takes out the braids, gives her hair a few strokes with the brush, and pins the front bits high on the crown of her head. Peering into the looking glass, she fluffs her fringe, pulls out her coral beads from under the collar of her dress, and nods at her reflection. Much better.
Downstairs, a surprise. Next to a set of double doors, flung open to the jetting fountains and the sea beyond, an older boy waits. Neat and compact, like a toy soldier, he is wearing a pressed navy uniform jacket, gray trousers, and leather boots that shine with polish.
He gazes at her with steady curiosity as she crosses the shiny tile floor. And then he smiles. “You are Alix,” he says in English. “Uncle Gega told us you are a darling.”
Alix feels herself flush.
“Are you Nicky or Georgy?” she asks. The two eldest of the tsar’s five children are sons—sixteen and thirteen.
“You don’t know?”
The way he says it tells her the answer. “You are Nicky.” The elder, the heir, the tsarevich.
He smiles again. His large blue eyes are velvety, rather like a rabbit’s. He bows briefly from the waist. “Georgy is outside with your brother. We are going to the mast. Say hello to the others, and then come along. It will be fun.”
Copyright © 2024 by Clare McHugh, published with permission from HarperCollins Publishers
THE ROMANOV BRIDES by Clare McHugh
From the author of A Most English Princess comes a rich novel about young Princess Alix of Hesse—the future Alexandra, last Empress of Imperial Russia—and her sister, Princess Ella. Their decision to marry into the Romanov royal family changed history.
They were granddaughters of Queen Victoria and two of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. Princesses Alix and Ella were destined to wed well and wisely. But while their grandmother wants to join them to the English and German royal families, the sisters fall in love with Russia—and the Romanovs.
Defying the Queen’s dire warnings, Ella weds the tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Serge. Cultivated, aloof, and proud, Serge places his young wife on a pedestal for all to admire. Behind palace gates, Ella struggles to secure private happiness.
Alix, whisked away to Russia for Ella’s wedding, meets and captivates Nicky—heir apparent to the Russian throne. While loving him deeply, Alix hears a call of conscience, urging her to walk away.
Their fateful decisions to marry will lead to tragic consequences for not only themselves and their families, but for millions in Russia and around the globe.
The Romanov Brides is a moving and fascinating portrait of two bold and spirited royal sisters, and brings to vivid life imperial Russia—a dazzling, decadent world on the brink of disappearing forever.
Women’s Fiction Historical [William Morrow Paperbacks, On Sale: March 12, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063250932 / ]
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About Clare McHugh
Born in London, Clare McHugh grew up in the United States and graduated from Harvard with a degree in European history. Her own family’s history includes the never-to-be-forgotten day in 1905 when her great-grandfather, a coachman in Portsmouth England, drove Vicky’s son Kaiser Wilhelm, and her brother, Edward VII, the King of England. Clare taught high school history before becoming a reporter at The New York Post. She went on to edit magazines, and later served as operations director of Time Inc’s News and Lifestyle division. Married to a fellow editor, she now works as consultant to prominent media companies and has two grown children.
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