Her smile faded.
Seeing her expression, Nicholas went still. “You are going to say no, aren’t you.”
“No! I mean, I’m not certain, I just…” She tugged atNicholas’s hands, pulling him to his feet. He stood slowly, hurt flashing in his eyes.
She loved him, but she also feared everything that came along with marrying him: the gowns, the grandeur, the endless state functions. How could a young woman who had suffered crippling anxiety at her own confirmation—which was only attended by a few dozen people, all of them family—handle the most excruciatingly public role on earth? Tsarina of All the Russias was the only position more prominent and vast in scope than Queen of England.
“I need to tell you something,” she began.
All her life, Alix had hidden her illness behind a bland, social smile and polite words—and even though she’d lately begun lowering her shields, revealing her sickness to Hélène and then to Eddy, she hadn’t dared confess the reasons behind it. Even her family, who knew the truth, would never say it aloud.
But she had to tell Nicholas.
It might change the way he looked at her, but that was a risk Alix needed to take. He deserved the truth.
“I have suffered from an affliction for years now.”
Nicholas’s eyes met hers in concern. “What sort of affliction? Have you seen a doctor?”
“I have, though it’s not technically an illness. It canfeellike a physical ailment, but it’s more…emotional in nature.” Alix drew in a breath, then said, “When I was five, my brother Friedrich—Frittie—died.”
“I know. I’m so sorry,” Nicholas replied, with infinite gentleness.
“His death was my fault.”
A ringing silence followed her words. Alix couldn’t bearto see the horror on Nicholas’s face, so she stared out into the distance, the trees a green blur, her eyes stinging.
“He had the bleeding disease. It runs in our family and for some reason seems only to affect men. Or boys.”
Nicholas said nothing, so she swallowed and continued.
“My mother always said that Frittie was delicate, that I had to treat him gently, but I never really understood. I just wanted to play with him. One day in the nursery we were pretending to be knights. I told Frittie to climb up onto a chair, that I would be the dragon and he could slay me. But once he was standing on the chair, he saw something outside, and leaned out the window…” Her voice caught, wavered. “He fell out.”
“Oh, Alix,” Nicholas murmured.
“The nursery was on the ground floor; I had fallen out of that window before, trying to catch butterflies! It wasn’t a great distance at all. But once Frittie fell…he couldn’t stop bleeding. He wasn’t even three years old,” she added mournfully.
“I’m so sorry,” Nicholas said again, but Alix shook her head.
“Don’t you see?I’mthe one who should be sorry! He died because of me!”
Her words were as sharp as knives. Knives she would turn upon herself, to plunge into her own anguished chest.
“You were both children,” Nicholas reminded her. “Little boys always run around, and climb things, and fall. You cannot blame yourself for that.”
“I knew he was sick! I should have pulled him down from the chair, should never have played with him in the firstplace….”
“What happened was a terrible tragedy, but it was not your fault, Alix. No one could blame you for what happened.”
She wrapped her arms around her chest, hunching forward. “I blamemyself.That’s why I can’t marry you, Nicholas. Ever since the accident, I’ve been…different. I fall prey to sudden episodes of fear and anxiety.”
“What kind of episodes?” he asked, without judgment.
“I feel dizzy and paralyzed with panic; I can’t breathe. It usually happens when I’m somewhere crowded, or about to make an important decision. Then my mind spins me back in time and I’m in the nursery with Frittie again, watching him fall, hearing his little voice, so broken and weak…” She wiped at the tears on her cheeks, then closed her eyes. “Having to see his tiny body in the coffin.”
A moment later, she felt arms encircling her. Alix hesitated, then let herself relax into the warmth of Nicholas’s chest.
Her head was tucked beneath his chin, his arms a solid band around her torso. She listened to the steady beat of his heart, felt the rise and fall of his breath, inhaled the delicious scent of him. This was wildly inappropriate, but she didn’t step away.
