Maria shook her head. “Me neither. But I am sure it will not be much longer before we are in our new home. Where would you like to go?”

He considered this. “Perhaps Africa, where I could hunt lions, or India, where we could ride on elephants and shoot tigers.”

Maria laughed. “I hope your wishes will be taken into consideration.”

He was so pale and thin, with his gangly limbs, that it was impossible to picture him as a big-game hunter. The hemophilia he had inherited from their mother’s side of the family ruled out any activities in which he might risk injury. He would never ride a horse or a bicycle, would never ski, and even running was risky. Yet he could still have his dreams; no one could deny him that.

* * *

On the day of Maria’s nineteenth birthday, the family gave her little gifts: a hand-painted bookmark, a volume of Russian poetry, and a precious Fabergé box studded with diamonds and a topaz that had been given to her mother by her sister Ella the year before the war. The box was pretty and Maria knew she should be grateful, but all the same it was hard not to think of previous birthdays: even a year before, they had still been in the Alexander Palace, albeit under house arrest. Her parents had given her a handsome gold bracelet and dozens of other presents before holding a special birthday tea with pretty cakes and her favorite almond toffee. Here, the meal was a single course of stewed meat and boiled potatoes with no desserts. They were dependent on provisions brought each morning by the nuns from a local convent and there was not a lot of variety.

That evening, as they sat in the drawing room after dinner, there was a knock on the door and her father called, “Come in.”

Ivan popped his head inside, then walked in holding a cake on a plain white plate.

“Good evening.” He bowed his head to the company. “I hear there is a birthday today and thought you might enjoy some medovik.” He seemed nervous in front of her parents. “I wish I could say I baked it myself, but it was my mother. I bring it with her compliments.” He smiled at Maria, who jumped up to take the plate from him.

“You’re unbelievably kind,” she said. “Truly. Please give my warmest thanks to your mother and tell her how very touched I am by the gesture.”

The family looked at each other, eyebrows raised, as Ivan backed out of the room. Leonid Sednev brought plates and all had a slice of the multilayered honey cake. It was the first such confection they had enjoyed for many months, and even Nicholas was moved to say that it was very kind of the guard and his mother. It lifted the mood of the entire party and the girls sang a popular song together, “Shine, Shine, My Star.”