Cover

Dedication

To my oldest friend, my aunt Anne,

who remains inspirational in her nineties;

and my youngest friends, Hope (aged nine) and Marshall (six),

who are incredibly brave and very good at making me laugh

The Lost Daughter

* * *

She packed a bag of items she did not want to be without: her photo album, her sketch pad and pencils, a couple of favorite icons, and the gold Fabergé box, then she put her camera beside it.

She pulled on the undergarments and skirt into which she had sewn jewels, and saw her sisters doing the same.

She pulled on her boots and laced them, then picked up her camera and her travel bag. When they were all ready, they walked out to the drawing room.

As they passed the stuffed black bear at the top of the stairs, her mother crossed herself.

* * *

Prologue

Ekaterinburg, July 16, 1918

YUROVSKY SURVEYED THE GUNS SPREAD ACROSS THE table: six pistols and eight revolvers. They seemed out of place in this gentleman’s study, with its expensive purple wallpaper decorated with gold palm leaves, lavish silver chandelier, stained-glass art nouveau lamps, and wooden gramophone. Two rooms away, the Romanov family was eating dinner along with its four retainers. Omelette; there was a surfeit of eggs that day.

The office door opened and the men sloped in, glancing first at the guns and then at him, before shuffling into a semicircle. Ermakov stood directly beneath a stag’s head mounted on the wall, his dark hair unruly and his face shiny with perspiration. Yurovsky wasn’t close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath but knew it was there, although it was only eight in the evening and still light outside.

“Tonight,” he began, “the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet has been charged with a great mission: to rid our country of the enemies of Bolshevism.” His stomach knotted; there had still been no telegram from Moscow confirming it, yet all the same it was clear what was required of him. This was his moment; his place in the history books beckoned.

He continued in a businesslike tone: “I want eleven men, one for each of the party, so the deaths are simultaneous. You will be allocated a target and I will give the order to fire. Shoot to kill, so they do not have the unnecessary suffering of seeing each other die.”

As he spoke, he looked from face to face, watching for signs of hesitation, or fear, or nerves. He needed steady men, who would obey without question. This bunch were militants from the Verkh-Isetsk metallurgy plant, probably less intelligent than average. That was good; he didn’t want any questions about the whys and wherefores, just mute obedience. Most had not met the family yet, so there had been no chance to form attachments. They were young, though, the youngest only seventeen. Would they stay calm when the firing started?

Ermakov was eager. “I’ll take a Mauser,” he said, reaching for one of the most powerful guns on the table.

Adolf Lepa, commander of this new set of guards, surprised Yurovsky. “I don’t think I could shoot the girls,” he mumbled, looking at his feet.

Yurovsky glared. Lepa had been at the meeting at the Hotel Amerika when the decision had been made that very afternoon. He knew they couldn’t risk the Romanovs falling into the hands of counterrevolutionaries who might even try to reinstate them on the throne, with the backing of foreign governments.

“Me neither,” said Verhas, a Hungarian man.

Yurovsky opened his mouth to chastise them, to reiterate the case for the execution, but realized there was no point. He had thought Lepa reliable at least, but you never knew how people would react when they were put on the spot. “Go back to the Popov House, both of you,” he ordered. “And don’t breathe a word of this. The rest of the guard will not be told till the last minute.”

He waited until they had shuffled out before addressing the others. “If there is a gun you prefer, choose now.”

They stepped forward, eyeing the remaining Mauser, the Colts, the Nagants, the Smith & Wesson, the Browning, picking them up to test the grip, the weight. One man’s hand was shaking so violently he almost knocked a Nagant to the floor. Another smelled strongly of homemade vodka, his breath foul with it, and Yurovsky winced.

“You two.” He motioned at them, then pointed to the door. “You are relieved.”

That left ten, including him. One man would have to shoot two people. He glanced at Ermakov, nursing the Mauser, his eyes sparkling with revolutionary fervor.

“I’ll take two,” the wild man volunteered, preempting him.

Ermakov had murdered before; he’d spent six years in a prison camp for decapitating the nightwatchman at a factory he was raiding, but had been released after the Revolution. Now he was a Cheka officer of great renown in the region. Yurovsky knew he would get the job done.

“That’s it, then,” he said, looking around the men one last time. “Nothing must go wrong. Our leaders have put great trust in us, and I am putting my trust in you. Take your weapons and await orders.”

One of them tripped over a rug as he left the room and his pistol fell to the floor with a clunk. Yurovsky sighed. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 1

Ekaterinburg, April 1918

CITIZEN ROMANOV, CITIZEN ROMANOVA. I AM COMMISSAR Avdeyev.” The man spoke in Russian and wore a Red Army uniform. He did not even remove his cap with its red badge as he addressed them.

Maria watched her mother bristle. Until March the previous year her title had been Tsarina Alexandra, Empress of All Russias, and she had not come to terms with the change in their circumstances.

“Who does he think he is?” Alexandra remarked in English to Maria’s father, the former Tsar Nicholas.

“From now on, you will speak only Russian, the language of our great nation,” the commissar reprimanded, and her mother tutted loudly and muttered something under her breath.

Their servants were still hauling trunks up the hill from the station. Maria wanted to stay outside in the bright spring sunshine rather than step into the squat-looking house surrounded by a tall palisade fence. From where they stood, only the curved dormer windows set in a green metal roof could be seen above the fence posts. Avdeyev was beckoning them up the steps, and her heart filled with a gloom that matched the shadowy interior as she followed her parents.

Inside, a flight of stone stairs led up from the foyer. Avdeyev explained that they would spend their days on the upper floor, except when they were permitted out into the yard to exercise. On the landing there was a stuffed black bear with two cubs, and Maria winced; she had never liked taxidermy and it seemed a bad omen to have these dead creatures in their midst.

Her mind wandered as Avdeyev gave them a guided tour, his tone curt. He led them into a drawing room with carved oak furniture and a piano, then through an arch to a further sitting room with a writing desk and bookshelves, and a dining room with a dark, heavy table and chairs. The furnishings were clearly expensive but lacked comfort, as if designed for show rather than use. The bedroom was brighter, with pale yellow wallpaper, but Maria must share it with her parents, while their servants would camp in the living and dining rooms. There was electricity, a bathroom and a lavatory with toilet, and she supposed they should be grateful, but she yearned for the spacious elegance of their rooms in the Alexander Palace.

She walked to the bedroom window and watched an electric streetcar glide up the hill. Men and women strolled past, scarcely glancing at the house. They weren’t prisoners. They could do as they pleased. Maria wished she had been born an ordinary citizen rather than a daughter of the Tsar. She was only eighteen years old and wanted to have fun, but since the uprising in February the previous year, her family had been under house arrest. Almost fourteen months a prisoner. How wonderful it would be to wake in the morning, open the curtains, and decide to hike in the countryside, or drive to the coast to see the ocean—preferably with a handsome beau. Maria had not yet had a beau and she longed for one. Girls her age usually had beaus; some were married at eighteen, so why not her?

Her mother lay on the daybed complaining of a headache and covered her eyes with a cloth, while her father paced up and down, sucking on a pipe, his cheeks hollowed and his brow creased in worry. Maria went through to the sitting room to help Demidova, her mother’s maid, search for some headache powders. Their luggage had been tossed around during the weeklong journey from Tobolsk and a perfume bottle had smashed, its scent cloying and no longer pleasant. She found the powders and took them to her mother with a glass of water, then wandered idly around their accommodation, looking out of windows at the yard and the city beyond: tree-lined boulevards, leafy parks, and, in the distance, factory chimneys belching smoke. Several doors were locked on their floor of the house, which was annoying as they could have used the extra space.

If only her sisters had come with them. Maria missed them terribly, especially Anastasia, two years her junior, who would no doubt be up to some mischief or other were she here. But her siblings had stayed behind at the Governor’s House in Tobolsk to look after her little brother, Alexei, who was poorly after a fall had caused bleeding in his groin. Maria had been chosen to accompany her parents to this, their next prison. Why must they be here? Ekaterinburg seemed a strange destination if they were to be shipped into exile, as they hoped, because it was in the landlocked dead center of the country.

There was a guard standing by the top of a second staircase near the bathroom, and Maria said good afternoon before recognizing his face and squealing with delight.

“I know you! You used to work at Livadia. How wonderful to see you here!” The Livadia Palace in Crimea had been the Romanovs’ spring retreat. Although it was still winter in St. Petersburg at the end of March, flowers and fruit trees were already in bloom in Crimea, and the sun was warm. They all loved Livadia. “Forgive me,” she added, “for I have forgotten your name.”

He bowed his head. “Ukraintsev, ma’am. Konstantin Ukraintsev.”

“You were the beater at Uncle Michael’s hunts, were you not? And I remember you playing croquet with us on the lawn. You always let me win.” Maria wanted to dance with joy at coming upon a friendly face.

“Indeed, ma’am.”

“Tell me, how is your family? Did they come here with you?”

“I married an Ekaterinburg woman and have been working in the city for some years past.”

“Do you have children?”

He told her of his wife, his two children—a boy and a girl—and she asked about their characters, their interests, drinking in the information. She would embroider a cushion for them, she decided. As an Easter gift.

“Whose house is this?” she asked. “I find myself looking at the furniture and wondering whose hand chose it.”

“A merchant called Ipatiev,” he replied. “I believe he was asked to vacate it only recently in order to accommodate your family.”

“I hope it did not inconvenience him.” She frowned, peering down the staircase. “It does not seem an especially large house. Are there many guards here?”

“A few dozen,” he told her. “Some sleep on the ground floor and others in a house across the street.” He paused. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I took the job because it was much better money than I earned in the factory.”

“I completely understand,” she cried. “Please don’t worry about that. I am just so happy to see you. You must come and say hello to Mama and Papa later.”

Another guard ascended the staircase toward them. He stopped and seemed uncertain when he saw Maria talking to his colleague.

“This is Peter Vasnetsov,” Ukraintsev told her.

When she smiled and held out her hand, he hesitated and did not seem to know whether to shake it, so she grasped his fingers and gave them a quick squeeze. He was a tall man, probably around twenty years old. His sandy-blond hair had an unruly tuft at the front, what they called a cowlick. “Charmed to meet you,” she said. “I’m Maria.”

He nodded without meeting her eye, looking instead at Ukraintsev. “I was sent to relieve you,” he told him.

Ukraintsev patted his shoulder, then told Maria, “I shall knock on the door after dinner to give my regards to your parents.”

“Please do.” She beamed. “They’ll be overjoyed.”

Ukraintsev turned to go downstairs and she regarded his replacement. “Are you a local man, Mr. Vasnetsov? Do you have family here?”

“My mother and sister,” he said. “My father died in the war.”

Sympathetic tears pricked Maria’s eyes. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. Which front was he on?”

He looked surprised, but answered, “He was killed in Augustow Forest, along with most of the Tenth Army.”

“That was February 1915, was it not?” He nodded, and Maria continued, “My father said every last man there was a hero. They held up the German armies for long enough to reorganize the other divisions and thus we were able to hold the line. But I imagine this is no comfort to you. Tell me, what kind of a man was your father?”

“The best. I’ve never met his like, before or since.” Peter spoke with conviction.

“Did he spend much time with you when you were younger? Some men have such busy jobs that they enjoy little family life.” She was thinking of her own father, who had frequently been detained on affairs of state when she was young. And now that they were confined together all hours of the day, he seemed sunk within himself and rarely spoke beyond formalities.

Peter smiled, and his gray eyes crinkled at the corners. “I was his shadow. He was the gamekeeper on a big estate and he took me out with him, rain or shine, and taught me all about animals, trees, plants, and weather. It was a happy childhood.”

“You didn’t go to school?”

“A bit. In our world, there’s not much call for book learning, every call for understanding the land.”

He was clearly not ashamed of his lack of education, and Maria liked that. “How does your mother manage now?”

He shrugged. “She is a capable woman, so she gets by, but she is somehow . . .” He searched for the right word. “Somehow less.”

With the edge of her finger Maria wiped away a tear that threatened to spill over. The poor woman. “Do you live with her?”

“I live here,” he said, “in a house across the road. Mother stays with my sister, who is married and has a baby on the way.”

Maria smiled. “You must let me know when it arrives and I will send a gift. I love babies.”

Peter coughed, seeming embarrassed again. “I don’t think that would be right somehow . . .”

“I don’t see why not. You mean because you are our guard? My sisters and I were very friendly with the guards at the Governor’s House in Tobolsk and I hope you and I can be friends here. Otherwise life gets so tedious. You are fortunate that when you finish your shift you can go outside and do whatever you wish. I am stuck with my parents and neither of them is in a particularly gregarious frame of mind.”

He frowned, and she sensed he did not understand the word “gregarious,” so she continued, “In fact, their company is rather dull. So would you mind if I slip out to chat to you sometimes? To help us both pass the hours?”

He thought about this for a moment. “I’m not sure what the commissar will say, but it’s fine with me.”

“Good. That’s agreed then.”

As he had promised, Konstantin Ukraintsev came to their drawing room later to give his regards to her parents. They invited him to sit and chat, which was most unusual for them. Before he left, he promised to send a cable to Maria’s sisters in Tobolsk to let them know where they were and that they had arrived safely. Her mother and father seemed much cheered by his visit and spoke for some time about how wonderful it was to see him, then about their memories of Livadia.

No bed had been supplied for Maria, so she lay on a pile of coats in the corner of her parents’ room, thinking about Konstantin and Peter as she waited for sleep. They were both nice men, although she supposed they must be Bolsheviks. She was glad she would have some company until her sisters arrived, but decided it would be wise to steer their conversations away from politics.

Chapter 2

NEXT MORNING, PETER VASNETSOV WAS ONCE AGAIN guarding the top of the second staircase and Maria greeted him as she passed on her way to bathe.

“Have you been there all night? I do hope they let you sleep sometimes.”

He gave a shy smile. “I was off duty from midnight till eight, but now I will be here till two.”

“Oh, good. After breakfast, might I come and take your photograph? It is a particular hobby of mine. I love to collect portraits and you have a strong face.”

His cheeks colored. “I don’t know about that.”

“You don’t know that you have a strong face? Or are you worried that it’s not allowed? Personally, I can’t see any harm.”

He bit his lip before answering. “What would I have to do?”

She almost laughed, but stopped herself. He had clearly never had his photograph taken before. “Just what you are doing anyway: stand still. I’ll come back in an hour and explain more.”

In fact, it was slightly longer than an hour because her father read to them from the scriptures after breakfast, but when Maria skipped out to the hallway carrying her leather photograph album and her precious Kodak Autographic, Peter was there, standing very erect.

“Do you want to look through my pictures while I set up the camera?” she asked.

He glanced at his hands before accepting the book, and she guessed he was checking that they were clean. He flicked to the first page. “Is this your little brother?” he asked.

She nodded. “Alexei, yes. He was the most adorable baby. We all doted on him. Mama and Papa had long given up hope of an heir, so they were beside themselves with joy.” She didn’t tell him how disappointed her father had been when she was born. One daughter was delightful, two was still acceptable—and Tatiana quickly became his favorite—but he did not attempt to hide his despair when a third turned up. As a child, Maria had noticed it in the way he avoided looking at her and seldom made any personal comment to her. By the time Anastasia arrived, he seemed resigned to only siring girls.

Peter turned the page. “And these are your sisters?”

“We call ourselves OTMA,” she explained. “From our names: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia.”

“You must miss them.”

“I do, very much! I can’t wait till they join us. You’ll like them.” She set the camera aperture to the indoors setting and looked through the lens, sliding the bellows in and out to focus. Her sisters had Box Brownies, which were simple to operate, but Maria preferred the sharper results she got with her more sophisticated model.

Peter seemed uncomfortable, clutching the album tightly as if afraid he might drop it, hunching his shoulders and leaning toward the lens.

“Why don’t you put the album on that side table?” she suggested. “Then try to stand naturally, as you would if I were not here. Look directly at the camera.”

He still appeared stiff, but his gaze was direct and unwavering as she pulled down the lever and took the picture. It would come out dark, but the light spilling from the window illuminated the right side of his face in a way that she hoped would seem artistic.

“Thank you.” She smiled, winding on the film. “I will let you see the picture once I am able to get it developed.” She wondered when that might be. Perhaps they would be overseas by then; in Great Britain, maybe. She knew that George V, her father’s cousin, had invited them a year ago and couldn’t understand why they had not left yet. “There are protocols and procedures,” was all her father would say.

Commissar Avdeyev came out of his office and scowled at them. “What are you doing? Citizen Romanova, go back to the family rooms immediately.”

She picked up her camera and album and obeyed, hoping that Peter would not be chastised for talking to her.

In the sitting room, her mother was sewing, her father was reading, and the air was thick with dust and dullness. They had not been there twenty-four hours, but already she felt the confinement weighing on her soul. She picked up a pen to write to her sisters, to tell them about Konstantin Ukraintsev and Peter Vasnetsov and the house that was nothing like a home.

* * *

There was a clock on the mantel in the drawing room and Maria rationed herself: she would only look at it again when she had finished writing one page of her diary, or sewing a hem of her petticoat, or reading a chapter of a book to her mother. Inevitably, when she did look, the hour was less advanced than she had expected. The minutes crawled interminably, so slow she suspected the clock had been tampered with in order to torture them.

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