Zoya by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

front again. It must be difficult for Alix. I do wish the children would get well so I could go to see them.”
    “I want to go too. But Papa won't even let me step outside the house. It's going to take me months to catch up with Madame Nastova.”
    “Of course it won't.” Evgenia was watching her, it seemed as though she grew more beautiful each day as she approached her eighteenth birthday. She was graceful and delicate with her flaming red hair and her huge green eyes, her long, lovely legs and thetiny waist one could have circled with both hands. She took one's breath away as one watched her.
    “Grandmama, this is so boring.” She twirled on one foot as Evgenia laughed at her.
    “You certainly don't flatter me, my dear. A great many people have found me boring for a very long time, but no one has ever said so quite so bluntly.”
    “I'm sorry.” She laughed. “I didn't mean you. I meant being cooped up here. And even stupid Nico-lai didn't come to visit today.” But later that afternoon, they knew why. General Khabalov had had huge posters put up all around the city, warning everyone that assemblies and public meetings were forbidden now, and all strikers were to return to their jobs the following day. Failure to comply would mean being drafted immediately and being sent to the front, but no one paid any attention whatsoever to the posters. Huge crowds of protesters swarmed from the Vyborg quarter across the Neva bridges and into the city, and by four-thirty that afternoon, the soldiers had appeared and there was shooting on the Nevsky Prospekt opposite the Anitchkov Palace. Fifty people were killed, and within hours, two hundred more died, and suddenly there was dissent among the soldiers. A company of the Pavlovsky Life Guards refused to fire, and instead turned and shot the officer in charge, and suddenly pandemonium reigned, and the Preobrajensky Guard had to be called in to disarm them.
    Konstantin got word of it that night, and disappeared for hours, attempting to find out what was happening elsewhere and secretly wanting to reassure himself that Nicolai was all right. Suddenly, he felt panic sweep him knowing that his son was indanger. But all he could find out was that the Pavlov-sky Guards had been disarmed with very little loss of life. “Very little” seemed suddenly too much, and he returned home to wait for news. On his way back, he saw the lights at the Radziwills and wondered at the madness of a city that went on dancing while people were being murdered. Suddenly, he wondered if Nicolai had been right all along to be so worried about what might be coming. Konstantin was anxious to talk to Paléologue himself now, and decided to call on him the next morning. But it was only when he turned into Fontanka and saw the horses outside his own home that his heart froze and he wanted to stop and run away. He suddenly felt terror seize his heart and pressed his own horses forward. There were at least a dozen of the Preobrajensky Guard outside, there was running and shouting and they were carrying something as he heard a shout fly from his own mouth and he abandoned Feodor and his troika almost before it stopped, shouting to himself, “Oh my God … oh my God …” and then he saw him. He was being carried by two men and there was blood everywhere on the snow. It was Nicolai. “Oh my God …” There were tears streaming down Konstantin's cheeks as he stared at them and rushed forward. “Is he alive?”
    One of the men looked at him and nodded, speaking softly to Konstantin. “Barely.” He had been shot seven times by one of the Pavlovsky Life Guards, one of their own … one of the Tsar's men … but he had been fearless and he had felled the other man. “Bring him inside … quickly …” He shouted for Feodor, who appeared at his side. “Get my wife's doctor nowl” he roared as the young Guards lookedat him helplessly. They knew that nothing could be done, it was why they had brought him home,