Of course she had.
“Here,” she said. “Take the photo. Give us the album.”
“And put down the weapon,” Zivon added. “No one needs to get hurt.”
“Nadya. My princess.” Evgeni reached out for her free hand. “We can all win. Put down the gun and get the album for him. Please. We can let them live their lives. We can live ours. Let’s just go.” To Zivon, he offered a small smile. “Sorry so many photographs have been ruined. I wouldn’t let anyone touch the one of Batya and Matushka, though.”
The original telegram decrypt, then, could well be there. They didn’t need it anymore. But somehow it was a comfort to realize that his parents had, in a way, protected him. His secrets.
Nadya hesitated a moment, in which Zivon could see this going many different ways. But then she nodded and reached to set the gun on the table. “For you, Zhenya. For us. For our future.”
It all would have been perfect. If only the door hadn’t burst open behind them at that exact moment.
One moment, Lily had been watching the descent of the gun, anticipating the reach for the lone book on the shelf. Thinking in the back of her mind that she wished she could get a photo of Evgeni and Nadya before they left.
The next moment, chaos poured in. At first she could see only the blur of fast-moving men in dark blue. Then she recognized Daddy, Hall, Barclay, and, of all people, Father Smirnov behind them.
There were shouts—from Daddy, from Evgeni, from Nadya. A single bullet fired, which must have lodged in the wall, given the plaster raining down. Zivon threw himself in front of Lily. Evgeni tried to protect Nadya. Nadya brandished the smoking gun with such clear intent that Daddy, who had probably never dreamed of raising a hand to a woman in all his life, had no choice but to go on the offensive.
He caught her wrist with one hand, struck her arm with the other. She lashed out, kicking at him, but he sidestepped. Tugged her forward with that arm. Bent his knee in what Lily assumed was meant to be a blow to the stomach to make her double over and relinquish her weapon.
Only before contact could be made, Nadya screamed. All but tossed the gun aside. Wrapped her free arm around her middle and recoiled as far as she could get from Daddy, eyes wild. “Nyet! Nyet!” she screamed over and over again.
Lily’s father, still caught in the throes of adrenaline, didn’t seem to hear her. Didn’t seem to see the desperation in the young woman’s eyes.
But Lily saw it. Just as she saw the single bed in the room. As she’d seen the looks between Nadya and Evgeni. She saw the our future Nadya had really meant, and she did the only thing she could think to do.
She jumped around Zivon, between Daddy and Nadya, with her arms raised. “Stop!”
The whole room went still, other than the heaving breaths of the men who had stormed in thinking to rescue them. Her father’s eyes cleared, then confusion descended. “Lily?”
She stepped into his arms, letting him crush her to his chest. “I thought I’d lost you,” he muttered into her hair. “That you were gone like Ivy. I couldn’t have borne it, Lily White.”
She clung to him, as much because he needed her to as because she needed it as well. “I’m fine, Daddy. I promise you.”
“No thanks to them.” Daddy drew back, lightning flashing in the gaze that landed on Nadya.
The woman was trembling, crumpled into the second chair, hunched over, arms wrapped around her stomach.
“They weren’t going to harm me.” She pressed a hand to her father’s arm, willing him to believe her. And then she went and knelt beside Nadya, brushing back a curl from her face. “Are you all right?” she asked in French. “The baby?”
Nadya’s eyes, wide and terrified, lifted to her face. “I . . . I don’t know. I think so?”
“The what?” Evgeni’s voice sounded wooden with shock.
Lily spared only a quick glance toward the men. Evgeni had no color at all in his face, though whether it was from his recent illness, the exertion, or the news of a babe she didn’t know. He sank onto the floor and stared at Nadya. “You don’t have the flu.”
Nadya’s hands were trembling as she lifted them to brush aside her fallen curls. “I told you I was not ill.”
Zivon’s breath escaped him in a whoosh. With a glance to Lily that begged for understanding, he straightened and stood before the admiral. “I present myself for your consequences, sir. I accept the full responsibility of their actions on British soil.”
Hall’s blink looked suspiciously like a roll of the eyes. “It doesn’t work that way, Marin. They’re too late anyway. The mutiny has already begun.”
“What?” Evgeni’s face went paler still. At a word from Nadya, he said something in Russian, presumably a translation of the admiral’s statement.
DID pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “De Wilde stopped me on our way out. The Germans are in revolt.”
Nadya was shaking her head. “No,” she said in French. “It doesn’t matter. Even if the war ends, it doesn’t matter. The West won’t help the Whites. And even if they do, the Bolsheviks will win.”
“Perhaps.” Zivon looked toward Father Smirnov, then over to Nadya. “Perhaps they will. Perhaps this is what Russia wants and God will allow it. But even so, it is good for the war to end. For lives to be saved.”
“As for the two of you.” Hall crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re going to turn over the album with the photographs you used to create those false ones. And then you’re going to leave within the next forty-eight hours. I’ll not tolerate any more threats against one of my men. And you can tell your superiors the same thing, if they question you. At the moment, the Crown has no quarrel with the Bolsheviks. Don’t give us a reason to.”
Nadya’s shoulders rolled forward, and she didn’t look up at any of them. Evgeni slid his hand across the table, palm up. Waiting, clearly, for her to put her hand in his. “We accept, sir. With gratitude for your generosity.”
Evgeni kept his hand outstretched across the table. Kept his gaze leveled on the face he knew so well, but which he’d never seen bearing this emotion. She looked defeated. And defeated was the last thing in the world he wanted his warrior queen to be. “Nadezhda.”
She shifted, but she didn’t lift her gaze.
He did. Toward his brother, asking a silent question with a swing of his head toward the women. He didn’t want anyone to overreact if he dared move over to her, but he had to be near her now. Had to touch her. Had to see her eyes.
Zivon nodded. He must be judging him, them—he must be—but he made no comment. Just exchanged a few gestures with the navy men still in the room, giving him space to round the table. Drop to his knees before her.
He touched a weak hand to her chin. “Look at me, my love.” He’d let his words drift back into Russian. At least then Zivon would be the only one to understand them. “Please.”
Slowly she lifted her lids, and he saw what he thought he never would.
Tears.
His fingers moved to cup her cheek. “Is it true?” In all their talk of women not being trapped in the home, of the state being the proper institution for a child to be raised by, he’d never anticipated this. This quickening inside him at the thought of a child—their child—growing in the womb of the woman he loved.