Wicked Deceptions - Amy Cecil Page 0,5

my bags inside. He then follows me into the carriage, and we are off.

“Mikhail, where are we going, and what about Mama and Papa?”

“Yekaterina, let us get out of Saint Petersburg, and once we are safe, I will explain everything.”

“Safe?” I question. “Why would we need to escape to be safe?” I grab his hand. “Mikhail, I am scared.”

He doesn’t answer but reaches in one of the bags and says, “Here, you need to change your clothes.” This is not helping my fear. I wish he would tell me why we are leaving.

I look at the clothes he gives me. They are not my clothes but are tattered and torn. I question to myself, Why I am to wear these godforsaken clothes? But again, I do not question him and do as he says. I change my clothes, and he throws my dress out of the carriage. The clothes he gave me are something peasants would wear, and I believe I am beginning to understand. We can’t be recognized as members of the imperial family, and we are leaving Russia.

We travel back roads for more than seven hours when we finally reach the Finnish border. When we are stopped there, the guard asks Mikhail a few questions, which seems to satisfy him even though I know they were all lies. He hands the guard papers, which the guard quickly reads. He hands them back to Mikhail and gestures for us to continue across the border.

We travel to Turku, then to Stockholm. There, we sell the troika and catch a train to Malmo, then a railroad ferry to Copenhagen. And we finally leave Copenhagen for France. We found places to stay along the way, pleading upon the good graces of people we encountered. Some required no payment and helped us out of the kindness of their hearts, but others required payment. It is a good thing Mikhail instructed me to grab things that could fetch a price. People will help in any way they can when you flash some jewels at them for payment. After a month of traveling, we finally arrive in Paris.

Paris was always a city I hoped to visit someday. I wanted to see a show at the Moulin Rouge, attend the theatre, and have tea at a café along the Seine. I wanted to indulge in all its splendor. But never in a million years did I dream of coming here under these circumstances, without a penny to my name. The moment I step onto French soil, I know the life I had in Russia will never exist again. I don’t know what the future holds for my brother and me, but at least we have each other.

Chapter 3

Paris, France

February 1915

We have been in Paris for six months now, and it has been really hard just to stay alive. We are just getting by. I always knew our family was well off, but I never realized how hard it was for others who did not have what we did. We have little funds and live in extremely poor conditions. The jewels I brought with me provided us some money but amounted to nothing compared to their worth. It was heartbreaking to see some of my most prized heirlooms gone. I never valued them for their monetary worth, but they held so much sentimental value, from the diamond earrings my brother gave me on my sixteenth birthday to my grandmother’s sapphire broach she had handed down to me.

I still have the ruby necklace given to me by my parents when I turned eighteen. It was an item that had been in our family for centuries, and I was next in line to have it. Other than my brother, it is all I have left of our family. I pray I will not have to part with it. It means more to me than anything else I brought, and I will die of starvation before I give it up. One day, I hope to pass it along to my daughter and remind her of where she came from.

About three months after we arrived, Mikhail received word that our parents had both been murdered the night we left, along with our grandmother, and our house was burned to the ground. Mikhail told me Father had suspected this would happen and was the reason he sent us away. He knew he would not be able to save himself or my mother, but it gave him comfort to know his children