“I love you,” he whispers. “I’ve always loved you.”
“I love you, too,” I say, and I mean it, even if I’m not sure whether I love one of him, or both of him, or all.
When I awaken again, it’s the dead of night. The one tiny window reveals a sliver of midnight blue above a sill inches deep in snow. Our stove still glows with warmth, and Paul lies next to me, holding me in his arms, pillowing my head with his shoulder.
The enormity of what I’ve done is obvious, but I can’t regret it. Realizing how the Grand Duchess Marguerite felt about her Paul, I suspect she would have wanted this just as much—made the same choice—but there’s no getting past the fact that I made the decision for her. The night she spent with the man she loves belongs to me instead; it’s a theft I could never repay.
As for me, well, back home, I’d made out with guys. Way more than made out, really, though I never quite got this far. Yet I’m no less amazed, no less stunned.
Paul’s lips brush along my hairline, and I think, I’ll never love anyone else like this. I never could.
Guiltily, I remember Theo. If he’d been a little more selfish, a little less caring, we would have spent the night together in London.
I also think about my Paul Markov, the one who told me that I could only paint the truth. He’s with me now, asleep deep within the man I made love with. I don’t know if he’ll remember this later, which would be—weird. I don’t know him well enough to predict how he’s going to react.
But I know this Paul in every way it’s possible for a woman to know a man. He’s proved his loyalty and his devotion time and time again. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me.
“Golubka,” he whispers. It’s a Russian endearment; it means “little dove.” That’s ordinary enough, in Russian. They’re always calling each other little animals of one kind or another.
When Paul says it, though, there’s something about the way he holds me—cradling me against his chest, his embrace strong and yet his broad hands cupped so tenderly around my back—it’s just the way someone would hold a little bird, something fragile and fluttering, if he were trying to protect it and keep it close.
My mind is made up. I lift my face to his, and Paul smiles softly as his fingers brush through my hair. “Are you well, my lady?”
“‘My lady’? Even now?”
“Marguerite.” It’s obvious he still feels wonder at simply being allowed to speak my name. His gray eyes look searchingly into mine. “You don’t regret this?”
“No. I never will. Never could.” I kiss him again, and for a while we’re lost in each other once more.
When our lips finally part, Paul is slightly breathless. “You must know, I will never betray what has happened here. Not by word or by deed.”
What we’ve done is completely forbidden. If the tsar ever learned we’d had sex . . . well, I doubt he’s medieval enough to have Paul killed for it, but he’d demote him and send him off to some remote garrison, perhaps in Siberia. What would happen to me? I’m not sure, but I know it wouldn’t be good. “This remains between us,” I say gently. “Tonight is ours, and no one else’s, forever.”
“Forever.”
I touch Paul’s cheek with one hand. “Now I need to tell you another secret. Do you promise to keep this one, too?”
“Of course, my—Marguerite.” Paul frowns, obviously puzzled but willing to follow where I lead. “What is it you need to tell me?”
Deep breath. Here we go. “The truth.”
16
MOM AND DAD HAVE TOLD ME HOW INTELLIGENT PAUL IS. I’ve seen physics equations flow from his pen while he’s talking about something else entirely. Also he helped develop interdimensional travel. So I know he’s smart.
But I never believed in his genius as much as I do now, when—after less than half an hour of my talking him through my story—he’s pieced together the rough theory of parallel dimensions.
“You are both the Grand Duchess Marguerite and another Marguerite,” he says. “You are the same individual, living two separate lifetimes.”
“Not so separate, right now.”
“And you believe I am both myself and this other Paul, the one who was privileged to go to university and become a scientist.”
The way Paul phrases this stop me short. Only the sons of the wealthy can dream about higher education here. No wonder he cherished that book on optics I gave him. “It’s true. He’s—asleep inside you now. Unaware. But he’s a part of you.”
He folds his arms across his knees, serious and intent even though we’re still in bed together, covers rumpled around us, fur coat draped across our feet. Paul’s face wears an expression I’ve long been familiar with but only recently learned to understand. This is Paul turning a situation over in his mind, weighing every question and permutation, puzzling out its secrets.
Finally he says, “This explains my dreams.”
“Dreams?”
“For the past two weeks, my dreams have been—rich and strange.” His smile isn’t for me; his gaze is on the images that have flickered within his mind. “I dreamed of you painting instead of sketching, your hair wild and loose. And of your mother, alive again, teaching me physics. Professor Caine, acting almost as a father to me. Rooms not so grand as those in the palace, but containing marvels, such as machines that are like a library containing every fact imaginable.”