After that initial encounter, Mathilde and I became close friends. She was closer to me in age than George's sister Xenia was, and I found her lively, intelligent, and engaging. As she was beautiful as well, it was easy to see how Nicholas had fallen for her.
Curious about our respective backgrounds, we spent many hours in one another's company. She expressed a great deal of interest in my traveling companions/servants. "I have never seen skin as dark as theirs, except in photographs in books about Africa." She examined Rufus and Sadie as if they were exhibits in a museum.
"That's where their ancestors were originally from," I told her. "Many years ago, slaves were imported from Africa to work on the huge plantations in the South like the one my mother grew up on."
"Slaves?" Mathilde gave me a look that said, you have got to be kidding me.
"Yes, slaves. It was the only way to keep the plantations going. Then the war came, and the Yankees burned all the plantations to the ground and freed all the slaves. Many of them went north, but a lot of them stayed as well, including Rufus and Sadie's parents."
"That was very loyal of them," Mathilde observed.
"Both my grandparents died long before I was born, but I've always heard that they treated their slaves well," I replied.
"Rather than granting them their freedom, which would have been treating them even better," Mathilde said softly.
"It was the custom." I couldn't believe that I was actually defending my grandparents' lifestyle to a Russian ballerina several years younger than myself who was carrying on a passionate affair with a future Tsar.
Having never done anything more than exchange an occasional stolen kiss, I was burning with curiosity over the physical interactions she and Nicholas shared. What would it be like to be held in a man's arms, to feel his body pressed against your own, his breath upon your face, your body joined with his in the ultimate act of intimacy?
I was dying to ask her these questions and more but didn't dare.
"Do you love George?" she asked me suddenly.
"He's become very special to me," I told her.
She nodded. "A relationship with one of their Imperial Highnesses does wonders for one's career as well."
"In my country, it is unusual for a woman to have a career," I told her. She looked at me as if I'd suddenly began speaking in Chinese.
My first Russian winter arrived early and unbelievably cold. "How on earth do you people live like this?" I asked George through chattering teeth.
"This isn't cold." He laughed. "You have thin skin."
He took me on wondrous adventures I'd never experienced before, sleigh rides, sledding, and ice skating. "I can't believe how beautiful everything is!" I gasped in wonder. "All covered in snow, it's a whole different world! Now I finally know what all those songs we used to sing every Christmas were talking about."
The warmth of a glove-covered hand squeezed mine. "Poor Bonnie."
One day we were ice skating on a frozen pond when I suddenly felt the ice cracking beneath me and felt a sudden stab of fear. "Don't move!" George shouted sharply. A moment later, he held out a long, thick branch to me and screamed for me to grab hold of it. I did, and he pulled me to safety just as the ice collapsed, leaving a giant hole right where I'd been standing.
"Oh my God, Bonnie," George whispered, holding me as if he never wanted to let go. Even through the thickness of our clothing, I could feel his heart pounding madly. Suddenly I felt as if I might swoon. I'd never felt that way before, and it both fascinated and frightened me.
From that moment on, all I could think about was George's arms around me, holding me close. I dreamed about it at night, awakening to realize that his bedroom was only a few doors down from mine, my heart pounding madly as I realized that I didn't dare give into my yearnings.
As Russia used a different calendar, Christmas for us came a couple of weeks before it did for my family back home. That to me seemed strange, but otherwise, the holiday celebration seemed remarkably similar to the ones I'd experienced back home, with only a few exceptions. Jesus, Mary, and the saints were represented by icons rather than statues, and they were called by their Russian or Greek names rather than the Latin ones.
After what seemed to me like almost forever, spring finally arrived. The snow and ice began to melt, flowers bloomed, and on May 9, George celebrated his twenty-first birthday.
"Now I'm an adult as well," he teased me. In response I patted the top of his head, which was rather difficult, as he was nearly a foot taller than me.
We passed two more blissful years together in Tsarskoe Selo before tragedy struck.