Page 6 of Royally Romanov
CHAPTER
TWO
Finley Abbot couldn’t stop pacing.
She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous. As a curator at the Louvre, part of her job was to give presentations to educate the public about art and art history. Every month or so, she even taught a class at the Institut National du Patrimoine. If she could hold her own in front of a classroom of serious art students, surely she could keep it together in front of a small crowd of booklovers.
Then again, this wasn’t just any bookstore. It was Shakespeare and Company, the oldest English bookstore in Paris. George Whitman had opened the doors of this cozy shop in the shadow of Notre Dame back in 1951, and since then it had grown to become nearly as fabled as the Louvre itself. It was the successor of the original Shakespeare and Company, opened by Sylvia Beach in 1919, which catered to expats such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce. The literary clientele of the second Shakespeare and Company was no less prestigious. Anaïs Nin had not only written here, she’d slept here. As had Allen Ginsberg. And Henry Miller.
All those late nights Finley had spent slaving away on her manuscript, prepublication, in the bookstore’s café, she’d thought about the tiny twin beds tucked into the corners of the upstairs reading rooms. She’d thought about all the famous writers who’d slept in those beds.
So many of them had been American expats, just like her. She’d wondered what it had been like to fall asleep surrounded by all those books and wake up to the hallowed ringing of Notre Dame’s bells.
Mostly, though, she’d fantasized about crawling into one of those beds and taking a nap.
Writing a book was exhausting, and she wasn’t even a real writer. She was an art historian. But she was also the only American on the curatorial staff of sixty at the Louvre, and if she had any hope of making a name for herself there, she needed to step up her game.
So she’d taken a deep dive into the Russian history section at Shakespeare and Company. Anything French was obviously out of the question. She couldn’t begin to compete with the Parisians when it came to their own country. But American art was simply too young for the Louvre.
She’d been fascinated with the Romanovs for almost as long as she could remember. When she was in the sixth grade, she’d seen a grainy black-and-white film about the Tsar Nicholas II and his family during history class at school and sat wide-eyed at its terrifying conclusion. The duchesses had been so beautiful in their romantic, floor-length gowns. So young. When Finley had heard that they’d sewn jewels inside their dresses in order to hide them, she’d cried.
The tragedy of it all had stuck with her. What would it be like to study those jewels? To find them? To put them on display for the world to see?
She’d studied a century’s worth of documents and photographs. She’d even made a trip to St. Petersburg during her Christmas vacation. Now she was one of Paris’s foremost experts on the Romanov dynasty, at least as far as their art and antiquities collection was concerned.
As of today, she was also a published author.
“Can I get you anything, Finley? Your usual cappuccino, perhaps?” Scott shot her a wink as he looked up from the row of chairs he’d just arranged in the French literature section. Although,arrangedwas probably too generous a word. The old wooden chairs looked like they’d been shoehorned in place. Shakespeare and Company wasn’t exactly known for its abundance of space.
Which was probably for the best. How many people were really that interested in hearing Finley wax poetic about the Empress Alexandra’s favorite family portraits or the feathered fans belonging to her eldest daughters, Olga and Tatiana? “Merci, but no. Coffee will only make me more jittery than I already am.”
“Relax,mon ami. You’ll be magnificent.” Scott smiled and set another stack of her books on the table in the center of the room.
There were so many of them. What if every single book was still sitting there three hours from now?
She exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Do you think anyone will actually show? Other than my coworkers from the museum. And my boss.”
How mortifying would it be to crash and burn in front of her colleagues after working for over a year on this book and convincing the decorative arts department at the Louvre to let her put together an accompanying exhibit?Trèsmortifying.
At least Scott was here. He wasn’t just the bookshop manager, but also Finley’s closest friend. He was the first person she’d officially met upon her arrival in Paris. She’d been standing right outside the store trying to decipher a map of Paris, and he’d seen her through the shop window and taken pity on her. After he’d steered her in the direction of her apartment, she’d returned the next day in search of a friendly face. She’d been back to Shakespeare and Company pretty much every day since.
“Are you kidding? Prepare for a massive crowd.” Scott stared at her over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Everyone’s into the Romanovs. Their story is one of history’s most famous unsolved mysteries.”
Finley squeezed into one of the tiny rows of chairs to place a card with details of her upcoming art exhibit in each seat. “You’re talking about Anastasia, aren’t you?”
“What else would I be talking about? There have been two movies about her, plus at least one stage play.” He gestured toward the piano room upstairs that housed the shop’s biographies. “She’s got her own shelf up there, but I’m sure you know that already.”
Finley knew the Anastasia shelf like the back of her hand. “I also know what happened to her. She was killed by a Bolshevik firing squad along with the rest of her family in 1918. Anastasia’s remains were found six years ago and identified by DNA.”
Scott frowned. “I always forget that part.”
“Everyone does.” Since the moment of the execution, rumors had swirled that Anastasia somehow escaped her family’s doomed fate. Anastasia imposters had turned up all over Europe, most notably in Paris. The truth was simply too tragic to believe. “But trust me. There’s no unsolved mystery. There’s no mystery at all. She’s been dead for nearly one hundred years.”
Of course not everyone accepted the DNA evidence as accurate, but that was a minor detail. Each and every woman who’d come forward claiming to be Anastasia had been a fraud. It was a wonder what lengths people would go to if they thought they could get rich.
“You might want to soften that a bit for your audience.” Scott glanced at the door, where two elderly women had just walked inside. “Just a suggestion.”
Sugarcoat the execution. Note taken.
