Granny Dan by Danielle Steel Page B

feeling.
    “I'd like that,” she said, already looking sleepy. He turned off the lights next to her, and walked quietly out of the room, and turned to look at her from the doorway. Her eyes were already closed, and by the time he left the little house, she was sleeping. And she slept peacefully until dinner.
    When she woke up she found a drawing next to her bed. Alexei had come to visit her that afternoon, and the nurse had told him she was sleeping. He had left a drawing for her, of her trying to swim the previous summer. Like most boys his age, he loved to tease her. And he felt particularly comfortable with her, as she was the same age as his sisters.
    She had soup for dinner that night, and she was sipping tea when Dr. Obrajensky came back to see her on his way home from the Alexander Palace. He seemed to be in a lighthearted mood, and told her all about his dinner. He dined with the Imperial family several times a week, in fact more often than he did not.
    “They are wonderful people,” he said warmly. He was a great admirer of both the Czar and the Czarina. “They have so much responsibility, so many burdens. It's a hard time in the world, especially now with the war. And there has been a great deal of unrest in the cities. And of course, Alexei's health is always a great worry to them.” His hemophilia was a constant problem, which necessitated the presence of a doctor near him at every instant. It was why the doctor spent as much time as he did with them, although he shared the responsibility with Dr. Botkin.
    “It must be hard for you too,” Danina said quietly, “having to be away from your family so much, and your own children.” Danina knew that his wife was English and that they had two boys, twelve and fourteen.
    “The Czar and Czarina seem to understand it, and they're very kind about inviting Marie. But she never comes. She hates social occasions. She prefers to be at home with the boys, or just sitting quietly and sewing. She has no interest whatsoever in my work or the people I work for.”
    It was hard for Danina to believe, particularly given who they were. They were hardly ordinary employers. And she couldn't help wondering if in some way his wife was jealous of him. It was hard to believe she was that antisocial. Perhaps she was shy, or awkward in some way.
    “Her Russian is poor, too, which makes it difficult for her. She's really never taken the time to learn it.” It was a long-standing bone of contention between them, although he didn't say that to Danina. It would have seemed disloyal to complain about Marie to her, and yet it intrigued him that the two women seemed so different. The one so filled with vitality, the other so tired, so unhappy, so bored, so constantly disenchanted about something.
    Even after her illness, Danina's energy and excitement about life was contagious. And her conversations with him were a new experience for her as well. Other than the boys she danced with at the ballet, she had never had men friends, been courted by anyone, or had a romance. Her only relationship with men had been with her brothers as a child, and now she seldom saw them anymore. They were always too busy to come to visit. They came to St. Petersburg to see her dance about once a year, and her father came scarcely more often. They were deeply involved with their responsibilities to the army.
    But with Nikolai Obrajensky, it was all so different. He was becoming her friend, someone she could really talk to. She said so now, and he looked pleased to hear it. He loved talking to her, sharing his books and his views and the poetry he loved. In fact, there was a great deal he loved about her, and he also told himself that theirs was a comfortable friendship. He had almost mentioned her to Marie before she arrived, and had when she was very, very ill, but only in passing. He said he had been called to the ballet for one of the dancers who had a lethal case of influenza. But she had never asked him