PART 2
With that, the queen disappeared into her large walk-in closet, sifting through the racks of gowns inside.
“How about this one?”
She held up an elegantly shaped plum silk dress; its top was a V-shaped neckline with thin straps falling behind and tying at the small of the back, while the skirt barely touched the floor.
“That’ll do nicely,” Ella told her daughter. Cristina nodded before vanishing inside her dressing room across the hall. Two hours passed before the young queen re-emerged from her room, stepping onto the balcony on her uncle’s arm.
While the hordes of Romanians down below cheered for their teenaged monarch, Cristina secretly dreaded just the idea of turning eighteen; the day she would become queen in her own right. All she wanted to do was go off to college, make friends, maybe even fall in love… anything but rule Romania on her own!
The lump in her throat seemed to tighten, the louder the cheers became. Feeling her heart race, faster and faster, Cristina wanted to pull away, to run and hide within the claustrophobia of the crawl space beneath the grand staircase.
“Look!” A spectator cheered, pointing towards Cristina, “It’s our queen!”
Soon, the rest of the crowd resumed their cheering and shouting. The cry of ‘Long Live the Queen!’ could be heard for miles.
After what seemed like hours of struggling, Cristina finally managed to break free from her uncle’s grasp, escaping to the safety of her room. Curling up on her down comforter, she shuddered. Burying her face within a pillow, Cristina heard her mother’s footsteps approaching.
“Tina?” She called. Cristina didn’t move.
“Cristina, open the door. It’s just me.”
The queen stood, doing her best to hide the tears that still streamed down her reddening cheeks.
“What’s the matter?” Elisabeth wanted to know, “Mihai said you had run off.”
“I don’t want to do it,” Cristina whined, “I don’t want to become queen.”
“Well,” Elisabeth responded, softly stroking her daughter’s hair, “You don’t really have a choice, honey. Not now.”
“Says who?” Cristina shot back, “I didn’t ask for this! Uncle Mihai gave it to me…and for what? Just to keep it away from Papa?”
Ella hung her head, “Yes, unfortunately. He would have ripped this country apart, Tina. He would have made Elena his queen…and we could not allow that.”
“What’s so bad about her?” The queen demanded, “I mean, she is Catalina’s mother after all.”
“I don’t care who’s mother she is!” Elisabeth scolded, “She is incapable of caring for someone other than herself…even your father.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve had to deal with her selfishness since we were young children, sweetheart. She’s such a self-centered person; she’s just like her grandmother, Ellen---she wants to be as high as possible up on the social ladder, even if it means stepping on another‘s toes to get there. She just doesn’t care.”
“Why can’t I just give it to Gabriela?”
“The crown you mean? She is only fifteen, Tina! She’s far from old enough to handle such things!”
Cristina gasped, “And you think I am at sixteen? I don’t think so! Why didn’t you just let Papa take the throne?”
“Cristina!” Elisabeth scolded, “Don’t say things like that! We’ve already discussed this.”
In the meantime, Gabriela had joined her half-sister, thirteen-year-old Catalina, in the grand dining hall with their Russian cousin, Galina Ivanovna. The girls’ father, Prince Nicolae, had been purposefully excluded from the large guest list, as had Catalina’s mother, Grand Duchess Elena.
Cristina entered the room alone, dressed in a gown of white lace over crème satin.
“She looks like a bride,” Catalina remarked to her sister. Gabriela said nothing, but smiled with the nod of her head.
As the four hundred guests began chatting amongst themselves, the queen let out a long sigh of relief.
“It’s all right,” Elisabeth reassured her daughter, gripping her hand beneath the table. “Go enjoy yourself.”
Cristina smirked, “With whom?”
“Tina?”
The queen leapt from her chair, noticing a blue-eyed, dark-haired young man towering over her.
“Paul!” She exclaimed as the two cousins embraced, “I’d no idea you were coming!”
The tsesarevitch looked stunned, “Really? I thought for sure Papa would have told you.”
“He did,” Elisabeth interrupted, “I just hadn’t had a chance to tell Tina yet.”
At fifteen, Paul was the oldest of four children; his parents were none other than the Tsar Alexander IV and Tsarina Nadezdha of Russia, thus he was heir to the imperial throne and a grandson of the late Tsar Alexei II---Elisabeth’s only maternal uncle. His younger sister, Elizaveta was just fourteen and already flirting with the idea of marrying a Russian noble. Paul’s youngest sister, Anna , aged 11 and youngest brother, 9-year-old Dimitri were too young to attend.
