The Paleys (1921-1927) - An Alternate Romanov Story

The Escape

Alexei was only staying in Paris for a week before he had to cross the channel to spend Christmas with his family in England. At long last, after six years of exile, King George and the parliament agreed that Russia's political situation was stable enough. So they had allowed his parents, sisters and the rest of their family and suits to establish themselves in England.

They were all living now around Hertfordshire, and Alexei's parents had acquired a great country estate where his mother was establishing a religious community similar to the one her sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, was running in Moscow. According to Alexei, Anastasia, who was still blissfully single and had no prospects of marriage on the horizon, was living a quiet and independent life in a small cottage within the estate. Maria, her husband and their now two children (Maria had given birth to another healthy boy in January) were living close by in their own farmhouse. This would be the first time Alexei would visit their new home.

Natalia was more delighted for him than she could express, but his short stay also complicated her plans to take him around Paris quietly and without guards. Tata was helping her with the plan, keeping an eye out on the guards' schedules, which was something she was accustomed to doing back in the Winter Palace, but it didn't take long for them both to conclude that if they wanted to overpass the carefully built wall of security built around Alexei, they would have to befriend the guards and have them turn a blind eye when the moment to escape came.

So, that's what they set out to do. They picked four of the youngest guards responsible for the night watch and shamelessly flirted with them for days on end. They made sure they always walked close by them during their afternoon strolls, they asked about their families and their careers and, by the fourth day, they even started bringing small gifts. Both Natalia and Tata had an endless stock of hand-embroidered handkerchiefs from the time their governesses had forced them to learn how to knit, so it was not difficult to use them in order to make the young men feel special.

They soon discovered that the four of them would be on duty on the evening of Alexei's departure for England, so they fixed the date and worked on the last details. Alexei was perfectly unaware that he was the subject of such a meticulous plan, of course. He was too upright and bound to duty to agree to any of it if he had time to think it over. So, they decided that the best course of action would be for Natalia to wake him up in the middle of the night, convince him to follow her without giving too many details as to where they were going, choose an outfit that would make him look nothing like the Tsar of Russia and pray that the guards wouldn't lose their courage when the time came. Tata would stay behind anyway to make sure none of them would sound the alarm around the house.

The intensity of their efforts in this little scheme made other issues seem insignificant. Natalia consciously ignored her curiosity about Tata's late-night activities while Irina and Feodor, still absorbed in their private world, gave her little reason to intervene, so she had also decided that she would only talk to her sister once Alexei returned to England.

When the night of the escape finally came, Natalia tiptoed to Alexei's room, which, to make things even more complicated, was on the first floor, on the other side of the house, far from the private apartments of the rest of the family. Fortunately, as they were in Paris and it was deemed unnecessary, Alexei had no extra guards protecting the corridor, and even though the room was dangerously close to her father's study, everyone had already gone to bed by the time she arrived.

She tried the door carefully, hoping it wouldn't be locked and sighed with relief when the handle gave in at her gentle movement. Inside, Alexei was fast asleep under the covers. His leg, which had been giving him some trouble lately, was propped up on top of a pile of cushions that looked slightly uncomfortable, but Natalia figured he must be used to it by now. As she watched him for a moment, breathing in slow, peaceful breaths, his face rested and serene, she wondered if what she was about to do could be seen as an attempt to kidnap a head of state, but the notion was so ridiculous that she had to stifle a laugh.