Chapter 69

Charlotte stood in the shadow of the beautiful imperial palace of Catherine the Great, her mind torn between the baroque architectural detail of the building and the legendary history of its onetime owner. Catherine had been an ambitious German lady who married into a Russian royal family that had been less effectual than its predecessors, and she soon became a better ruler than her own husband, much to the annoyance of most of her male contemporaries. History had not been kind to Catherine, even if it had allowed the beauty of her home to continue to flourish through the centuries.