The baby squealed when he recognized her and nearly toppled over in delight as he waved a toy duck at her.
“Never,” Oscar insisted with pride. “I’ve decided to bring him to the office for a few hours each week so he can feel at home here. Come inside and say hello to him. It looks like he wants you to pick him up.”
Alexander’s nanny and a footman were in the sitting areaof the office, but there was no sign of Poppy, which wasn’t a surprise. Poppy rarely showed much interest in the baby except when there was an audience, but Oscar couldn’t get enough of the boy.
Natalia wasn’t jealous. She remembered coming to the bank when she was a child too, although she was eight or nine before Oscar began bringing her. She used to sit in the corner of his office, reading her schoolbooks while he met with his clerks and secretaries. Hopefully Alexander would grow to love the bank as much as she always had.
Alexander lifted his arms as she approached. He was a hefty baby, and it took some jostling to get him situated over her shoulder. Would she ever have a child of her own? It could never happen with Dimitri, but she pushed the disagreeable thought away as she patted Alexander’s back, loving the way he babbled in happy contentment. It was a brief respite, and this conversation was about to get awkward.
“Can we speak alone?” she asked, and with a brisk nod, Oscar directed the servants to step outside. Natalia kept pacing, nervously patting the baby as she walked. This was not going to be an easy request.
“Well?” Oscar asked once the door closed behind the nanny and footman.
“There is a man in Washington, DC, who might be able to verify Dimitri’s story about what happened at the Amur River. He’s a doctor who was stationed in Japan and has spoken with credible witnesses to the event. The Russian ambassador is trying to discredit Dr. Seaman. Dimitri is heading to Washington in hopes of supporting the doctor’s cause before it’s too late.”
Oscar shrugged. “By all means, I think he should go.”
“I want to go with him.”
“Absolutely not!” Oscar’s voice cracked across the office like a shot, and Alexander began to cry.
She rocked the boy a little more vigorously and met her father’s gaze squarely. “Dimitri doesn’t understand American politics.”
“Then I’ll send someone down with him. It seems to me you are already too deeply entangled with this man. Are you?”
Lying to her father was impossible, so she kept pacing with the baby. She was more than entangled with Dimitri. He had a piece of her heart she could never get back. Her longing for a child might someday drive them apart, but for now she needed to see this mission through.
“I feel compelled to go,” she said. “For three years I have considered the Trans-Siberian to be my finest accomplishment, and now it is in danger. Not because of finance or engineering problems, but because an evil incident has stained what should be a monumental accomplishment. We need to expose that evil so it can’t happen again.”
Oscar shook his head. “If you call attention to the massacre, it will embarrass not only the Russians but the bank as well.”
“I understand. That’s why it is important for us to be part of solving the problem. It will prove we haven’t turned a blind eye to the massacre.”
Oscar’s hands clenched, and his face turned pensive. He took an unusually long time to ponder before finally speaking. “You may go, provided Poppy accompanies you as chaperone.”
Natalia almost dropped the baby. “Poppy?” Having that woman latched to her side during this difficult trip would be unbearable. “The only place Poppy would like to escort me is over the side of a cliff.”
Oscar heard the veiled contempt and narrowed his eyes. “Poppy may not be the kindest of women or the best mother. She isn’t an interesting conversationalist or a skilled hostess, but by all that’s holy, she has been an excellent wife to me, and you need to sheathe your claws.”
“This isn’t about Poppy,” she retorted. “The Russian ambassador is as canny as a wizard, and she will embarrass us.”
Oscar pushed himself to his feet in growing annoyance. “You are about to walk a tightrope while trying to pull off a diplomatic coup. You! An unmarried, twenty-eight-year-old woman traveling with a single man who is an outrageous flirt.YouneedPoppy. We are fortunate news of your cross-country travel from San Francisco has not leaked out, but you can’t roll the dice again, so Poppy is going with you, and that’s the end of the discussion. My bigger concern is the railroad. I took a risk by letting you manage the project, and for three years I have defended you against critics who think I lost my mind. If scandal from this massacre taints the railroad, it will taint us as well, and I will have no choice but to remove you from all duties in the bank. Is that clear?”
The words landed like a fist in her gut. No other bank in the world would hire a female business analyst, especially one with a tainted reputation.
“I understand.” No matter how uncomfortable, she would swallow her pride and make peace with Poppy for as long as the trip to Washington lasted.
22
Once the decision had been made to go to Washington, Natalia’s plans fell into place quickly. Admiral McNally contacted the U.S. surgeon general’s office and arranged for a meeting with Dr. Seaman, a man with deep connections in both the military and the government. Dr. Seaman was a popular speaker on the lecture circuit and had a knack for explaining complicated issues to a skeptical audience. The press and the public loved him. If they could get the daring army doctor on their side, Natalia hoped he would use his connections to pressure the czar into paying heed to Dimitri.
Oscar insisted on the best for Poppy, so he arranged for his private railcar to take them to Washington. Once in the city, they were booked into the grand suite at the sumptuous Willard Hotel, located only two blocks from the White House.
“This feels like a palace,” Dimitri said as they entered the lobby of the hotel. The coffered ceiling was held aloft by towering columns of coral-colored marble. Potted palms and clusters of upholstered furniture in shades of garnet and sage green softened the grandeur.
“A letter has arrived for you, ma’am,” the clerk at the hotel’s front counter said as Natalia checked in.
She accepted the envelope, engraved with a return addressfrom the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, and read the enclosed message quickly. Her heart sank. “Dr. Seaman has been called away to deal with an emergency in Philadelphia. A cholera outbreak.”
