A light mist began falling, and it soon turned into a drizzle. The dogs were done with their business, and Natalia didn’t intend to let the rain ruin her perfectly styled chignon. She opened the door and gestured for the dogs to come inside. They didn’t like the rain either and scrambled back into the blue-tiled room, their yips and scrabbling claws sounding harsh in the otherwise empty room.
What now? She let herself out of the blue-tiled room and into the dim silence of the embassy, following the same route of decorated corridors so she could wait for Dimitri in the front lobby.
She paused in the hall filled with antique weaponry to admire a heavily embellished battle-ax. All was quiet, but from down the hall came the muffled voice of the countess speaking to the older servant.
Natalia wandered closer to hear. The door was open, andMrs. Betz sat at a modest desk. Was it the housekeeper’s office? Natalia was about to continue to the main room when she overheard her name and came to a halt.
“They say she is the daughter of some rich banker,” the girl said, and the housekeeper replied too faintly for Natalia to hear.
She ought to feel guilty for eavesdropping, but she leaned in closer, taking cover behind a suit of armor.
“I don’t care how rich she is,” Countess Cassini continued. “She speaks Russian like a peasant. She has a gutter accent, like she belongs pulling potatoes out of the dirt instead of visiting embassies.”
“Shh,” the housekeeper scolded. “It is said her mother was a famous ballerina from Moscow.”
“A ballerina? Little better than a prostitute, then.”
Anger began roiling inside Natalia at hearing her mother slandered by that hideous girl. Galina Blackstone had more poise in her pinky finger than Countess Cassini possessed in her entire body. Galina was a gentle person who was kind to everyone, and Natalia seethed at the insult.
Did her mother really have a peasant’s accent? And did Natalia? It shouldn’t matter, but she’d always been so proud of her ability to speak Russian, and no one had ever commented on her accent before. How dare that entitled brat speak so disrespectfully of people who’d never done her any harm.
But eavesdroppers had no right to complain if they heard something offensive. Natalia swallowed back her indignation and continued listening... and what she heard over the next five minutes made her eyes grow wide with astonishment.
Natalia still smarted over what had been said about her accent, but she tried to set it aside as she saw Dimitri heading toward her down the corridor. His face looked like a thundercloud, dark and furious. There was no sign of Count Cassini.
“Well?” she asked as he approached.
Dimitri shook his head. “It was not a profitable meeting.”
A weight settled on her chest. She wanted to escape from this dim, oppressively decorated building. Outside, the drizzle had turned into rain, and by the time Dimitri succeeded in hailing a cab, her chignon was sliding down the back of her neck. It started unrolling as she climbed inside the carriage and plopped into the corner. This day was becoming a disaster from beginning to end. She tugged the long fall of her hair free and began blotting it with a handkerchief.
“Tell me what happened,” she asked Dimitri once the carriage began moving.
“He is a vile person,” Dimitri said. “He knows what happened but has no intention of acknowledging it. He said that if I tried to announce it to the world, he wouldn’t bother with my reputation until he first destroyed yours.”
She caught her breath. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“He would,” Dimitri said, his voice smoldering.
“How could he? I don’t have any skeletons in my closet.”
A tic throbbed in his jaw, and his eyes turned to flint. “He made it quite clear that he is prepared to manufacture such skeletons, and given that women’s reputations are easily shattered, he knows he has us cornered.”
Everything Dimitri said was true, and even her father, with all his worldly power, could not stop a carefully planted malicious rumor. It made her want to fight back. Count Cassini had his own vulnerabilities, as she learned while eavesdropping. Given the torrid gossip flying around Washington, nobody believed the countess was his niece, and now Natalia had proof.
“I overheard something interesting,” she said. “Something that might insulate us from any threats wielded by the count.”
Dimitri quirked a single eyebrow in question.
“I overheard Countess Cassini speaking with the housekeeper at the embassy. They thought they were alone, and she called the housekeeper ‘Mother.’ In the course of the conversation, it became quite clear that the count is her father.”
Dimitri let out a low whistle as a look of grim satisfaction came over him. “It is not unusual for a man in his position todally with the servants, but rarely do they take the children under their wing and elevate them to such a position.”
Natalia stared at the rain dribbling down the window. Speaking about that horrible young woman reawakened the insecurity planted by her vindictive chatter. From the moment Natalia met Dimitri in the port of San Francisco, he had made her feel dazzling.“Natalia, you are beautiful,”he said only seconds after meeting her, and she felt beautiful whenever he was near.
She never knew that all that time she had a gutter accent.
“What is bothering you?” Dimitri asked, and she shifted her attention to him. He would not lie to her.
