“Your father’s bank has never been popular, and the press loves an excuse to attack it.” He handed her a copy ofThe New York Timesfolded open to a story. The headline was a slap in the face.
Blackstone Bank Complicit in Massacre along the Trans-Siberian Railway
She struggled to hold the paper still as the carriage bumped and jostled over the cobblestones, but she quickly gleaned thegist of the article. It was exactly as her father had feared. The Blackstone Bank had sunk its greedy tentacles into another nation’s business to extract as much profit as possible. When the Russian army retaliated against a local uprising, the Blackstones averted their eyes rather than complain. Natalia was painted as a dilettante who was given a Russian investment as a present from a doting father.
“It gets worse,” Liam said, his face pained. “The article at the bottom of the page interviewed someone who claims to work for the bank. He unloaded a ton of hogwash that makes you look pretty bad.”
He pointed to a paragraph, and Natalia felt sick as she read the damning details, all of which were true but had been painted in the worst possible light. The article said that Oscar Blackstone built his pampered daughter a washroom for her exclusive use that had marble counters and perfumed hand towels. That she frittered time and money on expensive telegrams flirting with men in Russia. That even though she had one of the biggest and best offices in the bank, she used a tiny antique desk that was too small for anything except twiddling her thumbs.
Most damning, the article reported that insiders in the bank had been concerned with Natalia’s mismanagement and had reported it to the Russian embassy in Washington, but Oscar refused to do anything to admonish his spoiled daughter.
“Oh no,” she whispered, her teeth beginning to chatter. This was a disaster. She had to think fast. This sort of vitriol smacked of Silas Conner, but the damage had already been done.
The carriage was heading west to the marina, but she needed to go to the bank to see her father. She turned to jerk open the panel on the wall behind her, but Liam slammed it shut.
“What are you doing?” she stammered. “I need to see my father.”
“Not until you’ve got your head screwed on straight,” Liam ordered.
Her stomach soured as other implications sank in. How many times had her father warned that he couldn’t protect herif she ever failed in the eyes of the public? It didn’t matter what was true; it only mattered what the public believed.
She was dizzy and nauseated at the same time. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Do you want to pull over and get out?”
Liam’s voice was kind, his hand a reassuring weight on her shoulder. She still had allies. She could get through this.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. The worst thing would be giving in to panic and doing something foolish. Liam was right. She needed to retreat somewhere away from public view and plan a strategy out of this mess.
One thing she did know was that she couldn’t go to Carnegie Hall tonight. Russia’s famed violinist would be playing in Dimitri’s honor, and she would be a distraction. She needed to stand aside and let Maxim Tachenko lend his talents in support of Dimitri’s cause.
By the time they arrived at the marina, she had calmed herself. The briny scent from water sloshing against the pilings was oddly comforting. One of the crewmembers who lived aboard the yacht lowered the gangway for them to board, and Liam led her to the main living area belowdecks.
It was a long, narrow room with a low ceiling, but it was comfortably furnished with card tables, tufted lounging chairs, and brass portholes overlooking the marina. It was dim, and Liam turned up a little kerosene lamp to brighten the room. A lazy English bulldog slumbered in a large wicker basket at the foot of Liam’s desk. Liam squatted down to give Frankie a good rubbing beneath its chin.
Books, manuals, and stacks of papers were mounded on the table closest to the light. She fingered the edge of a financial ledger. “How is the math coming?”
“Okay,” he said, but his tone was dismissive as he petted his dog. It wasn’t coming along okay, and she’d been useless to him while she’d been in San Francisco, Washington, and everywhere in between. The board meeting for raising the workers’ pay was coming up soon, and she doubted he’d be ready.
“Let me see,” she said, reaching toward a financial ledger, but he got there first.
“Natalia, this isn’t the time for that. Tell me what I can do to help.”
There wasnothingLiam could do. Her reputation had been dragged into the mud, and in all likelihood her father was about to cut her out of the bank forever.
And without the bank, there was nothing left for her in New York.
Poppy was right, Dimitri thought as he escorted her into Carnegie Hall. There was a grandeur to the concert hall reminiscent of those in Europe. The exterior had a striking Italian Renaissance-style façade of terracotta brick, while the inside was a feast of color. He wore his finest evening attire, complete with white tie and a black cutaway jacket. He proudly wore his red Buryat sash instead of a cummerbund.
“That’s the mayor of New York,” Poppy whispered as he escorted her up the stairs to a private box on the second tier of the auditorium. “He hosted Maxim Tachenko at his home last week. It was scandalous, because everyone thinks the mayor’s wife is infatuated with Tachenko.”
She continued chattering about the exalted guests she spotted as they entered the Blackstone private box overlooking the auditorium. They had it to themselves because Oscar had stayed late at the bank and Natalia had sent a message that she could not come. Poppy arranged herself close to the banister to have a perfect view of the crowd below.
“This box is the best place to see and be seen anywhere in the city,” she assured him as she scanned the audience below, where diamonds gleamed among the silk and satin. On the opposite side of the auditorium, a pair of matrons gawked at them while exchanging confidences behind their fans. Others on the main floor craned their necks to look up at them.
“Your celebrity precedes you, Count Sokolov,” Poppy saidloudly enough for spectators in the nearby box to hear his title. “Oh look, there’s Senator Lansing.” She nodded to another private box.
Dimitri recognized the senator and tipped a nod of greeting. Senator Lansing returned it with an approving smile.
