“Natalia, go home,” he said gently. “Figure out what you’re going to do with the next phase of your life. There is no place for you at the bank anymore.”
It would have been easier if he’d been angry, but every word he spoke ached with sorrow. If he’d been angry, it would have stoked her to fight against these unjust charges, but his pity meant that he already knew and understood. She was about to lose the work that gave her life meaning. On the day the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed, there would be someone else at the helm.
She had always known this could happen. Her father couldn’t even help her get a position somewhere else, since no bank could risk their reputation by employing her.
A tap on the door interrupted her thoughts, and the secretary tipped his head inside. “Miss Felicity and your son are here.”
Her father’s expression momentarily brightened, but he quickly hid it. “Excellent. Send them in, please.”
Alexander’s nanny wheeled the baby buggy inside. Alexander was already sitting up, and he reached out his arms the moment he saw Oscar.
Her father leaned down to lift the boy. It was impossible not to smile at her brother’s delight as he basked in Oscar’s attention. The cuddling would continue for a few more minutes, and then the boy would be consigned to his playpen in the corner.
As he grew older, she hoped Alexander would come to love this place as much as she had. She hoped he would become her father’s protégé, the sort Oscar had always wanted. She had once looked forward to helping Alexander learn the ropes at the bank, but that was just another foiled dream.
It was time to leave.
Dimitri read the morning newspapers with appalled confusion. The articles about the Amur praised him to the skies, but the same newspapers slaughtered Natalia. At best she was branded an indulged heiress whose ignorance of the world meant she couldn’t spot a catastrophe that happened on her project. At worst they accused her of blithely disregarding the atrocity in the interest of profit.
He sat at the table in the breakfast room, thrumming his fingers on the table as he read the last of the newspapers. Oscar had departed for the bank before sunrise, but Poppy was still here, adding a stream of unhelpful commentary.
“I always warned Oscar that Natalia’s interest in the bank was unnatural and would get her into trouble eventually,” she said. “No one likes a woman who is too mannish.”
“Really? I find myself in love with that mannish woman.”
Poppy rolled her eyes. “You just feel sorry for her. Trust me, Natalia is unnatural, and it’s going to take all my skills to fix her reputation.”
The specter of how Poppy might foist herself on Natalia to “fix” her gave Dimitri the chills. He didn’t know much about New York high society, but no man of honor would stand aside to let his woman be torn to pieces, whether it was metaphorically in the press or in person from the claws of Countess Cassini. This was no mosquito bite; this was the ruination of everything Natalia had hoped to achieve with her life.
And there was likely more to come. The bombshells in the New York press had been set in motion days ago, but the ambassador’s threat the night of the reception indicated he had additional plans to attack Natalia should Dimitri prove difficult.
He dabbed the corners of his mouth with the napkin. “Is there a telephone in this house?” he asked Poppy.
Ten minutes later, he had been installed in Oscar Blackstone’s private study. Unlike the rest of the marble splendor in the Blackstone home, the wood-paneled office was designed for business, not to impress. Beside the desk was a table set up with a telegraph machine and a stock ticker.
Dimitri stood beside the telephone mounted on the wall, listening through the telephone earpiece as his call was patched through a series of switchboards from Manhattan to Philadelphia, then Baltimore, then Washington, and finally to the Russian embassy. It took several more minutes for Count Cassini to be summoned to the telephone, but when he came on the line, it sounded like he had been expecting Dimitri’s call.
“How are you finding the climate in New York?” the ambassador asked in a silky tone.
Dimitri would not pretend a cordial tone. “What other information do you intend to release about Miss Blackstone?”
“That depends on you,” Count Cassini said. “When we came to our agreement, you indicated that you would proclaim the czar’s complete innocence in the matter. You had every opportunity to do so at the gala I hosted in Washington, but you failed. It was disappointing.”
Dimitri clenched his fists but kept his voice calm. “I repeat. What additional slander do you plan to release about Miss Blackstone?”
“Slander? That is an inflammatory word. Everything I have on Miss Blackstone was passed along by a knowledgeable source frominsidethe Blackstone Bank.”
“Who?” Dimitri demanded.
“Mr. Silas Conner,” the count replied. “He had some interesting observations about how Miss Blackstone purchased only a single first-class sleeping compartment for the two of you on a five-night journey from San Francisco to New York.”
Heat began to build. It didn’t matter that Dimitri spent five nights sleeping in a berth that was little better than a coffin. A woman’s reputation could be shattered so easily, and he should have suspected this would be the tactic Count Cassini would use, since it was both true and carried a seedy undercurrent. What he didn’t suspect was what came next.
“San Francisco is notorious for its opium dens,” the ambassador continued. “Perhaps it is little wonder that the person overseeing the Trans-Siberian account was sloppy in her duties, since she was known to dabble in that terrible vice and just got back from several days in San Francisco.”
It was a complete lie, but itsoundedas if it could be true. Dimitri braced his hand on the wall, his gaze trailing out the window to the glamor of Fifth Avenue. It was a gloomy day, with storm clouds scuttling across the sky and well-heeled ladies scurrying to get inside ahead of the coming rain. Nataliawould never be able to hold her head up among this fusty crowd once Count Cassini was done with her.
Dimitri waited the space of ten heartbeats before responding. Count Cassini was not without his own vulnerabilities.
