Dimitri nodded. “The mill is yours until dawn.”
Ilya gave a brusque nod and lugged a crate of apples inside the mill. Dimitri followed a few steps behind, and Ilya looked at him curiously.
Dimitri glanced at the supply room. “Am I going to find two more barrels missing from the supply room by morning?”
“Maybe,” Ilya said with a nonchalant shrug. “Why should you care? You’ve got plenty, and I always return them.”
“You didn’t ask, and I might need them.”
Ilya’s blue eyes turned flinty. “Those barrels were made by my father back when he was a serf for your family. Nobody ever paid him a kopek for those barrels, and your family took his labor for free all his life.”
“Ilya, let’s not refight the emancipation battles. All that happened decades ago.”
Like hundreds of others in the valley, Ilya came from a family of serfs bonded on Sokolov land until they were liberated by Czar Alexander II in 1861. At that time, a third of the Russianpopulation had been born into serfdom, which was little better than slavery. The czar wanted to liberate the serfs from above rather than wait for revolution from below. Czar Alexander successfully freed the serfs, but it didn’t buy him goodwill. He was blown to pieces by an assassin’s bomb twenty years later because the anarchists claimed he hadn’t done enough. The aftermath of the czar’s assassination put the Russian nobility on edge for years, but those times were long past. In the decades since liberation, many of the former serfs managed to earn a respectable standard of living.
Ilya Komarov was just such a man. He was hardworking and successful, but his pale, flinty eyes always seemed to be glaring in resentment. Perhaps liberation hadn’t changed Ilya’s world all that much. While Dimitri was sent off to elite schools in Moscow and Zurich, Ilya never went to school at all. Ilya grew up in his father’s footsteps by becoming a carpenter. It wasn’t fair, and ever since that horrible day at the Amur River, Russia’s history of oppression weighed more heavily on Dimitri’s conscience.
“Keep the barrels,” he said impulsively.
“Keep them?” Ilya asked, surprise evident in his voice.
“Yes. Your father made them. They are yours.”
Ilya’s expression did not soften. If anything, a hint of suspicion took root, but he nodded and touched the brim of his cap as he turned away to unload the rest of his apples.
Dimitri was going to have to keep his eye on this one.
To Natalia’s surprise, Liam’s proposal to improve the wages for the workers at U.S. Steel was finally taking shape. The meeting of the board of directors was coming up, but despite how hard Liam had been working, it was doubtful his idealistic proposal would fly. It was too ambitious, and Liam refused to scale it back.
Natalia arranged for Liam to practice his presentation for her father on theBlack Rose.When Oscar owned this yacht, heused to host regular parties for her entire family.She’d loved the afternoon sails as her aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered to play shuffleboard and dine al fresco on the deck. Now that Liam owned the yacht, she’d persuaded him to continue the periodic gatherings. Most of the family was up on deck while Liam and her father retreated to the cardroom downstairs to discuss his proposal.
Poppy didn’t approve of Alexander being exposed to so much sunlight and wanted the nanny to take him downstairs, but Natalia volunteered to play with the child instead. It was the perfect excuse to remain in the cardroom and eavesdrop on Liam’s presentation. She sat on the floor with Alexander, casually tossing blocks across the carpeted floor. She watched the baby scramble after them while listening to Liam and her father at the nearby table.
“The profit margin on steel has increased thirty percent because of the new furnaces,” Liam said.
“So has the cost for iron ore and limestone,” Oscar interrupted.
Liam shook his head. “Iron is only up twelve percent, and limestone has held steady. The profitability of steel has gone up thirty percent, and the men on the line should get the same raise.”
“And if the price of steel falls?” Oscar asked. “Do the men absorb a pay cut each time the price dips?”
Liam answered the question perfectly, referencing a mathematical model she had written for him with a built-in floor for wages during economic downturns.
The baby crawled back to her, presenting a block to her with a radiant, drooling smile. Alexander had recently started saying his first words, and he called her Nala, which she loved. His attempts to saymotherended up asmud, which annoyed Poppy but made Natalia secretly smile.
She gave Alexander back his block, which promptly went into his mouth. Meanwhile, Liam continued outlining his plan for ensuring the labor force could be paid during economic downturns.
A knock on the door interrupted them, and Patrick stepped inside the cardroom, one of the ship’s porters standing behind him.
“Excuse me,” Patrick said. “I hate to spoil the afternoon sail, but Gwen is a little seasick. We’d like to return to port.”
“Seasick?” Oscar growled. “Nonsense. Gwen has the constitution of a horse.”
“A pregnant horse,” Patrick said. “The chop on the water is getting to her, so please head back to port.”
Natalia looked away. Gwen was four months along, and Natalia was happy for her. Of course she was. But it made her miss Dimitri. A tiny part of her had harbored hope that as soon as Dimitri arrived in Russia, he would quickly secure the necessary promises from the czar and rush back to America. Instead, she was treated to rapturous messages about the loveliness of his valley and the joy he took in being home.
Dimitri would never come back. He would probably marry Olga and raise her children while Natalia stayed in New York and watched other women have babies. She sighed and pulled Alexander onto her lap, hugging him tightly.
