Written on the Wind (The Blackstone Legacy #2)(12)

He laughed in the darkness. Natalia Blackstone used to tease him about his hypochondria. It started when he complained of a mosquito bite on the side of his lip. He told her how annoying it was when he spoke or ate, and she could not let such whining go unnoticed.

Sir. You are the descendant of proud Russian Cossacks, the people who battled the Golden Horde and defeated Napoleon. I expect you to triumph over a mosquito bite.

Natalia didn’t understand the prowess of the Siberian mosquito. With the greening of springtime came formidable swarms of mosquitos that descended with blood-sucking enthusiasm on any warm-blooded creature. Each spring his entire body was spotted with their bites, but he only complained to Natalia about that single bite on the corner of his lip that hurt every time he opened his mouth. She spared him no sympathy.

The world will survive if you don’t speak for a few days. It is only a mosquito bite, Dimitri.

He loved that. Crisp. Witty. He started regularly sharing his various maladies, whether it was chapped skin from the blustery climate or muscle aches from the poor mattress, but he wasn’t a hypochondriac.

Well, his mother sometimes accused him of exaggerating his illnesses, but that mosquito bite on the corner of his lip really hurt.

Undeserved charges of hypochondria aside, he adored Natalia’s teasing messages. For three years they were a rare bright spot during his lonely isolation. She was the most obsessively organized person he’d ever met. She routinely wanted his financial projections well before he had completed them. Unbelievably, she wanted him to predict the weather so she could adjust shipments of supplies. He would reply: Natalia, where is your spontaneity? If the weather stops us for a few weeks, in a hundred years no one will remember, so we must batten down the hatches and make the best of it. A little suffering is good for the soul.

He had a long view of history, but like most Americans, Natalia could be impatient. She wanted things done now. Russians weren’t like that. He was not worried about this week or this year. He thought in terms of this decade or this generation.

Over time he saw beneath Natalia’s prim fustiness to the deeply passionate nature she kept carefully concealed. Her irrational outrage over the tragic outcome in War and Peace was proof of that. She still hadn’t forgiven him for Prince Andrei’s death, even though it was Tolstoy’s fault, not his. For weeks she criticized gloomy Russian authors who killed off fictional characters and caused her to mourn for days. He finally shut her up with seven perfectly chosen words:

It is only a mosquito bite, Natalia.

She immediately understood and quit nattering about Tolstoy’s cruelty. After that, the term mosquito bite became their code word. Whether he whined about bad food or she complained about her stepmother, the answer was the same. It was only a mosquito bite.

At the moment he wished he could send her a long, rambling telegram describing his current misery. He would bemoan his thirst and his difficulty sleeping during daylight hours. She would tease him that it was only a mosquito bite, and he’d feel better.

He tried to imagine what Natalia’s voice sounded like. Would it be soft and feminine, or throaty and strong? Not that it mattered. In his imagination he tried them all. Whenever exhaustion tempted him to sit down, lie back, and give up, it was Natalia’s voice he heard urging him onward.

Dimitri, it’s only a mosquito bite. Keep going. Keep walking. Get to the coast, send me a telegram, and I will help you.

“I’m coming, Natalia,” he said into the darkness and continued onward into the east.



Natalia had always known she lived a sheltered life. From the moment she left the crib, there had been people to help her bathe, dress, and tend her hair. Someone else cleaned her room and prepared her food. Natalia didn’t peel an orange until she was sixteen years old, and she was taken aback by the buildup of sticky white pith beneath her fingernails.

Her helplessness was embarrassing, and it would stop now. She was going to establish her own household and look after it herself. Most women lived without servants waiting on them, and Natalia would too. It would prove her independence.

And her superiority over Poppy, who scoffed at Natalia’s determination to live independently. “You won’t even know how to make toast!” she mocked, but Natalia ignored her and set off to meet Liam, who accompanied her on the thrilling adventure of buying her own home.

They met with a real estate agent named Mr. Leighton. At first the realtor was reluctant to show her properties in the neighborhood she chose, insisting that she could find much nicer homes uptown.

“I want to be close enough to walk to the bank,” Natalia insisted, which limited her options. Most of the area surrounding the bank was filled with commercial buildings, and the apartments above the businesses were all for lease, not to own.

Mr. Leighton reluctantly told her about a row of older townhomes three blocks from the bank. The six units were all attached, but each had a short walkup of steps and a charming bow-fronted window facing the sidewalk. The only one for sale had been owned by a German immigrant who’d lived in it for thirty years before he died last month. It had running water but no electricity.

“I think you will do much better farther uptown,” Mr. Leighton cautioned as he unlocked the front door. “A woman of your position will need modern amenities and more space for entertaining visitors. This house has only a single parlor.”

“She said she wants to be able to walk to work,” Liam said. “Stand aside and let us look around.”