Written on the Wind (The Blackstone Legacy #2)(35)
“No, thank you,” he said with admirable restraint. “I would rather discuss why you have told your family that I am insane. Please correct that. Tell them we joke and tease each other, but that I am not crazy.”
“No, you’re not, but you’re the most vain and melodramatic man I’ve ever met.”
“I am a rational man without a hint of insanity. I confess to being vain, but I am not crazy and would prefer if you corrected that impression with your family.”
She sighed in frustration. “Why does it matter? It isn’t as if you will meet any of them. When we get to New York, I will give you access to your money, and then we will go our separate ways.”
That Natalia might abandon him in New York was something he had never considered, and it panicked him. “You can’t,” he sputtered. “I must get the czar’s attention, and causing a disruption on the railroad is the best way.”
“Don’t you understand?” she said, her self-control beginning to slip. “If I cause a scandal at the bank, I lose everything. My father’s approval. My career. The bank is my only chance to prove myself by helping build something great.”
He understood. He had also been born into wealth and privilege but felt the same compulsion to challenge himself on the railroad. He and Natalia had worked in tandem on that quest, and they shouldn’t abandon each other now. If the railroad could not be built in an honorable fashion, they should join forces to stop it.
“Your father would not banish you for acting on your beliefs. You said he is a great man.”
“He is a great man, but a hard one too. From the day I began work at the bank, he warned me to stay in the background. He never touts me in the press or has me represent the bank in public. It’s too risky. People don’t have faith in a woman managing their investments. And yes—he would cut me out if I ever attract bad publicity to the bank. I’ve always understood that.”
Dimitri frowned. “That seems rather cruel.”
“It’s why I double-and triple-check everything I do. It’s why I over-prepare and burn the midnight oil. If something goes wrong on a project I oversee, blame will be laid at my doorstep no matter how it happened. If I get cut out of the bank, my life would be nothing but tea parties and dress fittings.”
He shook his head. “Natalia, I know you better than that. Your world is Beethoven and Shakespeare. You have a baby brother you love and will help raise to manhood. You must not reduce yourself to what you do within the four walls of a bank.”
“Don’t change the subject. As long as you persist in trying to damage the railroad, we can have nothing to do with each other. It would be best if we part ways once we reach New York.”
He couldn’t let that happen. He spoke the language of Americans but didn’t understand their customs or business environment. He had no allies here. Somehow, between now and the time they reached New York, he must find a way to get through to her.
“Don’t abandon me,” he said. “We can find an answer to this dilemma, but I am a stranger here, and I need your help.”
His plea was carried away on the wind. Natalia turned to head back to the boarding area without looking back.
16
Dimitri’s plea disturbed Natalia more than she cared to admit, because she would never consider doing anything to hurt the railroad.
Would she?
Her refusal to take action hurt Dimitri’s feelings, but couldn’t he understand that he’d hurt her as well? His obsessive nagging left her feeling used and dismissed, as though she meant nothing to him aside from her influence at the bank.
She pondered the problem all night and into the next day. The train passed through northern Colorado and into Kansas while she worried. She believed what Dimitri said about the atrocity and the possibility that it could occur again. That meant she had to think of a solution short of destroying the railway and the bank’s reputation all in one poisonous swoop.
That evening it was particularly crowded in the dining car, but she spotted Dimitri immediately. He sat across from an older man with a long beard and a yarmulke on his head.
Dimitri stood and gestured her over. “This is Yitzhak Menshikov,” he said when she arrived at the table. “He is from Russia, but look! Here we are, two Russians who have met each other in the middle of a Kansas cornfield. Is not the world a grand place?”
Dimitri’s enthusiasm cracked through her gloomy mood, and she joined them. The three of them spoke in Russian because Mr. Menshikov confessed that even after twenty years in America, he still struggled with the language. He insisted she call him Yitzhak, and soon she learned his story of leaving his tiny village in search of more freedom in America. He found it as a clothmaker, and now he was wealthy enough to pay for passage for other members of his family to come to America. He was heading to New York, where he would meet his nephews as they arrived at Ellis Island.
“They will breathe free air here,” Yitzhak said, his voice trembling with emotion.
Natalia listened in fascination as Yitzhak explained how he funded his textile business by collecting investments from members in his synagogue. It was different from how the bank loaned money, but it had paid huge dividends for both Yitzhak and his investors. Now he shipped bolts of fabric all over the country.
“None of this could have happened back home,” he said. “A Jew could have his property seized and his children turned out of school. Life is better here.”