Written on the Wind (The Blackstone Legacy #2)(91)
“I owe you my life,” he managed to gasp. “You saved me at great risk. What is it that you want? If it is in my power, I will grant it.”
Ilya’s eyes widened. He was no longer the surly, angry peasant. He was a shaken man, bloody and panting from what had happened. Then suddenly a fire lit in his pale eyes, and he said the last thing Dimitri expected.
“I want to go to America.”
Dimitri knew even before Dr. Sopin arrived that his leg was broken. He was given a shot of vodka and a lungful of chloroform that put him in a painful daze while the doctor set his leg and wrapped it in a cast.
It was dark before Dimitri emerged from the drugged stupor. He lay beneath a mound of quilts in his bedroom, the cast-iron stove heating the room at full blast. His mother hovered over him, worried he would catch his death of pneumonia after being submerged in the icy water for so long.
He drew a breath. His throat hurt, but his lungs felt clear, and he would never take the blessing of a deep breath of air for granted again.
He relayed the entire story of what happened, and Anna was appalled—not so much by the danger Dimitri had endured but by Ilya’s audacity.
“He can’t go to America,” she sputtered. “He’s the only carpenter in the valley. What would we do if he leaves?”
Dimitri had to smother a laugh at the self-centered horror in his mother’s voice. Before the freeing of the serfs in 1861, no worker could leave an estate without permission, but they lived in a new era, and Ilya was free to seek his fortune in America if he wished.
“We will find a way to survive,” he assured his mother, but a part of him envied Ilya’s ability to forge a new destiny for himself.
36
Natalia loved watching Alexander totter around her home. In light of Poppy’s jealousy, Oscar now brought the baby to her townhouse for a visit at least once a week. It let Natalia play with her brother while talking business with her father. This morning she sat on the floor with Alexander while Oscar watched them from the upholstered corner chair, looking like a king on his throne as he listened to her grim predictions about the disaster Liam was about to confront. His proposal for a drastic workers’ pay raise would be presented to the board of U.S. Steel tomorrow, and it was too ambitious to succeed.
“He’s determined to shove it down their throats no matter what they say,” she told Oscar. “I’ve tried to suggest a more structured rollout, but he won’t listen.”
“Let him proceed,” Oscar said. “Getting taken down a notch will teach him a lesson.”
It sounded as if Oscar was secretly hoping for that to happen, but she hated watching Liam walk straight toward a buzz saw while doing nothing to intervene. Liam was a strong and charismatic man. His heart was in the right place, but he didn’t respect the rules of Wall Street, and it was going to cost him.
“I don’t want to see him be publicly humiliated,” she said as Alexander tried to climb on top of her.
“That’s his doing, not yours,” Oscar replied. “Speaking of public humiliation, you should know that I have initiated a libel suit against Silas Conner for the rumors he spread about you.”
Natalia sighed. An investigation at the bank confirmed that Silas had been the one feeding inside gossip about her to the Russian embassy. Her father wanted vengeance, but a lawsuit wasn’t the right course of action. She scooped Alexander up and carried him to the sofa, where she settled him on her lap while parsing through her complicated feelings about what Silas Conner had done to destroy her career.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she finally said. “The damage is already done, and getting a pound of flesh from him can’t undo it.”
Her father’s expression was iron-hard. “It’s not my way. When someone strikes at me or my family, I retaliate hard enough to ensure it will never happen again. I intend to make an example of Silas Conner. Do you really want to let him get away with it?”
Sometimes life wasn’t fair. The Chinese villagers who lived along the Amur River could attest to that. She would probably never know why Silas was so resentful of her, but he obviously wasn’t a happy man. Punishing him might bring a quick rush of satisfaction, but it would never bring her the lasting peace that forgiveness could provide. In the grand scheme of the huge, weighty issues of the universe, what had happened to her was no more than a mosquito bite.
“I will leave vengeance to God,” she said simply. “Please don’t pursue this. At least, not in my name. I want to move forward to create an honorable and productive life, not wallow in resentment of the past.”
The baby grabbed something from the table to shove in his mouth. It was the firebird Dimitri had given her in San Francisco.
She pulled the cheap trinket away. “Don’t eat that, sweetheart.”
Dimitri had warned that the firebird was either a blessing or a harbinger of doom. It certainly wasn’t suitable for a child’s toy. Natalia didn’t mind walking toward uncertainty and danger, but she’d protect Alexander to the death.
He started fussing and reached for the firebird again, but she stood to pace the floor with him, hugging him tighter. How she loved this child! She and her father both probably spoiled him, but she didn’t care. Oscar had gone decades waiting for a son to carry on his legacy, and now, in his middle age, he finally had one.