Written on the Wind (The Blackstone Legacy #2)(11)
Natalia gasped and picked up the fragile record. “You scratched it!”
“My son is sleeping,” Poppy said stiffly. “I suggest you do the same. It’s nine thirty, for pity’s sake.”
“Alexander can’t hear my phonograph on the other side of the house.”
“You don’t know that,” Poppy snapped. “You’ve played this record at least five times in a row.”
“Because it’s my favorite symphony.”
What was the point of living in a mansion if she couldn’t even listen to her own music? Poppy’s bedroom was in a separate wing of the house, but she must have heard the music while climbing the main staircase. This was one of the largest private homes in the state of New York, yet it wasn’t big enough for Poppy and Natalia to live beneath the same roof.
Her father heard the commotion and came into the room. “What now?” he asked in exasperation.
Poppy pointed to the record Natalia held. “If I have to hear that song one more time, I swear to high heaven I will leap out a window.”
“There are children laboring in coal mines,” Natalia said, “but yes, Poppy, your life is very difficult.”
Poppy’s eyes narrowed, and Oscar tried to play peacemaker. “I believe you have played that recording somewhat obsessively,” he said, because he usually sided with Poppy whenever she and Natalia locked horns.
“That’s why this house has doors,” Natalia said. “I had mine closed. I suggest you do the same, and then my music won’t bother you.”
Poppy grabbed the shellac disc out of Natalia’s hands, lifted it high, and then slammed it against her upraised knee, snapping it in two. “There,” she said, flinging both halves into the corner of the room. “Now we won’t have to hear it at all.”
Natalia’s palms itched to wipe the smirk off Poppy’s face. Either that or to go out and buy another copy of the record and set up the phonograph right outside Poppy’s door. She glared at her father and waited for a reaction.
“Poppy,” her father gently scolded, but his cautious tone made it clear he wouldn’t do anything to offend his beloved wife. “I think the two of you need to try a little harder to get along. Natalia, it would be helpful if you could limit playing the phonograph to hours when Poppy is not in residence. And Poppy—”
Natalia didn’t want to hear what else he had to say. She picked up the two halves of the record and hugged them to her chest. If she had to choose between Brahms or Poppy, Johannes Brahms won every time.
“No need,” she said primly. “I think I have overstayed my welcome in this house.” She could move into a hotel tonight and buy a home of her own somewhere else. She probably should have done it long ago, but she’d worried it would stoke the rumors of a feud between her and Poppy.
Why should she care? There was a feud between her and Poppy.
“Now, Natalia,” her father cautioned.
“Too late. I’m leaving tonight, and then we can all be happier.”
She said it breezily, but her sense of triumph didn’t last long in the face of Poppy’s triumphant gloat.
6
At first Dimitri thought the forest was deserted, but by his second night, he started seeing all manner of nocturnal wildlife. There were owls, raccoons, minks, and wolves. His first sight of a wolf terrified him until he threw a tree limb at it and the mangy animal fled.
But it worried him. Where there was one wolf there were others, but there was nothing he could do except pray that God would keep him safe. He couldn’t afford to get lost, so he followed the railroad east. Fear of being spotted by a passing train meant he traveled only under cover of darkness, and then before dawn he slipped a few hundred yards into the forest to sleep during the day. His entire body hurt, the blisters on his feet were bleeding, and he shivered with cold, but he wasn’t hungry.
The peasants of Russia had long survived on cedar nuts, and now so did Dimitri. Pine cones littered the forest floor, and it was easy enough to bash them open and pick out the tiny nuts. His pockets were stuffed with them.
On the fifth day he saw the first sign of bandits. Most of the bandits in the forest were either escaped prisoners from penal colonies, soldiers who had deserted the army, or men who abandoned their agreements to work on the railroad.
All were dangerous.
His first glimpse of them came an hour before sunset as he scavenged for cedar nuts. They were a rowdy group of at least a dozen men, and some of them were drunk. From his hiding place behind a tree, he heard them arguing over how to divide the money from a soldier they had robbed.
Trying to join them would be dangerous. Given his fine coat and custom boots, they might rob him blind rather than share their food or supplies. It also looked like they were heading south, and Dimitri needed to go east. He hid until they were well out of sight before continuing his journey.
Over time, he learned the sounds and smells of the forest. The creak of tree trunks, the rustle of wind, and the thud of his footsteps on the peaty forest floor. He became accustomed to the scent of moldering leaves and damp earth, all mingled with the smell of his own sweat and fear. It was that fear that kept him walking through the endless hours of darkness and solitude.
Forward, forward, forward.
How much longer could he go on? At this rate it would take months to reach the Mongolian border, and then what? With luck he could find a village where his gold coins could be bartered for passage on a river barge, but his feet were in dangerously bad shape. The blisters had broken open and leaked a combination of pus and blood. He could only hope his feet would toughen, and until then, he would suffer. How could three small blisters cause such misery?