escape Taras.
Mamka looked up at me, her eyes wide.
“He’s a good baby, is he not?” I asked.
Mamka nodded, her face serious in the candlelight. “The mother?”
“I don’t know what happened to her.” I stuffed Mamka’s nightie into the bag. “That doesn’t matter right now.”
Mamka kept her gaze on my face.
Prickles rose on the back of my neck. “Stop, Mamka. There’s nothing to be done to find the mother right now, so just let me pack.”
Mamka clutched her shawl closer as the sound of thudding horses’ hooves came at the front door.
Taras?
I ran to snatch the rucksack from the bed but stopped as the door was flung wide and Taras strode in, wearing a lynx coat, a pistol in one hand, in the other a pillowcase bulging with boxes, their sharp elbows poking against the linen.
He closed the door behind him and glanced at the rucksack on the bed. “Going somewhere?” he asked softly.
“Of course not.”
In Mamka’s arms little Max stirred and cooed.
Taras set his bundle down on the foot of the bed and directed his pistol toward the baby. “What’s that?”
“It’s the gamekeeper’s child.” The heat rose in my cheeks. Could Taras see it in the dim light? “Put the gun down, Taras.”
He ran his fingers through his long hair. “Where did it come from?”
Mamka held the boy tighter.
I stepped closer to Taras and touched his sleeve. “What happened to the family?”
“We just wanted money, but Vladi got carried away. It will all be fine, though.”
“They’ve been kind—”
“You need to help me, now, Inka. Vladi is coming to stay here tonight—late, after our meeting—to make sure you are safe while I guard the prisoners.”
“We don’t need his protection.”
Taras pulled me closer and smiled. “Things are different now, but I’m not taking any chances. At least we’ll have all the food we need.”
Little Max cried and reached for me.
Taras pointed his gun toward the child. “That will not be staying. I don’t care where you have to take it.”
Mamka wrapped Max tighter in his blanket.
I held out the fruit to Taras. “Look—I’ve brought you an orange.”
He waved it away and walked to the door. “I’m leaving.” He stopped and turned. “And if you don’t get rid of that child, Inka, believe me, I will.”
CHAPTER
18
Eliza
1916
One Monday Sofya’s letters just stopped coming, adding an eerie emptiness to our post box. After several days of fretting and speculation I visited Mother’s friend Eliot Blandmore at the New York Bureau of Immigration. She’d met him at a Southampton painting class and arranged a meeting at his office in the newly built, forty-story Equitable Building in lower Manhattan.
I found his office, a typical gray cube, every inch of it stuffed with people, all waiting in a pungent, cheese-scented haze of cigarette smoke. I pushed into the crowd, through heated Italian and German conversations, sidestepping a family picnicking on the floor and overstuffed valises brimming with worldly possessions.
I made it to a man who sat behind a desk, deep in conversation with an elderly gentleman in a baggy tweed jacket, who turned his cap in his hands.
“I don’t know where your bird is, Mr. Pirelli. Two doors down you’ll find animal control.”
Mr. Pirelli moved on.
“Mr. Blandmore? I am Eliza Ferriday. You’re expecting me?”
He stood and offered his hand, a lanky man with an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball.
“Haven’t much time, I’m afraid.” He shuffled through some papers on his desk. “We’re short-staffed and half the world wants into America’s golden doors. The unfortunate half.”
“My friend, Sofya Streshnayva, from Petrograd, I haven’t heard from her. No letter in a week.”
“A week, Mrs. Ferriday? Come back in a month. We attend to serious cases here.”
“I understand, Mr. Blandmore, but Sofya writes every day.”
“Ambassador Francis is barely able to get his own correspondence to us from Russia and says the tsar’s on the ropes himself with the war going badly.”
“Sofya told me there were bandits around her country estate. Could you help send an embassy message—”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
“Any bit of information would help me greatly.”
“I see you’re one of those women. Won’t take no for an answer.”
I stood straighter. “I am simply here on a mission of mercy for a dear friend, Mr. Blandmore. If you are implying entitlement—”
He dropped the papers onto his desk. “Yes, we have heard reports of Bolsheviks gaining traction in Russia and criminals under a red banner committing crimes and…”
“Please be frank, Mr. Blandmore.”
“Well, the reports may not be one hundred percent accurate, but there have been mentions of