“Oh, not for me,” Madam Lukashenko said. “I told Sofia that I’d stay with you. Natasha said that you have a fine house, the one your mother left you.”
Great, Brandy thought. A built-in chaperone, what a thrill. She forced a smile. “That will be splendid, Madam Lukashenko. I do have three bedrooms, if another of you would like to stay with me.”
Madam Sheremetev sniffed. Again. That sniff was beginning to make Brandy jump, because it always boded ill. “The, ah, Higgins, you said? A suite there, I think.”
Brandy couldn’t resist. “I’ll call and see if they have one available. They might not have room.”
“Of course, they will make room for me.”
“I’d be very careful of expressing that view at the Higgins,” Brandy said, enjoying the moment. “You wouldn’t be the first great lady to be told that there’s no room for you there, even if the hotel was empty. Delia Higgins does what she wants.”
That sniff again. A big sniff this time.
“And you, Madam Streshnyova? Where would you like to stay? The Residentz is pretty full.”
Madam Streshnyova was Brandy’s favorite so far. It didn’t seem to matter to her that her niece was the czarina. And Brandy could tell that Madam Streshnyova was sick to death of Madam Sheremetev.
“Oh, anywhere is fine for me,” Madam Streshnyova said. “I don’t need the Higgins. Perhaps there’s another hotel? Or a room at the Residentz, if that’s possible.”
Brandy decided to make it possible, one way or another.
* * *
Since Brandy had gone and fallen in love with the dashing Russian prince, she buckled in and the Barbies helped. Well, the Barbies helped some, as they had time. They were still going to school, they had their business interests, but they did manage to pop up and save the day more than once.
The wedding had a tentative date sometime in the summer of this year. Meanwhile, the dragon ladies were going over Brandy’s pedigree and tut-tutting all the while because they couldn’t find any nobility at all in Brandy’s recorded ancestry. They were discovering for themselves what any number of western European down-timers had already learned—that Americans just didn’t fit neatly into established lines, pedigrees and social estates. Technically, all up-timers were commoners. In the real world . . .
It wasn’t that simple. Any number of down-time prominent families had already tacitly decided that for all social purposes up to and including marriage Americans could be considered equivalent to the aristocracy. “Honorary noblemen,” as it were. But the Russian delegation was made of sterner stuff and not yet ready to call it quits.
By May, Brandy was ready to pull a Saint George on all three of the dragon ladies. But letters were still flowing back and forth between her and her Russian pen pals. The czarina was enthusiastic about the dirigible they were building in Bor on the Volga, though it was expected to take over a year to complete. Natasha was enthusiastic about the new industries that were starting up in Russia, especially in Moscow and Natasha’s family seat, a town called Murom on the Oka River. The Oka, Brandy learned, was the river route from Moscow to the Volga and Nizhny Novgorodi. The Volga was developing into the Russian industrial corridor. And, in some ways, it was doing it faster than it was happening in Germany. Russia had farther to go and fewer people to take it there, but it was an autocratic state. If the government decided there would be a dirigible, there darn well will be a dirigible. If Princess Natasha decided that they would build steam engines in Murom, they will darn well build steam engines in Murom.
An open society whose economy was based mostly on free enterprise might be great for innovation and dynamic in the long run. But over the fall of 1633 Brandy had been forced to the realization that when it came to putting innovations into production . . . well, the expression “shoot the engineer and put it into production” took on a whole new urgency when the authority really could shoot the engineer. It wasn’t nice and it didn’t fit with her image of either Natasha or the czarina, but it did get results. It got results even when neither Natasha or the czarina had any intention of shooting anyone. Just the fact that they could brought results.
Brandy paid attention to these things in part because it was increasingly her job as Vladimir’s primary up-timer consultant, but also because it gave her something to distract her from worrying about what the dragon ladies from the Russian steppes were sending home and whether they would be able to scuttle the wedding.
* * *
“That . . . that . . . raving bitch!”
“What’s the matter now, my darling?” Vladimir asked. “Which of our dragon ladies has made you angry?