Profession

Late summer

There really wasn't anything I could do for Diana, pregnancy really being a solo sport, so I sent a bright bouquet of flowers. It was two days later when the new princess arrived; she was named Catherine Anne Mary Elizabeth, all very traditional choices, but Andrew's mother's name was Mary, and Anne was the name of the Dowager Queen, so it was personal as well. The baby was on the small side, apparently, at just over six pounds (sounded plenty big to me) and healthy; mother and daughter were doing well, according to a text to Jon by Andrew. And a week later, when the baby was shown to the press, she was wearing the booties and cap that I'd knit.

As spring became summer, we went to a lot of weddings--Wally and Linda got married on the campus of St. Louis University, the bride being an alumna, and they had a beautiful event space for a wonderfully touching ceremony and lovely reception. Wally had fixed it with their wedding photographer, and I was cleared to take some photographs of my own. I hadn't wanted to step on toes, but Wally said that he'd value any pictures I'd take, and Linda was fine with it as well, or at least if she was grumpy she didn't show it. Jon was Wally's best man, looking handsome in his dark suit, tiny spicy carnations and rosebuds on his lapel. I'd never met Linda until their engagement party--she'd had a really hard time accepting his sideline work and they were off and on right up to the engagement--but she was sharp, seemed nice, and glad to have somebody to talk to about the hazards of having a husband in the superhero biz. Additional engagements were announced over the summer, including Carolyn and Louis, Imogen and Ignatius, and Rob and his boyfriend Patrick. That last one had all of us stunned. He'd not so much breathed a hint that he was gay, as if we'd care. But changing his view of himself and accepting that he was gay had been hard for him, he told us, and Patrick had just swept him off his feet. Patrick was a nice guy--and I'd done a deep background check on him like I had for everybody since the late Beck--but it seemed to be moving really fast. Well, just because I'd poked around forever before getting engaged didn't mean that everybody needed to.

And I had my work to do too. I stopped by Switzerland to snap my banker clients; they were good portraits but not really spectacular. The portraits for the Russians were like nothing I'd ever done before, though.  The restored dynasty took over Peterhof Palace in St Petersburg, the Grand Palace, sometimes called the Russian Versailles. Some of it was incredibly fussy, but it was definitely grand, by any definition. The tsarina had taken the Oak Study of Peter the Great as her own personal office, and I shot in there a little. The carvings on the wall were sublime. The gilded and mirrored Ballroom was lit--exquisite--and I took a full family portrait in there. The Throne Room had been heavily repaired following a century of decline and damage done by the Great Winter. The magnificent inlaid floor was repaired following the original drawings of Rastrelli. The great portrait of Catherine the Great on horseback that had been on the wall for centuries had been damaged beyond restoration, and a version of the throne room from the Hermitage had been created; a curved wall anchored by pillars at each end, the walls lined with red silk woven with the imperial device in gold at the center of each panel. There was a low dais that had been created out of black marble, draped with a red silk rug, and the carved and gilded throne centered on it. Behind it was, wisely, not a portrait of past rulers, but a magnificent Russian landscape that was a view of rolling hills covered with forest and mist, taken from higher up on a mountain. The height of this hall is nearly equal to its width, which made for a spectacularly spacious impression, and the long walls had two ranks of windows, allowing sunlight to spill in. The Grand Dukes were shot outside; Dmitri insisted on posing in the Grand Cascade Fountain. I didn't complain; the composition was effective and it wasn't my boots getting wet.  And the clothing. Spectacular. The Restored Court wore, for formal occasions, the styles of the last Romanovs for the women, and classical military-influenced suits for the men, with lots of gold braid, high polished boots, exquisite tailoring. The women wore lots of exquisite diamonds from the State Diamond Trust, and the men were laden with orders and medals. To be fair, the royal family, with the exception of the monarch and the heir, were all expected to serve in the military for at least five years, and they'd earned their decorations. Pretty unique in all the world, there was a lot of fighting in their nine mountain ranges, not to mention their excursions in the Crimea.