by Kate Quinn
“And you said you owed me a favor . . .”
“Is that why you chimed in upstairs, telling Mr. Graham to play for Ruth? So you could maneuver me into a date?” Jordan certainly hoped so.
“I’m trying to maneuver you into a date because it’s Friday night, and I’d rather spend it with you than with a sarcastic Brit complaining that Americans serve beer too cold.” Tony caught Jordan’s left hand suddenly, thumb sliding over her fourth finger. “And I couldn’t help but notice you’re about half a carat lighter than you were a week ago.”
“Noticed that, did you?” His grip was hard and warm over hers, no nervous perspiration. Just his thumb passing over her ring finger.
“Noticed the next day, if I’m being honest.” Tony released her hand before she could tug it free, raising his arm for a cab sailing toward them. “So dinner?”
“I’m only just out of a long engagement, Tony.”
“That means you can’t eat dinner?”
The cab rolled past, not stopping. “It means maybe it’s a little soon to be going on dates.”
“It doesn’t have to be a date.” His gaze was direct. “It can just be dinner.”
Jordan looked at him, speculative. “Answer me one question first.”
“Fire away.”
“Do you cheer for the Yankees?”
“Best team in baseball.”
Jordan smiled. “I don’t go out to dinner with Yankee fans.”
He clapped a hand to his heart. “I’m crushed.”
“Like we’re going to crush you in October?”
“Let me take you to Fenway and we’ll lay a bet on that.”
Jordan dropped her teasing. “I can’t go to dinner or a game; I’m working. Three rolls of film; I’ll be up till midnight.” She liked bantering with him, liked that there didn’t seem to be signs of a girlfriend in the apartment upstairs . . . but she wasn’t throwing work aside for a date. The photo-essay had to get finished; there was so much to do and summer was slipping by so fast.
He didn’t argue. “What about tomorrow?”
“Saturday movie night with Anna and the cricket here, then Sunday lunch the next day. Weekly tradition.” Sunday was the day they all missed Dan McBride the most.
“Monday?”
“Working then too, sorry. I’m going to a ballet studio to get pictures of the dancers.” She outlined her Boston-at-work idea. “You helped give me the idea, you know—something you said about my father looking like the quintessential antiques dealer.”
“So that’s what that was,” Tony said. “That time you waltzed out of the shop with Clark Kent after giving me the biggest smile I’ve ever gotten in my life from a girl who was still vertical. I kept wondering what I’d done to prompt it.”
“Mr. Rodomovsky!” Jordan said, pretending to be shocked. “Keep your mind out of the gutter if you please.” She tried to keep a stern expression, but Tony quirked an eyebrow, and she burst out laughing.
He grinned. “Let me accompany you to the studio Monday. I’ll carry your bag, hand you film. Don’t you want a minion? I thought all photographers had assistants.”
“Famous ones.”
“I’ve seen your work. You’re on your way.”
He was flattering her, Jordan knew that. But warmth still spread in her stomach at the praise.
A cab finally pulled up. Tony opened the door, handing Ruth in with a flourish, and Jordan gave in to temptation. “Meet me at the studio,” she said, giving him the address.
“I’ll be there.” He didn’t try to squeeze her hand or touch her arm in farewell, just stood there hands in his pockets, smiling. Something a notch up from his automatic you’re-so-pretty smile, something faintly, frankly wicked. Jordan was somewhat amused to feel a flutter in her stomach in response. He doesn’t mean anything by it, she thought. You could take a picture of charm spilling out of him like coins from a slot machine and title it A Charmer at Work!
Well, so what? She had half a summer left here, and she was free to enjoy it with any charmer she pleased. “I’ll see you Monday,” Jordan said, and she made sure she didn’t look over her shoulder as the cab rolled away.
“YOU’RE IN THE CLOUDS tonight,” Anneliese said that evening after supper. “That’s the second time I’ve asked for a dish towel.”
“Sorry.” Jordan passed it over, then reached into the sink of soapy water for another plate.
Anneliese studied her. “You look like you’re thinking about a man.”
Jordan bit back a smile.
“I knew it!” Anneliese laughed, sunlight from the kitchen window gleaming on her dark hair and her navy-blue dress. “Did he ask you on a date?”
“Yes.” Jordan hesitated, plate in hand. “You don’t think it’s too fast, do you? For me to be thinking about someone new, when things just ended between Garrett and me . . .”
“And who ended them?” Anneliese asked. “Which one of you actually said the words?”
“Well, he did.” Jordan hadn’t told her the details before, merely that it was over. “I asked if we really loved each other or not, and Garrett asked for his ring back.”
“So, he ended it. If your heart isn’t smashed in pieces—and I’m glad it isn’t—then why shouldn’t you move on to someone new if you feel like it?”
“People call names if a girl gets around too quickly after breaking an engagement.” Jordan knew exactly what those names were. She couldn’t help thinking them herself this afternoon after leaving Tony’s company, even as she told herself she was free now to see whom she liked. As much as Jordan wanted to be a woman of the world, it was hard to shake off the strictures of the Good Girl. “I don’t want people thinking I’m a—”
“They won’t think that of Garrett Byrne if he decides to get over you by dating every girl in Boston,” Anneliese pointed out.
“Things are different for men, and you know it.” Jordan added more soap to the dishwater. “Surely it was just the same in Austria when you were growing up.”
“Yes.” Anneliese leaned against the sink, thoughtful. “Perhaps your father wouldn’t approve of you going out again so soon after ending a five-year engagement, but . . .”
“What about you? What do you think?” Please don’t disapprove, Jordan thought. She hadn’t realized just how much she valued Anneliese’s good opinion.
Anneliese smiled, looking downright impish. “I think that if the end of a five-year engagement isn’t the time for a frothy summer romance, then what is?”
Jordan laughed, relief and delight warming her cheeks. “You are wicked sometimes, Anna.”
“And you’re a grown woman of twenty-two who should enjoy her freedom. Sensibly,” Anneliese added, lifting a rinsed-off saucer out of the dishwater. “I’m enough of a mother to ask that your frothy summer romance be conducted without throwing every caution to the winds.”
Jordan sincerely hoped Anneliese wasn’t going to initiate a chat about the facts of life—there were some things you did not want to discuss with your stepmother, no matter how marvelous and faintly wicked she might be—but Anneliese just dried the saucer and asked, “So this new young man who asked you on a date. Is he handsome like a movie star?”
Jordan thought of Tony’s lean, cheerful face. “Not exactly.”
“Tall?”
“No, my height.”
“Did he save you heroically from being hit by a car or eaten by a dragon?”
“No, we met over a pie.”
Another laugh. “He must have something special. Not just pie!”
Jordan considered. “He knows how to look. Really look, when a woman is talking.”
“Ah.” Her stepmother sighed. “Some men ogle, some men look. The first makes us bristle, and the second makes us melt, and men are at an utter loss knowing the difference. But we do, and we know it at once.”
“Exactly.” Jordan handed her a plate to dry. “Did Dad know how to look?”
“It was the first thing I noticed about him. He
could admire a lady as though he were admiring a beautiful porcelain vase, without making her feel he was affixing a price tag.”
“That’s nice.” As silent as Anneliese was about her early life, she would always talk about Jordan’s father. It eased the hurt of missing him.
“Well, I wondered if it might be our new clerk with the black eyes who was making you dreamy, but surely you didn’t meet him over pie.” Anneliese turned to put away the gravy boat, missing Jordan’s suppressed smile. “Just as well—that new clerk is Polish, isn’t he? Poles are hard workers, but they’re so emotional and untrustworthy in some ways.”
Just when she seems like a woman of the world, Jordan thought, she turns into Mr. Avery on the corner, warning everyone that Wops are slippery and Micks are lazy. Jordan had always bit her tongue when it came to such comments from Anneliese, because her father chided, It’s rude to contradict your stepmother even if you disagree with her. But he wasn’t here anymore, and Jordan said tartly, “Anna, that opinion is ridiculous.”
But Anneliese had already changed the subject, reaching for more soap and looking pensive. “I don’t suppose your mystery admirer is English, is he? Mr. Kolb telephoned me about an Englishman who had asked him some questions . . . I wondered if you’d seen someone like that hanging about.”
Jordan supposed it must have been Ian Graham dropping in to catch Tony at work—she’d offered to give him directions to the shop for Ruth’s lesson, and he’d said he’d been before. “I’m not going on a date with any Englishmen. At least not that I know of!” Making a joke of it to dispense with the subject of Mr. Graham, considering she’d just hired him behind Anneliese’s back.
“Well, perhaps Mr. Kolb was being needlessly fearful. Or,” Anneliese added dryly, “drunk again.”
“I’ve smelled his breath in the mornings,” Jordan admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything, considering it doesn’t affect his work.”
“He had a bad war. It makes some people drink, and it makes others see trouble where there isn’t any.” Anneliese dried her hands on her apron, still thoughtful. “Do let me know, though, if anyone comes about asking questions. If Mr. Kolb is in some kind of trouble, I’d like to know.”
Jordan blinked. “What kind of trouble would he be in?”
“A man who drinks can always find trouble.”
Anneliese still looked pensive, warm kitchen light bathing her dark hair and dark dress. The shot distracted Jordan. “Stay like that and let me take your picture.”
“You know I hate that!”
“Please let me snap you for my series. The essential you at work—”
“And what work would that be?”
Jordan paused. What did Anneliese do that summed up her essence? Cooking, as she whipped up her dense, delicious Linzer torte? Sewing, her quick fingers moving over a lace collar? Neither seemed quite right. In the rare photograph Anneliese allowed to be taken, she looked exactly the same: anonymous and pretty, face turned to the flash like a shield. What was the essential Anneliese? “I’ll find out,” Jordan promised.
Anneliese looked briefly amused, then the smile faded to something more somber. “Jordan, we’ve talked about you managing Ruth if I went on a buying trip for the shop . . .”
Jordan untied her apron. “I thought you wanted to hire someone to do the buying.”
“After four years with your father, I think I can tell a good bit of china from the bad. I’d like to go to New York for a few auctions.”
“I can watch Ruth. Especially now with Mrs. Weir holding down my end at the shop; she managed things for Dad years ago, so she’ll keep it running like clockwork. You should go to New York, Anna.” Jordan liked the idea of Anneliese heading off to take up the business reins. Maybe her stepmother too was eager to stretch her wings, be more than a housewife with her sewing room. I’d like to see you try, Jordan thought, not without a flash of guilt for her father. His love had been so all-encompassing, but it had also . . . confined. Jordan knew she wouldn’t ever, ever voice that thought aloud, but she couldn’t help having it.
“Then I’ll plan a week or so in New York,” Anneliese was saying, all crisp decision. “And if you don’t mind watching Ruth, I’ll take another two weeks in Concord after that.”
Jordan paused, hanging up her apron. “Why Concord?”
“Because your father and I honeymooned there.” Anneliese traced the counter with a fingertip. “I . . . want to say good-bye to that memory.”
“Oh, Anna.” Jordan touched her hand. Yes, there was guilt in Anneliese’s blue gaze too. Perhaps she had also felt caged by Dan McBride’s fond, firm hand over her life.
Anneliese gripped Jordan’s fingers, eyelids lowered. “I’ll have to be the strong one for Ruth once you’re gone. Not short-tempered with her, the way I’ve been lately. If I can . . . get a little time to put myself in order, I’ll be ready.”
“Anything you need.” Anneliese’s hand was chilly in Jordan’s. Well done, J. Bryde. Too busy mooning about a prospective date to notice how worn-out your poor stepmother is. Jordan gave Anneliese’s cheek a remorseful kiss, told her to sit down with some sherry, and took Ruth and Taro out to enjoy the twilight. Reassuring Ruth that yes, her mother would be gone for a few weeks, but Jordan would be there for everything. And yes, the lesson next week really would happen; Mr. Graham wouldn’t forget.
And how much easier it was going to be to get Ruth her music lessons if Anneliese wasn’t there to sneak around.
Chapter 37
Ian
July 1950
Boston
Waking up this morning, I would not have bet that by nightfall you’d have a music student, and I’d have a date with a Red Sox fan.” Tony came back into the apartment after putting Jordan McBride and her sister into a cab.
Ian tucked his violin back in its case. “I should have known you’d beeline for the first pretty girl to cross your path in this chase.”
“I want her going home wondering if I’m going to steal a kiss Monday morning, not wondering why her clerk is shacked up with an inexplicable Limey and an even more inexplicable tableful of paperwork that was mostly, if she’d looked closer, copied from her shop.” Tony flopped into a chair, propping his boots on the dead radiator.
“Yes, I saw you shuffling papers out of sight behind her as I was playing.” That was the reason Ian had offered to play—well, partly. He shut the lid on the violin, still rather touched by Ruth McBride’s intense reaction to it. Normally if anyone cried at his playing, it was because he was butchering the music. “Is that why you were nudging me with your eyebrows to take the little girl on as a pupil? So her sister wouldn’t stop chatting and start looking about?”
“Partly.” Tony linked his hands behind his head, studying Ian. “Though you surprised me by offering in the first place. Why did you?”
“I don’t entirely know.” That visceral reminder of Seb, as Ruth looked up with her stricken eyes . . . the offer had just tumbled out. “I tried showing Seb how to play at that age, but he preferred bird books and model trains.” Ian smiled at the memory and Tony smiled too.
“Well, you made that little girl very happy.”
The self-same song that found a path through the sad heart of Ruth, Ian thought, the old line of Keats springing to mind. When, sick for home, she stood in tears amid the alien corn . . . That first impression still lingered: sick for home. No, Ian didn’t regret taking the time to make those eyes shine this afternoon. Even in the middle of tracking a murderess, one could take time to be kind to a child. Or else what was the bloody point of it all?
“I like Ruthie,” Tony said. “Sad little thing, somehow. But don’t turn down Jordan’s money when she offers to pay you for teaching her. We are already looking at an enormous telephone bill.”
Ian raised his eyebrows. “Since when is it Jordan and not Miss McBride?” Tony grinned. “Well, if you’re taking her out, see if you can get anything new about Kolb. And don’t step on any hearts in the name of i
nformation gathering.” Though Tony seemed to walk that line very well, just light enough with women that they didn’t seem to mind when he drifted away.
“You’re now the expert in not breaking hearts?” Tony lifted the telephone receiver. “You get to flirt with the next girl in the line of duty, then.”
“Certainly not.” Ian skimmed down the next page of addresses. “I’m a married man.”
“I thought you were divorcing.”
“I am. We are. When there’s time.”
Tony paused, then put the telephone back down with a tilted smile. “Ian, has it entirely escaped you that you’re falling for your wife?”
Ian glanced up. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Look, I was glad when you two started sharing more than just a name. You need something in your life besides war criminals and that violin, because whether you’ll admit it or not, you’re lonely as hell. And Nina’s just your idea of a good time, because underneath that starched collar you like to live dangerously, and your wife is the most dangerous goddamned female you or I have ever met in the flesh. But it’s more than just fun now, isn’t it?” Tony paused. “Because after five years of forgetting you even had a wife, you’re suddenly Mr. I’m a Married Man.”
Ian folded his arms across his chest, several replies warring. “I fail to see where any of this is your business,” he said finally.
“Because you’re my friend, you Limey bastard, and if your wife goes winging off into the clouds again when we’re done here, is she going to leave you in pieces all over the floor?”
Chapter 38
Nina
August 1944
Polish front
A lone voice lifted up into the sky, hushed, wobbling. Yelena’s voice from somewhere in the throng of pilots, singing the ancient cradle song from the shores of the Old Man, the song Nina had sung on the airfield that first night. Softly the other pilots took up the song, as Nina pressed her burning eyes shut. They knew. Whether by some whispered word of gossip or by the thread of communication that bound them like a shared radio channel, they all knew.