“That explains your dresses,” Ivan said.
“I haven’t had time to do any London shopping,” she admitted. “I’ve worked every day.”
“You should have days off.” He finally looked at her, a bit sullen-looking due to that full lower lip. But strength was evident too, in the strong jaw.
She looked away from him. “I want to go to C&A, the department store. But Sybil is very demanding, and I don’t like to put on airs, being so new, demanding a full afternoon off or such.”
“So you work seven days a week?”
“Because of my grandfather, they assume I want Sunday morning off to attend services. I have Saturday morning too. They are always hungover.”
“You don’t like these hours.”
“My grandfather expects me to write home every week with commentary on the sermon I heard on Sunday. So I haven’t a choice. But it doesn’t feel like a proper half day, I’ll tell you that.”
“No, it doesn’t. And you should have a full day, at least one.”
She stared down at her gloves. “I’m happy as long as I can creep downstairs and listen to the music at night.”
His tongue touched his upper lip for a fraction of a second. “You go on a little holiday every evening?”
She smiled. “I suppose. I do love the music. I think my situation will change when the Marvins are working again, properly, in a theater. Right now they have too much time on their hands and we’re really just trying to get to know each other.”
“At least, for your sake, theatrical people are late risers,” he mused.
“Yes, and I don’t sleep well. It works in my favor.”
“Unless I’m specifically told not to allow anyone near the nightclub door, I won’t trouble you,” he promised. “Now that I know what it means to you.”
“That’s very kind,” she said. “Decent of you.”
“Until the rules change again,” he said. “I must do as I’m told. I can’t be seen being flirtatious.”
“I would never ask you to risk your job for the sake of me listening to hot jazz,” she said. “Or flirting with me.”
His slight smile pronounced his cheekbones. “It’s Friday. The club should be on fire tonight.”
She felt like they were flirting now. Bittersweet that he’d be cold to her again when they arrived. “Do you often work inside it?”
“No, New Year’s was the only time. Did you enjoy dancing with Mr. Eyre?” His tongue darted out again.
“Not as much as Mrs. Marvin did,” Alecia said without thinking.
Ivan grinned. This close to him, it was hard not to stare, not to wish he would kiss her again.
The cab stopped with a jerk. She glanced out the window and was keenly disappointed with the sight she’d adored just two weeks ago. “Back to the hotel so soon? I hadn’t realized.”
Ivan was already stepping out. He helped her down, then paid the driver.
“You shouldn’t, you should take the taxicab back to your flat. You don’t need to be here today.”
He hesitated. She could see he really didn’t want to be at his workplace. He probably wanted to take his sister to see the brooch. “Take the taxicab, Ivan. Mr. Marvin gave me enough money for the fare.”
“Very well.” He nodded brusquely, lifted a hand to the doorman who had been hovering nearby, then climbed back in.
Through the window, she could see Ivan sitting very straight, as if he were uncomfortable. Mindful of the money she carried, she went through the hotel speedily, though she would have loved to dawdle at the dress shop, or even sit on the banquette seating arrangement across from the salon to watch the ladies as they exited with new hairstyles. Her own hair was a heavy, neatly tucked coil against her neck.
She asked the lift operator to take her to the fifth floor and was so focused on putting money into Richard’s hands that she almost missed the elderly hand waving to her from behind the fern across from the lift door.
She recognized Mrs. Plash. When the old woman stepped out from behind the large plant, Alecia saw she held an old apron in a bundle.
“What do you have there?” she asked.
Mrs. Plash looked down, confused.
“Here, let me assist you,” Alecia said, moving to take the bundle. It rattled, its unwieldy burden shifting. She took it to the chair next to the lift door and unwrapped it. Crystal ashtrays, all with the distinctive GR logo in the middle.
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Plash murmured.
“You have quite a collection here,” Alecia said. “Do you know where you found them?”
“Did you know a woman recently officiated at a wedding for the first time in London?” Mrs. Plash said, averting her gaze from the ashtrays. “A Miss Dorothy Haldane, in Bloomsbury. I’m not surprised, really. Bloomsbury, you understand.”
“Where did you hear that?” Alecia said, attempting to follow the conversation.
Mrs. Plash’s gaze was vague, focused on her mind’s eye. “The Vote, my dear. My daughter is a member of the Women’s Freedom League.”
“Oh?”
“She believes in equality of morality,” Mrs. Plash said.
“I see,” Alecia said, assuming that was why the woman was unmarried and having an affair. “I do find that tidbit fascinating, but I did wonder about the ashtrays?”
“What ashtrays?” Mrs. Plash patted her arm. “You shouldn’t smoke, dear. Makes wrinkles around the mouth. So unattractive.” She tottered down the hall to her room, Alecia and the apron of ashtrays quite forgotten.
Alecia hefted the apron, hoping Mrs. Plash wouldn’t miss it later, and took the ashtrays to her room. Then she went into the sitting room. Mr. Eyre had gone but Richard sat at the table, drinking a cup of tea and reviewing Macbeth.
“I think you’ll be pleased,” she said, handing him the pawnshop envelope.
He opened it with a grunt, and flipped through the banknotes. “You did well. Used to fleecing your flock, I suppose?”
“That was never my job, except at the annual bazaar,” she said.
“Hmm.” He regarded her with a speculative gleam.
She found it discomforting. “If you don’t mind, I need to return something to the front desk. I found it in the hallway, but I wanted to get the money to you as soon as possible.”
“Take a letter for me first, will you?” Richard said.
She held back an urge to sigh. She’d wanted to use the time to review her afternoon with Ivan as she made her way downstairs. “Of course. I’ll find my pen.”
He dictated a letter to Dolly Tree, a very prominent costume designer for stage and film, asking her to create the costumes for the command performance. “She’ll be very dear, especially in this time frame, but with such a distinguished audience she might be swayed. Send this off immediately so we can have a response Monday. We’ll have a lot of letters to write then if she says no.”
“Yes, sir.” Alecia stood. “I’ll just do a proper copy of this for your signature.”
“Use the hotel stationery,” he said.
She nodded and went to the writing table next to the picture window. Ten minutes later she had a clean letter and Richard signed it. “I’ll post this and run my little errand, then be back.”
“No sign of Sybil yet?” he asked.
“No. Do you want me to check the salon?”
“No, she wouldn’t still be there,” he said, returning to his book. “Make a dinner reservation for me downstairs, will you? If she turns up she can join me.”
“Yes, I will.” She poised expectantly on the balls of her feet. When he said nothing more she went out the main door of the suite and down the hall to her own door. Inside her room, she blew on the envelope to dry the ink and tucked it into the pocket of her dress, then hefted the apron of ashtrays, hoping she wouldn’t chip any of them on the journey downstairs.
The man at the front desk had a tag on his red uniform jacket identifying him as Lionel Dew, Night Manager. Alecia felt oddly relieved when she realiz
ed she wouldn’t have to see Mr. Eyre.
“Good evening,” she said, hefting her apron full of contraband onto the desk. “I found these behind a plant on the fifth floor and they appear to belong to the hotel.”
Mr. Dew, a blond with a barely discernible unibrow, given his unusually light hair for a man of middle years, opened the bundle with an air of professional indifference. “Where did you find them?”
“Near the lift,” she said, not convinced she should give away Mrs. Plash’s secret. Mr. Eyre had to know the poor woman had her troubles, given his relationship with the daughter.
“I’d like you to speak to Mr. Eyre, the manager.”
“Of course,” Alecia said, her midsection turning to butterflies. “I’ll find him tomorrow.”
“He’s here now, miss. In the Coffee Room. He’s there most hours after I come on duty at seven.”
A couple, dusty and road weary, but dressed respectively in a Poiret driving costume and custom plus fours, walked up to the counter. Alecia had a feeling she ought to know who they were, if for no other reason than the woman had an unworldly beauty, from her carefully lacquered black hair, almost geometrically arranged around her face, and her perfect, thin black brows, to her oversized carmine lips. The man had a ruddy, squashed face and ginger hair. He matched the lady not in beauty but in distinction and individuality.
When he saw Alecia’s perusal, he doffed his hat with a grin. “Yes, dear, of course you can have my autograph. But Miss Page, you know, never signs them.”
The beauty gave them both a bored stare, and Mr. Dew began to fuss over her.
“Oh, you’re Teddy Fortress,” Alecia said, finally placing the man. A well-known movie comedian, one of many Brits who’d attempted to replicate Charlie Chaplin’s success in Hollywood. Miss Page was his wife, and an actress too.
He chuckled. “I’m pleased such a beauty recognized me.”
“He needs your John Hancock, Teddy,” his wife said in an unpolished American accent.
“Of course, of course,” Teddy said, giving Alecia a wink and stepping around her. “Catch you later, doll.”
She walked briskly away, realizing she preferred Mr. Eyre’s unsettling urbanity to Mr. Fortress’s gangster-speak and teasing, especially in front of his wife, who must be very used to it, given her demeanor.
The Coffee Room was considered by many to be the most beautiful room at the Grand Russe. The most up-to-date, certainly, with its stunning navy and silver geometric wallpaper. The parquet floor’s dizzying pattern could make a girl’s head spin a bit, even more than the champagne that flowed between eight and eleven P.M.
Even though the champagne hour had not yet begun, the room had filled with Bright Young Things of the sort who drank their evening meal instead of eating it. The law insisted food must be available when alcohol was served, so a buffet was ever present along the side wall. Alecia had never investigated it in the evening, and wouldn’t now, since Mr. Dew had gestured at her apron-wrapped package with disdain.
Instead, she walked across the floor with her eyes focused on her package, trying to ignore how she might appear in her black dress—her newest frock, sewn to wear to her grandmother’s funeral initially—and hoping she channeled the bored attitude of Miss Page, though she was no actress.
When Mr. Eyre saw her though, he treated her as a special guest and not a bedraggled supplicant. He rose from his chair, holding his cigarette, and inclined his head, smoke spiraling around his carefully combed sandy hair. “Why, Miss Loudon, what a treat.”
“I found these upstairs,” she said.
Mr. Eyre smiled and took the bundle from her.
“It’s ashtrays,” she explained. “I attempted to leave them with Mr. Dew, but he was busy with new arrivals.”
“Have Mr. Fortress and his lovely wife entered stage right?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll have to welcome them personally,” he murmured, taking a peek in her bundle. His expression seemed to sharpen, though his face didn’t move.
“What are you doing with my mother’s apron?” A brassy blonde with dark eyebrows that didn’t match approached, holding a long, empty cigarette holder. Her slinky, sleeveless navy dress, spangled with silver, matched the walls. This was Emmeline Plash, Fallen Woman. “Peter?”
“Miss Loudon found it,” Mr. Eyre murmured. “Have you made the acquaintance of Miss Plash, Miss Loudon?”
“No.” She nodded at the woman.
“A pleasure,” Miss Plash said, lifting her nose. “Butt me, will you, Peter? My case is empty.”
Mr. Eyre snapped his fingers, and a liveried bellboy appeared from behind Alecia with all the speed of a genie exiting a bottle. “Take this bundle to my office,” he ordered.
“My mother’s apron,” Emmeline said impatiently.
“Leave the ashtrays there, and return the apron to me,” he said. “Unless you’d like me to have it washed and ironed for you.”
“No, it’s one of my mother’s prize possessions,” Emmeline said, snatching at Mr. Eyre’s gleaming cigarette case as he pulled it from an inner pocket. She rubbed at it. “Honestly, Peter, it’s all smudged.”
Mr. Eyre smiled at Alecia. She felt like he’d let her in on his private joke, and was warmed by it, instead of made nervous, as she had been with Teddy Fortress.
“If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I had better see to the Fortresses.” Mr. Eyre inclined his head and strode off behind the bellboy.
Emmeline shook her head angrily. “Who is supposed to light me up?”
A waiter appeared at her elbow, holding a lighter. “Miss, if I may?”
Another genie. Alecia watched as their transaction was completed.
“Efficient, I’ll give them that.” Emmeline blew smoke out of the side of her mouth in businesslike fashion. “Now, I know you didn’t just find those ashtrays. My mother took them, right?”
“I found her with them, and she gave me the bundle. I don’t know how she came to have them.”
Emmeline blew out smoke again and stared at the wall. “I don’t know what to do with that woman. What a mess.”
“I’m sorry.”
Emmeline smirked nastily. “It’s you I feel sorry for. A pretty girl who dresses like a fright and has to play fetch and carry for those theater people.” She waved her cigarette holder around the room. “You’re always going to be on the outside. It will get worse as your employers age. I’ve heard they are both past their prime as it is. The hotels will become shabbier, your pay will reduce. Although I don’t know how you could dress any worse.”
“I only started working for them last month, Miss Plash,” Alecia said, swallowing her anger. “And the Marvins have all kinds of prospects. I have faith in my employers. Besides, this hotel isn’t the least bit shabby.”
“You shouldn’t have faith in employers. You should find yourself a rich boyfriend and enjoy being young. How old are you? Twenty?”
“Twenty-two.”
Emmeline rolled her eyes. “To be twenty-two. You have the look of a just-born fawn. I’d claim to be younger, if I were you. This is the age of youth, and you can get away with it.” Her gaze wandered. “I wonder if we can open a bottle early tonight.”
Alecia felt as though she’d been sucked into the genie’s bottle herself, the way Emmeline suddenly stopped recognizing her presence, and took a step away. She knew she didn’t fit in. Oddly enough, given her London fantasies, she didn’t even want to, not with this bored, heavily imbibing crowd with the high-pitched drawls and “sick-making” talk.
A string quartet had come in and were setting up in a corner, music to keep the beast at bay until the nightclub opened later. A young man in full evening kit approached them, mouse-brown hair, center parted and gleaming with oil, a bored expression in his heavy-lidded eyes. “Will you dance, ladies?” he drawled.
Emmeline rolled her eyes.
“Both of us?” Alecia said, momentarily distracted from her plan to exit by the notion o
f dancing.
Another young man approached. They were mirror images of each other. Twins.
“Goodness,” Alecia said, trying to flirt. “Which of you is nicer?”
“Harold,” said the first.
“Gerald,” said the newcomer.
She had no idea whether they were saying their own names or each other’s, but the string quartet finished checking their instruments and began a Tchaikovsky waltz. No, she couldn’t resist. “I’d love to dance.”
The first man bowed and took her hand. In an instant, they were in the center of the floor, twirling around as half a dozen others joined them. The size of the room compared to the number of couples meant they could command the floor. Alecia had never been spun so fast or moved so far, being used to church tea dances where the music was sedate and the floor crowded. But this, this was living, despite the man’s practiced boredom and her own inappropriate attire. She forgot him, and her clothes, and not fitting in, and let him spin her until she was dizzy, until she couldn’t see him clearly. He might have been Ivan Salter, or Richard Marvin, or Peter Eyre. Anyone, really.
When the music ended, the quartet paused. Alecia saw a group of Bright Young Things had entered the room. She heard the high, tittering laugh of one of the men.
“I should go,” she said to her partner. “This isn’t my party. But thank you for the dance.”
“Who are you?” he asked. “You’re a very good dancer.”
She touched her flushed cheeks. “Thank you. I’ve never danced like that. It was heaven. Which one are you? Harold or Gerald?”
“Gerald.” His gaze had wandered away from her.
“I’m Miss Loudon.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure.” His gaze tracked a boyishly built young woman in her late teens, dressed in a Chanel evening gown, who’d just entered with a large party. She wore diamonds like they were paste.
For a moment Alecia wished Harold would ask her to dance now, but he was opening a bottle of champagne for Emmeline. No, she needed to escape. For this crowd, you had to be rich or artistic, and she was neither.
If I Had You Page 7