She walked away from Gerald and darted through the broad, quadruple-doored entrance to the room.
“Leaving so soon, Miss Loudon?” Peter Eyre asked, reappearing just outside. He lifted his cigarette to his mouth. He’d obviously found more, though he’d given his case to his mistress. The band started up again.
She nodded. “I’m more a hot jazz kind of girl.” She smiled as she walked away.
Chapter Six
Ivan felt like he hadn’t had enough of a break from the Grand Russe, with only one day off. Not that home was a refuge, with Vera’s fevered rantings about Cousin Georgy and what he’d done to their family. But the air on the ground floor of the hotel that Saturday night seemed particularly smoky and heavy. Perfume, perspiration, wet wool, and cold air from the doors mixed with the blasts from the heat vents, all left a foggy atmosphere, putting him in a dreamlike state.
People and objects seemed farther away than they truly were. He spotted a woman moving, murkily, far down the service corridor leading to the nightclub’s rear door. Following, he knocked into a short pillar and caught the plant that rested on top of it just in time. The woman, careless or not hearing him, kept walking away.
Eventually, he could see the far wall. The art framed there began to take shape, dancers cavorting brightly, captured in sharp strokes of thick, colorful paint. The woman stopped, her ear pressed to the bright crack between the door and the lintel. Now he could hear it too, the band. They played “Red Hot Mamma,” a fox-trot he liked.
He could see the woman did too. Her hips swayed, followed by her shoulders. When she tossed her head he recognized her, as if the smoke around her had suddenly cleared. Until that moment, she might as well have been a ghost, one of those murdered starlets.
As if they were in a film, he took Miss Loudon’s hand and pulled her to him. She stumbled for half a second when her heel caught on the carpet, then righted herself as he apologized.
She shook her head and smiled, as caught up in the moment as he was, then put her hands into position with perfect geometry, and they began to dance. One hand on his shoulder, the other in his gloved hand. He spun her in a tight hold around the corridor, her body light as air in his arms, their torsos molded together. His heavy uniform coat kept him from feeling the shape of her breasts against him, but he could feel the warmth of her body nonetheless.
His hand pressed against her back. He could feel the delicate curves of her bones. She hid a lot under these shapeless dresses. Tonight’s was some off shade of taupe, the third of her dresses that he’d seen. He wished she could have kept some of Boris’s money from the pawning of what might have been his mother’s brooch, and bought herself a new dress.
When the music ended, she sighed happily. “I feel like Barbara Miles.”
“Who?” He waited, poised to dance again when the next number began.
“She won the world’s professional dancing championship last year. I don’t remember her partner’s name.”
“I see.” But the music didn’t start again. The band must be taking a break. Reluctantly, he let her hand go.
Her other hand left his shoulder and she stepped back. “Why did you dance with me? We aren’t supposed to fraternize.”
“I am sorry for everything that happened yesterday.” He caught her gaze with his. “I was still thinking about Mr. Eyre’s edict, and I had heard some bad news at home. It made me surly.”
She nodded. “I am sorry you had to deal with me on your day off.”
“It wasn’t you. If we had met somewhere, to dance like this, I would not have minded it. You are a good dancer.”
She blushed. “I could feel the music skipping across my skin. When the cymbals clashed it made me shiver.” She demonstrated with a roll of her shoulders. “Have you heard ‘Snakes Hips’? It’s almost as good.”
He couldn’t help but notice the sway of her breasts. Could he kiss her again? Of course not. Not only would she feel the heavy heat between his legs and become nervous, he would risk losing his job. What he wouldn’t give to make love while a jazz record played. How he longed for those carefree days of wealth and privilege sometimes.
“And the trombone,” she continued. “Is there anything better?”
His gaze fixed upon her lips, her tongue flashing between them as she sang the tune, “La, lala, lala . . .”
“I can’t kiss you,” he said.
She stopped singing. “What?”
“No kissing.”
Her eyebrows lowered, wispy, delicate arches of blond. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“Yes, you did.”
She shook her head. “No. You’re hallucinating.”
He fanned out his fingers. “Look at yourself, this sensual creature. You’re made of kisses.”
Her brows lifted.
“When you speak of music, your eyes are as hungry as Theda Bara’s,” he continued.
She blushed. “Such applesauce. You’ve never spoken to me like this before.”
“I’m serious. Music brings you to life.”
“Not always. I was in the Coffee Room yesterday evening. I don’t fit in there, though I did dance once. It wasn’t jazzy though, not like in the nightclub.”
“Someone asked you to dance?” He was obscurely dissatisfied that he hadn’t been the first to dance with her in the hotel.
“One of the twins.” She smiled. “I don’t know if they are regulars.”
“Yes, I know who they are. Cousins of Miss Plash.”
She nodded. “That makes a great deal of sense. They came up to us when I was speaking to her.”
He suddenly understood. “Oh! Was it you who returned the ashtrays?” That evening’s notice had been about the return of purloined articles. He’d solved the problem of the missing newspapers, when he found that one of the long-term residents’ valets had been taking them to the den on the seventh floor as soon as they were fanned out in the Reading Room. Then a cache of coffee spoons had turned up in a laundry sack in a storage room on the fourth floor. He’d found those too, during his rounds.
“Yes, Mrs. Plash had them, I’m afraid. But I don’t know if she collected them or found them already together.”
It could be either way. “Poor woman.”
“Do you know?” she asked. “Well, it’s an indelicate question.”
“What?”
“Are Mr. Eyre and Miss Plash still keeping company?”
Irrational anger surged through him. Did Miss Loudon think Peter Eyre would take her on, make her over in his mysterious, stylish image? Maybe he could. Maybe, just. This sensuality was a new side of her; one he’d imagined, however momentarily, that she’d shown only him. Maybe it was Eyre bringing it out in her, not the music.
“I have to make my rounds,” he said stiffly. “You should return to your room.”
“Why?”
“Because the ghosts might get you.” He stomped away without answering her question about Eyre. He didn’t know the answer anyway.
* * *
Alecia rolled her eyes at Ivan’s back as he stomped away. Ghosts were unlikely to be much of a nuisance here. Drunken lads from the Coffee Room, those who stayed there to drink themselves into a stupor instead of moving on to the nightclub, were much more trouble.
She wished she’d been able to determine what Sybil was up to. Ivan might know, but he didn’t seem inclined to help her.
Did Ivan realize she was as traumatized by her parents’ fate as he was by his? That her ghosts were inside her own head? She wished she were a man. They seemed to be able to compartmentalize better, spend less time in their own heads. She doubted he saw his equivalent of the Lusitania’s four smokestacks every time he laid his head down on his pillow.
Or maybe he did. He worked nights for a reason.
* * *
Ivan opened the door to his flat, exhausted after a long night on his feet. One of the kitchen maids at the hotel had given him a bag of bread rolls when he’d drifted through the kitchens hoping
to grab a cup of coffee, and he munched on one of the yeasty treats as he walked in. As he began to toe off his shoes, he realized there were more voices than usual. Vera and Sergei had been joined by their White Russian friends. Ivan knew the speaker only as Pavel. Another man, Anatoly Smirnov, who never spoke in Ivan’s presence, sat in the corner on Vera’s footstool.
“What did you bring us today?” Vera asked, holding out her hand for the bag.
Ivan didn’t give it to her. He didn’t mind Sergei, but he loathed the others. Nothing good came of their presence. They’d spend hours here, debating the fate of the Romanovs, filling the air with smoke and eating every morsel of food, drinking every drop of vodka in the flat. He had no interest in supporting whatever they were. Not working men. Imperialists? Revolutionaries? He had no label for their activities, and didn’t care.
Ignoring them, he went to the icebox. Of course, his cider was long gone. He poured himself a glass of water and walked past the group into the bedroom, his chin itching when he saw Pavel’s untidy beard. Maybe he’d shave before he slept, but then he’d have to take his rolls into the untidy shared lavatory on the landing.
Not worth it.
“Ivan!” Vera shrieked in Russian as he opened the bedroom door. “Don’t disappear. We need your guidance.”
“I need to sleep.”
She rose from the arm of the chair where she was resting against Sergei and slapped him on the chest. “You need to hear this. We’re going to take down Ovolensky at the command performance of Macbeth.”
He felt stupid and slow. “Macbeth? How do you know about that?”
Anatoly smirked, but as always, said nothing.
Oh God. Were Miss Loudon’s employers involved in this travesty somehow? He stared at his sister, her eyes glittering with excitement.
Gritting his teeth, he said, “Are the Marvins involved with your little conspiracy?”
“Want in?” she challenged.
“You know I don’t.”
“Then I won’t tell you anything.” She flounced away and went back to her seat. Anatoly’s close-set black eyes bored into Ivan’s for a moment, before he tossed back the contents of his glass.
“Why don’t you both go back to Russia, instead of making trouble here?” Ivan said.
“The battle must be fought on all fronts,” Pavel said. “We have formed a Special Punitive Group as required by the circumstances.”
“I think you are too much of a coward to go back,” Ivan responded. “There is no good in killing a man. You think the British government will want Russians here if you bring fear to these shores? What about all the charities that have helped us? If the common people see us as murderers, we are finished.”
“Our committee has passed a sentence of death upon Ovolensky,” Pavel said calmly.
“Now you sound like a Bolshevik, not a White,” Ivan jeered. “I don’t think the tsar had committees. He was an autocrat.”
Pavel sneered. “You know nothing.”
“What were you before the war? You are older than me. Were you in the army? I know you couldn’t have been an aristocrat. What then? Some humble schoolmaster, in love with a Grand Duchess? Do you think to bring the dead back now?”
“Stop it!” Vera shouted. She rose again and snatched his bag from his hand, then slapped his face.
“Do not push me,” he said to his sister, refusing to touch his stinging cheek. “You need me more than you are willing to admit.”
She stared at him, saying nothing. He looked up at the cracked ceiling, then walked back through the sitting room and out the door. Boris would let him nap on the old sofa in the back of the pawnshop.
He stayed away from the flat until he had to wash and be back at the hotel. Thankfully Vera and her Special Punitive Committee had gone elsewhere. He had yet to see her alone to ask her about the brooch.
When he arrived at the hotel that evening, he found a notice requesting him to appear in Mr. Eyre’s office before he started his rounds. While he felt gritty-eyed from the lack of sleep in a proper bed, at least his appearance was impeccable. He wouldn’t let the bloody Special Punitive Group cost him his position. What would those bastards do without people like him who were conned into keeping them going, providing spaces for their meetings, food for them to steal, vodka to fuel their idiocy?
On a Sunday night, the hotel was quieter than usual. Even the Coffee Room seemed subdued, though it was after eight P.M., a prime time for the usual crowd who couldn’t afford to dine in a restaurant and were killing time until the clubs opened.
“Mr. Salter,” said Peter Eyre, rising from behind his desk and holding out his hand when he walked in.
Ivan took it, confused. He saw Lionel Dew was present as well. At least the handshake seemed friendly. Would Mr. Eyre have shaken his hand if he were about to be sacked?
“I wanted to thank you for finding those spoons and solving the newspaper dilemma,” Mr. Eyre said. “You are doing good work.”
“Just my job, sir,” he said eagerly. “I try to keep an eye on all the nooks and crannies of the hotel.”
“Excellent. You are my eyes and ears, you night watchmen,” Eyre said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll find a gesture of gratitude in your next paycheck,” Lionel Dew added.
“Thank you, sir,” Ivan said. “That is very welcome.”
“You were unemployed for a time before you came to us, correct?” Dew continued.
“Yes. Work is scarce.”
“Especially for immigrants,” Eyre said, lighting a cigarette.
Ivan watched the unconscious grace of the man as he went through the motions. No wonder women found him so attractive. Masculine poetry in every movement, none of this effete nonsense upper-class young men were affecting right now. “Speaking of immigrants,” he began.
“Yes?”
“I have some concerns about certain elements of the Russian community where our visit from Georgy Ovolensky is concerned. He is a controversial figure in some circles.” How he hated even saying the name.
Eyre picked a piece of tobacco off his lip. “I imagine any part of the present government is, among those who fled.”
“Very true, sir.” He chose his words carefully. “I have heard there might be some manufactured unrest at the Marvins’ command performance.”
Eyre’s eyes narrowed. “From who?”
Ivan shrugged. “Those who hate Stalin’s government.”
“Plenty of those.” Eyre sat back, regarding him.
Ivan didn’t know what to do with his hands. He locked them together behind his back, his palms feeling hot underneath his gloves. “I might be able to learn more about it.”
“How?” Eyre elongated the simple word.
Ivan cleared his throat. “I can keep my ears open around the Russian community, but I’m also concerned that someone in the Marvins’ world could be helping.”
“You don’t say,” Eyre drawled.
“Yes, but I can’t learn more about that.”
“No?”
He felt he had to explain. “You’ve told us not to fraternize with guests.”
Eyre nodded. “What do you have in mind?”
“Miss Loudon, the Marvins’ secretary, is often underfoot late at night. I’ve attempted to follow orders not to speak to her since you explicitly ordered us to refrain from fraternizing, but if I was allowed to continue our initial conversations, I might be able to learn who is feeding information about the performance to the Russian community.”
“Do you think she is the problem?”
“No, sir. She’s newly come to London, but she’s always on duty, so she has access to everyone the Marvins do.”
Eyre steepled his fingers together under his chin. “How much trouble do you think these elements are going to make?”
“I think it is going to be bad, sir, very bad.”
Mr. Dew’s eyebrows rose. Eyre looked even calmer.
“We don’t want any trouble.”
A thin trail of smoke rose to the ceiling from Eyre’s forgotten cigarette.
“No, sir, we can’t afford it.”
Eyre nodded. “I know of whom you speak. She does tend to wander, that one. Go ahead and do your worst with her, as long as she seems of value to the greater enterprise. But I’m going to want to know what you’re hearing among your people. That seems more important to me.”
Ivan nodded, sadness warring with elation.
A knock came at the door. The night concierge poked his head in after Eyre called, “Enter.”
“Miss Plash is outside, sir. Says her mother is missing?”
Eyre ground out his cigarette in a battered brass ashtray, not one of the Grand Russe’s, and stood. “Do we know for how long?”
“She didn’t tell me. Shall I send her in?”
Eyre nodded.
“Why don’t you request a date with this Miss Loudon?” Mr. Dew suggested. “That will flatter her.”
Eyre stood. “There’s stationery in the credenza, Mr. Salter. Ah, here you are, Emmeline.”
Ivan went to the credenza and took paper and an envelope to the corner of Mr. Eyre’s desk and wrote a note under Mr. Dew’s watchful eye, while Miss Plash fretted about her mother.
“I’ll take it upstairs,” Mr. Dew said. “You start the search for Mrs. Plash.”
Ivan nodded. “It really isn’t necessary for you to take the note. I’m sure I’ll see her around midnight.”
“You need to make a young lady feel desired.” Dew reached into his pocket. “Here.” Dew handed several half-crown coins to Ivan.
“I can’t take your money,” Ivan protested.
“I’ll get it from petty cash. Show her a good time.”
Images of Miss Loudon’s mouth, brushing softly against his, came to mind. “Doing what?”
“Go to the pictures. Buy her lunch.” He winked. “You know the sort of thing.”
He didn’t, not really. “I’ll start looking for Mrs. Plash.”
“Do you know what she looks like?” demanded Miss Plash.
“Tone, Emmeline,” Eyre said gently.
“I do, Miss Plash,” Ivan said, as Mr. Dew left the office. “We’ll fetch her back to her room. Don’t you worry.” He nodded at the upset woman and left, wondering if her smeared mascara was evidence of real emotion or if she was simply being dramatic.
If I Had You Page 8