The wine had warmed her, but her chest hurt. “Was Ivan arrested? Will he be deported?”
“I don’t think so. He’s an honest man, our Ivan. He was never involved in the plot. Justice will serve, eh?”
“You are from Russia, and Jewish besides. You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“It is hard for any man with the wrong accent to come out ahead, I’ll give you that. But I’ve made a comfortable life for myself here and I don’t see why he cannot do the same, with you.” He patted his stomach.
Alecia was exhausted, but she’d come here to learn. “What about his sister?”
Boris shrugged. “She has made her own choices. Vera is very strong willed. I don’t believe a man has led her astray.”
“You wouldn’t consider her a victim?”
“Of course I would, but she can choose peace or violence, and according to Ivan she chose violence. She wants revenge more than a future, for herself or Ivan.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Don’t judge her too harshly. Her family was murdered. Her life as she knew it, as she expected it to be, ended in fear. I wish she had chosen to cling to the one family member she had left, even though she lost her lifestyle, but she’s gone down another path, as so many have before her.”
“My parents died in the war, but it doesn’t make me want to hunt down Germans and kill them.” She shivered, thinking about her grandfather’s sermons during the war, about peace. Maybe they’d had more of an impact on her than she’d realized.
“The difference,” Boris said gently, “is that she has a face to put to her sorrow: this Georgy Ovolensky. Would you do nothing if faced with the person who’d given the order to kill your parents?”
“You are not the first to ask,” Alecia said. “But I could never risk innocent lives in the process of gaining revenge.”
“That is where you and Ivan are different from Vera and her fiancé,” Boris said. His gaze took on a haunted air, then he bobbed his head several times as if to clear old thoughts. “Why don’t you rest in my study? Ivan will likely not be home until his shift is over in the morning.”
“I shouldn’t, but I will anyway,” Alecia said. She suddenly missed Ivan. Would the pillow smell like cucumbers and birch oil? She wanted something of him. “I’m too frightened to go away and not know what is happening.”
Boris patted her hand. “Mazel tov. I foresee a happy future for you and Ivan. Don’t be afraid.”
* * *
Ivan climbed out of the taxicab at one thirty in the morning. The icy-cold air and frost on the windows proved the point that it was January. The streets, deserted except for parked cars, were somnolent.
He walked up to the entrance to Boris’s block of flats. Mr. Eyre had told Ivan to go home instead of working through his shift when he’d caught him leaning against a wall in the lobby, staring blankly ahead. He’d protested and pointed out that the hotel had lost the services of Anatoly as well, but Mr. Eyre said he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night, so he might as well double as night watchman himself.
Ivan rubbed at his eyes as he went up the stairs. A part of him was still shocked that he had his liberty, after the events of the evening. He wouldn’t have expected the Metropolitan Police to understand that he, a Russian immigrant, really had not been a part of the plot to bomb the Grand Russe, especially when the lead inspector himself saw the animosity between him and Georgy Ovolensky.
He had to give Detective Inspector Dent credit for being a good man.
Wearily, he stumbled into Boris’s flat and took off his overcoat and shoes, then walked down the hall into the study, ready for his bed. He pulled off his clothes, wishing he had the energy to wash away the sweat that had accumulated over one of the most frightening days of his life, and climbed, almost naked, onto his cot.
A woman shrieked. He jumped back, falling against Boris’s desk.
Chapter Twenty
“Alecia?” Small items fell over on the desk Ivan bumped. He could see nothing in the dark.
“Ivan?” Blankets rustled.
He recognized Alecia’s voice and relaxed, then fumbled for the candle and matches on the desk and lit the candle. When he saw two framed photographs had fallen over, he righted them.
“It is you,” she said, sitting up. “What time is it?”
She was in her slip and had put her hair into a braid. Clearly, she’d settled down for the night. Why was she here when she should be at the Plashes’ flat? “The middle of the night. Mr. Eyre told me to find my bed.”
She pushed back the covers and stepped toward him, then threw her arms around his neck. “You aren’t under arrest?”
He folded his head into that soft place between her shoulder and her head, and wrapped his arms around her waist. Pure happiness. “They kept me all day at New Scotland Yard, then brought me to the hotel in case I recognized someone who shouldn’t be there. Once the performance was over, the police didn’t have further use for me.”
She rubbed her nose against his hair. “I’m so glad they know you weren’t involved.”
“True, but my sister and Konstantin are still unaccounted for. Who knows what Vera will say if they catch her.”
“I’ve been so afraid for you,” she whispered. “That’s why I came here. Boris assured me you’d be fine.”
“He might even be right,” Ivan said, his voice muffled because his mouth was on her soft neck. “Vera is where I’m vulnerable.”
She put her hands on his head and gently tugged it up so she could see him. “I don’t want to think about her right now.”
Her lips met his. “Thank God,” he whispered. “I thank God for you.”
Their grip on each other grew frantic. At the same moment, they both had to have each other’s remaining clothing off. They fell back on the cot noisily. Ivan found himself on top, and when he touched her sex, he found her extremely wet, very ready for him. He found a sheath, then plunged into her, claiming her love as his right.
“I love you,” she said in his ear. “I love you, my Ivan.”
“I love you, myshka, I do,” he whispered back, gliding into her again.
In response, she clasped him intimately, her ankles crossing high above his back, squeezing him with every muscle. He couldn’t last for long, didn’t, but she was right there with him, shuddering with bliss and their complete commitment to each other. He’d had no idea he could feel so happy or relaxed after such an unsettling day, but afterward, he reversed their positions so that she lay on top of him, and fell asleep.
* * *
Alecia dreamed about the Grand Russe. Ivan, in night watchman uniform, twirled her around the Coffee Room so fast that the blue-and-silver striped walls blurred into one continuous color. A drummer took up the beat of the waltz, pounding insistently. Not matching the song, either. She sat up and blinked, careful not to wake Ivan. The dream hadn’t been real but the pounding was. Someone was at the front door of the flat.
She shook Ivan awake in the dark.
“What?”
“Someone is at the door. We’d better get dressed.”
Ivan muttered something in Russian, then stood and relit the candle on the desk. It gave them enough light to find their clothes. As Ivan slid his feet into his well-worn shoes, he said, “Stay here. I’ll find out what is going on.”
He slipped out of the door, leaving it open a crack. Alecia went to the door and listened. At first she couldn’t distinguish any actual words, but when she realized she was hearing a woman’s voice, she decided to go into the parlor.
Mr. Grinberg had lit the fire and turned on the lights. “There you are, my dear,” he said with a smile. “Could I trouble you to put the kettle on?”
The interloper in the room was a beautiful, frail woman with Ivan’s black hair and Slavic cheekbones. Vera. She said something to Ivan in Russian and he answered her in kind. Ivan smiled at her but Vera didn’t even glance in her direction. Alecia nodded at Ivan and went to make tea.<
br />
When she returned, carrying a tray with a teapot, cups, and bread and butter slices, she heard English words interspersed with Russian as Vera spoke. Pounds. Shillings. Guineas. If she was hoping Ivan had money, she would be disappointed.
Ivan glanced at her as she set down the tray and switched to English. “Vera, you said we weren’t family anymore. Why are you coming to me for help?”
“I said it in the heat of the moment,” she said, twisting her hands together. A long streak of dirt marked her ankle-length gray skirt. “I’m passionate.”
“I betrayed your plans to the police,” Ivan said, his lips thin with disgust. “Don’t you want to tell your friends so they can organize to kill me?”
“I did nothing,” Vera protested. “I’m innocent.”
“I don’t believe that. I saw Konstantin in our flat. I saw you meeting with Richard Marvin.”
“Then why didn’t you betray me to the police?” she shouted.
“I thought that was Sergei’s responsibility,” Ivan replied calmly.
As quietly as possible, Alecia poured the tea. She handed a cup to Mr. Grinberg first, then Vera, then Ivan. Then she passed around the plate of bread and butter. Vera kept the entire plate after Mr. Grinberg waved it away, not offering it to Ivan. Alecia disliked the woman intensely. She was incredibly rude. But did that mean she was capable of evil?
“Did you see Georgy?” Vera asked.
“Yes, and he didn’t seem nearly as interested in killing me as you have been interested in killing him.”
“I didn’t do it,” Vera whined.
Ivan’s gaze held an almost aristocratic level of chill. “Your friends failed. That is the truth. You’d have reveled in their success if they’d had any.”
“I know where the police can find Konstantin,” Vera said. “I know you don’t believe me, but I am no Bolshevik. Once our plans became about killing the British government ministers, I wanted no part of it.”
Ivan lifted his brows. “And Sergei did?”
Alecia could see from Ivan’s expression that he didn’t believe it.
“Pavel and Anatoly didn’t care,” Vera said, not responding to the question. “You must help me, Ivan. I am your sister. I deserve your help, just like when we heard the news about Mama and Papa and you took me to Finland.” As if she were the younger sibling, not the elder.
“If you go to the police and give them Konstantin, I’m sure you will be freed,” Ivan said calmly.
Vera swallowed a slice of bread. “I’ll have to go to prison. I’ll never work again. They’ll deport me. We have no family left in Russia.”
“That’s not true. After all, if you weren’t involved in the plot, I’m sure Georgy’s family will take you in.” Ivan’s face betrayed no humor.
Vera’s expression went wild for a moment, then she regathered her composure. “I’m certain you don’t mean that.”
“Help her,” Alecia said, frustrated by the late hour and cold interaction between the siblings. “If she tells you Konstantin’s location, I’ll go to New Scotland Yard with the information while you get her away.”
Mr. Grinberg shook his head and made as if to rise from his armchair. “I’ll go to the police, Miss Loudon. You stay with Ivan. I don’t trust her.”
Vera glared, then shoved a slice of bread into her mouth.
“Where were you hiding?” Mr. Grinberg asked.
Vera’s cheeks were distended. She looked at the men defiantly.
“Did Mr. Marvin shelter you?” Alecia asked.
Vera shot her a glare. There was the hidden story.
Alecia felt ill. This woman had a fiancé. “He did, didn’t he, in my old room? You were in the hotel the entire time.”
Vera swallowed, then drained her teacup. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
Alecia was losing her patience quickly. “Did you tell Richard what was going on? Or did you just use him?”
“He might have been able to stop it if he’d known the full story,” Vera said. “I had orders to behave in a certain fashion. We paid him a little to look away and I kept him distracted. We thought to put real weapons among the props.”
“You started this,” Ivan said, his voice rising. “You started this, and then you tried to stop it?”
“I only wanted Georgy dead, for our parents, for Catherine,” Vera said, matching his tone. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone else. A knife, I thought. Some small explosive under his chair that would only have killed him and his bodyguards. Not something that would destroy a room full of people.”
“You can ask Mr. Marvin for the truth,” Mr. Grinberg said. “I don’t see that she tried to stop what was happening, Ivan.”
“Vera’s story doesn’t make sense. Marvin attacked Alecia so that I would fight him and be sacked, and Anatoly would receive my job.” Ivan ran his fingers through his hair, then left it in wild disarray.
“We don’t know that,” Alecia said, wanting to smooth down his strands but not wanting to touch him so intimately in front of Vera. “Not for certain. I wouldn’t trust him or Vera, but she’s planted a seed of doubt in my mind about where Richard fits into this. For now, if she gives the police Konstantin, I think we should help her.”
Ivan rubbed his face hard. “Where would we take her?”
“To Bagshot,” Alecia said. “Where else? If I cannot save my sister, at least we can save yours.”
Ivan frowned. “She won’t be able to leave England. They’ll have her name at the ports.”
“Let’s move her out of London first,” Alecia said. “Then Mr. Grinberg can bargain Konstantin’s whereabouts for dropping Vera from the investigation.”
Ivan’s hands went back to his hair, but at least he couldn’t make it any worse. “Do you think the police will agree to that?”
“I have no idea,” Alecia admitted. “But do you have a better idea?”
“No,” Ivan said. “Vera?”
She huddled in her chair, looking tiny and tired. Had the fight left her?
“Take my car,” Mr. Grinberg said. “There’s a taxicab driver on the ground floor in the building. I’ll wake him up in half an hour and have him take me to New Scotland Yard. You can be well on your way by then.”
“Do you know how to drive?” Alecia asked.
Ivan nodded. “I drove a truck in Berlin for a while. Finish eating while we gather our things, Vera. And tell Boris the truth about Konstantin, or I’ll drag the story out of you myself.”
* * *
“What are you going to do about the Plashes?” Ivan asked Alecia an hour later as they drove toward Bagshot. Vera was slumped over, asleep in the backseat, obviously exhausted.
“I can telephone from the vicarage,” Alecia said. “But I don’t know if Emmeline will give me a second chance after this.”
“It’s Mr. Eyre you have to persuade, most likely,” Ivan said. “He’s paying the bills.”
“So she said,” Alecia admitted.
Ivan suppressed a yawn and leaned forward in the seat. Due to the fog on the lonely roads, he reduced their speed. “I was hoping we’d at least not arrive until dawn, but we are making good time.”
“How did Vera travel to the flat?” Alecia asked. “The Marvins don’t have a car.”
“There are taxicabs outside the Grand Russe every hour,” Ivan said. “Marvin could have obtained one for her. Or she walked. She was dirty.”
“I see. Of course, we don’t know for certain that she was there. I’d have expected that if she was, she’d have been napping all day. Nothing to do in that tiny room otherwise.”
Ivan glanced at her. Was she joking? After all, Richard Marvin hadn’t been busy with his play all day. “She might have been too worried. When we were on the run in ’18, neither of us slept much.”
“I see. It’s funny, but I’ve slept so well these past few days. I never used to, as you well know.”
“I’m glad,” Ivan said. “Sincerely glad.”
“Meeting you has
changed my life,” Alecia said. “I hope meeting me has changed yours for the better as well.”
“It has,” he assured her. “I know what to fight for now.” Family had taken on a different meaning.
The headlamps caught the front door of the vicarage. They had arrived. Ivan pulled over and parked, conscious that none of them had any luggage, and they had a fugitive in tow. They hadn’t taken enough time to confirm a story with Boris. Would he tell the police about the vicarage? Would the Plashes become involved somehow when Alecia wasn’t in her bed this morning? And what about him? Would he arrive at the Grand Russe for his shift that night?
How venomous would Georgy Ovolensky be? How much power did he wield with the British government? If he had them deported, he’d lose Alecia forever.
He stepped down from the car and opened Alecia’s door, then went to the backseat and woke Vera.
“We’re in Bagshot,” he told her. She nodded sleepily and yawned. To his tastes, she didn’t look nearly frightened enough.
Alecia used her key to enter the dark house. Ivan guessed that it was about four A.M., much too early for a non-farmer to wake. But to his surprise, as soon as they’d shut the door, the hallway lights came on and the vicar came down the steps, dressed in a dark suit and clerical collar, a bag in his hand.
“What’s this?” he asked, looking both awake and composed.
“Why are you up so early, sir?” Ivan asked.
“Mrs. Johns is going, poor dear. They’ve asked for me.”
“Of course,” Alecia said.
The vicar shook his head. “Shouldn’t be long, and then you can tell me what this is all about.”
“I’ll have a hot meal waiting for you,” she promised.
He reached the bottom of the staircase and kissed the top of her head. “Until then.” He nodded at Ivan, glanced incuriously at Vera, and opened the front door.
“Can I drive you, sir? The car is warmed up.”
“Thank you, son, but the Johns live at the end of the lane. Very near.” He stepped through the door and Ivan shut it behind him.
If I Had You Page 28