For an hour they’d danced, alone in the violet St. Petersburg’s night. When, finally, they were exhausted, he’d held her close and kissed her for the first time. Her lips had tasted of Georgian peaches and summer wine. It was the most romantic night of his life.
The music in Foxwood’s ballroom drew him back.
Ivan lifted his head. Dangerous to have the old memories. Tatyana was long gone, his beautiful Firebird consumed by the flames. And so was the boy who danced with her in a moonlit Russian square and dreamed of dancing one day on a New York stage.
The fire had changed everything.
He gazed around the brilliant ballroom. So many familiar faces. Colleagues, acquaintances, friends. And the other members of the ‘Club.’ The Lions, his closest friends of all.
What would you think of me if you knew the truth? he wondered suddenly. And then, No worse than I think of myself.
Fool, he told himself brutally.
Once more his eyes sought Alexandra. She looked so much like Evangeline tonight. Was it really possible that Eve had given her sister the Firebird brooch?
He had to know. Surely it couldn’t be the brooch Panov had shown him, at the lodge in the mountains, on the night Operation Firebird had been activated. That brooch was still at the lodge, where he’d hidden it. Wasn’t it?
He’d always known there was an original brooch - and a copy. Even the firebird copy was worth a small fortune. He’d worn that copy on his hunter’s costume during his final ballet performance in London, fastened it to Tatyana’s breast for protection just moments before the fire.
And now Alexandra had announced that Eve had given her a brooch from St. Petersburg. Who had the original? The copy? One more thread, binding them together. He looked over his shoulder. Panov was here, somewhere in the ballroom. Had he, too, heard her challenge?
Ivan searched the ballroom, and finally saw Panov, so handsome and fair in his tuxedo, against the far wall. Panov was punching keys on his cellphone. Then he raised his head to watch Alexandra Marik.
Oh yes, he’d heard.
At that moment Alexandra reached for her phone, froze as she read the text. Then she gathered her purse, flung Eve’s silken shawl over her shoulder with a defiant gesture and hurried through the French doors toward the high-walled Topiary Garden. Ivan watched as Panov followed her out into the dark night.
CHAPTER 35
“Come, He has hid himself among these trees...”
Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare
Alexandra pulled Eve’s shawl more tightly around her shoulders as she wandered down Foxwood’s curving paths, the lights and music fading as she moved deeper into the maze of topiary hedges. Maybe a meeting in the Topiary Garden wasn’t the best idea… But she had to draw Ivan out. Alone.
At least Anthony knew where she was.
Alexandra walked deeper into the leafy maze. A fountain, sculptures, classical urns. Above the high bushes, the dark roof of a gazebo. She stopped in the shadows, lifted her head, listened. Distant sounds, violins and laughter, from the house… There! A scraping sound, somewhere behind her. The wind?
The moon slipped behind a cloud, cloaking the high topiary figures in black. Huge shapes seemed to crowd around her in the darkness, closer, closer, and she felt the fear welling in her chest.
The text message spun into her head. Meet me now in the Topiary Garden.
You wanted this meeting, kiddo, she reminded herself. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she moved on.
She could feel eyes watching her.
A sudden movement, deep in the topiary, sent black shadows dancing across the path. She went totally still. She could almost hear the sound of her heart hammering. And then – soft breathing in the silence.
He was here.
“Is someone there?”
Only the whisper of the wind through the pines, and the shrill distant whinny of a horse in the dark night.
Nothing moved. Then footsteps on the path. A shadow, darker than the trees. Coming toward her.
* * * *
“Panov!” A hoarse whisper in the darkness.
The Russian spun around as he felt the hand grip his shoulder.
“My Prince -”
Ivan drew his Control back into the shadows of the Topiary. “Keep your voice down. You are not to touch her, Panov.”
“You heard her, talking about a brooch! I warned you, Prince Ivan. Alexandra Marik is getting closer. Interfering bitch - she is a threat to us. We cannot allow her to destroy all our hopes and plans. We cannot allow her to stop Firebird!”
“You will not hurt her. Not now, not here -”
Panov stared at him. “Then there must be an accident. A car, perhaps, spinning out of control on a dark road later tonight.”
“Think, Panov! Focus on our mission. The last thing we want is to call attention to ourselves now! Not when we are so close to achieving our goal. Your game of cat and mouse is over, Panov. Leave her to me. She will not stop us, you have my word. Go inside. I will see to it myself.”
Panov was very still. Something – distrust? – flashed deep in the blue eyes. Finally, with a shrug of powerful shoulders, he turned away. “As you wish.”
Ivan watched Panov disappear into the darkness. Then, still hidden by the dense leaves, he turned to watch the woman who reminded him so much of his dear Tatyana.
I won’t let any more innocent women be hurt, he told her. I’ve bought you a little time, you are safe for the moment. But Panov will not wait for long...
Ivan shook his head and quietly disappeared into the maze.
* * * *
There she was.
Garcia stopped, relieved. She was standing very still, her chin lifted as if listening, in the shadow of a huge hedge pruned into the shape of a crouching tiger. Lantern light fell on her face, brushing her skin with gold.
He stepped through the dark leaves. “So this is where you’ve been hiding!” He heard the ripple of relief in his voice as he walked toward her on the pebbled path.
Alexandra braced, then turned too quickly, catching her heel on the path. She reached down in frustration and tore off the offending high-heeled sandal. “Garcia! Not now. Go back inside!”
“I’m fine, Red, thanks for asking.” He looked down at the strappy sandal dangling from her fingers and held out his hand. “La fiesta is not going well, it seems. Need help?”
Balancing on one foot, she slipped the sandal back on. “Is my name Cinderella, Garcia?”
He shot her an amused look. “Life was so dull before you dropped out of the sky into my world, Chica.” He looked around the shadowed garden. “You are either crazy-brave or just plain crazy. What were you thinking, coming out here alone? A damned dangerous thing to do. Come inside with me, now.”
“Have we met? It’s not your call, Garcia. Go back to the party. I’m waiting for someone.”
“I was alone in a roomful of people in there. I’m not going anywhere.”
She swore under her breath. “I mean it, Garcia. I need to wait here by myself.”
“This wasn’t the plan, Red. You’ve gone too far off the reservation.” He tried to contain the fury in his voice. “I am royally pissed off! Why didn’t you tell me you were going to dress like your sister?”
“Because you would never have agreed to my meeting Ivan alone.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just stand up on a table and wave your shawl like a bullfighter?”
“Very amusing. How did you know where to find me?”
“The last thing I told you was to stay with the guests in the ballroom. So of course I’d look for you in a dark, deserted garden.”
She turned away to hide her smile. Her eyes scanned the darkness, then her breath came out in a long sigh. “It doesn’t matter, he won’t show now. He’s seen you. He’s long gone.” Her eyes widened in accusation. “You did this on purpose.”
“You’re lucky that’s all I did.” Garcia gave her an unrepentant look, moved clos
er. “Ballsy move, I’ll give you that.”
She swung away angrily. Her dress spun, lifted, caught the swaying light of the lanterns. She has a way of moving, he thought. The sound of violins drifted from the tall windows. The clouds shifted, and she was suddenly awash in moonlight.
“You look – different tonight,” he said quietly.
Her narrow fingers smoothed the sleek, unfamiliar style. “Just like a boy, according to Juliet.”
“Not in that dress.”
It was the first time he’d seen her in a dress. This one was backless. He stared at the long slender curve of her back as she turned away from him, the shadowed hollow at the base of her spine, the glimpse of bare toes beneath a swinging copper hemline…
Her low voice broke into his thoughts. “These are Eve’s clothes, Garcia. It seemed like such a good idea this morning. But now - I’m wearing Eve’s dress and scent, helping Anthony host her party. I’m fighting with her daughter as if she were my own. I’m searching for the same man Eve wanted to find. Every day I’m taking on more and more of my sister’s life.”
“This isn’t a movie, Alexandra! You’re not Ingrid Bergman attempting to foil some Nazi plot. This is tearing you up. I should have stopped you.”
She looked up at him. “I had to do this! I wanted Ivan to know I’m here. To believe that I’m on to him, too. Just as Eve was.”
He scowled down at her. “Did you really believe that taking Eve’s place would lure Ivan out of hiding? Hello, nice party, can you tell me why you killed my sister? Give me a break! He’s too smart, Red. And so are you.”
“What I’ve done is thrown down the gauntlet. I’m counting on his ego. I’ll force Ivan to act.”
“And become his next victim? You’ve gone too far tonight.”
Unyielding, unwilling to admit he might be right, she pulled the thin flowered shawl more tightly around her and turned away from him to gaze out over the paddocks.
He slipped off his tuxedo jacket and dropped it over her shoulders.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” she said to him.
He gazed down at her. “I’ve been trying to extricate myself from a woman whose hair never moved and whose only goal in life appears to be visiting every country in the world. I was trying to get to you. But one minute you were across the room, and the next moment you’d disappeared.”
Yes, he’d seen her. Suddenly the sea of faces and tuxedos had parted, and she’d been there, a slender flame across the crowded room. All sound had stopped and the rest of the room had simply faded away. And then she was gone.
“Damned woman had a visor grip on my arm,” he muttered. “I’ve been searching for you for the better part of an hour.”
“I was in the library. And meeting the Lions, as you instructed,” she said coldly. “And then my niece made her appearance. No thanks to you and your security!”
“I found out that she was coming just a few hours ago, Alexandra. Rhodes called that shot as her step-father. And he has security as good as mine.” He cocked an eyebrow. “No one could have missed that entrance. Juliet’s a striking girl.”
“Like mother, like daughter. Never miss an opportunity for theatrics.” She shivered, shook her head back and forth. “But all I saw was a desperate cry for attention.” Her eyes found his. “Oh, I know she’s acting out. But I have enough to worry about with my own daughter. Bloody hell, Garcia, I have no idea how to help my niece. Or even if I want to…”
Oh, you want to. “She seems like a good kid. Red.”
“A good kid blasting holes in every thing in her life, Garcia, to prove to the world that she doesn’t care if no one loves her. She told me she feels as if she’s disappearing.”
“Hell of a thing for a kid to believe.”
“The only way I can help her is to find her mother’s killer.”
“It’s more than that. She does care, Red, she just needs love.”
“Oh, God, I know that. But don’t you see? I have no caring left to give. Juliet is not my child! All my caring has to be for my own child, for Ruby. I don’t want to feel this way about someone else, I won’t!”
“Dios,” he murmured. “You’re afraid of loving her.”
“I’m afraid that she and I are more alike than I want to admit.”
“How would you paint her?” he asked suddenly.
“I don’t want to paint her!”
“Because you would see the truth?”
“Because I don’t know what makes a family anymore! Does love ever end? Or should it last forever?”
“Love doesn’t end, Chica. It resonates.”
She tried to turn away but he reached out. “You can’t stop the feelings, Red, I see it in those eyes. Aren’t you the woman who told me that when someone hurts your child, your heart gets fierce? You won’t give up on her. You’ll be there for her, whatever it takes.” He smiled. “And who knows what the life you save will go on to do?”
The mirrored eyes searched his face. For a brief moment, he saw something flicker, like lightening trapped in a silvered glass. “What makes you so sure I can do it, damn you?”
“Because there’s just something about you, Alexandra.” He met her eyes, unable to stop the words. “Most people back off when they come up against a brick wall. Not you. You keep going, you don’t give up, you just keep flinging yourself against the damned bricks. Hard. You pushed your way into this investigation, dragged me here tonight, put yourself in harm’s way with no thought for your own safety. You go after the truth, even if you know it’s going to hurt you.”
“Now you’re confusing me with Ingrid Bergman.”
“Look at you, standing here in a cold dark garden in your sister’s dress - because you want to protect your kids, make something right. It’s what makes you… remarkable.”
The mirrors shimmered. He could see the emotions welling inside her.
“You’re wrong,” she murmured finally. “Juliet knows that I gave up on her a long time ago. The universe loves irony.” Dark lashes came down, shutting him out. She tossed his tuxedo jacket at him in frustration, then flung an arm toward the empty gardens. “Nothing’s going to be made right here tonight. You’ve succeeded in scaring off Ivan, Garcia. Congratulations. I’m going back inside.”
He reached out to stop her. “Wait. The Lions - did you learn anything useful?”
“I was so close. I told everyone that I had the brooch, that Eve had given it to me.”
His eyes narrowed on her.
“No one approached me, but I received a text to meet in the Topiary Garden.”
Dios. “Too damned close. Go home, Red. You’ve done everything you can do. Go home to your kid.”
“No, Garcia, I haven’t finished –”
“It’s over, Alexandra. I’m letting you off the hook.” And to hell with his Chief, he’d find another way. “I should never have involved you in this. Now it’s my turn to make this right.”
A shadow, moving quickly down the path. Garcia stepped in front of Alexandra as she spun around. Anthony Rhodes emerged from the darkness. As the wind scraped the long hair back from his face, a scar that slashed like a scimitar above his left eye glowed whitely in the moonlight.
Garcia’s breath came out and he stepped forward. “Jon Garcia. Nice to see you again, Ambassador Rhodes.”
“Garcia.” Rhodes barely acknowledged him as he peered into the darkness. “I need to find…”
Alexandra tensed, stepped into the light. “Something’s happened! Where’s Juliet, Anthony? I thought she was with you.”
“No, she’s disappeared again. I was hoping I’d find her with you.”
“Oh, God. I’ve been out here for the last half hour. We’ve got to find her, Anthony, now! She seemed so alone, so troubled, tonight.”
Garcia watched as her eyes searched the hills, fell on the distant barns and stables, white-washed and gleaming in the moonlight. And he saw the sudden light of recognition. “The stables!” she cried. “Eve promised
Juliet a birthday gift. She’s gone to see Lady Falcon!’
“Of course.” Anthony Rhodes took her hand with easy familiarity and turned to Garcia. “You’ll excuse us, won’t you?” said Rhodes with impatience, drawing her away. “I need her with me.”
Garcia stood very still as Alexandra ran across the dark lawn with her brother-in-law toward the stables.
CHAPTER 36
“Death... on his pale horse”
Milton, Paradise Lost
FOXWOOD STABLES
“Juliet!”
They could hear the muffled sound of horses shifting in stalls and, from the far darkness, the impatient stamp of hooves.
“Juliet!” Alexandra called again. She shook her head at Anthony Rhodes and together they moved past the watchful horses down the long shadowed hallway of the stable.
Hay, liniment, manure, leather, horse - the scents enveloped them. They heard the sound at the same moment - a soft, crooning lullaby - coming from a stall on the right.
Alexandra reached the gate first. There, curled atop a bag of horse feed, sat Juliet, short skirt bunched around her hips, eyes shining, holding a garnet foal’s smooth head against her chest. The foal’s ears pricked forward, brown eyes soft and shining in the dim light.
A low wall separated the stall from Lady Falcon, her sleek head bent over the wall nervously watching Juliet with her foal.
Juliet looked up, kissed the foal loudly on the neck and scrambled to her feet as Lady Falcon twisted her head to stare at the newcomers.
The girl rushed past Alexandra without a glance and threw her arms around Rhodes’s neck with such fierce energy that he staggered backward into the dim hallway. “Whoa, Princess.”
“Look,” breathed Juliet, sounding for a moment like the sweet young girl Alexandra remembered. “Mom didn’t forget my birthday.” She turned to Alexandra. “I told you she’d keep her promise!”
Juliet stepped away from Anthony, bent to the straw, and gathered some folded papers and a small wooden plaque. She thrust them at her aunt.
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