“Very funny.” Les hated his full first name.
Glass grinned and picked up the sketch. “I’ll send this around. Good work.”
* * *
Sadie’s first day as a chambermaid at the Grand Russe went well. She was assigned by her supervisor, Olga Novikov, to the second floor, which was the first floor with guest rooms. The second floor held the least important guests, out of the six guest room floors.
While she hadn’t seen her sister, Olga had told her that Alecia had moved into the same boarding house where she lived, to care for an elderly woman. Olga suggested she write Alecia a note during her lunch and she’d deliver it that evening. Sadie had eagerly complied and hoped Olga would bring her a return missive in the morning.
She arrived home at six-thirty, feeling exhausted after a ten-hour workday. A couple, arm-in-arm, were entering Les’s building. She hung back, tired as she was, not wanting the neighbors to see her entering his flat. It wasn’t respectable. She hoped the buses would make more sense to her tomorrow and she’d be through the front door sooner, but she’d taken one going the wrong way around St. James’s Park and that had cost her a half hour.
In Les’s entryway, she saw his coat on the steps going upstairs, damp with rain. He’d been outside again, in his condition. Was the man deliberately attempting not to recover completely? After she kicked off her shoes, not the most practical for chambermaid duties, and took off her coat, she went upstairs, to find Les, not wan and relaxing on a sofa, but standing over a golf putter, considering his approach to the chipped teacup he was using for a hole.
Sadie had been contemplating, not especially happily, a busy evening of preparing dinner, planning breakfast, and fluffing Les’s pillows, while being much more inclined to put up her feet and enjoy one of Les’s magazines while nibbling from a Rowntree’s Dairy Box of chocolates. Having put in a full day of work, she was irritated by not having the money for said chocolate. “If you’re well enough to be playing at golf, I guess it is time for me to move out.”
“Sadie!” he exclaimed, cocking his putter over his shoulder like a rifle and coming toward her.
“As soon as I get my things from Richmond,” she said piously. “I expect to hear from my sister tomorrow morning. After that I can make arrangements.”
“Darling, you mustn’t.” He leaned the putter against the wall and rubbed his hands down her arms. “Look at me. My color is all wrong. If you weren’t taking such good care of me I’d still be in bed.”
“You still don’t have much pink in your cheeks,” she admitted. “But if you know that, you should be in bed!”
“I needed to move around a bit.” He snaked one arm around her waist and clasped her other hand, then danced her side-to-side. “It’s unhealthy to lie around all day.”
“You went out,” she accused. “I saw your wet coat. And what a place to leave it, by the way. Take it into the bathroom and hang it over the tub at least.”
He grinned sheepishly. “See, I need you. I’m not minding properly, yet.”
She loved the feeling of being in his arms. He wore that Irish sweater again, and it turned him into a furnace, exactly what she wanted to cozy up to after the cold return to the flat. “I doubt you ever did.”
“All kidding aside, darling, you can’t afford a place like this. Are you hoping to live with your sister?”
Of course not. She wanted his kisses. She wanted his caresses. She wanted to marry him. “She’s not at the hotel anymore. She’s caring for an old lady at a boarding house. Olga lives there too.”
“Olga?”
“She’s in charge of the chambermaids. Very Russian and formal.”
“Fascinating,” Les murmured, dropping his chin onto her hair and dancing her around again. “See, I can’t even hold my head up.”
“I can’t keep living with a man who doesn’t need me to nurse him,” she said, moving her head out from underneath him.
He stopped dancing and let go of her. She watched as a number of thoughts danced behind his eyes, fluttering away before some kind of expression showed on his face. Before she could step away, he ran his index finger down the plump line of her cheek. “Sadie, darling, we had fun together before my head injury, right?”
“I suppose.”
“We had fun together at the tea room yesterday.”
“Not especially,” she muttered, biting her lip.
“I admit old Robbie is a bit much to take.”
“I never know what is real where you are concerned,” she admitted.
“You and me, that’s real. That existed before all this Russian silliness. I admit I let things go too far, but you and me, that’s real and serious, I promise you.”
“I can’t live in sin, Les. My grandfather—”
“Is a vicar,” he finished. “I know, darling, I know. Give me a little more time to sort it out, will you?” He let go of her and put his hand to his forehead. He swayed a little.
She wrapped her arm around his waist and tugged him toward the sofa. “You’d better sit down.”
“I should return to bed.”
She knew he could playact all too well, but he did look pale. Her nursing instincts won. “I don’t want you going down those stairs while you’re dizzy. Rest quietly. I’ll fix you a cup of cocoa and we won’t talk about this again until after I’m home from work tomorrow. You stay home, promise me?”
* * *
Les met Glass in the Marylebone flat at four the next afternoon. He’d spent close to six hours around Harrington Road, selling magazines. Ironically, he’d sold out. Camden was a hotbed of bored women who liked movie magazines and didn’t want to walk to the shops.
He’d made sure not to leave his bedroom until Sadie left for the Grand Russe that morning, not wanting to discuss her moving out again. And frankly, pretending to be ill made him feel ill.
He set his case on the bench just inside the flat door and took off his coat. That had been a near miss with Sadie the night before. Blimey, he didn’t have the ring yet. He didn’t want to propose to the girl, but it was obvious the moment would have to come. Yes, she was game, good fun, wonderful to kiss, but marriage? They barely knew each other, and she didn’t know his secrets. What kind of marriage did Glass expect him to have with her?
“Woolgathering?” Sarcasm warred with the natural gravel in his section head’s voice.
Les glanced up. Glass had folded his large frame into the front doorway. He lifted his eyebrows at Les.
“Sadie threatened to move out last night.”
“Did you propose?”
Les pulled off his shoes, damp with rain. “No ring yet, guv.”
“Guv.” Glass snorted. “I’m sure you’ll have it today sometime. Don’t lose it. It’s a real diamond.”
“Is it being delivered to my flat?”
Glass nodded and flicked his wrist. “Come in, have a cuppa, tell me about your morning.”
Five minutes later they had steaming cups of black Irish Breakfast tea on the table in front of them and Les was summing up. “Three flats where no one answered. Two flats where a woman answered and I had no sense of who else might live there.”
Glass leaned over his tea. His cheek tightened as he worked through some internal problem. “I spoke to Quex. We’re afraid that Ovolensky’s man is helping Konstantin somehow, despite the fact that Konstantin tried to kill Ovolensky.”
“I’ve read the reports. It seems as if Konstantin attempted to turn this cell of Whites into Bolshies.”
“Charismatic bloke,” Glass agreed.
“Is there a chance that was his goal, rather than the bombing? That perhaps he never intended the bomb to go off?”
“It seems unlikely.” Glass lifted his teacup. “But Ovolensky is an advance team. It’s not until April that the main delegation arrives. He might be expendable. He’s the only main player in his group, after all.”
“Should I keep working the building? I expect he’s in one of the five flats we haven’t
thoroughly investigated.”
Glass finished off his tea and set his cup down. “Les, we’ve discovered that Alecia Loudon, Sadie’s sister, is engaged to Vera Saltykova’s brother, Ivan Salter. Vera was a member of the White cell and is still missing. Additionally, we need eyes and ears in the Grand Russe. Sadie, as a chambermaid, is perfectly placed to keep an eye on Ovolensky.”
Les poured more tea into Glass’s cup. “Actually, that isn’t true. Ovolensky is on the seventh floor and she’s cleaning on the second. They’ve started her at the bottom.”
“We have to start somewhere. I want you to gather Sadie completely to your side.”
“She wants to move out. She knows I’m shamming.”
Glass’s cheeks made half-moons at the corners of his mouth as he chuckled. “She does, eh? I don’t. I don’t think you are on your game at all.”
“I’ll keep playing sick,” Les said in measured tones. “I’ll give her the ring when it arrives.”
“I want you to marry Sadie.”
Les wrapped his fingers around the edge of the table. “You what? Seriously?”
“You’ll receive a wedding ring too. We’ll have a fake special license made up. You’ll marry her under your false name.”
“She’s a nice girl, Glass. Why don’t you simply recruit her?”
“We can’t risk nerves and there’s no time for training.”
“There never is time for training,” Les muttered.
“She’s barely twenty, just out of the vicarage. A bit of a thrill seeker, I’d say, and a nurturer. I hope we can bring her to agent status, but for now, I want you to run her.”
“And ruin her,” Les said. “Who will marry her for real after this?”
“In the end, she’ll mature into one of us, I hope. You’re a good foot soldier in the war against Russia, my friend. Sadie is important, but we can’t have her sharing confidences with her sister or this Ivan Salter, the Russian fiancé. Her loyalty and confidences need to come entirely to you.”
Les ran his hand through his hair, fighting for the detachment that allowed him to live a double life. Why had this one woman broken his façade? It must be the head injury affecting him. It couldn’t be her.
* * *
Sadie arrived home with a filet of haddock and half a pound of potatoes. She’d taken the right bus this time and had jumped off in front of a greengrocer’s. Her travel couldn’t have been smoother and her dinner plans were simple but she was still exhausted. On a day like today what she wouldn’t give to have a housekeeper and a kitchen maid like her grandfather had. Les had an efficient and very modern kitchen, but there still wasn’t anyone to put food on a plate for her.
As she sneaked into the flat, avoiding the neighbors, she fantasized that Les had spent the day relaxing, then nipped down to the greengrocer and had prepared them a nice hot soup for dinner. But, it wasn’t to be. Against her orders, she found the flat dark and cold. Les wasn’t around.
She stamped her foot as she took off her coat in the entry hall. Why, she should bundle up her meager possessions now and leave. He claimed he was too ill for her to go, yet ignored her order to rest!
Hunger won out over good sense. She went into his bedroom and found a pair of thick woolen socks to put over her freezing toes and stomped upstairs to make dinner, wracking her brain for ideas on how she could afford to live in London and work at the Grand Russe without relying on Les’s flat.
By the time the potatoes were fork-tender, she had tea made and the haddock fried. She’d opened a tin of peas she’d found on a shelf, rather pleased with herself. Her grandfather’s kitchen help couldn’t have done better. And for after? She’d bought a Cadbury’s flake bar for a treat.
“Something smells good.” Les walked into the room, damp and weary.
“You look like you worked a full day,” she said disapprovingly.
“My guv was on the blower first thing, ordering me out the door. I have to sell my quota.”
She regretted her anger. Poor Les. “Did you do it?”
He nodded. “Not on my usual patch, though. I sold door-to-door, but it’s good to refresh the old skills.”
“You shouldn’t have worked so hard,” she scolded. “Come and sit down.” Glory, what was she to do with the man? She couldn’t afford this flat, or any flat, for that matter. Alecia couldn’t live with her either. She had to share a bedroom with her elderly charge and then, of all the funny things, she was going to be married! Her sister had found a husband. With a first name like Ivan, he had to be Russian. Funny that they’d both found Russian men.
She regarded Les as he picked up his fork.
“Could you open a bottle of wine?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know how,” she admitted.
“Never mind then. There must be a bottle of beer somewhere.”
She found a bottle of Guinness stout and pried off the top for him.
“Thanks, darling.”
She sat across from him with her plate and tea, feeling both virtuous and domestic.
“I want to speak to you about something important,” he said, after inhaling half of his plate. “Any more peas?”
“That’s important?”
“No. I wanted more though.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, there was only the one can.”
“Do you need more money for groceries?”
She warred with her urge to demand he do half the shopping and cooking, and reminded herself that he wasn’t well enough to work and do the chores. Ugh! She wasn’t his maid, or his wife, or even his girlfriend. But she was starting to feel like a fool. Why was she so drawn to him? “You can have the rest of my peas.” She shoved her plate at him and ran blindly out of the room, her feet sliding on the polished wood floor.
Sometime later, with no idea how long she’d sat in a corner of the sofa closest to the gramophone, she was shocked when Les wrapped a blanket around her, then knelt at her feet. When she sniffed, he placed a handkerchief into her hand.
“Darling,” he said.
When she put down the handkerchief, she saw he looked adorably rumpled. She wanted to hide her face against his neck and let him make it all better. Being a chambermaid at the Grand Russe was exhausting. Olga was a far more demanding taskmistress than Mrs. Curtis had been. The rooms had to fairly sparkle by the time she left them. At least there weren’t any poodles.
“What?” she sniffed. She forced herself to sit up. “I should do the washing up.”
“I can do it.”
“You should rest.”
He took one of her hands away from where it clutched the top of her apron and held it in his. “Darling, I know it seems hard right now, so unsettled, but I told you that you were important to me, right?”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I’m just so confused. I can’t go and live with Alecia like I’d hoped, not ever. She’s engaged.”
“Then you should be engaged too,” he said.
“What?” she asked. Her voice came out little girlish, but her heart leapt into her throat. Had she heard him properly?
“Why don’t we announce our engagement?” he asked. “It makes sense. I’d be a fool to lose you.”
“You would?” She hiccupped. Embarrassed, she covered her mouth with her hand.
He smiled tenderly. “Of course, darling. Beautiful, ready for anything, the perfect nurse, good cook. I could walk a thousand miles and not find another like you. Why not get engaged?”
“Why not?” she echoed. After all, he did love her and she was falling in love with him, too. She must be, to risk her reputation and do everything for him without recompense. Where was a girl like her going to find a posh man like him? Her sister was marrying an immigrant night watchman. She would be doing better than Alecia. More importantly, Les needed her. He barely took time to rest as it was. He was obviously a slave to his company.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.” She smiled and let the handkerchief drop into
her lap.
He went pale for a moment, but then rallied with a happy smile. “Oh, I’m so delighted.” He put his hands on her knees, rose, and angled in for a kiss.
The telephone buzzed. His face was still just far enough away that she saw him blink. Dazed, she watched him stand up and walk to the staircase. He’d just proposed, she’d accepted, and he stopped to answer the telephone. She let her head fall against the sofa cushion. That poor man wasn’t thinking straight.
He returned a couple minutes later. “I’m sorry, darling, but I have to go out.”
She struggled up. “What? Now?”
“My company, you know. Guv is being an absolute beast. Wants me out hand selling.”
“Tonight? In the rain?”
He shrugged. “Testing my loyalty.”
“But your health,” she protested.
He patted his belly. “After that lovely meal, I’m quite restored.”
She stood. “Oh, Les. I’m so sorry.”
He put his hands on her upper arms and rubbed briskly. “Have a quiet night, darling, will you? We’ll celebrate tomorrow evening. I’ve put some more cash into that box in my room. Take what you need.” He kissed her cheek and went out of the parlor, whistling.
Bemused, she entered the kitchen and began to clean up dinner, noting that he had eaten not just his own food, but everything left on her plate as well, not just the peas. She had to make him man-size portions. Her fiancé. She smiled and hugged herself. If only she could telephone Alecia and share the news. Her gamble had paid off. The fact that her decisions in Hull had more to do with her fear of the creepy Kozyrevs than anything else was pushed to the back of her mind.
* * *
Les met Robert McCall outside the door leading to the flats at Harrington Road. “What’s the story?”
“We increased foot patrols in the neighborhood to keep a general eye on the building,” McCall said, all business for once. His breath puffed white clouds into the air. “And we had circulated photographs, drawings, everything we had of the Russian problem.”
“Who was spotted?”
“Fedor. We’ve learned his last name. It’s Verenich.”
“First the tea rooms, and now he’s in the building?”
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