A scraping noise caught her attention. She glanced up. Something was being pushed under the suite door. She set the book down, using the lemon to hold the book open, and went to pick up the envelope. When she opened it, she found a thick piece of notepaper confirming her afternoon tea plans with Miss Page for Sunday afternoon. Miss Page extended an invitation to dine with both her and her husband that evening after Mr. Rake instructed the ladies in Russian.
Sadie grinned and clutched the paper to her chest. She danced around the room. Dining with the Fortresses, and not even Emmeline or Mr. Eyre would be along. The Rakes had arrived.
She read the note again, noticing that Miss Page’s writing displayed her lack of education. Her lettering was not the most elegant, but she had other qualities. Finally, beginning to feel tired after a rather strange day, Sadie collapsed back into the chair and picked up Les’s book, wishing she’d thought to order tea.
“Oh no!” The lemon had turned on the book, dribbling juice down the margin. She shook the lemon off the book and tried to wipe up the page with her handkerchief, but words were bleeding through the paper from the backside. Cheap paper. She lifted her handkerchief. The words were still there, even clearer. And handwritten. She picked up the book and held it close to the light. How odd. The book was new. She’d seen Les unwrap it. The hidden message was impossible to read, because it was in Russian. Why was her husband in possession of a book with a secret Russian code in it?
Sadie dropped the book to the chair and stood without even realizing what she was doing. She wrung her hands. Had she married a Russian spy? Her sister was engaged to a man whose sister had been part of a political group, and now she had accidentally married a spy? What was wrong with the two of them?
She stared around the room. When she noticed the painting of the Firebird on the wall, she remembered the strange clicking behind it and how Les often seemed to be near the painting. She crept over to it, not knowing why she was trying to keep the noise down, and stared at the painting. A beautiful Russian woman. Had she been fooled by Les’s male beauty into marrying a full Russian, when he claimed to only be a quarter Russian? Memories of his behavior when they’d first met flitted through her mind. That strange Kozyrev couple. The parties. The rally. The changing accent.
Feeling around the painting, she half expected to find an envelope with foreign passports instead of money. Instead, she felt a piece of metal. She pressed her cheek against the wall, trying to see what it was. It appeared to be a hinge. She stepped around to the other side of the thick frame and pulled at the painting. Nothing happened. She stared at the side as best she could, then pressed her fingers alongside it. Eventually, her index finger found a button, and when she pressed it, she heard a click and the frame separated from the wall an inch. She pulled it further away. It was held up on the opposite hinge. Behind the painting was a ledge with what looked like a small gramophone, with wires heading into the wall.
While she had no idea what she was really looking at, it was obvious that Les was spying on the Russians on the other side of the wall. Frightened suddenly, she pushed the painting back into place. The Firebird stared down at her, an ethereal smile on her face. She was a fantasy creature, and so was Sadie. A wife married to a man she didn’t know. Was Lester Rake a real person?
She grabbed her coat and went back into the bedroom. In Les’s collection of belongings in his dresser drawer she found the keys to his flat. Her fingers chose the knife before she even picked up the keys, and she put both into her coat pocket. She left the suite and took the stairs all the way down to the ground floor, then had Johnnie Miles get her a taxicab.
“You alright, Miss Sadie?” he asked.
She stared at his open, friendly face, almost wishing she’d have accepted a date with him instead of marrying Les. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s been a trying day.” She described the man she’d seen in the basement bathroom. “Have you seen anyone like that?”
He shook his head. “No, but I’ll keep an eye out.”
“He’s a bad man, Johnnie. Be careful.”
Johnnie grinned and flexed his biceps. “Don’t worry about me, Miss Sadie. I can take care of myself.”
A taxicab pulled up and he opened the door for her. She smiled at him and climbed in, giving the directions to Primrose Hill.
When she let herself into the dark flat, she wondered if she would find Les there. She had no idea where he was. He hadn’t been in the suite as he usually was. Now she knew why he was there all the time. He’d lied about his job. He’d probably been sacked for missing work. That was why she’d had to keep working, because he planned to rely on her income.
She quickly toured the flat. What if he’d put it up to let without even telling her? She didn’t know anything about his lease. But that didn’t seem to be the case. Nothing seemed to have changed or been disturbed, though there wasn’t any mail anywhere. Les must have been coming by to pick it up on a regular basis.
She examined everything she could think of, feeling under mattresses, drawers, checking the few art pieces. Her feet tapped floorboards to see if any of them were loose. She investigated the toilet tank and the ice box. Two hours later it was dark outside and she was out of ideas. She cast herself down in a chair in the sitting room, then realized she hadn’t checked there.
The envelope was taped underneath the sofa. She collapsed into the down cushion and stared at it. What did it hold? Fingers trembling, she undid the string clasp and let the contents fall into her lap. Not a Russian passport but a British one. Various papers. Memberships. Everything was made out to Leslie Valentin Drake. She stared at the passport. It was her husband’s face, his birthdate. Everything matched but the name.
He wasn’t Lester Rake, but Leslie Drake. And his fake Russian first name, Valentin, was his true middle name. She stared at the passport, feeling more confused than ever.
That was when the front door on the floor below opened. She clutched the documents to her chest, too numb to move. When footsteps clicked on the stairs, she had the presence of mind to pull out the knife. She’d been there for hours and hadn’t even taken her coat off. Her fright had left her very chilled.
Les appeared in the doorway of the sitting room, his shadow cast hugely on the wall. But when he reached her, he was the same handsome man she knew, not slight exactly, but slim and deft. She’d never seen him smile like that though. It was an uncertain expression, which appeared strange on a face that always seemed so sure of itself.
He gestured to the papers. “Opening letters, Sadie? I have a proper letter opener. Would you like me to get it for you?”
“There wasn’t any mail when I arrived.” Her voice rasped. She waved the knife. “Who picks it up? Your handler?”
“Handler?” he asked, his voice even.
She noticed how carefully calm his voice was. “I know you’re a spy, Leslie.” Her fingers tightened on the handle of the knife.
Chapter Sixteen
Les watched Sadie’s fingers tighten on the knife. He debated how strong she might be, how deft. She worked with her body, but had been out in the world, away from her family home, less than two months. He doubted his wife had much in the way of knife skills. Still, he didn’t want to disarm her, not yet. She wasn’t the enemy but the average English girl. His best weapon was charm.
“You know I’m a spy, Sadie,” he repeated. “What do you think you know?”
“I saw the secret writing in your novel. I found the equipment behind the Firebird painting. And now I know Lester Rake isn’t your real name.”
He saw she was holding his passport. Clever girl. “Spies use invisible writing,” he agreed. “And I am performing surveillance on those Russians.”
“Who are you?”
“Not an enemy, darling.” He forced a smile. “I’m one of the good eggs.”
“How do I know that? You can speak Russian. You are supposed to start teaching Miss Page and me on Sunday.”
“I didn’t lie. My
grandmother was Russian. I learned from her.”
“What were you really doing when we went to Hull?”
“Building a relationship with the Kozyrevs. Her father is an assassin and we don’t know where he is. I was supposed to research printers but events overtook us.”
“Who is we?”
“The British government.”
“You’re a British spy?” Her voice held incredulity.
“Yes, darling.” He took her moment of shock as opportunity. The second he dropped into the seat next to her, he swept the knife from her hand. She didn’t resist. “It’s not just the enemy who has to have spies. Oh, there aren’t nearly so many as there were during the war, but you know as well as anyone that we still have enemies. So we still have people like me.”
She blinked slowly and pressed her empty hand against the papers she still held to her chest. “Are we in danger?”
He was sorry for her sudden loss of illusions, but he had done this to women before. Natalia. “What do you think? You saw that man in the basement just today.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How do you know?”
He shook his head, showing his amusement to her. “That’s exactly the sort of thing I would know, don’t you see? Peter Eyre told me. I went down there with Special Branch officers to investigate.”
Her jaw quivered. “Why did you mix me up in this?”
He used his most gentle voice. “You already were, darling. Your sister is involved because of the position she held with the Marvins, and her fiancé.”
She swallowed hard. “Oh. Is he a bad man? Should I tell Alecia not to marry him?”
He rubbed his chin. “I have no reason to think Salter is bad, but we do think he, and maybe your own sister, helped his sister escape the country. And Salter’s sister, Vera Saltykova, is not necessarily such a good person. We really don’t know her story.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Sadie said. “I’ve been such a fool, haven’t I? Trusting you. Marrying you.”
“No. Most people only see the surface. Usually, that’s all there is.” He tucked the knife away where she couldn’t reach it, then put his arm around the back of the sofa. She stayed rigid, not allowing herself to touch him.
She squeezed the papers. “Now what?”
He kept his voice calm despite the churning of his insides. “It would be helpful to go on as we are. You might learn any amount of useful information as a chambermaid, and I need to keep an eye on the Russians.”
“What do you think they are doing?”
“We’re concerned about an attempt to bomb Marconi House. We’re concerned about Bolshies using the Grand Russe to hide weapons. And of course, they did try to bomb the hotel recently. They might try it again. That money you found, it might have been a payment meant for a Russian criminal.”
Her hands tightened until they vibrated the papers. “Were you thinking all along that you were going to use me?”
“You saved my life. You were staying in my flat. We couldn’t go on like that, and I couldn’t lose you.”
“So you fell in love with me?” She let her hands drop to her lap. The papers and his passport fluttered down on top of them, topped by the envelope.
She’d obviously searched the place. Was this all she had found? He plucked the envelope from the top of the pile and slid his identity papers into it, then laced the string around the clasp. “How could I not fall in love with you, Sadie? You were my angel of mercy.” He let his fingers dangle down on the sofa so that they touched the back of her neck. He used his other hand to slide his envelope under the sofa cushion. She’d become more important to him than he dared admit to anyone, even himself.
“I was, wasn’t I? You could have had us both killed in that mess in Hull, but I rescued us.”
“Mobs are dangerous,” he agreed. “But the Bolsheviks are worse. We can’t let them take control, and trust me, darling, they want to. This country needs to remain diligent. If you doubt me, talk to Ivan Salter, about how the Bolsheviks killed his parents. They will destroy us too, if we let them.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said. “Alecia and I haven’t spoken a great deal because she’s so busy with Mrs. Plash.”
“Georgy Ovolensky, who is in the suite next to us, head of the trade organization, is Ivan Salter’s distant cousin.”
Sadie’s mouth formed an O. “Does he know that?”
“Yes, of course. And while the trade aspect is real, it’s obvious that there is more going on. Ovolensky is behind the deaths of Ivan’s parents. He’s a bad man with blood on his hands. And we know people in his delegation have ties to the Russian bomber, Konstantin.”
“What about that assassin you mentioned?”
“Mikhail Lashevich,” Les said. “We do not know where he is, but he is known to the group. We’re trying to sort out the code they are using in the room.”
She trembled. “At least you won’t have to hide your spying from me any longer. No more jumping away from the wall when I come in.”
“That will help,” Les agreed.
Sadie let her head fall back on his arm. He let her rest for a couple of seconds, then pulled her close to him. While his conscience still warred with his work in relation to Sadie, as an agent, he knew he needed to cement their relationship under the new paradigm. And it must be admitted that he wanted her. Her hair tickled the back of his hand, and her scent did the same to his nose. “My angel darling,” he said softly. “You aren’t too angry with me?”
She tilted her head and rubbed her cheek along his arm, then looked up at him, her eyes huge under her lashes. “I don’t know what I think exactly, but I want you to be a good man.”
He could never be that, not in this game, but he wanted her to have the illusion. “You know I’m a British spy. Why else would I be spying on the Russians? You’ve met Robbie. He’s Special Branch. And Lord Walling, he’s Secret Intelligence Service like me.”
“Oh,” she said. “What is Semyon Kozyrev, exactly?”
“He works on subverting the trade unions for the Bolshies,” Les said. “But you know what? For once, we are here, alone, quiet. Let’s enjoy it.”
She was still innocent enough to ask. “What do you want to do?”
He grinned. “I bet we could both fit in the bathtub if we tried.”
“But we’d be naked.” Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh? We could? In there? Without drowning?”
“It’s time I teach you a new position,” he said. “Astride. I think you’ll like it, and it will be easy for you in the water.”
She blushed. He kissed along her hairline, then drifted gently down her nose, tiny kisses. When he nuzzled her nose, she turned up and found his mouth with hers. Something about the conversation had aroused her. Her kisses were open-mouthed, frantic, searching. He slipped his hand under her skirt and found her hot, moist, ready for him. She was back on his side. He’d won.
“Darling,” he murmured. “I don’t think I can wait for the tub.”
“After,” she said. “After.”
He tumbled her down on the sofa and tugged off her knickers, not bothering to remove the rest of her clothing. She stared greedily at him while he ripped off his coat, loosened his tie, then dragged his trousers down his legs, not even bothering with his shoes. He entered her with no gentility, his tongue taking equal command of her mouth. But she arched against him, accepting it, grabbing at his bottom with surprisingly chilly fingers. For the first time, she moved against him like a proper lover. Obviously, she was a quick student in the arts of love.
“Sadie, oh God,” he muttered, not expecting her hips to buck and cant, giving him everything, ratcheting him higher.
Her response was to kiss him hard and pull at his shirt. He could feel the bottom button begin to tear away from the fabric as she pulled from the back, trying to pull it up his skin. The demand of his body was too urgent to stop and help her take it off. Grimly, he kept to his task. Her hands loosened, then clutched at his head.
She pulled at his hair and found his mouth again. He felt her body clench and lost control completely as she shattered. Down he went, following her, at her mercy. A man could never survive two masters, but he had two now.
* * *
Sadie stumbled as she stepped off the bus down the street from the hotel on Saturday morning, remembering the night before. She and Les had eventually left the sofa and went down to his bedroom. For the first time they spent the night together in the flat, in the master bedroom. The air in the room had cooled down dramatically through the night, which had woken them up. They’d warmed each other up before falling asleep again for a few hours. Then Sadie had woken in a panic. Her alarm clock was at the hotel, but her concern woke her half an hour early. The rustling of the sheets had woken Les again and he’d pulled her into her warm embrace. All the unaccustomed erotic activity had left her simultaneously over-relaxed and somewhat shaky.
She grabbed a lamppost to right herself, leaning her head back against the cool surface. Maybe it wasn’t the lovemaking, but the night’s revelations that had her so on edge. Either way, she couldn’t think about it now, or she’d be late for her shift.
That man in the bathroom came to mind as she went down the stairs to the staff entrance of the hotel. The door didn’t open when she turned the handle. Confused, she knocked. It was opened by a man she didn’t recognize.
“What’s this?”
“New security,” the man said. He was dressed in the red coat and fancy cap of a Grand Russe employee. “The door will be locked from now on.”
“Very well. I’m Sadie Rake.”
He leaned back into the entry. “Just checking the clipboard. My apologies. I’ll know all the faces soon enough.”
“Your name?”
“Norman Johnson. I was on the night watch, but I’ve been changed to days. One of the original employees when we reopened.”
“Lovely,” Sadie said. “I’m newer than that.” Two other chambermaids lined up beside her, so she stepped around the watchman and went to put on her fresh uniform, which had been hanging on her peg.
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