Her Saturday shift lasted five hours or until her assigned rooms were completed. She thought about what Les had said, and paid special attention to who was in her rooms. But no one was Russian, or anyone of interest. She’d have to tell him to make Mr. Eyre promote her to at least the fifth floor if he wanted to make use of her. She daydreamed about finding something important in a wastepaper basket, or overhearing something exciting. In her daydreams, it was juicy stuff, not anything dangerous like bombs and assassins.
But, by the end of her shift, as she went down to the staff lounge, she realized that all the fun of espionage aside, the real business was with the Russians who were already on the seventh floor. She came up with a list of things to offer to Les, such as writing a note to Irina Kozyrev, inviting her for tea when she was next in London. She should also make contact with that English bride of the Russian man that she’d met at the Chelsea party, Doris Ikanov.
Lastly, she could pay some attention to their neighbors, Georgy Ovolensky and his delegation. If she had to be married to a spy, she might as well make herself useful to him, and help keep the Russians from hurting anyone else. Why, she might have already foiled a plot by finding that money. She could do more.
She took the staff lift to the ground floor, then walked to the guest lift in order to return to their suite. Les would probably be there, spying on the Russians if they were in their rooms. When she walked up to the lift entrance, she found one man already waiting. She recognized him as one of the Russians, twelve or fifteen years older than herself, a handsome man with dark hair and mustache. He bowed his head to her when he saw her approach.
“You are staying in the suite next to mine, no?” he said. While he had a strong accent, he was easy to understand.
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Rake,” she said, glad that she’d taken off her apron and put her coat on over her uniform.
“I am Georgy Ovolensky,” he said with a small bow.
So this was Mr. Ovolensky. She looked him over, a big man, like his cousin Ivan. Alecia had described her fiancé at some length. Ovolensky didn’t have the face of a villain, despite what Les had told her. Sadie wondered if he’d ever killed anyone himself, or merely given orders, but since he was old enough to have been in the war, he probably had. Most men over thirty had been killers, even some younger.
Now that she knew what Les was, he was no doubt a killer as well.
“Do you have a chill, Mrs. Rake?” Ovolensky asked.
She nodded, not wanting to tell him the real cause for her shudder. In response, he tore his muffler from his neck in an extravagant gesture. She realized he wore golf attire and wondered at the weather, but of course, he was Russian and used to harsh conditions.
“Allow me.” He draped the wool around her neck, careful not to touch her skin.
“Thank you.” She forced a smile.
She tucked the ends into her coat as the lift descended to the ground floor.
“After you,” Ovolensky said.
She stepped toward the back, then had to do an awkward dance as he insisted she stand in the front, then continued their conversation with her facing away from him.
“Do you spend much time in the Coffee Room?” he asked. “I understand there is often dancing there in the evenings.”
“Seven nights a week. We don’t recognize religion here at the Grand Russe.”
“Ah. And you? Have you abolished religion as well, Mrs. Rake?”
“Of course not. My grandfather is a vicar.”
“Yes, of course. Some little birdie told me you are Miss Loudon’s sister. She is to marry my young cousin.”
Sadie kept her face turned toward the lift gate with difficulty. But of course the man was a spy, or a subversive or something. He’d know everything there was to know. Perhaps even more than she did. “I had been given to understand that Mr. Salter was your cousin, but I admit I do not know him.”
“How odd. He knows your husband. I’ve seen him on our floor.”
“He is the head of security now. Perhaps you had not learned of his promotion?”
“I always knew Ivan had a brain. He went to University you understand, studied philosophy for a brief time.”
She bit her lip until she knew she would break the skin if she continued. No doubt his studies had ended when his parents were murdered. “What about his sister?”
“He has one living sister. There were four of them, the Saltykovs, when we were young. One boy died young, drowning. Then Catherine, the oldest, became a subversive and attempted to murder Vladimir Lenin.”
“And lost her life,” Sadie said flatly.
“Indeed. Such an unpleasant topic on a rainy London day.”
The lift ceased its ascension and the operator opened the gate, his expression carefully neutral. Sadie thanked him and stepped out. The Russian was close behind. She could smell his tree-scented cologne, or perhaps it emanated from the scarf still wrapped around her neck.
The lift was between her door and his. She stopped at the wall and unwrapped his muffler, folded it neatly and handed it back to him as a door opened down the hall. “Thank you very much.”
“You may keep it, Mrs. Rake. A lady must stay warm, even when her husband doesn’t dress her properly.”
She kept her expression neutral despite the insult to Les. “I wasn’t outside, Mr. Ovolensky, but downstairs. I assure you my wardrobe is perfectly adequate to our local weather.”
He took the scarf with a nod of his head and an amused smile playing underneath his mustache. “Why don’t you have a cup of tea with me? I have an excellent blend.”
“That’s very kind, Mr. Ovolensky, but I’m certain my husband is expecting me. Why don’t we both join you?”
He chuckled. “Ah, you are adorable, my sweet. I have no interest in your husband.”
“That makes one of us,” Sadie said, sliding along the wall. She turned her head and saw her suite door had opened.
Before she could take another step, Ovolensky reached out and took her by the arm, firmly, though not rough exactly. “Come, you must join me for tea.”
* * *
Les heard the exchange, and his thoughts warred between wanting a legitimate reason to enter Ovolensky’s suite, and the thought of his wife in Ovolensky’s clutches. How odd that he’d invite a woman in. During his surveillance he’d never heard a woman’s voice in there.
He stepped out from behind the open door just as Ovolensky grabbed for Sadie’s arm. The look on her face made Les’s vision go red. He leapt forward and ripped her arm from the Russian’s hold.
A fist came out of nowhere, headed toward Les’s face. He ducked. The fist missed his jaw. Instead, it collided with his nose. His head snapped back. Blood spurted. His head came forward. He bit his tongue. The copper taste of blood overwhelmed his senses. Outside of the pain, he heard Sadie scream. His heels slammed against the wall. He stayed upright, balancing against the wall.
Sadie swore like a Billingsgate fishwife at the Russian. Ovolensky held up his hands and stepped away.
“Instinct,” the man said. “I do apologize.”
Les fished for a handkerchief. He held it to his nose.
Sadie stared at Les. Tears filled her eyes. She put her hands to her face. “I’ll get a towel. Oh, Les.”
“Allow me.” Ovolensky moved around her and went toward their door.
Sadie’s gaze met Les’s with horror. She followed the man, hurling imprecations at him. “You are not welcome!” she screamed. “I’ll have you removed from the hotel for this!”
Ovolensky stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around. “Pardon me, madam. I was attempting to help your husband.”
“You are not welcome,” Sadie said, standing her ground. “Come along, Les. I do not care to converse with this blackguard any further.”
Les blinked. His vision swam a bit as he stood under his own power instead of having the wall hold him up. He put up his hand when he reached Ovolensky. His urge was to strangle the man, but ins
tead he pulled the muffler dangling from the man’s hand and smeared a bloody mess across it before dropping the striped wool to the carpet.
He stepped over it as he walked through his door. Sadie shut the door behind him.
“Sit down and lean forward so that you don’t swallow all that blood,” she instructed. “We need to get you some ice. That horrible man.”
He sat on the sofa, rueful that he’d be damaging the beautiful white furnishings. She ran out of his line of sight, then returned with a towel, also snowy white, and laid it across his lap.
“I’ll call for the lift and get help,” she said.
“Leave the door open,” he instructed, then spat into the towel. He had blood all over his hands. It reminded him of too many times that the same thing had happened. He’d broken his nose before, but it had never amounted to much.
* * *
“These so called gentlemen are animals,” Peter Eyre growled, restraining the urge to throw his cigarette case at Detective Inspector Dent. The two men stood in the Artists Suite on the seventh floor. Chambermaids had just finished removing blood stains from the premises and now were working on the carpet in the hallway between this suite and the Piano Suite, where the Russians stayed.
“I understand your anger,” Dent said, his gaze moving from artwork to artwork.
“Ovolensky might have raped my employee, who is incidentally, also a guest.”
“I doubt it.”
“He was using superior force on Mrs. Rake,” Peter said. “Thankfully her husband heard what was happening in time.”
“I am sympathetic, Mr. Eyre,” Dent said, “but you and I both know that the Rakes are not ordinary people.”
“I don’t know that,” Peter said. “Yes, I understand Rake is the government’s man, but what about his wife? You can’t tell me Sadie understands the situation.”
Dent’s gaze returned to Eyre. “A wife’s place is with her husband, and she chose the man. If she’s in danger, that is his fault and not ours.”
“The entire operation, my family money, all our guests. The Russians are putting everything at risk. We have Konstantin or someone like him nosing around in the basement.”
“That has nothing to do with the trade delegation,” Dent said.
“We don’t know that.” Peter wanted to open the drinks cabinet and pour himself a drink, but he had a long night ahead of him as it was, and in these times, it behooved him to remain clearheaded. He folded his arms and opened the curtains so he could stare down at the street, all the taxicabs and pedestrians going by on a windy Saturday evening, heading to the theater, to restaurants, to nightclubs. None of them were aware of Russian explosives probably hiding in tunnels below.
“If you ask me,” Dent said, “this is the safest hotel from Bolsheviks in London right now. In fact, I’ve heard Number Ten wants to use your first floor for meetings next week.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Peter snapped. Why hadn’t he heard about this? Someone on his staff must have. Hadn’t he been paying enough attention? He had to admit he was behind in reading his reports. “We’ve found explosives here twice, and now that man is running around. The devil only knows what he hid that time.”
Dent’s attention flashed to the hallway when one of the chambermaids laughed, then returned to him. “You also have Secret Intelligence on site, as well as a police presence. Any building as prominent as yours is a possible target, but at least this is being protected. And Bolsheviks aren’t going to blow each other up.”
“They won’t mind if they have the chance to kill British government ministers. They proved that last month.”
Dent stepped over to the window and pulled aside the curtain. “One does have the sense that Ovolensky is not a popular man.”
“He is a murderer and a rapist.”
“No different than our average Bolshie,” Dent opined.
“For whatever reason, Konstantin, at least, and whoever is running him, is willing to sacrifice the trade delegation. They have plenty of time to ship more men out. The actual meetings aren’t until April.”
Dent shrugged. “Nice suite. I wish I could be assigned to live in luxury.”
Few people could afford such an elevated setting. Peter glanced around in pride. The trick would be keeping it in such immaculate condition over time. “You’d have to take up undercover work.”
Dent pulled a cigar from his pocket and stuck one end in his mouth as he let the curtain drop. “I don’t care that Ovolensky is an animal. Do what you have to in order to keep your chambermaids safe. I would suggest not allowing any of them to speak to the Russians is an excellent first step.”
“I agree. I’ll write a memo, and I’ll find a man to clean their suite. Not that this is where the problem originated.”
Dent chewed on his cigar. “You having trouble with any other guests on this floor where the Russians are concerned?”
It irritated Peter, looking at the uncut end of the cigar hanging from the man’s mouth. Uncouth. “Not recently. We had a noise complaint before the Rakes moved in. They haven’t had any wild parties since.”
“Wild parties can be a cover for other business,” Dent said thoughtfully. “But we did send our men through the suite recently, when the microphone was installed.”
“Our real trouble is the basement, not up here,” Peter pointed out.
“We’ll catch Konstantin. Assuming the man down there was him, he’s spending too much time hanging about one location. It’s foolish for someone like him.”
“I’d like to have faith in that,” Peter said.
“We’ll sweep the first floor before the Number Ten meetings,” Dent said. “I’m honestly not worried about the hotel being bombed. Whoever this Konstantin is, he’s not going to catch Ovolensky in his crossfire again. He may be on the run because of what he did before.”
Peter’s mind reeled with that logic. If Ovolensky wanted Konstantin dead for the man’s attempt to bomb the hotel, then wouldn’t Ovolensky want to kill him before he tried again?
Chapter Seventeen
On Sunday, Sadie woke to find Les’s side of the bed empty. He had not been able to sleep well since the doctor packed his nostrils to stop the bleeding and he wasn’t supposed to remove everything for twenty-four hours.
As she finished her morning ablutions twenty minutes later, her heart raced. She took a deep breath through her nose, trying to calm her nerves, but it didn’t work. Restless, unsettled, she considered a quick inspection of her clothing. Then she would go to Montagu Square and see if Alecia wanted to attend services with her, if she could leave Mrs. Plash. After that, she had tea and Russian lessons with Miss Page, if Les was able to manage with his nose in the condition it was. She suspected they would have to cancel their second film star dinner. Such a pity, but he’d been injured defending her. She had to take comfort in that.
Folding her arms across her jumper against the morning chill, she went into the sitting room, expecting Les to be spread across the sofa with the coverlet from their bed tucked over him. But the blanket was tossed across one end and Les was nowhere to be found.
She went to the wall and pulled open the Firebird painting like he’d taught her and put on the headphones. No one was talking on the other side of the wall. The Russians were probably still asleep. She made a notation in Les’s notebook, seeing that he had last checked himself a couple of hours before. Where had he gone after that?
She proceeded as planned. Returning to the bedroom, she went through her clothing. She had four day dresses and two evening frocks, all in good repair. Kneeling on the floor of her room, she polished her shoes carefully. Les left his outside for the hotel to clean them, but she liked to do her own. Then, she examined her accessories for needed repairs. For a girl to look her best on a small budget, everything needed to stay in perfect condition.
She hummed the theme song from one of Teddy Fortress’s movies as she resewed the edge of one of her scarves, then put i
t away. As she put her now-dry shoes back in the wardrobe, starting to feel hungry, she saw an envelope pushed toward the back and opened it. Wedding documents.
Oddly enough, she’d never seen their wedding license. She pulled it out, still humming, admiring her signature, ‘Sadie Elizabeth Rake.’
Her mouth snapped closed so quickly that she caught her lips between her teeth. ‘Sadie Elizabeth Rake.’ Wait. ‘Rake’ wasn’t really Les’s last name. The paper fluttered from her fingers to the floor. She fanned out her hands and stepped away from the wardrobe. Her pulse throbbed in her throat.
With a wail, she snatched up the license and stared at it again. Les had married her under a false name. They weren’t married at all. He’d turned her into his mistress.
She could be expecting his child. Her. Sadie Elizabeth Loudon, a vicar’s granddaughter. Could it be? Was that right? She didn’t know marriage law.
She’d been caring for this man, feeling sorry for his injuries on his behalf, and it had all been a lie. He’d been so dishonest. His injuries were because he’d insisted on putting her right next to a group of evil Russians, and then tugged at her heartstrings so she’d try to help him in his investigation, without any training at all. He’d risked her life, her reputation, her future, and he hadn’t even really married her!
She ran to the bed and pulled her ancient valise from underneath, grabbed a bathroom towel and wrapped her shoes in it, then tucked them into the bag. After that, she surrounded the shoes with all of her meager possessions. Oh, she’d have to keep her position, but she couldn’t stay here in Les’s suite.
Never had she wished so much for the mother she’d lost when she was not yet ten years old. Alecia. She would go to her only sister.
Frantic, Sadie raced into the sitting room, desperate to leave before Les returned from whatever errand had him out on a Sunday morning with a broken nose. She took his Mark of Zorro book and tossed it into her bag, with some disordered idea of being able to prove he was a spy by the secret writing in the margins.
Not that she wanted to hurt him. Or get him killed. Or anything really. “Glory,” she muttered.
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