“I am moving into the hotel.”
“You don’t say.”
“Renovations have been finished on the tenth floor. Peter is offering rooms to senior staff. He just told Ivan and me on Tuesday. We, and his new bride, of course, are all moving in on Sunday.”
“Is it an improvement over Montagu Square?”
“I’ll miss Mr. Dadey,” Princess Olga said reflectively. “He is a very nice man. I’ll be happy to see less of Emmeline Plash, though the only time I enjoy her is at the boardinghouse.”
“What is her connection to the Grand Russe?”
“She is a lifelong, err, friend, of Peter’s.”
“But he doesn’t employ her.”
“She has an income. I don’t know what she’ll be inheriting from her mother. I would assume she’ll have to share whatever is left with her older brother. He lives in eastern Canada somewhere.”
“Her income might have been her mother’s,” Lord Walling said. “I hope she really does have something.” He watched a light switch on behind Olga’s eyes.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “Good heavens. I hadn’t thought of that possibility at all.”
“I hope for her sake that it ends well. I’ve seen some rather sad cases.”
“There are too many women and not enough men in our generation,” she agreed. “We women were allowed to come into England, but the government wouldn’t allow any grand dukes to come, so Grand Duchess Xenia and her husband are forced to live in different countries.”
“It must be a choice at some level.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But not entirely. Don’t you find that you never so much want what you cannot have?”
“I do not tend to think of myself very much.” He smiled at the waitress who had arrived with their tray. She placed his sandwich in front of him, the princess’s toast in front of her, and put the cream cakes in the center.
Princess Olga sighed happily. “Such decadence.”
He wanted to ask her if Peter was reducing her pay, now that he’d asked her to live at the hotel, but knew he didn’t have the right to learn if she was being exploited.
“It seems you are quite alone in London,” he said. “If you could have anyone to tea in your new rooms, who would it be?”
“My sister, of course,” she said, cutting a minute piece of her toast with the edge of her fork. “I would dearly love to know what became of her.”
“What was her last known location?”
“She headed to China. I seemed to be in danger because of my fiancé’s death, and she had no reason to go, at first.”
“What of your parents?”
“My mother died of influenza. It was difficult to get nutritious food, medical care. My father was murdered. I’m sure you remember how bad it was after the war.”
“Yes. It was terrible,” he said.
They chewed in silence for a few minutes. When his mouth was clear of ham, he asked, “I know I am prying, but I admit to curiosity. Was that your cousin I saw you with at the Imperial Art Gallery last night?”
“Did we look related?” she asked and placed her last bite of toast in her mouth. She had eaten more quickly than he.
He’d like to encourage her to eat more. She was too thin. Her collarbone had jutted from her black gown when they’d gone to dinner. “Around the eyes, I suppose.”
She leaned forward slightly. “In what way?”
“You both have eyes a little larger than is common. Thick eyelashes, as well. He has thick brows, unlike you, but I chalk that up to feminine magic.”
She smiled. “Yes, we are related. I see him sometimes.”
“What is his name?”
“Novikov,” she said and picked up the plate in the center of the table. “Cream cake?”
“Yes, thank you.” He took a cake and waited expectantly for her to continue. Instead of speaking, she seemed heavily distracted by the two young fools at the next table, who were babbling excitedly about a game of Ping-Pong.
He knew the subject matter could not be of any interest to her, and her body language told him that she didn’t want to say more about her cousin. His internal antenna picked up static. Was this the elusive Konstantin, the Bolshevik bomber? How would a member of the Russian upper class wind up tied to the Bolshies?
“He must have the title of prince as well,” Glass commented.
“Actually, no.” She lifted her hands. “In my grandfather’s day, there was a petition to transfer the title. My grandmother was the only heir, and being female she couldn’t carry the title. The title was transferred to my grandfather, who was her third cousin, I believe, and the title carried on. And the names are confusing, too. Cousins marrying too many cousins.”
“Until now.”
“Until now,” she said, “since my parents only had two daughters. There was a son, but he died when he was two weeks old.”
“Did you see him?”
“No, it was before I was born. I think my family is not very healthy. Everyone married relatives in previous generations.”
“I don’t imagine you will do that unless you marry this cousin.” He pulled his second cream cake from the plate. She hadn’t yet touched either of hers.
“No, I would not do that. I don’t believe in marrying without stability.”
“He has no money either?”
She glanced down. “Whatever he has, it is not managed well.”
“You could take the reins.”
Her lips curled. “After what I’ve told you, about dead babies and family lines all but dying out, you think I should marry my second cousin?”
He smiled. “Ah, but you are probably related many more ways than that.”
She put the outstretched fingers of one hand to the front of her forehead. “Keeping up is exhausting. I actually thought I was more closely related to the imperial family before I left Russia, but then the grand duchess showed me a genealogy chart. Somehow I had missed a generation.”
“It happens. My title goes back more than three hundred years, but one has to wonder if the title really continued unbroken for all those generations.”
“Unlikely. Three hundred years or more?”
“Right. One has to believe that the bloodline circles around again, in the end.” Too many people lied. But he’d had a considerable amount of conversation with the princess since she’d changed the subject. He returned to his original question again. “What was his name, this second cousin?”
“Konstantin Novikov,” she said. Their eyes met. She quickly glanced away and reached for her first cream cake.
Bingo. He had no idea how common her name was, or how common the combination of Konstantin Novikov was, but he needed to find this man. When he returned to the hotel, he’d make a telephone call to Detective Inspector Dent at Special Branch and put a tail on her. Since she’d probably only rarely leave the hotel once she moved in, she shouldn’t be that hard to watch.
* * *
Olga stood in an empty guest room on the second floor at nine on Saturday morning. “The first thing you want to do is clear the surfaces of trash and ash.”
The new chambermaid, Florence, gaped at her. John Neville, Peter’s new day manager, had taken over the hiring. Why had he taken on a girl as dull-witted as Florence?
She put her hand on her hip. “Are my instructions too much for you, Florence?”
“You have a funny accent,” Florence said. “I can’t understand you.”
Unfortunately, Olga could understand the girl just fine. “You will have to learn. I do not have time to humor you.”
The girl’s expression didn’t change. Olga walked around the room, pointing at wrappers, dirty cups, half-full ashtrays, and other debris. She waited for Florence to clear everything away, attempting to hold onto her seniority and her authority despite the complaint about her accent. As excited as she had been by her promotion, she’d have been far better off with a husband than a useless title. After all, she s
till cleaned rooms, even the room of the man she was seeing. She, who had been born in a palace, now pointed out bloodstains from a shaving accident in the sink to a girl who had insulted her.
She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Giving into self-pity bought her nothing. No, she simply had to get on with it and keep hope alive with Lord Walling. For whatever reason, he had some level of interest in her. Her life could still change.
She pulled out the small notebook from her apron pocket and turned around. A sharp pain exploded on the side of her knee. She yelped, instinctively raising her leg and hopped around. Florence stood, mouth open again, holding a broom. She said nothing.
“You hit me,” Olga said through gritted teeth.
“Didn’t see you there,” the girl said, finding her voice.
No apology. Had she done it on purpose? Olga narrowed her eyes. “You do understand that I am your supervisor? I am in charge of you.”
“Wot’s that? I don’t understand.” The girl let her mouth hang open over rabbit-sized front teeth. Her eyes bulged.
Olga thought frantically. Did she have the authority to fire this ghastly creature? She was very afraid she didn’t, since she hadn’t been asked to do the hiring. Pulling the tattered remnants of her dignity around her, she limped through the room toward the door.
“What do I do next?” Florence called.
Olga stepped through the door and shut it. She pulled out her key and locked the door from the outside. Perhaps she was losing her mind, but she didn’t want the girl loose in the hotel while she received permission to sack her.
Tears welled in her eyes as she went to the staff lift. Peter would tell her what to do.
* * *
At one, Glass arrived at St. Martin’s House, Hanover Square, for lunch with his father. His operative, Bill Vall-Grandly, was monitoring the Russians for the afternoon. He had plenty of other duties, but he’d worked in the suite before and was the only man in London at present fully apprised of the situation.
His father’s butler, a half-decade older than Glass with a hitch in his step from injuries suffered during the war, escorted him into the small drawing room on the first floor used by the family. Glass took the opportunity to circle the room and visit with his lost brothers and mother, who stared down at him from the walls. How was it that he, the least of his family, was now the heir to all this wealth and position? He’d expected to make his way in the world. So intent had he been on that path that he’d kept working after the war and had changed his fortunes instead of learning the family business, all the estate and money management. He was a poor choice for earl, and his father grew older every day.
“Beautiful, wasn’t she?” his father asked from behind him, entering the room. He stepped in front of the portrait of Lady St. Martin’s.
Glass’s mother had been what they called Black Irish in appearance. She was the daughter of an Irish Peer. Glass had never had contact with any of those relatives. Although wealthy and titled, they didn’t come to London. Her mother, being English herself, had brought her for a season, though, and they had taken the fashionable world by storm. His parents were engaged three weeks after meeting and married two months after that. He rather suspected his oldest brother had been an eight-month miracle. She’d been a daredevil, his mother, unlike her more staid husband. Unfortunately, her death had reflected this, a fall from a horse while riding at their Derbyshire estate early one June when he was in mid-childhood. They had been picking wild strawberries, and she’d challenged her two eldest sons to a race. Glass had been left behind with the buckets to wait for the servants to pick him up in a gig. He hadn’t seen her fall. He hadn’t been able to eat strawberries since.
“You need to find yourself a beauty,” his father said gruffly. “Makes it easier to fill your nursery when your woman is easy to look at.”
“You liked Mother, though, didn’t you?”
The earl lifted his pocket watch on its chain and peered at it. “Luncheon in ten minutes.”
“St. Martin’s House runs better than the trains,” Glass said. “But what say you about my mother?”
“You must not remember her very well. You were, what, four when she died?”
“Eight,” Glass corrected.
“Then you are older than I remember. Not good, Walling.”
Glass curled his upper lip in response.
His father glanced at the portrait, clasping his hands behind his back. “I was obsessed with her. She had the tiniest waist, the fullest bosom, and the daintiest feet I’d ever seen. Her laugh made me feel like a king.”
Glass nodded, waiting for him to go on.
“She gave me four sons. I wouldn’t have minded a daughter, but we had none of those. You’re from good stock. Find a girl—doesn’t need to be wealthy; we have plenty of money—and get us an heir.”
Glass considered before speaking. “I’ve met a Russian princess. Distantly descended from a tsar. Grand Duchess Xenia was her benefactor.”
“Was? She’s alive, isn’t she?”
“Yes. But the princess had known the Redcake family as a child, and Eloise Redcake took her under her wing and taught her the hotel business. She’s working for Peter Eyre at the Grand Russe now.”
“As what? A secretary?”
“She manages the chambermaids. Hard work for someone of her background, but she’s a strong soul.”
“Healthy?”
“I believe so.”
“You should marry her. No money but a title, royal blood. Nothing to complain about there. You obviously respect her. Is she a looker?”
“Beautiful. Not like Mother at all. Fair.”
“Change the look of the family.” The earl moved a few steps to the right and stared at a portrait of his four black-haired sons painted in 1913. His own hair had been a dark brown, and Glass’s hair didn’t match either of his parents’ precisely but was a mixture of both tones.
“She probably would.”
His father chuckled suddenly. “Mixing Irish and Russian. That will be an interesting bloodline.”
“I haven’t seen any fire from her.” He thought about that. “It might be there, however. I’m not sure whose side she’s on politically.”
“A Russian princess? Why, she’s a White, of course, a royalist.”
“I would believe that wholeheartedly if it weren’t for the issue of the bomber wreaking havoc in London having the same last name as she does.”
“You don’t say.”
“She’s admitted a branch of her family, without a title, has lived in England for a time. I saw her cousin briefly, and he might be the man we know as Konstantin.”
“Can you really trust any of these Oriental types?” his father said. “Oh, I know, many Russians lived more in Europe than Russia, even before the war, seem to be European, but then something like that revolution happens, shows what savages they are. Not like us at all. How long has she been in London?”
“She came in 1919 when we rescued the dowager empress.”
“Who at least was European. A Danish princess,” his father said and smacked his lips.
The butler appeared in the doorway to summon them to the table.
His father turned to him. “Bring her to dinner one night. Make the arrangement with my secretary. I’ll sort her out for you.”
As he strode to the door, Glass followed him. He never tried to put on airs with his father, too aware he’d been the youngest son, the least important, until well into his twenties. At work he was a competent leader, but here, he didn’t try to expand on the role he’d been placed in at birth.
At the dining table, he took careful stock of his father, who was closing in on seventy years of age. He didn’t look it, having the hard, hearty appearance of a country squire, but the years would catch up with him all too soon.
“We should spend more time together. I need to learn the family business,” Glass said as a footman poured the wine. All around them were tapestries of hunting scenes
, ordered by some eighteenth-century earl. They had scared him when he was a child, with all the gore of the kill so lavishly displayed, and he’d been happy to always eat in the nursery.
“You should move into this house,” his father said. “I understand you are a busy and important man, but if you are on-site, it will be easier to work together with what little time you have.”
Glass nodded. “I’ll consider it. We are so short-staffed that I’m on a surveillance job myself at the moment.”
The earl snorted. “Don’t they know how important your work is? You’re all that is standing between the people and madmen like this Konstantin.”
“I know.”
“What is it going to take to discover if your princess is part of his conspiracy?”
“I need her to trust me.”
“How are you going to manage that?”
Glass picked up his spoon and scooped up a small amount of beef broth. “She’s an artist. Just had paintings go on sale at the Imperial Art Gallery.”
“Any good?”
“Yes, but not your sort of thing.”
His father shrugged and picked up his wine glass. “Doesn’t matter. Can hang the paintings out of the way somewhere. Don’t need to look at them.”
“It’s Margery’s gallery. She married a Russian.”
“I remember her.” The earl drank deeply and set his glass down with a clatter. He’d gained five years of pain in his eyes with the mention of Margery. “Why not give her the business? I’ll contact our solicitor to buy the paintings.”
“Olga Novikova. That’s her name.”
“How many works?”
“There were six. It’s possible some were sold by now.”
“I’ll purchase what is left. You tell her about it, that you brought her business. That ought to soften her up.”
“Yes, sir,” Glass said, cheered by the thought. At least he wasn’t buying them himself. They would hang in Hanover Square. He’d have to make sure they were placed somewhere his father’s guests would see them.
* * *
On Sunday afternoon, Olga stood on the bank of the Serpentine in Hyde Park, waiting for Konstantin. A peaceful atmosphere filled the park. On the grass, sheep grazed, natural lawnmowers. A couple shepherds chatted on a bench, but otherwise, the area remained empty on this rainy day. She stretched her shoulders back, pushing out her chest. Her arms and much of her upper body hurt after moving her property from Montagu Square to the Grand Russe’s tenth floor.
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