Lady Be Good

by Heather Hiestand

  Chapter 7

  Olga limped into Glass’s suite with her bucket at ten on Tuesday morning. She sketched a faint hello with her hand and upturned lips, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  “You don’t look much better than you did yesterday morning,” Glass said, surveying her limping gait as she crossed the entryway into the sitting room. “Couldn’t you stay off your leg at all yesterday?”

  Her back turned to him, she said, “Long day. No ice on the tenth floor.”

  He frowned. Hadn’t she thought to ask for help? “You could have brought some up. Ask Thatcher for a bucket and some ice. I’m sure he’d help you.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “He would, but then he’d probably tell someone. I wouldn’t want Peter Eyre to think I’m putting on airs.”

  Glass blinked. More was wrong than her knee. “I’ve never heard you say his surname before. What is wrong?”

  “His mistress has moved back into the hotel,” she muttered, running her finger across the mantelpiece. She brought it to her eyes and moved on, apparently finding no dust to concern her.

  “You were hoping their relationship was done?” Did the princess want Eyre for herself?

  “I was hoping I was done with her,” she snapped. She opened the first set of curtains and ran her finger across the lintel. “I don’t like how it affects my relationship with Peter.”

  “Where is she staying? On the seventh?”

  Her accent, never strong, thickened dramatically as she spoke. “No, the fourth. A downgrade from before. She and her mother were on the fifth in an enormous suite after the hotel reopened. We were very friendly when we lived at the boardinghouse this past month, but now she is here again and has returned to her old tricks.”

  “That shouldn’t concern you. You have no pretense of cleaning on the fourth.”

  She returned to her bucket and picked it up. “She expects me to act as her maid. Now that I live here, it will be so easy to send for me whenever she wants.”

  He exhaled from his nostrils. “You think Eyre moved you in here to be available when this woman returned?”

  She finally looked at him. “I hope not. After all, I’m not the only person who moved onto the tenth floor on Sunday. But I can’t do it. I can’t deal with her.” Her lips slid back, exposing her clenched teeth.

  He walked over to her and pulled the bucket from her unresisting hands. “You need an afternoon off.”

  “It’s only Tuesday.” Her shoulders trembled.

  “And you need time for your art,” he continued. He set the bucket down and put his hands on her upper arms. “I had a note from my father. He bought four of your paintings. The other two sold to clients of Margery’s.”

  Her jaw relaxed immediately. “Are you certain?”

  “Of course.”

  Her face lit with blinding happiness. She clasped her hands together in front of her. “I’m so appreciative that your father purchased my work, but that it sold to strangers as well warms me.”

  “And the money doesn’t hurt.”

  “No. It goes quite a ways toward refilling my coffers,” she said, “even after my expenses. And I will not feel like spending money on paints and canvas is a waste of money I could spend elsewhere.” Her smile vanished.

  “What?”

  “If my cousin doesn’t take it. I need to outsmart him.”

  “I am so glad to hear you thinking this way. You need more than the Grand Russe.”

  “Thank you for understanding my feelings,” she whispered. “In art, my title is a good thing. Mrs. Davcheva can charge more for my work.”

  He wanted to do more than touch her arms, but he’d learned that kissing her in the hotel would be a mistake. Still, he wanted her close. “For now, let’s pretend I have a dreadful mess here in the suite. Take an hour and relax.”

  “Applesauce” was her quick response. “I was not promoted because I am lazy.”

  “No one will know. I’ll break a glass if you like.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Lightly she moved away from him.

  He let his arms drop to his sides. “You need to rest that knee before anything else happens. Why don’t you take a bath? I’ll bet the suite’s tub is larger than what you have upstairs, and I have salts, perfect for aches and pains.”

  “You must be mad, Lord Walling.”

  “It’s Douglas,” he said. “Here in private, I’m Douglas.” He wondered why he gave her that name. No one called him that. He’d been Glass to his family and colleagues for many years, never Douglas.

  “Douglas,” she said, trying out the name. “You must be mad.”

  He caught the hint of a smile. “I’ll leave if you want me to. Really, the salts will do your knee a world of good.”

  Her teeth closed over the corner of her lower lip. “I can’t.”

  “You need to be strong, Princess. If you are in pain, you will show weakness to this woman. It’s just a bath, some ice.”

  Something in her changed as she spoke. That slumped air of defeat lessened. He could see her draw herself up.

  “Very well, but I will not cheat my employer. May I return at the end of my shift?”

  “You may.”

  “And you will leave?”

  “The bathroom has a lock,” he suggested.

  “You will leave?” she repeated. “I don’t want any nonsense.”

  He chuckled. “A bit of nonsense might make you feel better.”

  “I’m not that sort of woman, Douglas.” Her tone had sorrow in it. “Since Maxim, there has been no one.”

  “No kisses in seven years?”

  She shook her head. “Not until you. I was faithful to his memory.”

  “No one you could count on?”

  “No, but you are proving yourself to be someone I can rely on.” She clasped her hands to her chest, the perfect picture of a movie heroine. “Asking your father to purchase my paintings, it was most kind.”

  “I liked them for myself,” he explained. “But people are more likely to see them at St. Martin’s House. He has parties, you know. He invites collectors.”

  “Most kind,” she repeated. “Now, I must take up my bucket again and finish checking your room. What will you do today?”

  “Have some notes to write up from a meeting yesterday.”

  “What do you do, exactly?” she asked.

  “I am the heir to an earldom,” he temporized.

  “Of course.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll be on my way then.” She walked deeper into the suite, swinging her basket. Still limping, but at least she wasn’t slumped over in despair.

  Six hours later, Glass heard a knock at the door. He opened it and found Olga, breathless and nervous.

  He gestured her in. “Ready?”

  She nodded and slid into the entryway.

  “I see you changed your clothing.”

  She clutched her pink cardigan over her loose gray dress. “I wanted something clean. I discovered the chambermaid on the sixth hasn’t been dusting under the beds. I had to do it.”

  “Two bad days in a row,” he commented. She had a difficult life for a princess. He wondered what kind of mental gymnastics it took to successfully transition from one kind of life to another.

  “I look forward to hiring the staff myself,” she said. “I’ll make sure we don’t hire lazy girls.”

  He led her to the bathroom. “I believe you. The girls you have on the seventh seem to be doing a good job.”

  “The best we have for the seventh, with a focus on the Russian employees because of the trade delegation.” She paused at the doorway of the bathroom. Her mouth rounded, her eyes alight with pleasure.

  He’d gone out and purchased candles. Long tapers lit the mirrors and reflected light back into the room. He’d found a sachet of dried rose petals in a store, and they scented the room. The tub sparkled, the glass jar of salts ready on the lip.

  “Those are mint salts, so only add a little at a time,” he warned. “The se
nsation of too much mint can be very shocking to the system.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She grinned at him, giving a glimpse of what the young princess must have looked like at eighteen. Her fingers drifted across his cheek, followed by her lips. While she only gave him a quick peck, he understood what even that intimacy cost her.

  Gently, slowly, he angled toward her cheek and kissed hers in return. “Feel better, my dear. Stay as long as you like. I’ll go down the Reading Room and catch up on the papers.”

  * * *

  More than an hour passed before Olga rose from the bathtub. Nothing had disturbed her as promised, although she’d heard an odd clicking in the sitting room. She hadn’t bothered to investigate since it hadn’t repeated itself.

  Douglas hadn’t been wrong. His tub easily held double the volume of the ones upstairs. Although her knee needed the heat the most, the rest of her body felt relaxed for the first time since Christmas. By the time the water cooled, she felt like an elderly stalk of celery, wrinkled and wobbly.

  She stood, stretched, and unpinned her hair. The thick strands picked up water on her shoulders and drifted halfway down her back. Slowly, she dried off with one of the fluffy towels on the bathroom rack, enjoying the luxury as the towels upstairs were not nearly of the same quality. Then, she wiped away the condensation from the cheval mirror in the corner and took stock of her entire body, a rare opportunity. She still had a bruise on the side of her leg. It had gone yellow. The rest of her seemed a bit scrawny. Strain had whittled her down. Not so statuesque now. She hadn’t realized.

  Physical labor hadn’t entered her life until this past year while she trained to be a chambermaid. Her thighs had once been round and dimpled. Now she saw firm muscle on them, and her calves were carved down to nothing. She put her hands on her hips, thinking she’d have fit into her corsets from a decade ago, if they were still in style.

  Her body wasn’t the kind to drive men wild. Maxim had been too respectful to attempt to ravish her and had held to sweet kisses. She sensed something darker in Douglas, something that spoke of moonlit rooms, crisp sheets, and heated flesh. Would he like her strong shoulders and muscled body? Or did he prefer a girl who could afford to put on flesh?

  She didn’t know. But she liked the look of him. The worst thing would be to fall, to give herself like one of these modern girls. It still made sense to behave like an aristocrat, a typical upper-class virgin worthy of any man. But for the first time in years, Douglas had brought different thoughts from places she’d long since forgotten.

  Dreamily, she redressed. A few minutes later, she found herself hovering in front of his half-open bedroom door. She stared at the crisp white sheets and blankets, imagining them mussed and smelling of him. But she didn’t go in. No, she forced herself into the sitting room. She walked briskly through, remembering she had no right to do anything but clean the magnificent space, complete with stained-glass windows just under the ceiling. All the love the architect and designers had lavished on the seventh floor was not evident on the smaller eighth through tenth floors.

  With a sigh, she left the suite and turned down the corridor to the service lift. Five minutes later she had her door unlocked. Her bedsit had no kitchen facilities, but a curtain could be pulled between the sleeping and sitting area. She had two comfortable chairs with a large square table in between, plus a smaller table with two café-style chairs tucked in around it. The decorator Peter had hired had offered her a choice between a loveseat, one large chair, or two smaller ones. She’d thought the latter choice the most flexible.

  The bedroom area held a double bed covered with a yellow-and-white patchwork quilt that Bert Dadey had given her, crafted by his sister’s hands many years ago. A trunk rested at the base of the bed, which was hers. There was also a small dressing table and a closet. It wasn’t bad, nicer than the maid and valet rooms in the main hotel.

  Though her bed looked awfully inviting, it was too late for a nap and too early to go to sleep. Instead, she thought about her conversation with Douglas and pulled her sketchpad from her trunk. It hadn’t left that spot since she’d begun work.

  Why? So many scenes at the Grand Russe, not to mention Maystone’s, ought to be recounted. The mad scene in the Grand Hall, with everyone scurrying around, the diners at the Restaurant, the dancers at Maystone’s. Peter holding court in the Coffee Room. The musicians should be immortalized; all the bellboys managing the guests’ dogs were adorable. So much she could sketch.

  Inevitably, once she put charcoal to paper, though, what emerged wasn’t a bustling hotel scene but an image of Douglas.

  She had his eyes right away, his nose, his thick shock of nearly black hair, and his brows. His mouth challenged her with its mobility, the paired humor and strength. But she knew his body just well enough to get that right. In an hour she had quite a good likeness.

  When she finished, she discovered her hands knew more about him than her eyes did. He had a trio of grooves carved across his forehead, and his long upper lip had a definite bow. Freckles dotted the skin below his right eye. His earlobes were rather puffy.

  She stared at the sketch, wondering how those earlobes would taste, if they’d be soft and plump against her lips. A shiver passed through her at the delicious thought of nibbling him there.

  She’d been the one to tell him not to kiss her at the hotel. At a moment like this she thought she’d been mad.

  With a flourish, she signed the sketch. To do a full oil painting, she’d need him to pose. She regarded the sketch again. Maybe not. Maybe she already knew him well enough. Something about the nose seemed a little off. It wasn’t hooked at the end but softer somehow than she’d drawn it.

  She picked up her charcoal again, trying to perfect his face. Adding a body, more of a doodle really, she let her thoughts drift. When she glanced down at the page, she discovered she had done quite a good likeness of his face but had sketched him in armor atop a horse. Did his family have an ancestor portrait of such a man on horseback? Next, she drew him with an Elizabethan ruffle around his neck, imagining a sixteenth-century forebear. But after that, she was done, her mind finally drained.

  She yawned, tossed the sketchbook on the table, and curled up in her cozy chair. Sleep might have been possible in the larger chair she hadn’t chosen, but not this one. No head support. She stood up, cooled from her bath now and pleasantly weary, and went to bed.

  * * *

  Glass rolled over in bed, stirred to wakefulness by noise. He sat up, instantly alert. Life in the trenches had taken away his ability to relax, half asleep, like he had as a child. He clenched the knife he kept under his pillow. The noise came again: a knock on the suite’s outer door.

  He turned on the lamp and checked the clock. Three in the morning. After he shoved the knife back into its resting place, he grabbed his dressing gown and pulled it on as he went to the door.

  When he opened it he found the Russian head of security, Ivan Salter.

  “What?” he asked, his gaze instinctively sweeping the corridor. At times, the Russians kept a man posted across from their door but not tonight.

  Salter handed him an envelope. “There are two men waiting for you downstairs, my lord.”

  “Do you know them?” Glass licked his lips, tasting sleep at the corners of his mouth.

  “Detective Inspector Dent,” Salter said, his mouth twisting. “I know him. Not the other.”

  He lowered his voice. “Special Branch?” He slid his finger under the sealed edge of the envelope.

  “Probably. He’s not one of the men I’ve seen in the suite.”

  Glass pulled out a note. “Dress and come down. Bad news.” It was signed by Dent.

  He turned the note over so Salter could read it.

  The Russian shook his head. “It’s not the hotel.”

  “This time,” Glass muttered. “You remember how to contact Bill Vall-Grandly? You’ll need to get him in here as soon as you can.”

  “I will telephone him stra
ight away, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Salter didn’t leave. Glass lifted his eyebrows.

  “May I ask a question?”

  “I might not answer.”

  Salter nodded, and Glass backed into his suite so that the night watchman could come in. He shut the door behind him. “What is it?”

  Salter straightened the lapels of his red watchman coat. “I wondered if you knew why Tim Swankle gave notice. I’ve always thought he was more than he seemed. Is he one of yours?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Salter cleared his throat. “Should I know him if I see him on the street, or would he be playing at someone else?”

  “Ah, I see.” Glass scratched his chin. Whiskery. These days he had a heavy beard, something that hadn’t yet developed when he went off to war. “Follow his lead, Salter. If he acts as if he doesn’t know you, then it is best to let him alone.”

  Salter’s nostrils flared. “I thought as much. Thank you for your honesty. Shall I wait for you?”

  “No, get Vall-Grandly.”

  Salter nodded and left the suite. Glass locked the door and went to the Firebird first. He opened up and put on the headphones, ensuring no one stirred in the Russian’s suite. Just in case, he switched out the finished recording that he’d changed just before retiring and put on a new disk. Whatever had happened to bring Dent out in the wee hours, the Russians could be involved. They were his section’s patch, after all.

  He dressed quickly but did take the time to shave. A British gentleman looked his best. Even so, not twelve minutes had passed since Salter had come to his door by the time he locked the front door of his suite and headed to the lift.

  At the reception desk, he found Dent, an experienced man about a decade older than he with Black Irish looks, leaning against the counter. Next to him was a man he didn’t recognize, but Detective Robert McCall came toward him from the main hotel door.