“That isn’t your fault,” Douglas said. “The only thing you need to do is keep him away from your money now. I can’t imagine you would escape unscathed if he finds you again.”
“But you don’t know where he is!”
“No, I don’t.” Douglas sounded calm, a leader in a crisis. “I should have taken more men into Piccadilly, but it was more a hunch than anything else. I made a mistake. Usually we get there after he’s gone.”
“What about Dent and his men?” Peter asked, speaking over her head.
“They are combing the streets now.”
“Olga needs a bodyguard,” Peter said.
“She needs a telephone installed in her suite.” Douglas’s voice harshened with irritation.
“You need one too,” Peter said. “I’ll put the order in. Who is going to keep an eye on Olga?”
“Someone from Special Branch,” Douglas told them. “She needs an armed police guard. I’ll have Dent send someone over.”
Olga stared at her lap again. She understood the necessity of a guard. Konstantin would come for her money. He’d fired the gun of his own free will. It wasn’t like a bomb, where he would have clients to hide him. He’d made the mistake, and he’d have to look to his personal contacts for aid.
Peter’s hands left her shoulders. “What do we do for now?”
“I’ll take her to my suite,” Douglas said, “after I telephone Dent. We have the system set up where I’m being checked on at least once an hour.”
“And we have a night watchman patrolling the seventh floor at least half the time,” Peter said, coming out from behind her. “I’ll have to hire more.”
“Any thoughts?” Douglas asked.
“I’m not clean,” she whispered. “I scrubbed stains out of rugs in this uniform today. I need a fresh dress.”
“Why is she still cleaning?” Douglas demanded. “She is management.”
“Short-staffed,” Peter explained. “Sadie didn’t last long. Then we had to sack her replacement.”
“A new girl started again today. That’s why I’m so dirty. I was training her,” Olga explained.
“You’ve got to do better, Eyre,” Douglas barked. “You seem to be chronically understaffed.”
“We’ve only been open a few months. We had no idea how much traffic we would have, and we don’t have a lot of job applications on file. These things take time. How could I have known we’d end up with a violent Russian trade delegation on our hands?” Peter reached for the elephant on his desk and closed his fingers over it.
Douglas stood and held out his hand to Olga. “You could have guessed, naming the hotel as you did.” He pulled Olga from the chair and deposited her neatly at the door. “Go sit with Mrs. Salter while I make my call; then I’ll take you to your room.”
Olga walked out, head held high, but her heart pounded. Now Douglas would be her bodyguard, and she might have to share his suite tonight. What effect would that have on their relationship? At least her cousin wouldn’t be able to find her.
* * *
The hour had grown late. Olga had brought her materials down to his suite. It seemed appropriate for her to paint in the Artists Suite. Since Peter had suspended her from her duties for now, except that when she could have a watchman accompany her, she’d have more time to pursue her art.
Douglas had watched her paint for hours between checks on the Russians. Only a couple of them had been around, and they weren’t speaking of anything but novels and films. It didn’t seem to be code for anything nefarious.
At eleven, Olga placed her brushes in cleaning solution and removed her paint-stained smock. She stretched, lacing her fingers behind her back. He heard her let out a tiny gasp as her muscles relaxed. Pleasure, or pain. Her breasts pressed against the linen shirt she wore. It had a band around the hem and rested above her skirt, untucked.
The blouse looked so easy to remove. Idly, he wondered what she wore underneath. He thought he could see the faint shapes of her nipples under the fabric, though the light wasn’t terribly good. The stirring below his waist warned him that this was a dangerous path to follow in his thoughts.
He forced his eyes from her breasts to her face. She was watching him.
He shook his head. “Sorry.”
Her expression was solemn. “I find you attractive too, Douglas. I wonder if it’s safe for me to be here.”
“I promise I’ll be a gentleman,” he vowed. He was too heartsick to take action. Poor Bill would never see another pair of breasts.
She came toward him and sank onto the other sofa cushion. Her pale yellow clothing floated above the white upholstery like a yolk on a fried egg. He was getting silly, needed sleep.
“Why are you smiling?”
“My own humor,” he said. “Don’t mind me.”
“The situation is absurd.” She crossed one leg over the other, leaning toward him. “Family should protect me. A British spy shouldn’t need to protect me from my own mad cousin.”
“That’s not what I was thinking. Nothing of the sort. I hope you would always come to me for help.”
“I don’t know if I would trust you,” she admitted. “You do have a certain slyness about you, an unusual sort of grace. Not the regular sort of nobleman.”
“And here I thought I was rather stolid.”
“People who think that have never kissed you.”
His gaze went to her mouth, as if summoned there. “Are my kisses so unusual?”
“I’ve been kissed by four men,” she said in quite an academic fashion. “Maxim, of course, and a couple of the Imperial relatives, bored boys.”
“Did you like it?”
“Only Maxim.” She paused. “And you.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Would you like more kisses from me?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. A sexy little catch appeared. “You know I would, but it’s dangerous. Where am I going to sleep tonight?”
“If you don’t feel safe here, I’m sure you could stay with the Salters.”
“I’m not going to interrupt the newlyweds. That’s cruel.”
“Safety first.”
She leaned toward him and put her hand on the back of the sofa inches away from his neck. “Are you telling me I’m not safe with you, my gentlemanly friend?”
“Oh, Princess.” He put his hand on hers and traced up the bare back of lower arm. The yellow fabric of her blouse ended at a band around her elbow, loose enough to push up all the way to her shoulder. He boldly stroked his fingers up her biceps, finding muscle that shouldn’t be a surprise, considering the buckets she hauled all day.
“Yes?”
“I could show you such delicious things.” He found the back of her arm and drifted his fingers across the taut skin.
“Have you a great deal of experience?”
He considered this. “More than you and I’ll leave it at that.”
“You were a soldier,” she said.
“I’ve certainly never kissed a princess before you.”
“I’m not a princess as the British think of them,” she demurred. “I’m just an aristocrat like you.”
He echoed her. “I’m not descended from a king, though, unlike you.”
“No?” She put her hand over his before he moved his fingers any closer to the slope of her breast.
“No. Way, way back, we were merchants in the favor of James the First. He ennobled my ancestor.”
Her breath touched his cheek. Had she moved closer, or had he? He doubted she realized her pleated skirt had hiked up over her knees. Inadvertently, she had exposed more than a foot of her thigh. He could see the woven edge of her stocking.
The sight was unutterably erotic. His hand left her shoulder of its own accord and settled on her leg, on the edge of the stocking.
“Delicious things,” he said again, as if he were a record stuck on repeat. Bill would never have a moment like this again, but life was for the living. He pushed his dead operative’s memory in
to the recesses of his thoughts and locked it away.
She took a breath that pushed out her breasts and leaned her cheek against his left shoulder. He wrapped his left arm around her shoulders and moved his other hand higher up on her leg.
Her lips touched his first. She surrendered her body to his, flowing against him, opening her mouth and taking him in. He focused on the tastes of her mouth first, the potatoes they’d had in cream at dinner, the bottle of wine they had shared, perhaps unwisely. Her bun came undone when he pushed his fingers through her hair, dislodging pins and the scent of lemons.
But an earthier scent was in the air, too. Her arousal became more apparent as he inched up her skirt. His princess was ripe, ready for love. Her attraction to him was not just some pretty thing, a battle of words, a pursuit of his family money or position. No, her body wanted his, and this thought aroused him more than any half-imagined sight of her nipples.
Boldly, he slid a finger up the side of the lingerie cupping her sex and slid it along the warm, wet heat. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and caught her gasp on his breath. Learning her anatomy, he didn’t go for the source of that sexy, damp passion but to the nub of her pleasure, a place a gently reared princess might not even know existed.
He rubbed along the soft hair of her mons, then down again, to the apex of her sex, and touched her there. She jerked against him but into him, her thighs slipping farther apart in encouragement.
He moved his mouth to her ear. “Move against me, sweet. Show me how it feels.”
She didn’t respond. Had he been too bold? But when he pressed her there again, her hips tilted, and he knew he had her. He rubbed her below and kissed her face, glorying in the sounds she made, a woman awakening to sensuality.
When she found completion, he had a sense of satisfaction that he desperately needed in some part of his life. Olga rested with her head pressed against his upper arm on the sofa back, her expression blissful and unfocused. Slowly, not wanting to disturb her, he pulled his hand away and smoothed down her skirt.
The scent of her hung heavily, erotically, in the air. His erection pressed against his clothing, but this moment had been about her. He couldn’t ask for anything more. Every next step had to come from her.
Eventually, she licked her lips. He wanted to get her a glass of water but didn’t dare move.
“One hears stories about this, but I’ve never experienced anything like it,” she said, very low.
“You’ve been deprived.” His voice was hushed too, suiting the intimacy of the moment. Just them, cocooned in luxury, on a late winter evening.
“You are going to teach me to want you, now that I am a woman of some experience.”
“Someday you’ll want to have a past,” he suggested. “To remember in your old age.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I can’t fall, Douglas. I won’t risk it.”
“I want to please you, not hurt you.”
She swallowed hard. “I’ve been very sad today since you told me what happened. I’m so sorry your operative died, and I’m sorry my only close relative in England is lost to me forever.”
He didn’t respond. “Do you feel any better now?”
“I would if you promise me Konstantin will be safe.”
What nonsense was this? “He’s a killer, Princess. I can’t promise that.”
“You can promise me that he’ll be locked away, that he’ll be cared for, given the opportunity to atone for his sins. I understand now that he can never live like an ordinary person, but he’s sick, like his father was.”
“Others are at risk because of him.”
“He needs to be locked away,” she repeated. “Promise me you’ll try to capture him, not kill. He’s my only relative, Douglas. He’s all I have of my family.” She squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking from her closed lids.
He winced. “I hate to see you like this.”
Her voice came out as a harsh whisper. “You lost your brothers. You understand, don’t you? I can’t lose anyone else.”
He heard the old horror in her voice. “Yes, I understand. But I’m more concerned about you. Do you feel like you might be able to sleep?”
She nodded.
He slid his free arm under her knees, picked her up, and took her into the bedroom. When he reached the bed, he laid her down on top of the covers and folded the other side of the bedcovers over her. She was still dressed, but if she’d relaxed, it was better that she sleep now instead of changing and waking herself up.
He put his hands over her eyes and gently stroked down. “Sleep, now.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine in the sitting room. Don’t worry about me.”
“You have to work?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he repeated and tread as lightly as possible as he left the room, his ghosts returning.
* * *
On Tuesday afternoon, Glass had his tea in front of him at the flat in Cosway Street. A rare glimpse of sunlight came through the dormer windows, though it didn’t bring warmth. He wrapped his fingers around his cup, breathing in the malty tea. A break was exactly what he needed after the morning he’d had, discussing Bill Vall-Grandly’s death with his superiors.
Instead of quiet, though, his admittedly open hours at the flat were interrupted by their special knock at the door. Feeling like he’d gained ten years, he went to it.
His entire remaining London team stood there: Lucy Drover, Redvers Peel, and Tim Swankle, plus Les Drake.
“Down from the north?” he asked Les they took off their coats.
“Bill’s sister called Lucy,” Les said. “The funeral’s already been planned.”
“I haven’t heard.”
“It’s tomorrow,” his secretary said. “Late morning.”
Glass glanced at his staff. “We can’t go, you lot. You understand that, don’t you?”
Les, an athletically lean man in his mid-twenties, who could go from almost royally distant to a man-of-the-world salesman in a heartbeat, lowered his eyebrows. “I can go. I’m working out of Hull. I’ll take Sadie. Bill’s cover was sales, just like mine. It makes sense that we’d have met on the road.”
“I don’t like it,” Glass said.
“Bill deserves our respect.” His secretary’s voice was full of tears.
“That is not the point. Respecting one man can point fingers at the others. Don’t forget that the way people like us are often found is to locate one of us and follow the trail back to the others.”
“Just me and Sadie,” Les repeated. “I won’t lead anyone to the rest of you.”
Glass drummed his fingers on the table next to the door. “Very well, but I’m going to let this flat go and find us a new meeting place. Time to start clean. I’ve had this one for long enough.”
A knock came at the door again. Glass frowned.
“It’s the new man,” his secretary said.
“I’ve been assigned someone new? I wasn’t told that this morning.”
“I just received the forms,” Miss Drover said. “They are in my handbag. But his name is Teddy Mount.”
Glass pointed into the next room where the meeting table was and waited for his team to move in before he opened the door. He pulled his Webley from his holster and hid it in his left hand behind the door.
When he opened the door a crack, he found a man in his thirties, a slim, dark mustache decorating his upper lip. He wore a cap, and his suit was gray and baggy. Glass didn’t recognize him. The man took off his cap, exposing wavy hair with a few hints of gray at the temples.
“I’m Mount, sir,” he said.
Glass nodded and moved away from the door so that the new man could enter. He let the man see his gun as he holstered it, but he didn’t flinch.
“Ex-soldier?” he asked.
“Survived the Western Front, yes, sir,” Mount said.
“What have you been doing since?”
“The Germans,” Mount said. “I’m good wi
th languages. My Russian is good enough to be sent over to you, what with things heating up.”
“You know we lost a man yesterday.”
Mount nodded and set his cap on the table by the door. “Shot at Piccadilly Station. I’m very sorry to hear it.”
“I didn’t take out the perpetrator,” Glass said. He pointed to his forehead. “Got this chasing him.”
“You’re a desk man,” Mount observed. “I’m still in the thick of things. Been following a smuggling operation on the coast.”
“You look fit enough,” Glass said. “Come and meet the lads and our secretary.”
Mount shook hands all around with the Russian section; then they settled into their meeting.
“I’ve one big piece of news,” Peel announced.
“Tell me,” Glass said.
“We’ve located Princess Fyodora Novikova in Shanghai,” his man reported. “She’s a taxi dancer at the Del Monte.”
Glass frowned. “What’s that?”
“A grand place. Only the best Russian hostesses work there. The youngest, most beautiful. It has a garden and a veranda. Unfortunately, rooms upstairs as well.”
He had wanted to be happy for Olga, that her sister still lived, but she still might be lost. “So she’s a prostitute?”
“I don’t know about that, but whatever she is, she’s the best at it.”
“Let’s get in touch with Secret Intelligence there,” he said to Miss Drover. Surely he needed to do something for the poor, broken princess. “I’ll release the funds for someone to offer her a ticket to London, even if I have to pay for it personally.”
Miss Drover looked up from her notepad. “What do we do when she arrives?”
“Bring her here, or wherever our meeting place is by then. I’ll debrief her and hopefully reunite her with her sister. I’ll make sure Peter Eyre will allow her to share her sister’s room at the Grand Russe.”
“Are you going to make use of her?” Mount said curiously. “Is she really a princess?”
“Yes. A twenty-six-year-old taxi-dancing princess,” Peel said. “She’ll have lived a hard life since she was about twenty. I understand if a White Russian had money in foreign accounts they went to Europe. If they didn’t, they ran for Vladivostok, and when the Bolshies took the town, they crossed into China or Manchuria.”
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