Lady Be Good

by Heather Hiestand

  His lips curved as he thought of the delights he had to look forward to that night. “Very good. We’ll speak to Peter about your final day, and when my father arranges a wedding date we’ll book the hotel.”

  “When are you thinking?”

  “Mid-April, if that suits you.”

  She folded her hands together, suddenly looking very narrow in the vibrant chair. “I suppose it is necessary.”

  He caught the hesitation in her voice. “Would you want to wait?”

  “I’d prefer to wait until Konstantin is finally out of our hair.”

  “I hope that is my wedding gift to you. If I can manage it, we will be free of him by then.”

  She sighed. “Not a happy topic. But you will keep him safe, won’t you? Just have him sent away somewhere so he can get the care he needs?”

  “I’ll do my best.” He patted her knees, remembering how he’d caressed most every inch of her on the fainting couch the previous evening.

  “It’s hard to remember my cares when I’m with you.” She put her hands over his. “Oh, Douglas. We’re going to be wed, and soon.”

  As she leaned forward to kiss him, he wondered if he should excuse himself long enough to lock the door. But he didn’t want her to think he was marrying her only for the sake of their sex life. Then again, Princess Olga Novikova knew her own worth, even if it had been shattered these past few years.

  He pulled his hands from under hers and sat back on his heels. “I’ll tell you what, darling. Let me check the corridor and make sure we have privacy in here. You relax for a minute, and I’ll be right back.”

  She settled into the chair, losing a little of her well-trained perfect posture. “Very well. But I don’t want an early baby if we can avoid it. Too much can go wrong.”

  He nodded and flashed her a grin. Smart princess to keep him on point. “We can be creative.”

  He went out into the corridor, shut the door behind him, and moved swiftly to the telephone room. His father had installed one on each floor of the house. He instructed the operator to connect him to the police and then had Dent tracked down in Special Branch.

  “What’s the word, Glass?” asked the detective inspector.

  “I’ve just proposed marriage to Princess Olga,” Glass said.

  “You don’t say. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. Can you keep an eye on her for me? Konstantin is out there somewhere, and we’re going to be married next month. She’s going to be leaving the hotel more than usual, planning her trousseau and such. It will be hard for us to keep an eye on her as we have been.”

  “Of course. We’ve already put the uniforms on the main entrances, and we’ll have them contact us when they see her leave. Or give us a heads-up if you know she’s going.”

  “I will. Thank you.” Glass hung up and rubbed his chin. The last thing he wanted was to lose his future bride just as he’d finally chosen her. Olga deserved his protection.

  * * *

  Douglas had agreed to her plan to stay out of her bed with surprising alacrity. As Olga attempted to stretch upon waking on Sunday morning, she found her arms hampered by the back and arm of the Salters’ sofa on the tenth floor, where she had spent an uncomfortable night. She couldn’t wait to be married and live in Douglas’s flat, which wasn’t far from the hotel. It was on the wrong side of Marble Arch in terms of social superiority, but it was still close enough to be quite smart, and it would be her own home for the first time since she’d fled her family’s mansion in the wake of Maxim’s murder so many years before.

  She rolled over, giving up on stretching, and lifted her new engagement ring from the table. Sitting up, she stared at the ring: quite a large, expensive stone, cornered by four smaller diamonds. If nothing else, this punctuated the fact that she would someday be a countess.

  Kicking off the coverlet Alecia had leant her from her own marital bed, Olga stood and went into the bathroom. Ivan must have still been working, and Alecia had managed to leave the suite without waking her. She went into their bathroom and redressed in her smart blue dress and navy coat, then pulled her outer things off the peg, and took them with her.

  Lazy butterflies drifted in her stomach, so she bypassed the shared kitchen and went straight to the lift, holding her breath until she reached the ground floor. Freedom.

  She walked past the reception desk. Peter was standing there and caught her eye. He nodded animatedly at a young man with flattened dark hair and a wide part.

  “Please take Mr. Haldane to his room, Jeremy,” Peter said as Olga walked up to the desk.

  The bellboy appeared from behind the potted fern where he waited unobtrusively for orders and reached for the man’s case.

  “Is that mine?” the man asked, smoothing his bushy mustache.

  Jeremy frowned at Peter.

  “Yes, yes,” Peter said. “Honestly, Mr. Haldane, you’d lose your hat if it wasn’t on your head.”

  The man lifted his eyebrows dolefully at Peter and followed the bellboy to the lift.

  “Who was that?” Olga asked. “One of your mother’s first husband’s relatives?”

  “Distinguished scientist. Haldane, not Haldene,” Peter said. “Very absentminded.”

  “Ah, I see. That’s a new class of guest for us.”

  “A bit worried about his politics to be honest,” Peter said in a lowered voice. “Sympathizer with the Soviet Union.”

  Olga winced. “I’ll stay clear of him.”

  Peter’s eyes narrowed. “The scientist may miss what is right under his nose, but I do not. What is that on your finger?”

  Olga grinned and showed him her ring. “Lord Walling proposed yesterday.”

  “So the princess is to become a countess? I say, old thing, congratulations!”

  “Thank you.” She flattened her fingers to admire the sparkling stone.

  “When will the great day occur?”

  “About a month from now. Lord Walling wants us to be married in West Yorkshire because his father is friendly with the bishop there.”

  “Will you stay on St. Martin’s property?”

  “We thought your sister’s hotel, honestly. But he is making the arrangements.”

  “Very good. I am glad the British aristocracy is gaining such a perfect flower. It is a loss for the Grand Russe.” He smiled.

  “I’ll be here for another month.”

  “No,” Peter said. “You can’t keep working here. Let’s face it. You can’t even stay in your room because of your cousin. Of course we’ll keep protecting you, but your work has to end. Really, you should move into St. Martin’s house immediately. I’ll speak to your fiancé.”

  “But I need to work,” Olga protested.

  “No. It is our loss, but you need to stop.” He picked up her hands, turned them over, and clucked his teeth. Reaching under the desk, he pulled out some coins. “Start hand treatments tomorrow.”

  “Hand treatments?”

  “Yes. You don’t have viscountess hands. Get a manicure and whatever treatments you can order to get them soft again. You don’t want to be criticized.”

  “I’m not ashamed of hard work.”

  “No, but you don’t want to be out of place, either. I won’t even stop your salary, Olga, but you will cease employment immediately.”

  “But,” she protested.

  “But nothing. Go paint something. Better yet, get the art installation moved upstairs like we planned. We’ll call it a promotion. You are now the Grand Russe’s art consultant.”

  She narrowed her eyes but was too happy to be truly upset. “Fine. I’ll consult with Mr. Neville about scheduling the men we’ll need to move the paintings.”

  He nodded. “I’m proud of you, Olga. Well done.”

  She growled at him, then smiled, and put on her hat. “I’m proud myself. And the earl is as dear as his son. I love them both.”

  “Yes, he’s a good old boy. You’ve landed a very elusive fish.”

  * * *


  A few hours later, Olga was taking an uncharacteristic afternoon nap. She woke sometime later when the Salter’s sofa dipped. Head swimming, she sat up, almost murmured Douglas’s name before she recognized her cousin in the afternoon light.

  “Cousin,” Konstantin said, turning his head to her.

  She scrambled back. When she was off the sofa and pressed up against the wall, she fumbled under her skirt, opened the scrap of leather, and pulled out her knife. She held it his eye level and started to edge toward the front of the room.

  “You aren’t going to hurt me, Olga,” Konstantin said, sounding far more calm than she felt.

  “I might. You’re a killer now.” She adjusted her shoulders to remove the hunch. The blood of tsars ran through her veins, and she wouldn’t be frightened of one man.

  “I took precautions before I came. I have friends in Shanghai.”

  She stopped moving and faked a laugh. “Why should I care about that?”

  “Fyodora is there, you know. She’s a taxi dancer. Not a whore, not yet.” His voice lowered. “Not dead, not yet.”

  Her brain could scarcely take in all his claims. She folded her arms around herself, her hands trembling. Could any of it be true? “Why would you threaten her?”

  “Because I need your help. I shouldn’t have killed the spy. I need a place to hide.”

  She latched on to his words of regret. Yes, he knew right from wrong, he knew he shouldn’t have killed the spy. “You can’t stay here. It’s the Grand Russe!”

  “I know that. You need to find me a telephone, or Fyodora is going to get a knife between the ribs during a tango. You want her to be buried in China? I understand that foreign paupers are buried to the west of Shanghai, at Zikawei. It has a lonely sound, don’t you think?”

  Tears pressed behind Olga’s eyes. Surely Konstantin was bluffing, but she’d never known who his associates were. She had to ignore his games. “Why is Maxim’s murderer here in the hotel?” she asked. “Is he your employer?”

  Konstantin sat up, a bear on a child’s sofa. “I never knew your precious Maxim. I have no idea who his killer was. Time is ticking away, Olga. You had better find me a safe telephone.”

  Olga stared at her knife, useless now. As saddened as Douglas had been by his operative’s death, he would understand she couldn’t risk her sister, no matter how slight the chances were that she was at risk.

  But that was the point. Her sister must be dead by now to have been out of contact so long. And Konstantin couldn’t possibly have contacts in China. How ridiculous.

  She hefted her knife. Her cousin had killed Bill Vall-Grandly. She took a step away from the wall. Konstantin saw the movement and shifted to a standing position, pulling a gun from his pocket.

  He grinned at her. “Gun beats knife, little cousin. If you don’t value Fyodora’s life, what about Lord St. Martin’s?”

  She stiffened, her fingers numbing. “What?”

  “I saw your dinner with them. You seemed so fond of the old man.”

  Her heart began to pound. Her vision narrowed. “Don’t you threaten Douglas’s father. He is all that is left of Douglas’s entire family.”

  Konstantin’s smile went crocodile, showing all his teeth. “Just a little bomb in St. Martin’s house. Not even inside. The garden wall would do. I’m very talented.”

  She took another step toward him. He pointed his gun at her heart.

  “Don’t be so evil.” Olga said. “I believed in you, Konstantin. I believed you could change.”

  “You don’t have a telephone, but there’s one in the boardinghouse on Montagu Square. Take me there.”

  “Will you promise to leave the earl alone? I’ll take you to a telephone box. I’ll dial the numbers myself.”

  “I’m not going to make my calls in public so I can arrange to disappear. You want that, right? For me to leave London?”

  “You just want a private place to make a call? Then you’ll leave London?” Bert Dadey. Please forgive me.

  He nodded.

  “I’ll take you to the boardinghouse,” she said dully. “Mr. Dadey does have a telephone.”

  Konstantin tucked his gun away and held out his hand for her knife. She hesitated, but displaying a grace obscene in one his size, he had his hand closed over her upper arm in an instant.

  She wrenched her arm away and found her coat and hat. He followed closely behind, standing just behind the door as she checked the corridor. “We’ll go down the stairs.”

  “It’s ten flights. No, we’ll take the service lift.”

  She knew he was intimate with the hotel, so she didn’t argue. About half an hour remained until shift’s end, so if the service lift came up here, it would likely be empty.

  When they were in the lift, she said, “Let me do the talking at the boardinghouse. I’ll keep a taxicab waiting so you can leave after.”

  “As long as I have access to a telephone you have nothing to worry about.”

  She had a moment of fear, but if the cost of a telephone call was the earl’s safety, she’d take the risk.

  Chapter 16

  The Russians had been curiously absent from their suite again on Tuesday morning. Glass had helped Olga measure walls all morning, to rehang her art exhibit in the hotel, and left her well attended by bellboys and off-duty waiters who had been brought in to pound nails and lift artwork.

  He had to attend a private meeting chaired by Quex to discuss the Russian problem. His secretary, Miss Drover, had handed him three file folders just before he entered the meeting, but he hadn’t had time to so much as open them before Quex launched into his interrogation.

  The focus of the meeting had been him. Government ministers and other Secret Intelligence section heads sat nodding and smoking as Quex fired questions and secretarial pens scratched away at the seats along the wall.

  “We need more agents focused on the Russians,” Quex said. “Please review the current assignments of your section.”

  Glass went through what he had. “Not surprisingly, we continue to watch the trade union protests, as well as shipping in case there is more human cargo coming in.”

  “Any word on where this Lashevich appeared from?” asked the section head for German operations, cigar smoke wreathing his bald head.

  Glass flipped open the folder containing notes from Les Drake, his man in the north. “His best guess is a ship that came in from Finland. It held timber by-products, and the captain is a known Soviet sympathizer.”

  He set the folder aside while the men around the table conferred, and opened the next folder. It wasn’t from one of his own men, but a man from Special Branch. As he read, he couldn’t help blinking. He glanced up at Miss Drover, feeling the dread freezing his upper chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed. She glanced down, clearly upset.

  His leg jerked, but nothing could be seen above the table. He set the folder down, wishing he could shout at Miss Drover for not warning him, but it wasn’t her fault. There hadn’t been a private moment, and he hadn’t expected a news ambush, so he hadn’t planned to meet with his secretary or his section before now. There were so few of them. They needed to work, not speak.

  Of course, as if some subterranean signal had been produced, Quex asked the important question. “What is the update on Konstantin Novikov?”

  “He’s been spotted outside the Grande Russe harassing his cousin.” Glass cleared his throat. “I put surveillance on Princess Olga, his cousin, after I proposed marriage.”

  Quex’s eyebrows lifted. “How did this meet occur?”

  “She must have slipped her watchers at the Grand Russe hotel, though Special Branch kept an eye on her.” Glass scanned the report. “Looks like they left the hotel in a taxicab.”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “No. I can’t imagine why, except that she’s terrified of him.” He recalled her words. “I can see now that she warned me about this sort of thing.”

  “Ordering surveillance was the
right thing to do,” said the German-focused section head. “Women aren’t as strong as we are, and family loyalties are keen in the royal ranks.”

  “Besides, she’s Russian,” said another man, in charge of Eastern Europe. “Are you really planning to marry her, Glass?”

  “Yes,” Glass said. “Other than her cousin, she has many fine qualities.”

  The man chuckled, but Glass bubbled with red-hot rage underneath his calm exterior. He’d get to the bottom of this betrayal. How could Olga not trust him? Lives were at stake.

  * * *

  When the meeting ended, Glass left the room, followed by Miss Drover.

  “I do apologize, sir,” she said. “I was hoping you knew about the princess’s contact with Konstantin. Special Branch only had one man on her and couldn’t follow the bomber.”

  “How many people had to make mistakes for it to come to this?” he snarled. “This sighting of Konstantin was yesterday. Disregarding the personal betrayal this represents, this is an intelligence failure.”

  “I tried to reach you, but you were not at the hotel,” Miss Drover said. “I am so sorry, sir.”

  His lips clenched. “We’ll discuss it later. I have a princess to come to terms with.”

  Glass left the unobtrusive row house where the meeting had taken place and began to walk, ignoring his driver. The peeks of sunlight through the clouds did not improve his mood during his half-mile journey through teatime London.

  When he reached the hotel, Johnnie Miles gave him the usual wide smile, but it faded quickly. Glass, realizing he did not wear his habitual impassive expression, forced a grimace and walked through the door the man held open for him.

  When he was through he turned back. “Call a taxicab for me and hold it. I’ll be down in ten minutes or so, and I need to leave immediately.”

  “Yes, sir,” Johnnie responded.

  Since Glass thought he knew the princess so well, he assumed she would have remained on the first floor, working on her reconstituted exhibit. The fact that he was right did not mollify him. She stood on a stepstool, her shapely ankles and calves on display as she righted a painting of Mary Magdalen weeping next to a large outcropping of rock.