Lady Be Good

by Heather Hiestand

  She stood, shaky on her legs. “Oh, Douglas, you do wonderful things—and horrible ones.”

  “I am sorry for what I have put you through.” He lifted his hands and dropped them again, an uncertain gesture for such a self-assured man.

  She faced him squarely. “I would prefer to spend my time with my sister. I do not want to marry you. We will return to the grand duchess’s care. I have lost the protection of the Redcakes. So be it. We will begin again. I will sell more paintings.”

  “Konstantin still had your money on him,” Douglas said. He put his hand into his coat and pulled out an envelope.

  She didn’t recognize it. Was it really her money, or had he just pulled the funds from somewhere? Either way, she couldn’t afford to be choosy.

  “I understand you are highly emotional right now.” He held out the envelope and sat.

  She wanted to scream, to strike him. But she swallowed the bile in her throat. She had Fyodora to think of. She needed that money. Her hand went to the envelope, and he released it. “I appreciate that. Ten days, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “I shall see if Bert Dadey will take me back at the boardinghouse. Konstantin didn’t do any damage there, thankfully. And I’ll find another chambermaid job. I’ll try at the Savoy.”

  He stared at her, all that scarcely contained masculine energy seated on that appalling sofa. “Stay here, Olga. You’ll feel differently with some rest.”

  She glanced down at her ring. The diamond seemed to wink at her, as if trying to share a joke, but she could see no humor. She pulled off the ring and set it on a little candy dish, empty, on one of the wicker tables. “No. With my cousin’s death, I have no more ties to the world of espionage, no more ties to my childhood visits to England. I do not want this life of lies and danger.”

  “Very well.” His mouth had lost all its usual mobility. “Send a note to the hotel if Bert Dadey takes you back, and I will have your trunks delivered. They are still in my suite.”

  “Good.” She shoved the envelope in her pocket and went to find her coat. In the front hallway, she was able to get her arms into her sleeves, but she couldn’t seem to sort out the buttons.

  Hands came out of nowhere, helping her button it up and then helping her with her gloves. She felt a small, cold circle thrust between the leather and her skin. Her engagement ring.

  “I don’t accept that this is over, Olga. You are grieving, and I’m trying to accept responsibility for that. There is no logic to pain. But you are still my fiancée, still under my protection.”

  She lifted her chin, scarcely able to see him through tears she didn’t remember shedding. “When will you finally let me go?”

  “Strawberry season. If that comes and you still hate me, well, you can return the ring then.”

  She wondered why he had made a face, as if something in his mouth tasted foul. “That’s months from now. I’ve only known you a month.”

  “You knew your cousin all your life,” he said. “It’s only right to give you time to process his death.”

  She folded her fingers over her palm. “Why aren’t you angry with me? I’m being very hateful.”

  “I’m sad and sorry,” he said, “not angry, at least not with you.”

  “Then who?”

  “Konstantin. Peter Eyre. Your ties to them were stronger than your ties to me.”

  His eyelids lowered, and she had a vision of him older, the skin around his eyes loosened, still handsome, still distinguished, but burdened by ever-increasing cares. Someone had to support him.

  But it couldn’t be her.

  She slipped her hand through the straps of her handbag and opened the front door. When she had it open, she put the key to the building next door and the door between on the small table. The ring as well.

  “Funny, isn’t it? You gave me two of the three keys I needed to get in. I wonder what kind of metaphor that might be for our relationship.”

  He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “Not a good one.”

  She left then, somewhat blindly, but was careful to go out the way she’d been shown so that she wouldn’t be seen leaving his actual building. When could she let caution go and finally be like any other woman?

  * * *

  Glass went through the motions the next couple of days. He listened to the Russians, wrote his reports. When Redvers Peel came to spell him at his listening post on Monday so that he could attend a meeting at Special Branch, he found himself in front of the Imperial Art Gallery instead of at the meeting place.

  He went inside and headed for where Olga’s paintings had been located the last time he was there. He found the section of the wall had been rehung with some rather muddy religious paintings, definitely not hers.

  “Lord Walling!”

  He turned around and found Margery coming toward him. She wore a loosely draped day dress with wide pockets at the waist. He could tell the crisp fabric was brand new. She reached her hands out to him and clasped them.

  “What brings you in?”

  He tilted his head toward the wall. “No paintings from the princess?”

  “No, we sold what we had, and she hasn’t brought anything else. Too busy?”

  “Her cousin died,” he said, leaving out all of the pertinent details.

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Have you heard from her at all?”

  Margery straightened one of the new paintings. “No. Why?”

  “She’s having a difficult time of it. Not employed at the Grand Russe any longer. Back at the boardinghouse.”

  “I’d rather she focused on painting,” Margery said frankly. “She’s too talented to waste time with other things.”

  He suspected she wouldn’t be pleased to know Olga had wasted time considering marriage. “Is there anything you could hire her to do for now? So she can spend her days around art while she’s regrouping? She did that lovely installation at the Grand Russe with the hotel art.”

  “I saw the exhibit,” Margery said. “I’d be happy to hire her to supervise rehanging our walls. Where the eye falls is very important, the lighting, all of that matters.”

  “That would be good. I don’t want her to sink into depression, and I know too much has changed in her life in a short time.”

  Margery’s eyes went shrewd. “You can’t help her?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “She doesn’t want my help. Her sister is coming from Shanghai finally. I don’t know what effect that will have. She’ll need her friends around her.”

  “I never really thought of her as having friends. She’s so quiet and self-assured.”

  “I can see why you would think that. She’s so competent, but she’s a social being like the rest of us.”

  “I’ll write her a note and ask her to come and see me,” Margery promised. “What about you?”

  “Busy,” he said. “Need to get to a meeting.”

  “Don’t want to answer questions?”

  He shook his head.

  “Some days, I miss your brother so terribly.” Margery sighed. “Now that we’re in touch again, let’s stay in contact, shall we?”

  He smiled. “I’d like that. Remember the good times.”

  She nodded. “Something’s terribly wrong with you, Douglas. I knew your family well enough to read your emotions.”

  “It will be sorted or not.” He shrugged again, realized there was nothing more to say. Turning on his heels, he lifted his hat to her and went to his meeting.

  * * *

  On his way back to the hotel more than an hour later, he found himself wishing he dare stop at Montagu Square and speak to the princess about the disturbing news. Full translations of his surveillance caught news from Moscow read aloud. Mikhail Lashevich had been officially made head of the trade delegation. Mail intercepted at the hotel indicated a new romance as well. He was exchanging letters with Queen Mary’s dresser.

  That intel gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The princess
would have the best insight since Grand Duchess Xenia was friendly with her cousins, the king and queen. But he knew he couldn’t approach Olga, even though he’d refused to accept her termination of their engagement.

  He touched the pocket over his heart, where her ring rested. It wouldn’t leave him until she accepted it back.

  * * *

  Olga stepped into the Imperial Art Gallery on Tuesday as per the owner’s note that had requested a meeting, eager to put her hands on her money. For the first time, she’d opened a bank account the day before, sure with Konstantin’s death that there was no one to borrow, steal, or be gifted her meager savings. She’d also given Harold Plash his painting, and he’d seemed delighted. In her sketchbook, she had ideas to show Mrs. Davcheva. If the gallery owner approved of any of them she planned to start painting immediately.

  Instead of Russian memories, she’d thought to do some London paintings. She had three nice sketches of Hyde Park scenes, all of them with children. If she painted them, she knew she’d do it with tears running down her face, sadness over the children she would never have with Douglas.

  “Why so mournful, Your Serene Highness?” Mrs. Davcheva asked, coming up to her in the small gallery entry way. The space wasn’t decorated. The walls were stark white, all the better to soothe the senses before the riotous colors in the rooms beyond. Olga sat on the bench next to the door and placed her sketchbook in her lap.

  She avoided the question. “I have some ideas for new work. I wanted to see if you were interested or if I should continue as before.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be interested in anything you try,” the woman said, dropping her formal address as Olga had previously requested for their business dealings. She took a seat.

  Olga stared at the reds and golds in the panel of patchwork sewn into the woman’s dress. They reminded her of the Grand Russe uniforms. She blinked and clutched at her notebook. “Well, then. Did you just want to pay me for the work you sold?”

  “Not just that. Come into my office.” She rose and gestured for Olga to join her. When they reached the office behind the gallery, she unlocked one of her desk drawers and pulled out an envelope. “Here you go. That’s everything, so we do need more work from you.”

  “Yes, I intend to paint a great deal,” Olga said, taking her money. “My life will be quieter now, and my sister is coming soon. I want to be able to see her.”

  “Were you planning to change your style?”

  “No, just the subject matter. A bit of London for a change.”

  “Very good, as long as it isn’t dreary. We do have a steady tourist trade, and they will snap up a good London painting. The Russians, though, they want Russia.”

  “Maybe half and half then,” Olga said. “I want to be sensible.”

  “Yes. Keep one clientele happy while building another,” Mrs. Davcheva said. “I had another idea for you as well. Actually, Lord Walling’s idea, though I quite agree with him.”

  “What is that?”

  “I understand about your sister coming, and of course I want you to paint as much as possible, but you did such a lovely job with your exhibit at the Grand Russe. I did wonder if you would help me rework the exhibit space here to make it more inviting. I believe you have a gift for drawing the eye.”

  Olga nodded. “Interior design was very important to my mother. We learned to create an inviting home. Of course, I’ve learned color theory as well.”

  “Artists do, but you have an extra talent, I believe.”

  “What did Lord Walling have to do with the suggestion?”

  “He feels that you need work. I don’t think he understands how talented you are as an artist.”

  “He’s used to thinking of me as a chambermaid with a hobby,” she sighed.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  Olga glanced away. “He feels guilty, even though I broke off our engagement.”

  Mrs. Davcheva’s eyebrows rose. “You were engaged?”

  “Yes, I had his father’s approval, a family ring.” Olga shook her head.

  “Love?” Mrs. Davcheva suggested.

  “I loved him,” Olga said. “I don’t know how he feels. But I broke it off, not him; he’s steadier than that.”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Davcheva sat in her desk chair and Olga followed suit. “I’ve known Walling since we were quite young. It’s my belief that he loves you. I hope you didn’t break it off because of that.”

  “He didn’t propose because of love.”

  “That doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The Walling I know is very detached, but he didn’t act in that manner at all when I saw him. Genuinely concerned for your well-being. Looked ill, really.” She trailed off suggestively.

  Olga wanted to believe Mrs. Davcheva’s words, even as she protested. “He seems foolhardy. He takes risks.”

  “Really?” She smiled. “Some ex-soldiers do, you know. Makes them feel alive. They need the juices in their blood rising.”

  “Is that what it is? I don’t want that at all. I want peace.”

  “You’re an artist. He’s a soldier. With marriage, you have to accept some fundamental differences. Men will do silly things, dangerous even. Driving in races, for instance. I don’t understand it, but my husband finds the sport fascinating.”

  “Lord Walling likes action,” Olga agreed. She wanted to put her head in her hands, but, even though this woman was kind, she was still the closest thing Olga had to an employer right now. “Thank you for your counsel.”

  “Will you take him back? I wish you would. He needs a strong wife. He and his father are so alone, just rattling along. Plus, all that money needs a good chatelaine.” Mrs. Davcheva grinned with vulgar cheer.

  “Do you miss his brother, the one you loved?”

  “So terribly. But you have to cultivate amnesia about certain things. And so many of us lost our boys in the war. We didn’t marry our first loves, those of us who have husbands. I know your first fiancé died.”

  Olga was struck by that, by the realization that Maxim’s killer was in London now, and that people like Douglas were all that were standing between the Hand of Death and another girl bereft of her loved one. “Yes, he did. I lost him to murder and now Douglas to foolishness.”

  Mrs. Davcheva leaned forward. “Don’t let foolishness keep you from happiness. You deserve it, my dear. We all do.”

  Chapter 20

  It had been nearly two weeks since Glass had seen Olga. His pulse raced as he ushered Princess Fyodora Novikova into a government-chauffeured car to deliver her into her sister’s care. How would she respond to seeing him again?

  Olga had sent him a polite note a few days after he’d last seen her, thanking him for his intervention at the Imperial Art Gallery. He’d seen the Davchevas socially, at a benefit dance that he’d attended at his father’s bequest, and Margery had insisted that Olga would return to him in time. She had counseled him to let Olga be.

  Olga had done no such thing. While it made sense for her to stay out of the Grand Russe, since Eyre had banished her, she could have asked to meet him somewhere else. But, nothing, just the note, as formal as any communication between two strangers.

  Even now, she could be growing his child in her belly. But it had only been three weeks since they’d made love for the first time. Plenty of time to mend things and marry if she’d only forgive him.

  “Who does my sister reside with?” Princess Fyodora asked, in a much thicker accent than her sister’s. She didn’t have her sister’s curves either. Glass knew they were Irish twins, just under a year apart, and this was the elder. Fyodora’s hair was darker, and she had a couple more inches of height, with a pronounced elegant angularity. He wondered if it was by design or lack of money for food.

  Her clothing, like much of Olga’s, looked like it had been purchased the previous decade and had been carefully preserved since. Fine quality, but faded and threadbare, the hems too long for current fashion.

  “Her Serene Highness is resi
ding in a boardinghouse. My secretary spoke to Mr. Dadey, the owner, a couple of days ago, and we understand she has taken the parlor suite now, which has a sitting room and two bedrooms.”

  “Who pays for this?” the princess asked.

  “She does. Her finances have been difficult due to your late cousin’s perfidies, but she is selling her paintings as well as consulting at a gallery.”

  “Good. This work is suitable. She can take care of me?”

  Glass, watching closely, saw the tremble in her gloved fingers. “I believe so.”

  “I had understood she worked in a hotel, for our old friends the Redcakes,” she said. “This is what I was told when I was contacted by the British consulate.”

  “She, err, had a breakdown in that relationship.”

  “My sister was burdened as a child with a sharp tongue,” she said. “This is still the case?”

  “It was my fault, ma’am,” Glass said. “Your sister did nothing wrong, and I am terribly sorry I caused the breach.”

  “The Redcakes are a tolerant lot, as I recall. Quite Bohemian. You must have done something terrible.”

  He regaled her for the rest of the drive with the story of her cousin’s death and the attendant strain on Peter Eyre and Princess Olga.

  “Has she called off the engagement?” the princess asked as he finished.

  “She returned the ring.” He touched his pocket.

  Her shrewd eyes followed the path of his fingers. “I see.” She patted his arm. “We shall soon set her to rights. My sister is headstrong but not a fool.”

  “I love her,” he said softly. “I dream about her at night, but then I wake, and she is not with me.”

  She nodded but stared straight ahead.

  He rubbed his eyes. His sleep had been interrupted nightly with these dreams. He was not himself.

  At Montagu Square, the princess asked about the faded girls’ school sign still etched into the bricks and slowly walked up the front steps, leaving Glass and the driver to wrestle with her two worn suitcases.

  Bert Dadey appeared after she’d allowed Glass to ring the bell, dressed better than usual in a suit, his tie crooked. “Your Serene Highness, such a pleasure,” he exclaimed and hobbled backward so they could enter.