Blue Damask (9 page)

     “
Fraulien
.  Listen, listen. 
Fraulien
.  Calm down, Elsa.  Elsa.  Please, Elsa.  You must listen.”   She could only see his knees and his high leather army boots, the laces crisscrossed from his ankles to his knees.  She grabbed at them and held on tightly.  His voice came from above her, still in that honey baritone one uses to soothe frightened animals.  “
Bitte bitte, leibchen
.  Davies, I need help with Miss Schluss.”  Strong arms lifted her and drew her up and through the door on the other side of the car, the door now high in the air.  Fresh air blew in her face and blue sky greeted her.  She gulped the air and dug her fingers into the arms that held her.

     “Give her to me, Davies.”

     She would not let go.  If she let go she would tumble again.  Everything seemed to be spinning.

     “Brunnhilde?  Where are you now?  A Turk with a long knife did not frighten you, but a short ride in a car has you all upset.”

     Elsa turned to the voice and the face that belonged to it came into focus.  She looked at him and felt her senses return one by one.  She could hear again, and the shivery feeling in her arms and legs bled away to leave only a slight tremor.

     “I have just been in an automobile accident,” she tried to say calmly.  “I am suffering from shock and adrenaline exhaustion.”  It didn’t sound like it was delivered calmly.  Her voice sounded unnaturally high pitched to her and the words tumbled out of her mouth out of order and in several languages.  She frowned and tried to say it again properly but Sonnenby interrupted her by pulling her to his body and holding her tightly.  He was warm and his arms kept her from falling. She heard his voice rumble in his chest.

     “Davies.  Check them.  I am confident they are both dead, but take my pistol and make sure.”  She felt his arm move as he handed his pistol to Davies.

     “Yes, sir.”

     She heard Davies walk away.  She was afraid to take her face out of Sonnenby’s shirt.  She didn’t want to see the wrecked car or who was dead.

     “Miss Schluss?  It’s over.  It’s over.  You can come out now.”

     He tried to peel her off his chest.  His voice was starting to sound concerned.  Elsa made an effort to calm herself.  He was right.  It was over.

     She looked up.  His brown eyes were steady and confident.  The bruises on his face made him look fierce.  She took another breath and stepped back.  She realized both of her shoes were gone.  She looked down.  Her skirt was ripped up one side and her blouse had blood on it.  She fingered the splatters.  There was no pain under the blood stains.  She looked up again with a question in her eyes and Sonnenby’s face became sad.

     “The chauffeur.”

     She looked at the car.  It was on its side, wheels in the air.  All the windows were broken.  The sedan was a few yards away smashed against a boulder.  Davies leaned into one of the windows.  There were two neat holes in the windshield, one on either side.

     “I need to check the boot of the sedan and search the bodies.  Can you stay here by yourself?”

     She stood straighter and put a hand to the back of her head.  The chignon was gone.  Her hair was a tangle down her back.  Sonnenby gave her a sad smile.  “You’ve been tumbled in the back seat of a car, but not in a
nice
way.”  He took her arm and tried to sit her down on a boulder.  The two cars had left the road for some distance and traveled across the raw ground.  She saw the road below them as it wound up the hill.  She did not want to sit on a boulder.

     “Very well, then.  Come with me.  I want to see what I can before the authorities arrive.”

     She followed him silently as he made his way to the sedan.  Davies looked up as they approached.  He lifted a rifle and nodded.  Sonnenby went to the back of the sedan and opened the boot.  He bent over the fender and Elsa saw his shoulders moving as he dug through whatever was back there.  He stood up with two rifles in his hands.  His jaw tightened and his eyes flashed.  Davies asked him, “What are they?”

     “Lee-Enfield.”

     “Surely not, sir.”  Davies joined him at the back.  “All of them?”  His voice sounded incredulous.

     “Everything back here is British.”

     “Salvaged,” Davies suggested.

     “The packing cases are here,” Sonnenby challenged him.  “This one has never been fired.  There is a case of ammo never opened.”

     “Bloody fu—“ Davies shot her a glance and stopped himself.

     They both looked at Sonnenby as he searched the horizon, thinking.  After a long pause he asked, “Where is Mr. Marshall?  Why didn’t he ride with us?”

     “No sir.  No.  Mr. Marshall is not involved.” Davies was adamant.

     “Can you be so sure?” Sonnenby’s face hardened.  Elsa stepped back a pace, and then another until the back of her legs encountered a boulder.  She sat down.

     Davies set the rifle on the roof of the sedan with a determined clunk.  “I am certain.  He has been working on keeping you alive, my lord.  Not sleeping at night. He is constantly telling me to look out for this and some other.”  Davies rubbed his head.  “He found me in Leeds and brought me into his employment, sir. He knew I had been your batman in the war.  He thought it would make it easier on you to have someone you knew and trusted.  He didn’t have to do that.”  He looked long and hard at Sonnenby before adding, “He could have left you in the asylum.”  He paused and added, “Sir.”

     Sonnenby was thoughtful.  “I am grateful for you, Davies.  But I wish to hell I knew what was going on.”

     He used his shoulder and elbow like a piston to break out the window of the back seat.  He leaned in and pulled out a pistol, examining it as he had done before, and then checked the cylinder before tucking it in his belt.  He said to Davies, “What did you find on the bodies?”

     “Nothing, sir.  They could be Turks.”  He shrugged.  “They could be Armenians.  Arabs.  Greeks. Syrians. They are wearing street clothes.  They could be anything.”

     Sonnenby strode around the sedan and leaned in the open driver’s door.  Elsa watched him move the bodies around.  He was bent over them for a long time before he stood.

     “They are Turks.”

     “Yes, sir.”

     Sonnenby looked at her.  “Come, Miss Schluss, we have a boat to catch.”

     She met his eyes, “It’s not going to be much like a cruise, Mr. Sinclair.”
 

     They had not walked very far down the road before they were met by cars speeding up the hill.  The second one had barely stopped before the back door opened and Marshall leaped out.  He was on Sonnenby, feeling his shoulders and arms.  “My lord, are you hurt?”  His face and voice reflected sincere concern and he seemed unaware of the lack of decorum involved in putting his hands on a gentleman.

     Sonnenby did not respond, nor did his expression change as he permitted the examination.  His voice was very cold when he answered.  “I am unharmed, though Miss Schluss is quite disturbed.”

     “No, I’m not,” she said.

     Marshall turned to her.  “Miss Schluss?”

     She straightened the cuffs of her torn jacket and smoothed the tattered remnants of her skirt.  “I am perfectly fine.”

     “You have blood in your hair…”

     She and Sonnenby answered together, “The chauffeur.”  Elsa looked away for a moment, her composure slipping.

     Marshall took her elbow, “Please.  This car will take us to the ship.”

     Sonnenby put a hand on Marshall’s and deftly twisted the other man’s grip from her arm.  “I will put
Fraulein
Schluss in the car.”

     The two men stared at each other for a heartbeat.  Elsa was placed in the back seat and Sonnenby slid in beside her.  “I want you to go back to Vienna,
fraulein
.  Tell me you will go.”

     Elsa turned to him in alarm.  “What?”

     “It is not safe for you to be near me.  I want you to go back to your office in Vienna.”

     She stared at him.  He was being reasonable.  This was a very sane thing to say.   The sick feeling in her stomach did not mean she was frightened.  She did not want to go back to Vienna.

     She cleared her throat.  “I understand your concern, Mr. Sinclair.”  She looked at the back of the driver’s head for a few moments while she collected her thoughts.

     Sonnenby did not have the authority to dismiss her, but Mr. Marshall could.  She had no say in the matter.  If her services were no longer required she must obey.  But returning to Vienna meant that not only would she miss the opportunity to present at the conference, but she would have nothing to show for her efforts on this trip.  She could not write up a case study for Lord Sonnenby without results.  She looked sideways at him.  Could she say he had recovered?  Doctor Engel would see through any report she wrote.  Four days of treatment could precipitate a cessation of symptoms only, and then nothing to show that anything she had done had relieved him of his behaviors.

     Behaviors.  She winced. In four days she had watched him kill three men.  She watched him now.   He was grim.  He stared straight ahead and she could see his mind working.  She got the distinct impression that he was more insulted that someone wanted him dead than worried that they might succeed.  His face moved through various expressions as he thought.  He ground his teeth, then his cheek twitched.  His gaze hardened then relaxed as he puzzled through the events of the last few days.  He turned to her when he felt her eyes on him.

     “I will have Marshall see you off at the harbor.  He thinks you are finished with me anyway.  You can take a train back to Austria.”

     “I’d prefer not to go.”  She must not return tainted with failure.

     One eyebrow went up.  “Indeed?  Twenty minutes ago you were babbling like a child.  I thought I was going to have to slap you to bring you around.”

     She narrowed her eyes.  “A perfectly normal reaction to trauma, I assure you.  And slapping is not an acceptable means of treatment for shock.”  His face showed her he did not believe her.  She tried another approach.  “I am a nurse.  I can be of service.  Look what I did for your arm.”

     He gave her a short laugh. “That is a feeble attempt.  Try again.”

     “Are you cured?”

     This stopped his humor.  “You cannot cure me,
fraulein
.  The idea of a cure is Marshall’s folly.”

     Her heart sank.  He was probably correct.  Probably.  She swallowed hard and turned away.  He was getting too close to the tender area of her own psyche.  She had been very successful curing broken bodies, but had never has the satisfaction of knowing if her talking treatment had long term results with her subjects. 
Maybe I should go back
.  But not to Doctor Engel.  She could not face him if Sonnenby and Marshall rejected her.  She could always return to her family.  Her father wanted her to keep the books in his brewery.  Or she could work in the hospitals emptying bed pans and changing dressings and sewing up surgical wounds.

     She wiped her cheek.
I will not go back.
“
Scheiss
. 
Zum Teufel
”

     He did laugh then, but his face became serious when she turned to glare at him.  He said, “I don’t want you to be what we call ‘collateral damage’.  I would never forgive myself.  The guilt would be too much.  You can understand that.”  His eyes searched hers for confirmation.  “Psychologists understand guilt, right?”

     She did understand and softened her glare to mere disapproval.  “But Mr. Sinclair—“

     “Please call me ‘Henry’.  Three days ago you were calling me ‘Henry’.  I am terminating your contract as my therapist.  We are merely friends now.”

     “Oh,” she said, knowing he had no authority to terminate her contract.  She thought about this for a moment.  “If I return unsuccessful it will only reinforce my…”  She tried to think of the English word.  “…troubles.”  She sighed.  She didn’t know a better English word for
Schwierigkeiten
.  “The shame would be too much.  A military man can understand shame.”

     He sat back and looked at her with a different expression.  She couldn’t read this one.  She tried. It was like he had never seen her before. Or perhaps he never thought that she might have lofty ambitions.  Or that she must be taken seriously.  She watched him, waiting for something that made sense.  His mouth was a straight line and his eyes moved quickly over her body from head to her stocking feet.  She watched him think.  He rubbed his jaw and frowned.

     “I want to ask you a question…Elsa.”

     She nodded.

     “If I send you back to Vienna, what will happen to you?”

     She took a deep breath.  “I will most likely return to service as a nurse.  Or I will work for my father in his office at his brewery.  Doctor Engel has gently informed me that he has serious doubts about my readiness to present a convincing dissertation.”  She twisted her hands in the fragments of her skirt.  “I could work for years in his practice and he still might not consider me ready.”  She glanced at him.  “There
are
women doctors, Mr. Sinclair.  But they tend to be older women with much more experience, and a much more formidable appearance.”

     “I see.”  He leaned back in the seat and looked up at the roof as the car took the final turn to enter the harbor road.  “I am your dissertation.”

     She nodded again. “Yes.”

     “Yet your briefcase is still in the wrecked limousine.”

     “Oh
Gott
.”  This was the second time she had forgotten it.

     He stared at her.  “It never occurred to you to retrieve it?”

     “
Nein
, no.”  She put a hand to her forehead, going over those terrifying moments as the limousine rolled.  She remembered being confused.  She remembered being frightened.  She remembered worrying that Sonnenby had been shot.  She had not thought about her notes at all.  Not even when she was sitting on the boulder as the two men examined the enemy’s sedan.

     He continued, “I admit, I did not think of it either.  Marshall should retrieve it when he gets the luggage.  You will have your notes.  Do not despair.”

     “They are no use to me if I go back,” she said bitterly.

     “But how can I permit you to continue?”

     Elsa looked at her hands and said without thinking, “Maybe someone wants to kill me too, now.  Maybe if you send me back alone someone will.”

     His face blanched. “Good God,” he breathed and he seemed to wilt in the seat.  His hands shook.

     “
Ach,
” she muttered.  She moved closer and took his arm.  “I’m sorry.  That was uncalled for and I am ashamed I said it.”

     He swallowed hard.  “Stay then,” his voice was as unsteady as his hand was in hers.

     They sat in silence on the road down the hill to the shore.

The car pulled up at the docks.  Elsa looked out her window at the tall sides of the passenger ship, the
Oriana
.  A man in uniform was there to open the door and escort them up the gangway.  At the end of a corridor they were separated and Elsa was bowed into her room by a uniformed steward.

     It was a first class cabin as Sonnenby had promised.  The room was decorated in gold and white in a horrid Rococo style.  Her Austrian sensibilities considered it done in bad taste, but the Rococo sumptuousness might be what the upper class passengers expected.  A plump double bed sat snugly against one wall and an elaborate matching dressing table balanced the room.  A small group of comfortable chairs and a door separated the bedroom from the sitting room and the door to the corridors.    Her port looked out over the Mediterranean.

     As the ship’s rumbling engines powered them through the straights, another steward arrived at her door with her luggage. As she tipped him she noticed there were too many bags.  “Wait!” she called as he turned to go, “This one is not mine.”

     He looked at a card in his gloved hand.  “You are
Fraulein
Schluss?  Travelling with Mr. Archibald Marshall and Mr. Henry Sinclair, Lord Sonnenby?”  He glanced up at her and she saw him struggle to keep his face impassive.  She knew she looked a sight in her torn clothing and bloodied hair.

     She frowned.  “Yes.”

     “Then this is your bag, miss.  It has your name on the ticket.  See?”  He tipped the case so she could see her name clearly written on the tag tied to the handle.

     Elsa thanked him and after he had gone, lifted the bag to her bed.  It opened to reveal that it was stuffed full of lovely silk stockings and white blouses and black skirts as well as two dresses in colored blue silk.  Two white silk scarves to wear over her hair were folded near the bottom.  On the bottom were three pairs of heeled shoes, two in black and one in a shining white satin.  But on the top lay an exquisite gown in the finest blue silk damask folded in thirds.  The exact blue of her eyes.

     She lifted it high to see that it was formal evening wear.  Sleeveless. Tiny pearls were sewn into the neckline and over the thin silk straps that went over the shoulders.  Shining white beads were sewn in swirling patterns along the bodice to the waist, following the pattern of the damask.  It had a short beaded fringe starting below the waist and in thick rows to the hemline that would swing and sparkle with every movement of her hips.  It was cut full in the bosom with generous darts.  She blushed, knowing whoever had bought it must have had to estimate the size of her breasts.  She lowered the gown to the suitcase again.  Who had bought it?

     It had to be Mr. Marshall.  Sonnenby and Davies had not been out of her sight for more than a few minutes since they left the train.  Marshall had mentioned the bazaars.

     She stiffened her back and closed the case.  Of course she could not accept such a gift.  One disobedient hand lifted the lid again and moved smoothly over the expensive silks inside.  But oh, she certainly wanted to. 
I will think about it in the bath. 
Her stateroom had a bathroom with sink and toilet and a porcelain tub and hot and cold running water.  She locked her door and shed her shredded clothing on her way to the tub.  A long hot soak was what she wanted.  Nothing else.

     For the second time in two days she watched bloody water swirl down a drain.  She shook her head at what had started as an assignment to further her career.  Now as she sat dripping in the bottom of an empty tub she wondered what she was trying to accomplish.  A knock at the stateroom door interrupted any insight that might have come to her.  She climbed out and wrapped an oversized towel around her middle as she stepped to the door.  She leaned close and called, “Who is there?”

     A thin white envelope appeared under the door.  She bent down, one hand on her towel and picked it up.  She opened it and pulled a small card out and turned it over.  It read, ‘
Please dine with me at 8 o’clock.  Archibald
.’

    
Oh dear
.  She padded over to the dressing table and set the card down.  She moved the towel to her hair and fluffed it up before using the comb.  She stared at herself in the mirror while she worked the long ends.  This assignment was growing more complicated.  She felt completely lost in this situation.  She pointed the comb at her reflection.

     Her middle-class upbringing had not prepared her for this kind of society.  She did not know the correct way to answer such a note.  She did not know which gown in that new suitcase was correct for dinner in a first class dining room.  The plain blue ones or the blue damask?  She did not know how to fix her hair.  She had no jewelry.  She had no hat.  Must one wear a hat in a formal dining room?  She saw the color rise in her cheeks.  Mr. Marshall had not packed a hat in that case, only the white scarves. She did not know. 
I am a brewer’s daughter
, she reminded herself. 
Not a fine lady
.