If I Had You (4 page)

Ivan made a face. As if everyone didn't know that Mr. Eyre was having an affair with a resident. He'd come out of room 502 twice when Ivan was making his rounds. The problem was, he was the man in charge. The rules didn't apply to him.

Ivan could only hope the hotel manager's attention didn't continue to wander through the fifth floor and alight on Miss Loudon. He'd seen how they danced together. People said how you danced was how you made love. If that was true, Miss Loudon would be a veritable goddess in bed.

But, he wasn't about to lose his job over a secretary, even if she was beautiful when she came out of her shell and put on a rich lady's dress. He'd had trouble walking when she'd left the dance floor, all but stunned to his knees. The rest of the night he'd imagined himself tangoing with her, a sheik to her sheba, the beads of her dress flying behind her as they took quick turns on the dance floor. Only discipline had kept him focused on his work. He'd stopped one fight over a woman near the nightclub bathrooms and removed a known pickpocket from the premises.

Neither of them had a glamorous life, despite the previous evening. The closest they had to that illusion was the Grande Russe and the unusual opportunities it afforded. Little did Miss Loudon know what his life had been like years ago, before the war. But all that was long gone now, all the glitter of his childhood, his parents' world, swept away by war and revolution, Lenin and Ovolensky.

“Busy day ahead of us?” Swankle asked, coming to the notice board.

“Bad-tempered, more like. The entire hotel has a hangover.”

“And no surprise. But the staff cleaned up so well you'd never know the place was covered with bunting and confetti and wine bottles last night.”

“It's amazing that such a high-caliber staff could be recruited, given the hotel's reputation,” Ivan commented.

“Unemployment. People will take anything,” Norman Johnson said, joining them. “Most of the younger staff probably didn't know about the murders and the ghosties when they applied for a position.”

Ivan snorted. “I've never spoken to anyone who has seen these supposed ghosties.”

Swankle smiled. “You don't spend any time chatting with the chambermaids. I've only worked here a day and I've heard two stories.”

“Attempting to scare the new hire,” Ivan said dismissively.

“A very effective attempt. I won't be wandering around in the ballroom at night with the lights out, I'll tell you that.”

“They say the actresses were killed in a demonic ritual,” Johnson said with a leer.

Swankle shuddered. “You Russians are a superstitious lot, right? You think that sort of thing is for real?”

Ivan shrugged. “I've never seen a ghost.”

* * *

Sybil dabbed scent on her wrists. “Help me with my Chanel, will you, darling?”

Sybil lifted her arms over her head, and Alecia climbed on a chair with the heavy, beaded dress and helped Sybil shimmy into it. Her maid had the day off.

“Do you think I should still reveal so much skin at my age?” Sybil said, after looking at herself critically in the mirror.

“I would never have believed you were thirty-nine if I hadn't seen your papers,” Alecia said. This wasn't entirely untrue. Certain aspects of Sybil's figure had become a bit middle-aged, but not her arms, legs, or face.

“Thank you. My grandmother always looked very young. Cucumbers. That's what she believed in. Like the Russians.”

“Russians believe in cucumbers?”

“They adore them, darling, simply adore them.” Sybil sat in front of her dressing table and applied her lipstick. “We're going to dinner with the
No, No, Nanette
people tonight. Let's hope it turns into a job for me.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Pray Binnie Hale breaks her nose or something,” Sybil said. “That's the break we need.”

“Oh, I can't pray for that. I'm a vicar's granddaughter, you know. How about a bad case of bunions?” Alecia said, only half joking.

Sybil whistled in response. “Then you really aren't going to like what I have to say next. This needs to stay strictly confidential, but you're a good girl and I think we'll be able to keep you employed for a long time.”

Alecia put her hands to her temples. She knew that tone. It was a threatening kind of tone. She remembered it well from her less than successful attempt to study nursing. Sybil was about to say something that could cost her this job, her room in the Grand Russe, and her view of the entrancing but infuriating Ivan Salter.

“What do you mean, Sybil?”

Sybil sang a few notes.

The words “lover's oasis” caught Alecia's ear and gave her a clue as to what was coming. “What is that from?”

“ ‘Tea for Two.' From
No, No, Nanette
, you see. I'm practicing so I can break out in song for this evening.”

“It's a nice lyric.”

“And appropriate for the Grand Russe. So many handsome men here. It does turn a girl's head.”

“It's the uniforms. They make all the men look so broad-shouldered and fit,” Alecia said.

Sybil raised an eyebrow in the mirror. “Uniforms? Oh no, darling, the man I have in mind was in white tie and tails.”

Alecia met her employer's gaze. “If you mean Peter Eyre, he already has a mistress. Miss Plash. She lives on this floor.”

“Why is she still a miss, I wonder, at her age? Did she revert to her old name after a divorce?”

“Fiancé killed very early in the war. Or so the rumor goes.”

“Oh, she's not so much younger than I am. She should have been married before that.”

“That's all I know. Our chambermaid told me. I was asking questions because I was concerned about Mrs. Plash. She was very confused the other night. Talking to a fern, that sort of thing.”

“Goodness,” Sybil said. “With such distractions as that, it should not be too hard to knock Miss Plash out of the running.”

“But how old is Mr. Eyre?” She thought him to be about the same age as Ivan. Much too young for Sybil.

Sybil set down her lipstick. “It hardly matters. I'm not looking for a husband. But I'll need you to lie for me, whenever I'm missing.”

Alecia chose her words carefully. “What do you want me to say?”

“That I'm beautifying. Men always believe that. It's so often true.”

“I should say something like you are having a manicure somewhere new?” She opened Sybil's manicure case and set the tools to rights.

“Or I'm on a quest for the newest lipstick shade. Only inexpensive things. Do not panic my husband.”

“Of course not.”

Sybil picked up a gold and red enamel bracelet and slipped it on one arm, then held it up for admiration. “I must say, I'm surprised you are going along with this so easily.”

“I knew theatrical folk were different,” Alecia said. “And London isn't Bagshot.”

“Steer clear of Mr. Marvin at any rate. You don't have to think he'll need a substitute for me. I'll keep my end up in my marriage. I just want to have a little fun. Being married to an older man can be such a bore at times.”

“Yes, of course.” Alecia took the jewel case that Sybil handed her. “I'll take this down to the safe.”

“Thank you.” Sybil looked up with a broad, happy smile as the door to the adjoining room opened and Richard came in. She accepted his kiss on her cheek.

“Very nice, poppet. You'll be a shoo-in for the part.”

“The understudy part.” Faint wrinkles showed on Sybil's upper lip as she pouted.

“You'll have your chance to go on stage. Meanwhile, we have this command performance to consider.” Richard checked his arms in the mirror and turned one of his square gold cuff links.

Alecia left the room as silently as she dared. She'd thought the pair completely attuned. Perhaps they were, but only in matters of business. They did have separate bedrooms, even in an expensive hotel, and had been married for seventeen years. Did all marriages go this way?

She did wonder, though, what would happen to her position if the affair was discovered, along with her part in helping it along. She might end up returning to Bagshot sooner than she'd like.

While she went down the five flights of stairs to the lobby, she had time to think. In general, long marriage or not, she was horrified by Sybil's behavior, or at least how she planned to behave. Alecia's cheeks heated at the thought. She didn't know much about sex, but at least she knew a little about kissing now. She suspected Ivan was good at it. Did he have a sex life?

Oh, don't think about that.
Once she started she wouldn't be able to think about anything else. Some modern girl she was. But what lay underneath that handsome uniform? A broad chest? Muscled arms? Toned thighs?

She swallowed hard as she reached the door to the main floor, panting audibly. It was the stairs. She needed to take more exercise. A long walk every day. Yes, that was the ticket. Or dancing.

She breathed slowly until both her body and her mind were calm, then put her hand to the doorknob just as it began to turn. She stepped back, clutching Sybil's jewel case.

When the door opened, she saw Ivan, just as if he'd been summoned by her thoughts.

“Hello, Mr. Salter.” She smiled, not even a little bit shy. More acting. Cinderella, not a mouse.

Instead of speaking to her, much less teasing her like he had before, he scarcely nodded in her direction before starting his climb upstairs.

“No kiss?” she asked bravely.

“No, miss.” He didn't even turn around.

Tears pricked her eyes as she rushed into the lobby. It was as if he hadn't even recognized her.

A bellboy ran past, almost colliding with her as he called, “Mr. Hiram. Mr. Hiram!”

Two fashionable girls in fur coats slipped by next, their hats dotted with snow. A nanny hauled along her charge, his dimpled knees red with cold below his short pants.

They could have been ghosts for all she cared. Her lovely fantasy, destroyed. What a little nothing she was. Why had she thought their flirtation meant something?

I
van walked past the crates of late winter greens at the greengrocer's on the ground floor of the building he and his sister lived in. At nine
A.M.
the local women were busily shopping, scooping up watercress and dandelion leaves and everything else that was edible. The grocer's daughter smiled brightly at him, and her father scowled. But, dead on his feet, he ignored them both and went through the shop, then unlocked the weather-beaten door in the back that led to the two-room flat above, and slowly climbed the steps.

He finally had his day off. He planned to sleep and sleep and maybe dream about Miss Loudon in her borrowed Vionnet dress and sexy shoes. Perhaps his dreams would put him in Peter Eyre's place, his hand on her bare back while the beaded strands belled out behind her on the dance floor. At the very least, he hoped he would hear the tinkling ivories of that talented pianist the nightclub employed and remember the gorgeous smile of music-loving Miss Loudon.

He and Vera had been saving up for a camera record player. They could get one for about four pounds. Not nearly as fancy as a nice cabinet Victrola, of course, but Vera could take it to parties when she catered her Russian specialties. She might even be able to charge for it, if they had the newest records. They figured they could budget for a new recording a week and build up a nice little collection rather quickly.

In fact, he'd given her a first record as a Christmas present. He'd bought “It Had to Be You” by Isham Jones and his Orchestra, an instrumental recording that any budding singer at a party could sing over. That would not be Vera, who, as much as she loved music, could not sing. The sentiments of the song, being sad and glad together, fit how he felt about his sister and their lost family. He was glad he and his sister had a chance to start over, but wished the rest of them could have been there too, even if they'd had to stay in Russia. Damn that Ovolensky and his evil denunciation. He wondered if his cousin enjoyed the art and collectibles he'd no doubt plundered from the family dacha. Servants had taken everything portable, but that had mostly been their mother's jewelry.

Sergei Bakunin, Vera's fiancé, greeted him at the top of the stairs. They had known each other as children in Moscow. One day fifteen months ago, Sergei had shown up at their door here in London. In a little while, it seemed as if no time had passed, and he easily fit into their little Russian-centered lives in the East End.

Over time, though, Ivan had noticed Sergei was political, as political as his sister Catherine had been, though they did not share beliefs. Vera's views had been changing too, to match Sergei's. Sergei identified with the White Russians, who wanted a tsar back. No one really knew what had happened to Tsar Nicholas, though by now, it was assumed he had been executed in 1918 along with his family. But Sergei expressed a longing to go on a pilgrimage to Berlin to see if the reputed Grand Duchess Anastasia was real. Even though, as a female, she could never have the throne, she was a useful rallying point for the Russian exiles.

The true tsar in Sergei's mind was Grand Duke Kyrill Vladimirovich. He dreamed of infiltrating the small circle of Romanovs who lived in England, but had no entry into the circle. His affectations and dandified wardrobe, which he could ill afford, irritated Ivan, but he loved Sergei for his sister's sake, and for the nostalgia of their shared childhood.

“You look tired,” Sergei said in Russian, the only language they spoke at home.

“Six days on, one day off,” Ivan said.

“But it's mostly standing. Not hard labor.” He pushed the bridge of his glasses more firmly against his nose.

“Walking, forever walking,” Ivan said. “That has its own form of exhaustion. No letting your mind rest while your body works.”

“But it is so glamorous,” Sergei exclaimed. He eked out a living driving a cart at a train station. “I imagine you spend most of your time paying attention to lovely ladies.”

“Some of the time,” Ivan said with a smile. “But it hurts to look and not be able to touch.”

Sergei let out a guffaw and slapped Ivan on the back. “It is hard to walk for ten hours with an iron rod in your trousers. Come, have a few glasses of vodka.”

“Why don't we work on your English, instead? So you can find a better job?”

“Vera wants to speak to you.”

“Not now. If you don't want to practice, I'll have a sandwich first,” Ivan said. “Then sleep.”

“No time for sleep,
bratishka
,” Vera said, appearing in the doorway of their front room, where they cooked, sat, and Ivan slept. “We have big news.”

Ivan looked at his sister with eyes that felt full of sand. “Unless you have recovered Mother's diamond bracelet that went missing in Hungary, I cannot imagine I care right now.”

“Oh, but you do,” Vera said, taking his hand and pulling him toward a plate of cheese and cucumber sandwiches she had placed on the battered table in the corner.

Ivan sat, observing the way Sergei put his arm around Vera's thin shoulder and caressed it. He hoped they were going to marry soon. She had lost weight recently, as if worry had been whittling her to the bone. Her neck looked too thin to hold her elegant skull upright. Picking up a glass of milk, he said, “What, then?”

Vera looked up at Sergei, then leaned her head into his shoulder. “Georgy is coming to London.”

“Ovolensky, you mean?” Ivan said, snatching half a sandwich. On rye, just as he liked. He took a drink of milk then a bite of his sandwich. “Yes, he's staying at the Grand Russe.”

“You knew?” Vera shrieked.

Ivan nodded, his mouth full of food.

“The Grand Russe, of course,” Sergei said, stroking his small, pointed beard.

Vera smiled with satisfaction. “That will make it even easier. We will have no trouble avenging our parents with his murder.”

* * *

“Let's work on act three, scene four,” Richard Marvin said, settling back onto the sofa.

Alecia sat in the matching armchair—though he'd suggested they share the sofa—holding a script. “It's Macbeth's line first.”

“Right.” Richard gazed at the ceiling. “Hmm, I always forget this part. The dull bits tend to escape me without a daily review.”

“ ‘You know your own degrees,' ” she prompted.

“Ah, yes.” He gave the rest of the short speech with no problem, and they made it through the next exchange in the script.

“Where is Lady Macbeth?” Richard asked, since her line was up next.

Alecia couldn't believe that Sybil had already begun her disappearing act. She'd hoped Mr. Eyre would turn down the aging actress and everything would go back to the way it had been during the first couple of weeks of her employment.

“I believe she said she'd chipped a nail last night,” she said cautiously.

“Manicure, eh? Can't anyone at the hotel do it? There is a salon.”

“I don't know where she found an appointment.”

“No doubt my Sybil had to attend the most fashionable manicurist in London, with matching wait times and costs,” Richard said. “Ah, well. You can read all the parts, except Macbeth of course.”

“Yes, sir. ‘Pronounce it for me,' ” Alecia said, finding her place in the script again. She wondered how long it would be before she had the Marvins' bread-and-butter plays memorized just like they did. Mr. Marvin had known the first two acts of the Scottish play perfectly.

A knock came at the door. When Richard nodded, Alecia stood up and went to answer.

“Mr. Eyre,” she said, when their guest was revealed.

“Don't look so shocked, Miss Loudon,” said the hotel manager.

She wondered how he had managed to escape Sybil's clutches. Perhaps she had gone for a manicure after all. “I'm simply surprised to see you for a second time so soon, sir.”

He smiled, making an already handsome face devastating. A lock of golden hair had fallen over his brow. He pushed it against the darker hair at his temples. “Does it please you to see me?”

She curled her fingers around the door, willing herself not to blush. “Of course, unless there is some trouble with the suite bill.”

He chuckled. “Not at all, Miss Loudon. I hope you will come down to the Coffee Room some evening. You are often about late at night. As am I.”

She inclined her head. “I have seen your crowd in the Coffee Room. All Bright Young Things. I would not fit in.”

His gaze raked her from top to bottom. “Not in that rag,” he murmured. “Why don't you visit our dress shop? They can smarten you up.”

“M-maybe when I'm paid next,” she stammered.

“A young lady like you, freshly arrived in London. You owe it to yourself to dress as the person you want to become,” he said. “Do you have any artistic leanings of your own?”

“I just wanted to be in London.” Alecia heard steps behind her. Then Richard came up, almost against her, his body heat radiating onto her back.

“Who is this then, Miss Loudon? A beau?” Richard peered over her shoulder. “Oh, it's you, Eyre. What brings you to our digs?”

“I need to discuss the command performance.”

“Excellent. Come in. I'll have Miss Loudon fix us a little drinkie and then she can go about her business.”

Alecia had no idea what he meant. She shifted her weight away from him. “Business?”

Richard inclined his head to Peter Eyre and pulled Alecia aside so he could enter. “Have a seat. Don't mind the scripts. You can see we chose the Scottish play for our Russian guest.”

“Excellent,” Peter Eyre murmured.

Alecia followed Richard out of the sitting room. She balked when she saw he meant to have her enter his bedroom, but she was in a pickle now. Rubbing her hands together, she followed him into his room. He closed the door and pointed to his bureau.

“Mix us up some manhattans, will you?”

While she didn't know how the drinks cart had landed in his bedroom, when it normally belonged in the main part of the suite, this routine was familiar. Alecia nodded and chose vermouth, whisky, and bitters bottles. She'd learned to make the cocktail for her parents when she was twelve. They never indulged in the maraschino cherries, though, that Richard and Sybil insisted on. Drinks-making had been one of the reasons she'd been hired. She'd had to prove she could make a manhattan, a martini, and a sidecar. Sybil had opined that Alecia's sidecar was as good as any Ritz bartender could make, and thus, she found herself employed.

While she poured the liquors into a cocktail shaker, Richard rummaged around in his wardrobe. She had the drinks on a tray by the time he came back, holding a small jewelry case.

“Have a look at this,” he said, thrusting the case at her.

She opened it to find an achingly lovely bird brooch. “It's exquisite.”

“Sapphire, diamond, abalone, and platinum,” he said. “Quite out of date, of course. Some Russian admirer gave it to Sybil on our tour.”

She stroked the abalone belly of the bird. The iridescent blue shimmered. “What am I to do with it?”

“Ask the concierge for a reputable pawnshop and pawn it,” he instructed.

She frowned. “How sad. He's such a pretty bird.”

“He came from Russia, and he can be used to buy us better costumes,” Richard said. “I have some ideas for new staging.”

“Why do you have to pay?”

“They won't give us a budget commensurate with the way I want to do things,” Richard said. “I won't do anything by half. We'll sort it out, and we'll retrieve the bird later. Off you go now, I want to speak to Mr. Eyre in private.”

“I'll gather my coat then, and go. If I could have taxicab fare?”

He grunted and found her some coins. She took the brooch and walked out of the door in his room that led to the corridor, not wanting him to even notice that doors connected their rooms.

She was attempting to cultivate subtlety, something the nursing sisters in her failed program claimed she lacked entirely. They had let her go after she made a third patient cry. Now, however, she hovered between utter silence and complete outspokenness in her personal life, not sure what subtlety was, precisely. She went downstairs, telling herself she was thrilled to be having an adventure, not terrified of venturing into London alone.

The concierge told her to try Poplar High Street in the East End. She was to look for the characteristic three balls hanging on the brick wall above the side entrance. In the taxicab, she drank up the metropolitan sights as best she could through a heavy downpour as the streets became steadily grittier.

On Poplar High Street, the shop the concierge had recommended looked rather prosperous, more so than she'd expected, with a nice clock inlaid above the door, gaslights hanging over the crowded display windows, and even some ladies looking into those windows at the assortment of wares less fortunate families had made available.

The rest of the street made her well-ordered soul quail, however. While a couple of public houses, out of several choices, were in equally excellent condition, the rest of the shops were in ill repair, and many of the windows were boarded up. Being near the Billingsgate fish market, the air had a generally marine feel to it. While she wanted to explore London, this did not seem the place to begin. She suspected this was the street where dockworkers came to drink.

She entered the shop quickly and nervously, but the clerk seemed to be the standard London man of business, and Richard had told her the amount she had to obtain for the brooch. Thankfully, the clerk said he could probably give her more than Richard had demanded, so she didn't need to negotiate.