She folded her arms over her stomach. “That is the sort of thing that would have been whispered about, though not exactly valued. Not to insult you, but no one around here would be interested in running away to Russia just now. And I saw no other bag like the one this was in.”
His fingers tightened around the leather binding of the album. He would be happy to return. As soon as he could. “I assure you, I am not insulted.” He gave her another smile, though this one was sure to look sorrowful around the edges. “Well, this is more than I had really hoped to find. I thank you, madame, for taking such good care of it. Would that I had something to offer you as a token of my gratitude.”
For the first time, her lips quirked up. “That money helped feed my children through the last of winter. That is token enough.”
He inclined his head, thanked her again, and then moved off, putting his cap back on his head. Someday, no one would have to steal just to feed their children. Not in Russia, at least. They would all be equal, everyone given a fair portion—as soon as they’d wrestled the last of the wealth from the tyrants who had been hoarding it. That was why they’d had to get out of this war. Too many people had already died for it. Too many resources spent. And why? So that Czar Nicholas could keep on squabbling with his cousins. So all the princes and lords could gain new holdings, expand their empires, grow their power.
He turned right when he reached the lane, and a smile bloomed on his lips, pushing aside those thoughts. Nadya was just coming around the bend, and she lifted a hand in greeting.
He lifted the album in response.
She kicked up into a run, her skirt flapping. Another thing to make him grin. He hadn’t seen her in anything but soldier’s breeches since he met her, until she showed up in Paris. He didn’t much care what she wore, but it was nevertheless amusing to see her looking so much like a normal girl when he knew she was anything but.
“You found it!” Her eyes gleamed as she drew near.
Evgeni shook his head. “Not exactly. It is Zivon’s photo album, that is all. But the woman was quite helpful. She admitted to finding his whole bag and using or selling everything else. She also assured me my bag had not been found.”
Nadya lifted one dubious brow. “Do you believe her?”
Evgeni lifted one shoulder to match her brow. “We certainly haven’t found it elsewhere.” He motioned toward a low stone wall that separated one of the farms from the road and eased himself down, granting reprieve to his aching ribs and sore ankle. “And . . . it’s possible it’s with Zivon, I suppose.”
“What?” It came out as a hiss as she planted herself on the stones beside him.
He rubbed at his midsection. “I’ve been trying to piece together those last moments. So much is a blur. But I think—I think he had ahold of my bag. It could have remained with him. He could have it still.”
Her next hiss sounded like a locomotive running out of steam. “You mean to tell me that your czarist brother has the information our contact gave you? And that he has taken it with him to England?”
“I’m telling you he may have.” Mostly for a distraction, he flipped open the album again. Past the photo of him and Zivon. Matushka. Batya. Alyona with her passel of younger siblings. A few of the Moscow skyline. Newspaper clippings. A few older images.
Nadya rested her elbows on her knees. “Evgeni.”
Time and again he’d tried to get her to use his nickname. But Zhenya never passed her lips, nor did any endearment. He had half a mind to call her milaya sometime just to see what she’d do. “Nadya.”
She tilted her face to look at him. “We both know he was not just an interpreter. He was Intelligence. He . . . he could have information he shouldn’t have.”
“Could . . . or did? Do you know something I don’t?”
Instead of answering, she reached over to turn another page in the album.
So then. There was information she—or their superiors—didn’t want him to know. They were willing to trust him far enough to have him discover what he could, but not so much that they’d lay all their cards on the table, lest he decide to take his brother’s side.
He eased out a breath. “I could well have known what he knows by now, if not for the train accident.” Assuming Zivon would have listened to him. Talked to him. Actually told him what he was planning, instead of barreling ahead, thinking he alone knew how to plan their future.
Blast him. No one in the world could infuriate him quite like Zivon.
And he never missed anyone quite like him either. He shook his head. “I tried to tell them that killing Alyona was a mistake. Why did no one listen? Do I not know better than any how my brother will react?”
Her chin lifted, her spine straightened. “He had to be shown how steep the cost is for his allegiances. He had to be taught what pain feels like—what the rest of us suffered under the old Russia, that made us envision the new.”
He wondered, not for the first time, which of his comrades had pulled the trigger that day in Moscow. Had it been her? Another of their friends? He dug his fingers into the stone. “We killed his betrothed, Nadya. We’d have been better to poke a nest of hornets.”
“From what you’ve told me of him, I wouldn’t have thought him the type to lash out.” Her voice was modulated. Cool. The voice of a soldier on a mission, not of the woman who wrapped her arms around him and kissed him until the world fell away.
Sometimes he wished he didn’t love the hard side of her as much as the soft. He could hear Matushka’s voice in his head. “Why can’t you find a nice girl, Evgeni? One who will be content to tend your home and give me grandchildren?”
It had been her argument each and every time he’d rejected the suggestions she and Batya made about potential wives for him. “I’ll find my own wife,” he’d said then. His gaze cut again to Nadya. Or not. She’d made it quite clear she’d never marry, that she considered it a prison to which she wouldn’t submit.
Still, they had plans. They would find an apartment together when they made it back to Petrograd. They’d do what the party told them to do, advance in the ranks. They’d make a difference, build a new Russia. And if ever they felt called away from each other, they’d simply part ways.
But Zivon . . . Zivon had always been traditional. Evgeni shook his head. “Perhaps his rage is quiet. But that makes it all the more deadly. He will take everything he knows now and try to destroy the Bolsheviks with it.”
Her face was hard. “We won’t let him. We’ll go to London, we’ll find him, find what he knows, get the information the Prussian gave you—and we’ll silence him.”
It was a wonder the rock didn’t crumble under his fingers. “You will not kill my brother.” He’d been careful to say we before, when speaking of Alyona, even though he’d been kept out of the loop once they’d made a decision. But there was no we here. He would do many things for the party, for the new Russia, for this woman he loved, despite all logic telling him she’d walk away at the first sign of trouble.
But that wasn’t one of them.
Her hand landed on the photo album, tugged it from his lap to hers. “If you have a better suggestion—”
“I do. We convince him to live quietly, to retire from any military affiliation. He could have a career teaching at any major university, or translating again. He could just disappear, as so many of the nobility have done.”
Her gaze didn’t budge from the photo she’d opened to. “So what then? We go to London so you can convince him?”
“Hardly.” It came out a snort as much as a word. “He likely thinks I’m dead, and it’s best that way. I’ve never been able to convince him of anything—and he can see when I’m lying in half a second.”
With one of those disarming, lightning smiles of hers, she bumped their shoulders together. “So can I. And don’t forget it.”
And this was why he’d fallen for her so fast. He’d never met anyone else who could be so fierce and yet so teasing all at once. He leaned into her shoulder a bit. �
�He would never give up his career for me. We have to make him want to.”
She grunted and flipped a few more pages. Then a few more, but more slowly. Her shoulders relaxed. Her face went from hard to satisfied. “I think . . .”
He knew that tone. It was the one that had convinced him to make a risky charge at her side in the heat of battle. The one that had dared him to meet her later in an abandoned barn. The one that had insisted to their superiors that they could handle the meeting with the Prussian, and that Zivon’s determination to flee Russia would be the perfect ruse.
That tone meant trouble. And possible glory. And feeling more alive than he ever had before. “You think . . . ?”
She stared for another long moment at the photos and then sent him a sultry smile. “I think I know how to do this. We convince his new allies that they’d better not believe a word he says.” Slapping the album shut, she shot to her feet. “Come on. We have work to do, and if it goes as planned, you’ll have your way and his life will be spared.”
She didn’t add a But if not . . . She didn’t have to.
MONDAY, 29 APRIL 1918
Zivon moved to the edge of the roof, tilting his face up to receive the sunshine. He’d already finished his lunch, but there were a few minutes yet before he had to return to his desk.
Behind him, Clarke gave an exaggerated groan and stretched out his legs. “I don’t like the sprinting days. Give me the six-mile run over the sprinting any time.”
Zivon chuckled and cast his gaze out over the city. “I do agree. But the short bursts, they help build strength.”
“I know it. I just don’t like it. But at least I’m feeling fitter again. And I’m keeping up with you more easily—unless you’re holding back.”
Zivon shot his friend a half smile. “Do you really want me to tell you if I am?” In truth, he was putting in far more hours than Clarke each week, given that he ran even on their off days just to clear his mind.
Clarke laughed. “No. Let me luxuriate in my ignorance, thank you.”
A few of Clarke’s colleagues moved their way, balling up their paper sandwich wrappers, and asked him something about their afternoon’s assignment. Zivon took that as an excuse to move a step away and draw in a breath of crisp air. He’d woken up in a dark mood again today, thoughts of Evgeni plaguing him.
It had been two months. Two long, excruciating months since the train accident. Since he’d lost his brother. Since all the pieces he’d put together so carefully for his escape had been dashed off the game board.
Evgeni was likely dead. Zhenya dead, the information so carefully concealed in Zivon’s album burned up or blown away. All because of the Bolsheviks.
His gaze moved as far as it could over the city, toward the embassy. He hadn’t dared to visit again, not now that he knew Fyodor Suvorov could be around. But the conversation he’d overheard in the park eleven days ago kept coming back to him. The diplomats were still working for Russia too. Were trying to convince the Americans to join the White Army’s fight.
But he knew they weren’t having luck yet. Much as the Europeans considered the United States to have limitless resources, it wasn’t true. Especially when one considered that their greatest resource—their people—weren’t terribly sympathetic to the czarist cause, what with their love of democracy. Perhaps they viewed the soviets as morally superior.
They shouldn’t, though. They wouldn’t, if they realized that socialist “freedom” involved killing anyone who held a different view. That was no freedom. That was the worst form of tyranny—the kind that lied about what it was.
Could he help them see that, somehow?
Be still, and know that I am God.
The familiar echo made him huff out a breath, curl his fingers into his palm around his ring. Why did you create this mind in me, Lord, if you don’t mean me to use it?
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
Yes—and he prayed the Lord would hurry. Because he was mighty eager to see what it would look like. Maybe He would use the Americans or the British. Maybe He would simply smite the socialists with His fist. Maybe—
A flash of red-gold caught his eye. Someone moving toward the OB. Someone he recognized even from up here on the roof. She was in her nursing uniform but with her kerchief removed from her head, allowing that flash. As he watched, Lily rounded the building, aimed for the back.
Curious. Visitors never went to the back. And what would she be doing here? Her father was out of the office all day, hence why Clarke was fielding the questions from his colleagues. Zivon meandered around the roof’s raised edge, slowly enough that he’d look casual. But quickly enough that he could verify if she did indeed go inside.
He could just barely see her from up here. But he did. He saw her pause to speak to Hall. Saw Hall hand her something. Saw her nod. Then the admiral climbed into his automobile, and Lily disappeared into the OB’s back door.
Zivon eased back a step, mind clicking through it all. All the times he’d seen her here or near here when she had no reason to be. All the times Hall had mentioned having a photography expert.
The conclusion was logical. Undeniable. The only surprise, really, was that he hadn’t put it together sooner. Because having seen for himself her skill with retouching and developing photos, how could he think anyone but Lily Blackwell would be Admiral Hall’s unnamed expert?
His lips turned up. She, then, was the one Hall had shown that photograph to. And if anyone the world over could divine its purposes, it was Lily. She could see the beauty, the purpose in anything.
Lunchtime was over. Zivon turned toward the stairwell along with the others, touching a hand to his pocket as he went. Margot De Wilde had given him an invitation to her wedding that morning and mentioned that Lily had agreed to photograph the event for her. Camden had raised those sardonic brows of his and asked him if he intended to ask to escort her officially.
Three hours ago, he hadn’t really had an answer. Much as he liked Lily, courting an English girl seemed no wiser now than it had a month ago. But somehow, realizing her role here . . . well, she wasn’t just an English girl. She was an intelligence worker, as surely as he was. Maybe it shouldn’t, but that fact changed something. Made him realize they had more in common than he’d dared to think.
When next he saw Captain Blackwell, he would indeed ask for permission to escort her to the wedding. And from there . . .
Well, there were still too many variables for him to know for sure what would happen. But it was worth exploring, without doubt.
12
SUNDAY, 19 MAY 1918
The sigh seemed to build in Lily’s very toes before it worked its way up and out of her mouth. She’d snuck away after church and let herself into her workroom at the OB so she could go through another drawer in her filing cabinet. She still hadn’t found any other instances of those two German officers’ faces. But she’d awoken that morning convinced she had seen them before, somewhere.
Or maybe she’d dreamed it up in her desperation to prove to the admiral that Zivon was trustworthy.
She glanced at her watch and winced. She’d promised Ivy she’d be home by three o’clock to start getting ready for the wedding. Already four minutes late, and she hadn’t even left yet. But really, how long could it possibly take to slip into her gown and put up her hair?
Then again, she wanted to look her best. Today would mark the first time any gentleman had taken her to something without a parent or sister tagging along. That surely deserved some extra time spent primping.
Especially given that it wasn’t just any man. It was Zivon. He would notice the extra care, just as he noticed everything else. And maybe . . . maybe he would show her another layer to the matryoshka doll tonight. One in which he’d look at her as something more than just friend.
Well, regardless of his reaction, she needed to be on her way. Since it was likely to be a late night and she couldn’t exactly bow out early if she meant to photograph the entire De Wilde
-Elton wedding, she’d already alerted both Ara at Charing Cross and the admiral here that she wouldn’t be in tomorrow.
But she wouldn’t want to laze away the whole day, would she? After a moment of pursed-lipped staring at the fresh pile of film that had apparently been delivered for her yesterday, she scooped half the stack into her bag to process at home. Mama might be suspicious if she disappeared out of the house for hours, but she’d think nothing of her vanishing into her own darkroom at home.
Satisfied, she opened the door—and squealed.
The admiral jumped a bit too and chuckled as he lowered the hand he’d apparently just lifted to knock. “So you really are here. Mr. Pearce said he thought he’d seen you, but I didn’t quite believe it. Oughtn’t you to be getting ready for the wedding?”
She slid the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “I ought, yes. I was just on my way home—and am already later than I meant to be. Ivy will be champing at the bit, eager as she is to help me get ready.” She smiled, though it faded back to neutral when she saw he had a manila envelope in his hands. “Did you need something?”
He blinked. Regarded her for a long moment. And then backed up to let her out of the doorway, shaking his head. “Nothing that can’t wait until Tuesday, I’m certain. Let’s just enjoy the evening, shall we? After all, it isn’t every day that we get to witness the nuptials of two of our own.”
Another day, she might have pressed him. Today, however, she tended to agree. They fell into step beside each other and set a quick pace down the corridor, toward the stairs. “Was the photograph I sent up on Friday all right?” She’d spent painstaking hours working on taking an aerial photograph of one of their new Royal Air Force aerodromes and making it look a great deal busier—and fuller of planes—than it really was. Major Camden had even spent several hours at her side, advising her on where to insert tiny, blurred people, how to arrange the fictional planes, and so forth. She’d been rather proud of the result, which she had to think was being leaked even now to the German Luftstreitkräfte.
A Portrait of Loyalty (The Codebreakers Book #3) Page 14
