He heard unspoken thoughts in her voice. What were they? “You didn’t have any nightmares last night.”
Her lips curved. “You chased them away.”
* * *
Alecia woke on Thursday morning, later than usual, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Wednesday had been horrid. She couldn’t stay with the Marvins much longer. Sybil was attending rehearsal in only the most limited fashion, before dashing off with claims that she needed to meet someone or other for her new play. Richard was sinking into a gloom and had been nipping at a flask all the previous afternoon. He’d demanded Alecia go to dinner with him in the hotel restaurant and then pawed at her all through the meal, until he was in a stupor. The night watchman Swankle had helped her take him upstairs. After Swankle left, Richard had made the most foul proposal to her, in language she scarcely recognized as Anglo-Saxon.
When she remembered how lovely the sexual act could be in the right hands, it made her want to cry. How could Richard Marvin reduce it to that? Sybil had a lot to answer for, treating her husband like discarded trash, but then, if this behavior was habitual, Alecia wasn’t sure she could blame Sybil.
Would today bring more of the same? Sybil no longer told her what her day’s schedule would be. Ovolensky was arriving tomorrow and the command performance would be the next week. At least Sybil hadn’t been lying about knowing her lines already, unlike some of the other actors.
Alecia rose and went to her jug of water to begin her ablutions. She’d been afraid to leave the suite the night before to see Ivan, for fear Richard would become ill from his overindulgence. Ivan had apologized, so he wasn’t angry with her. And she was grateful that Peter Eyre wasn’t angry with him. After what they had done in the Piano Suite, she had hopes of a real relationship with Ivan. She needed to start thinking about his career over hers. If they married, her job would be to support him, not criticize Peter Eyre, who controlled Ivan’s immediate future. Not that he’d offered her any hope in that direction.
After she dressed, she went into the corridor and back into the main room of the suite. A tea service had already been delivered and Sybil was seated behind it in an ornate, Egyptian-style dressing gown, her long braid dangling down her shoulder while she read a newspaper.
“You’re up late.”
“I hadn’t been sleeping well and now I am catching up,” Alecia said, sitting next to Sybil on the sofa and pouring a cup of tea.
“I had a note from Mr. Eyre slipped under my door,” Sybil said. “About Richard’s shocking behavior in the restaurant yesterday evening.”
Alecia took a gulp of her tepid tea, but said nothing.
“I told you, darling, you needn’t encourage him. Why did you allow it?”
“Allow what? Should I have said no when he ordered me to dinner? He doesn’t like to eat alone.”
“That is not your concern, Alecia. Don’t be a child. You must have known what he had in mind.”
“In a restaurant?” Alecia said. “I had to have known he’d attempt to make love to me in public?”
“He was drunk,” Sybil said. “Anything could happen. Going to dinner with my husband is not part of your duties.”
Alecia wanted to make a cutting remark about Sybil’s disappearance, but wasn’t foolish enough to risk it. She didn’t understand how the night’s disaster could be laid on her doorstep at all, but somehow Sybil seemed to be laying some blame at her feet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. He was forceful.”
“But not so forceful that you didn’t take the time to wear one of my dresses to dinner.”
“It was the velvet,” Alecia said. “I still had it in my room from the other night.”
“Take it to Ethel now, to curb such impulses in the future,” Sybil said.
“Yes, ma’am, of course.” Alecia drained her teacup and went to retrieve the dress, feeling very badly used. Sybil could have Ethel clean the wine stain courtesy of Richard’s clumsiness the night before. When the maid didn’t answer her door, she returned the dress to her own wardrobe, and felt not the slightest bit guilty.
* * *
Ivan buttoned his coat in front of the mirror in the employee lounge just before he went upstairs to begin his rounds. At eight P.M. the main floor would be busy with diners and Eyre’s acolytes in the Coffee Room. Eventually the traffic would move from the Restaurant to the Reading Room, and the Coffee Room crowd would drain into the nightclub, but that was still a couple of hours away. He’d be diligent until eleven or so, then check the service corridor for Alecia. The hotel would probably be quiet. The Plashes were gone and the Gypsies had been scared off for now. No troublemakers had moved in. Tomorrow, Ovolensky would arrive and security would be heightened.
“Evening,” Swankle said as he entered the room.
“Running late?” Johnson asked. He glanced up from the Daily Herald, then folded it and set it down on the arm of the ancient armchair he sat in.
“Bloody bus,” Swankle said in answer, pulling off his muffler and tossing it on his hook.
Ivan went to the notice board and saw Eyre’s staff note was all about plans for tomorrow. Swankle followed him, stripping off his overcoat.
“The watch staff is being increased by fifty percent,” Swankle read over his shoulder. “What is Eyre worried about?”
“Lots of unhappy Russians in London.”
“Not as many as Paris, or even Berlin, right?” Swankle said. “I don’t understand it myself. The tsar’s been dead so long. It’s all old news.”
“You aren’t Russian. We have long memories. Besides, no one knows for sure what happened to the imperial family.”
“Sounds pretty cut and dried to me. Except maybe for Princess Anastasia.”
“Grand Duchess,” Ivan corrected. “Forgive me for not discussing Russian politics with you, but I need to get on with the evening.”
“Don’t be daft,” Swankle said. “I was only teasing.”
“None of it was funny,” Ivan said. “You’d feel the same if I made disparaging comments about Queen Mary.”
Swankle shrugged. “I don’t much care about the royals. What have they ever done for me? Guess I have more in common with the Bolshies than I realized.”
Ivan turned on his heel and stomped out. There was a time when he wouldn’t have minded Swankle’s levity, but it seemed inappropriate with Ovolensky on his way. The tragic past was coming back to life.
Two hours later, he’d completed his first rounds and was walking through the Grand Hall, making sure everything was in its place.
“Mr. Salter,” called the night porter, curling his fingers around the pocket watch that hung from a chain attached to his waistcoat.
Ivan walked toward him as the man gestured him forward.
“I can’t leave the floor. There’s an intoxicated man in the Coffee Room who isn’t with his wife, if you know what I mean, but I happen to know his wife is in the Restaurant dining with her sister.”
Ivan’s eyes widened. “Can you keep them apart?”
The night porter’s expression was pained. “I can do my best. Mr. Eyre is still in the Coffee Room. Could you take this note to him so he can be apprised?”
“With pleasure.” Ivan took the note, on folded hotel stationery, and nodded at the night porter.
When he went into the Coffee Room, he found it in full swing. The high, arch voices of fashionable men said silly things; half-drunk women swayed on their high heels, tittering.
Mr. Eyre saw him and gestured him over. Ivan handed him the note, and his manager said, “Some trouble with the band tonight. Trombone player has hurt his hand.”
“Can they find a replacement?”
“Working on it now.” Eyre opened the note and sighed, then lifted his chin at a rotund banker-type with a black-haired vamp on his lap. “There’s trouble.”
“It all loves to come to the Grand Russe.”
“We want it to keep coming because it makes money. But let’s not tell the salacious
tale to our guests until tomorrow.” Eyre winked at him. “Since I have you here, can you take this to the Chinese Suite?” He pulled a creamy envelope out of his pocket as a bottle of champagne popped nearby, sounding like a gunshot.
Ivan flinched but took it. “What is it?”
“Invitation to a drinks party at Number Ten. Ovolensky, of course.”
“Of course,” Ivan repeated. His jaw ached from the effort of not clenching it in front of his employer. “Straightaway.”
“Sorry to make you a messenger. I have this sense we are short-staffed tonight, though I don’t think we are.”
“Some nights feel that way,” Ivan agreed. “Is it a full moon?”
“I can’t remember the last time I saw the moon,” Eyre said. “By the way, did you find out if the Macbeth banquet is going to be Russian?”
“Miss Loudon did say there were elements of Russian interest integrated into the play, including the banquet.” He hadn’t learned anything that made him think his sister was involved in the preparations, however.
“Very good. Anything you can learn,” Eyre said casually.
“I’ll take my leave.” Ivan inclined his head and walked away, ignoring the frivolity behind him.
He took the service lift to the Chinese Suite and knocked on the door, but no one answered. When he pressed his ear to the door he couldn’t hear anything inside, but the walls were solid. He walked down the hall to Alecia’s room but had no answer there either. Should he push the note under the main suite door? He had a feeling that Mr. Eyre wanted the message delivered personally, and he knew the Marvins weren’t in the Restaurant.
They could have stepped up rehearsals with the command performance coming so soon. So he went back to the lift and took it to the first floor where the play was going to be performed.
The first floor seemed deserted, which was common at this time of night unless there was an event in the small ballroom. He stepped off the lift, wondering where the Marvins—and more importantly, Alecia—were.
He decided to check the connecting rooms anyway. Swankle had this floor for rounds tonight, so he didn’t waste time looking around. Not a soul was in the corridors. All the drama was on the ground floor tonight. He took a moment to stop in front of his favorite painting in the hotel. While he didn’t recognize the exact landscape, the view of a river with a dacha on the banks was a memory of someone’s beloved, lost home. While it reminded him of Tver, it wasn’t his river in the painting. He could feel the artist’s memory being employed. The work was unsigned and he had yet to meet anyone who recognized it. The brushstrokes reminded him a little of van Gogh, but more delicate. The same intensity of colors was the chief point of comparison. He had the sense that a woman had painted it.
A sound came from the end of the corridor. A chair squeaking on the floor? Something falling? He left the painting as his senses went on alert. All the doors to the connecting meeting rooms were closed, but there was nothing else at the end of the corridor. Had a piece of scenery or prop fallen? Was someone down here after all?
He pushed open the first door and found the room empty, though the chandelier overhead was still on. The divider between the rooms was half up. Beyond it was the room with the raised floor.
He heard the sound again, a dragging noise. Striding forward, he reached the room divider and bent it back against itself, folding it against the wall.
The scene was like something from a movie. Little in the way of furnishings decorated the stage; only a scarred wooden table and four chairs. A gin bottle and two glasses waited on the table with half of a sandwich on a plate, the meat curling tiredly around the bread. Richard Marvin was bent over Alecia, dragging her on the floor by her hair and the collar of her dress, which was pulled up under her chin. She coughed and struggled weakly, but her dress must have her half strangled. Richard seemed to be pulling her under the table. As Ivan ran forward, the fabric of her homemade dress made a tearing sound. Alecia clawed at the floor.
Richard bumped the table with his hip. The bottle wobbled and fell on its side. Gin poured onto the table and dribbled off, wetting Alecia’s hair.
Ivan didn’t think. He closed his hand into a fist and swung at the older man, using his entire torso to lend weight to the move. Marvin bowed back comically, then fell over Alecia, his leg striking her shoulder. Ivan climbed over his lover and grabbed for the man, pulling Richard away from her. Richard had lost his grip on her torn dress but still held some of her hair. Maddened, Ivan kicked and punched until Alecia had pulled herself into a ball, away from the two men, free of Richard’s grasp.
Richard attempted to land a blow of his own, but only caught Ivan in the shoulder. Ivan grabbed him in his best approximation of a wrestling hold and took him down, hard, to the floor, stunning Richard into stillness.
Alecia moaned and Ivan saw Richard held a fistful of her long blond hair, pulled painfully from her head. He winced. How that must have hurt.
“What’s this!” A shout rang out behind them.
Ivan, breathing hard, didn’t move or look behind him. “Alecia? Are you well?”
She didn’t answer. A moment later, Swankle peered over his shoulder.
“He was attacking Alecia,” Ivan gasped. “Miss Loudon.”
Swankle’s oniony breath disappeared as the man moved away. “Are you all right, miss?”
Ivan heard Swankle kneel next to her. All Alecia could do was cough. When Ivan turned his head, he saw her holding her reddened throat.
“What happened?” Swankle asked.
“It was the scene,” Richard wheezed. “Act five, scene eight. Macduff drags Macbeth’s body. I had trouble with the blocking.”
“Liar.” Ivan tightened his grip on Marvin’s shoulder and arm. “You’re playing Macbeth, not Macduff.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt her.” Richard’s reddened face suddenly calmed. “And if Miss Loudon wants to keep her position, she won’t contradict me.”
Actors.
Chapter Fourteen
“She reeks of gin,” Swankle reported, staring down at Alecia, her legs drawn against her torso as she leaned against a table leg, coughing.
“Marvin knocked the bottle over on her. I saw him hit the table.” Ivan’s hand clenched around Richard Marvin’s shoulder.
Marvin moaned theatrically.
“Let him go,” Swankle demanded of Ivan.
“You can’t believe him,” Ivan said. “I saw him dragging her by her hair and dress. Look, you’ll see it is torn. Her hair is in his hand.”
“Miss Loudon?” the other night watchman asked.
She, still in a ball, merely held her hands to her throat and coughed.
Ivan repeated himself. “He ripped her dress. He was pulling her by her hair, Swankle. You can’t believe him.”
“You saw what you did, and he has an explanation for it,” Swankle said stiffly. “As a guest of this hotel, I have to believe him, unless the young lady says different.”
“Can you speak?” Ivan begged her.
She coughed again. Tears leaked from her eyes and drifted down her cheeks. He wanted to go to her, but was afraid of what the other man would do next.
Richard waved his hands feebly in the air.
“You have to let him up, Salter,” the other watchman said. “She works for him. Let him go.”
“Find a doctor,” Ivan suggested. “She needs medical attention. Get Eyre.”
“Not until you let him go,” Swankle said in a patient voice.
Ivan’s left arm trembled, a sign of how tightly he was holding the actor. With a growl of frustration, he lifted the man slightly then released his grip. He heard Marvin’s forehead thud on the hollow stage as he swiveled around and went to Alecia.
“Go for a doctor,” Swankle said when Ivan reached Alecia.
“You do it.” Ivan knelt next to her.
“I can’t trust you with Marvin,” Swankle told him. “It has to be you.”
“Alecia?” Ivan asked, wiping
away the track of a tear. “Do you feel safe here for a few minutes?”
“He was going to rape me.” Her voice was a broken thread. “I wasn’t teasing him.”
“I know that,” Ivan told her, as Swankle’s eyes widened. “You’ve been trying to do your job, nothing more.”
She reached for his hand. He wrapped his other arm around her shoulders and he helped her sit up. “You shouldn’t have hurt him.”
“It was instinct. I’m not sorry,” he said.
“He’ll have your position.” She coughed.
“I don’t care.”
She wheezed when she took a breath. “I’m going to lose mine.”
“You can’t stay with the Marvins now.”
“She needs rest,” Swankle said. “Stop talking. If she can stand, take her to her room, get the doctor, and send Mr. Eyre to me.”
Ivan frowned as he turned to the younger man. Where had he developed such an air of authority? Swankle was more than he had seemed before. He would have to watch carefully to make sure the night watchman didn’t have some involvement in the bombing matter.
Reaching an arm around Alecia’s back, he helped her to her feet. “What do you think?”
She coughed, the spasm racking her thin frame. He could see her collarbone through the torn collar of her black dress. Marvin had needed to use some force to tear the serviceable fabric.
“I’ll carry you,” he said, bending his knees so he could slip his arm under hers and swing her up. Without a backward glance, he took her out of the room and walked toward the service lift. “Should I take you directly to the hospital?” he asked.
“I don’t think it’s that bad. I was in shock. He came at me suddenly.”
“This had been coming for a while. Were you drinking with him?” He knew Marvin had a creditable tale. Did she?
“No. He offered, even demanded, but I’m not such a fool as that. He’s been making advances. There’s no liquor on my breath.”
“Good.” Ivan held her against him as the lift went down. On the fifth floor, there were people in the halls. A middle-aged woman looked at him with great suspicion, but he kept his head high and held Alecia close. She’d closed her eyes as if to hide from their audience.
If I Had You Page 19
