The Way to London

by Alix Rickloff

  “Oh, right. It was from Ace. He said we’re to meet him tomorrow.”

  “Who’s Ace?” Michael asked, lips still twitching at Lucy’s discomfiture.

  “How do you suppose he knew we were staying at the Connaught?” she asked, shooting him a hostile glare right back.

  Bill was oblivious to it all. “I told you Ace has ears and eyes everywhere. If anybody knows where my mam is, it’ll be him.”

  “I said, who’s Ace?” Michael repeated.

  “If this is any indication, I expect you’re right. Let’s just hope he’s willing to share what he knows.”

  “Who the blazes is Ace?” Michael’s voice rose.

  Lucy glowered. “If you must know, he’s an old friend of Bill’s.”

  “Ace and me was best mates before I were sent away. He’ll help. I know it.”

  “I hope so, but don’t get your hopes too high,” Lucy said. “He’s not seen you in years. People change.”

  “Not Ace.”

  “Everyone can change, Bill.” Michael’s words were directed at Bill, but his gaze was locked on Lucy. “Even the people you least expect.”

  Lucy shut the door to the hotel suite’s bedroom. “To see him asleep, you’d never know what a little criminal he really is.” She crossed to the sideboard and poured herself a drink. “Gin?”

  “No, and neither should you.” Michael stood awkwardly in the vestibule, worrying the brim of his hat through his hands. “It’s late. I should go.”

  Ignoring his advice, she poured two glasses and snapped on the radio on her way to the couch. “You can’t leave until you tell me about your evening.” She pushed the drink into his hand and gently steered him toward an armchair. “So, sit down and start talking.”

  Despite his protestations, he didn’t fight her high-handedness, instead dropping into his seat with a slump-shouldered thud as if the air had gone out of him. “Not much to say. She’s the same Arabella I remember. Clever, funny, kind, accomplished.”

  Maybe Michael was right. She did suddenly feel a bit nauseous. She put the glass down on the table beside her.

  “She was very interested in hearing about you.”

  “I’ll bet she was.”

  “I told her that you were the one who persuaded me to come to London. That it was your determination to go after what you want that convinced me to do the same.”

  “But you think what I want is complete rubbish.”

  “I never said that.” When she stared him down, he shamefacedly ducked his head. “Okay, I did say that, but even if I think flying off to Hollywood with some California gasbag is mad, it doesn’t mean I don’t admire you for having the guts to do it.”

  Stop the presses. Michael admired her? He thought she had guts?

  Would wonders never cease?

  Words hovered on the tip of Lucy’s tongue, but before she could respond, Michael looked away, features drawn as he ran a hand absently over the left side of his chest. “It was just like you said it would be. Arabella missed me and wants to start over. We’re meeting back at the hotel and going on to a late supper.”

  Her words were left unspoken, which was probably just as well. Michael was easy. He was straightforward. He saw her as she was and didn’t run screaming. These qualities were worth their weight in gold.

  Love was the complete last thing she wanted.

  Hiding her chagrin, Lucy kicked off her heels and tucked herself onto the couch. “See? Auntie Lucy always knows best.”

  He gave a soft bark of laughter, dispelling any lingering tension. “Are you sure about that? How many gins have you had tonight?”

  “I lost count, but there’s still only one of you, so it couldn’t have been that many.”

  The romantic crooning of Frank Sinatra came on the radio. A sudden ache blossomed in Lucy’s chest before climbing into her throat, where it threatened to strangle her. She blinked away the betraying shine in her eyes and, snatching up her drink, polished it off in one gulp before meeting Michael’s gaze.

  He put down his glass. She noticed he’d emptied his in one swallow as well. “Right. Well, I guess I’ll be going, then.”

  “How about another one for the road? Fortify yourself before your lovers’ rendezvous?”

  “I don’t think it would be wise.”

  She crossed the room to the drinks cabinet once more, feeling his eyes following her. “If you’re worried about ruining my reputation, you’re at least five years too late. And if you’re worried about me ruining yours, well . . . maybe that halo could use a little tarnish.”

  “I’m not a saint, Lucy. Not even close.”

  He stood to leave. His dinner jacket was sadly rumpled, his collar button open, and the end of his discarded tie stuck out of his trouser pocket. Lines bit into the corner of his mouth and he carried himself stiffly.

  “Michael? Is something wrong?” She put down the glass and placed a palm against his forehead. “You feel warm and your face is all splotchy. It’s not the malaria, is it? Or your heart?”

  Their eyes locked. “It’s not the malaria.” He paused for the space of a breath. “Or my heart.”

  Butterflies banged against her rib cage with the force of cannonballs.

  Michael didn’t possess the glamorous mystery of Yoon Hai, not even close, but she found she preferred it that way. She had labeled him a sheepdog, but maybe being loyal, brave, and true wasn’t such a bad thing to say of someone.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Lucy.”

  His mouth was so close and he smelled of the pungent scent of Yardley’s and cigarettes. Heat bloomed in her chest and a shiver of anticipation shimmied up her spine. She had kissed him at the bus depot, a sisterly peck on the cheek. She didn’t want to be sisterly tonight.

  “That’s usually my line,” she whispered against his skin. It was all she had time to whisper.

  His kiss was just as she’d imagined—and nothing like it. Not gentle and gentlemanly but raw, devouring, demanding. She knew he was drunk. Hell, she was drunk too. But there was more than alcohol fueling their passion. There was loneliness, regret, and disillusionment. An always-potent aphrodisiac.

  She didn’t have long to enjoy it, though.

  “I’m sorry.” He shoved her away, his face flushed, eyes bright. “Coming here was a bad idea.”

  She tried to recapture her earlier cynical distance but it was hard when her lips tingled and her body ached with frustrated desire. “I think it was the best idea you’ve had in a while.”

  “Arabella probably thinks I’ve forgotten about her.”

  “We wouldn’t want her to get the wrong end of the stick.” She smiled despite a pressing grinding weight centered in her gut like lead. “After all, if it weren’t for Auntie Lucy, you’d still be pining away in Charbury.”

  She tried to keep the footing light and the banter crisp, if only to protect herself. Michael was a friend. Her only one when it came right down to it. She wouldn’t jeopardize that even for a leaping heart.

  “I appreciate your restraint,” he said with a wry answering smile as he shoved his arms into his coat. Took up his hat.

  “Don’t forget to send me an invitation to the wedding.”

  His smile faded and now he merely looked tired and almost puzzled. “You’ll be having too much fun in California to be giving us a thought.”

  “Maybe I’ll send up a toast from my lounge by the pool.”

  “Good night, Lucy, and good luck.”

  The door closed behind him.

  “Damn it.” She snapped off the radio. Poured herself another drink. “Damn it to hell.” She hurled her glass against the wall, where it shattered.

  This time there were no convenient waiters, and an ocean of alcohol wouldn’t fix what ailed her.

  Chapter 22

  Twelve hours and a weak spring sun did nothing to improve Lucy’s mood—or this bit of a battered London. The air seemed to carry a patina of grit that itched at her throat and coated her skin until she felt as
dingy as her surroundings. Old newspapers blew into the corners of bomb-damaged buildings while today’s headlines screamed from a stand in front of the newsagent’s shop. A queue of old-age pensioners formed in front of a mobile laundry.

  Lucy felt a bit like Cinderella after the ball. Aunt Cynthia’s evening gown put aside. Her Hollywood happy-ever-after abandoned. Even the kiss at midnight had been a complete disaster. And to put the cherry on her horrid morning, she had a splitting headache that started at her temples and ended near her ankles. Corpses possessed more joie de vivre than she did.

  A truck backfired, crashing through her brain like a machine gun.

  “You all right, Lucy?”

  “Couldn’t be better. Let’s just get this over with so I can be quietly miserable somewhere.”

  This morning, Bill had cocked a wary eye upon finding her sprawled asleep on the couch, and he’d continued to watch her cautiously through his breakfast of porridge and a soft-boiled egg and her breakfast of dry toast and black coffee. But he’d never once come out and said anything about her condition. In fact, he’d been rather reticent—which might have worried her had she any energy to be worried about anything more than putting one foot in front of the other.

  Bill led her off the main road and down a narrow shadowed side street. “Ace keeps a room behind his brother-in-law’s funeral parlor.”

  “How convenient. The better to dispose of the bodies, I guess.”

  “He’s not like that,” Bill countered.

  Lucy cast a wary glance around her. “I certainly hope for our sakes that you’re right.”

  Uneven cobbles threatened her ankles, and mildew climbed the poorly pointed brickwork of the buildings to either side while dirty water gushed out of a broken drain. Overhead, washing flapped in a stiff morning breeze. A baby’s plaintive cry echoed from an upstairs window, a man’s shouting from another, and two rough-looking boys loitered outside a door. They straightened as Bill and Lucy approached, their eyes hard, mouths pulled into bullish frowns. Bill responded by squaring his shoulders and lengthening his gait to an arrogant swagger. But it was his expression that went through the greatest transformation. A cold emptiness entered his gaze, his features flattening to a sneering hostility. “We’re here to see Ace.”

  “Ace ain’t seeing people right now. He’s busy.”

  “Not too busy to see me.”

  “And who the feck are you?”

  “I’m the boy what helped your sniveling self home to your nana when you broke your wrist climbing the fence behind the coal works, Moynihan.”

  “Smedley?”

  “Aye, who’d ya think it was, the Führer?”

  They circled him like dogs sniffing for a weakness. “You look different; sound different too. You been gone a long time. Ace is an important bloke now. Don’t see just anybody. Got to make an appointment. Got to get by us.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.” Lucy marched past. “Are we in a damned Jimmy Cagney movie? We have an appointment so step aside.”

  “Miss!” Bill shouted as she barged through the door.

  A young man started up from behind a battered desk, greasy newspaper spread out with a paper disk of fish and chips. He wasn’t particularly tall or particularly muscular, and his face bore the scars of an unfortunate skin condition, but there was no mistaking the slyness in his gaze or the menace in his stance.

  “Are you Ace?” she demanded.

  He buried his surprise almost immediately in a twist of his thin lips and a toss of his head as he studied her slowly and lasciviously. “Depends who’s asking.”

  “Don’t get cute. Are you or aren’t you? I’m in no mood for games.”

  “All right. Aye, that’s me.”

  Lucy had been admired by plenty of men, but this was different. She had a feeling it would take a good scrub to erase the feel of those hard eyes crawling all over her. She shoved her distaste aside. “Are you finished, or should I turn around and give you a view of the back side?”

  Bill choked, but Ace’s mouth turned up in an admiring smile. “The cat has claws.”

  “Sharp as knives, so don’t even think about doing anything more than looking. You sent us a note about Bill Smedley’s mother.”

  For the first time, he looked past Lucy to Bill. “Did I?”

  “Remember me, Ace? Smedley from round on Mansford Terrace?”

  He folded his arms across his chest and sat back down. Now that she had a moment to breathe, Lucy noticed packing crates stacked on the floor behind him, some stamped with the name of a company. Others ominously empty of insignia. The pistol in an open drawer of the desk she worked hard not to notice.

  He plucked at his lip. “Might do. Wasn’t you one of them what was always hanging about the back of the pub cadging smokes and swiping empty bottles? Where you been? I ain’t seen you about.”

  “They sent all us boys from St. Ladbroke’s School off to live in the country in case of bombings and such.”

  “That’s right. I remember seeing you lads parading down to the station like conquering heroes, mums and dads sniffling, tykes wailing, teachers barking orders like bleeding drill sergeants. And here you are, back again. Countryside spit you back out, did it?”

  “Weren’t nothing like that. Just didn’t get on, so I come back to take care of me mam.”

  “Seems to me Tilda Smedley has always known how to take care of herself. It was looking after you what tripped her up. Maybe she won’t be so keen to have you back. Ever think of that?”

  Bill reddened all the way to the tips of his ears, but it was his wobbly chin that sparked Lucy’s temper.

  A nasty right hook would serve the weedy little spiv right, but she didn’t want trouble. If Ace was her only path to Bill’s mother she’d suck up her own disgust and play the game as he expected it to be played.

  Fighting both her distaste and a bad case of nausea, she leaned a hip against the desk and lit a cigarette, tossing the matches aside and leaning back to draw a plume of smoke. “Look, Ace or Valentine or whatever your name is, I’ve barely slept, I have a hangover from hell, I’m homeless, jobless, and this close to picking up something heavy and smashing it over your rock head—”

  “Steady on, ducks. No need for hysterics.” He rolled back in his chair. “But I like your spunk. Not a lot of posh dolls like you would stick it to Ace in his own place.”

  “I like to think I’m unique that way, but did you or did you not send us this note? It’s a simple yes-or-no question.”

  “Aye. I did a little checking around and thought we could do some business.”

  “What do you mean ‘business’? You either know where Mrs. Smedley is or you don’t.”

  He leaned back, putting his feet on his desk, arrogance oozing from every clogged pore. “Oh, I know where she is and what she’s been up to. And I could tell you out of the kindness of my heart or for old times’ sake, but what’s that get me? A medal? Naw, old Ace has expenses. I’ve got a business to run, so I’ve got a proposition that could benefit both of us in a big way.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve been propositioned? And by men who would eat you for breakfast and spit out the bones? No thank you. We’ll find her ourselves.”

  He sat up, suddenly all businesslike. “London’s a big place, Miss Stanhope. I’m not asking much. My information for a little”—he looked once more at Bill—“assistance with a job. You can’t ask for a squarer deal than that.”

  “I don’t think we’d be interested in your kind of job.”

  “Don’t know what it is yet.”

  She took one more long look at the Aladdin’s cave of black-market goods. “I can surmise.”

  “It’s the boy’s mam we’re talking about.” He pushed the folded paper toward her. “Why not let him decide? Or are you afraid he’ll choose his old mates over some West End do-gooder?”

  “Do-gooder? That’s the first time anyone’s ever accused me of that.”

  “Lucy?” Bill said, coming
up alongside her; his face had lost its pinkness. He was once again hard, his eyes wary. “It mightn’t be so bad to hear Ace out. And if it’s only a little job . . .”

  “He’s conning you, Bill. He’s playing you for a sucker. That’s what his kind does. It’s what he tried teaching you to do.”

  “Ace?” Bill’s gaze moved, unsure, between them. “You wouldn’t do nothing that would get us in any trouble, would you?”

  “Of course not. What do you take me for?”

  “A petty criminal with delusions of grandeur,” Lucy snapped.

  Ace spread his hands in a gesture of sly surrender. “Sorry, mate. Looks like your minder here won’t play the game. You’re a sharp bird, Miss Stanhope, but you just might find we do things a bit different from what you’re used to. Good to see you, Smedley. Let me know if you change your mind.”

  “Come on, Bill.” Lucy pulled him out the door, slamming it behind her.

  Back in the alley, Bill shoved his hands in his pockets, his face gray and tight, but no longer possessing that menacing emptiness she’d glimpsed earlier. “Now what, Lucy?”

  Emerging from the shadowy alley into the sunshine was like taking a knife to the brain. She staggered with a hand to her eyes as her stomach rolled ominously at the sour scent of exhaust fumes and frying kidneys. She leaned against a wall, taking slow deep breaths. “Give me a minute. I’m thinking.”

  Bill kicked sullenly at a can in the gutter. “I’d wager Michael would know what we should do.” He slanted her a look from under the shaggy fringe of his hair.

  “And take immense pleasure in telling us in patronizing detail.”

  “He was fun.”

  “More laughs than Abbott and Costello.”

  “Clever too.”

  “He could read and write and even do sums,” she said, echoing Michael’s mocking answer to her earlier condescension, a hollow pit in her stomach. “A veritable savant.”

  Bill knocked the can into the street, where it was immediately flattened by a tram. “He wasn’t a rotter, was he, Lucy?”

  “No,” she answered softly, “he wasn’t.”