City of Jasmine (3 page)

We collected a taxi at the station and after a harrowing ride through narrow streets, the driver deposited us neatly on the walk in front of the Hotel Zenobia, a new establishment in a very old structure. Once a pasha’s palace, it had been only recently converted to a private hotel. It was decorated in the traditional Eastern style with courts fitting together like so many puzzle boxes, each with its own staircases and tinkling fountains where gilded fins darted through the pale blue petals of the lilies. Outside, the manager—a tall, elegant Belgian—was waiting. He bowed and kissed Aunt Dove’s hand, murmuring something into her ear. She dropped her eyes and gave him a doelike look from under her lashes, and before I knew what was happening, he snapped his fingers for porters and in a very short time we were ensconced in the largest suite in the hotel. It was a delicious mixture of Damascene luxury and European sensibility with a wide veranda and comfortable sitting room linking our bedrooms. The bedrooms had modern furniture, but the sitting room was fitted with traditional Eastern divans, long and low and thick with tasselled silk cushions.

The maids bustled, unpacking and hissing at one another in French and Arabic, occasionally breaking into giggles when they discovered something unexpected like my leather aviatrix suit or Aunt Dove’s French underwear. But I merely stood and surveyed the surroundings while Aunt Dove flipped through the post that had been waiting for us.

I gave her a suspicious look. “Do you know the manager? From before I mean?”

Her expression was determinedly innocent. “Who? Étienne? Oh, our paths have crossed from time to time.” Before I could ask more, she took me in hand. “We’re travel-fatigued,” Aunt Dove pronounced. “It happens when one passes too quickly from one culture into another. I’ve always said trains were uncivilized. One ought only ever to travel by steamship or camel.”

“So sayeth the woman who has learned to fly my aeroplane,” I remarked. A large bowl of orchids had been placed upon a low table between the cushion-strewn divans and I bent to sniff it.

Aunt Dove waved off my remark. “That is entirely different. Aeroplanes are novelties, not real travel. No one would ever want to use them for anything other than publicity. Now, I want a beefsteak and a cigarette and a stiff whisky, not necessarily in that order. Go and wash for dinner, child. It’s time to see Damascus.”

* * *

Thanks to a broken strap, I was ten minutes later than Aunt Dove in getting ready and found her in the crowded lobby. She was wearing a gold turban with her great paste emerald brooch and an armful of enamelled bangles that clattered and clinked as she gestured. The lobby was one of the many courtyards of the hotel, this one furnished with the usual divans and endless pots of flowering plants and palms. Soft-footed servants trotted back and forth with trays of cocktails and little dishes of nuts while a discreet orchestra played in the corner. The place was thronged with international visitors, most of whom were craning to get a look at Aunt Dove. She was chatting animatedly with the handsomest man in the room. There was nothing unusual about either of those things. She often dressed with originality, and one of her greatest skills was finding the most attractive and charming men to do her bidding. She caught sight of me just as I descended the stairs and waved an elegant hand.

“Evie, darling, come and meet Mr. Halliday. He’s a British diplomat posted here to keep an eye on those wily French.”

I extended my hand and he took it, staring at me intently with a pair of delightfully intelligent grey eyes. “How do you do, Mr. Halliday? Evangeline Starke.”

“Miss Starke,” he said, shaking my hand slowly and holding it for an instant longer than he ought.

“Mrs.,” I corrected gently. “I am a widow.”

A fleeting expression of sympathy touched his features. “Of course. The war took a lot of good men.”

I didn’t bother to correct him. Gabriel had died during the war—just not doing anything useful like actually fighting.

He glanced to Aunt Dove. “Lady Lavinia was just telling me about your Seven Seas Tour, but she needn’t have. I’ve been following your exploits in the newspapers. It’s dashed thrilling. Will you be doing any flying here?”

“Not just yet. My plane is still in Italy. Aunt Dove and I are here for pleasure. We mean to relax and revive before we move on to the Caspian for the next leg of our tour.”

“Damascus is the place for that,” he assured me. “Lots of picturesque sights and loads of delicious gossip, but it’s just the spot for shopping or lounging in a bathhouse or lying by a fountain and letting the world pass you by.”

Those pursuits would interest me for about a day, but I smiled. “I’m very interested in how the interim government is faring, as well. I know the French are determined to meddle, and I’m curious how their efforts compare to the British presence in Palestine.”

Mr. Halliday’s brows lifted in delighted astonishment. “I say, beauty and brains. What a refreshing combination! Most women only want to talk tea and scandal, but if you really want to know the truth of the political situation, I am more than happy to give you the lay of the land, so to speak.”

Aunt Dove smelled the opportunity to make a new conquest and leaped on it. “How very kind of you, Mr. Halliday. My niece and I were just about to go to dinner. Won’t you join us as our guest?”

He accepted quickly, extending his arm to Aunt Dove. I followed, watching him as he deftly negotiated the crowds to secure a taxi and handed her in. He turned to me and I put my hand in his.

“Mrs. Starke,” he murmured.

“Evie, please,” I told him.

To my amusement, he blushed a little. To cover it, he gave swift and fluent instructions to the driver and turned to us with a beaming face. “I think it’s going to be a devilishly good night.”

* * *

In fact, it was an extraordinary night. The restaurant where we dined was very new and very French with exquisite food and wine. Aunt Dove was at great pains to be charming to Mr. Halliday, who himself was a delightful companion. A tiny European orchestra was tucked behind the palms, playing popular music, and as the evening progressed, bejewelled couples rose and began to dance. I was tired from the journey—or perhaps it was too much champagne—but the whole of the evening took on an otherworldly quality. It seemed impossible that I had come so far in search of a ghost, and as I sat sipping at my bubbling wine, I began to wonder if I were making a tremendous fool of myself. The war was over. And on that glittering night, it became quite apparent that the world had moved on. Why couldn’t I?

Mr. Halliday was charming company. He was an expert storyteller, and his anecdotes about the expats and officials in Damascus ranged from the highly amusing to the mildly salacious. But he’d chosen his audience well. Aunt Dove loved nothing better than a good gossip, and much of our meal was spent chatting about her travels in the South Pacific, an area Mr. Halliday longed to see.

“Oh, you must go!” Aunt Dove instructed. “If nothing else, it’s a lovely place to die.”

Mr. Halliday burst out laughing then sobered as he looked from Aunt Dove to me. “She is serious?”

“Entirely,” I admitted. “Auntie won’t travel anywhere she thinks would be unpleasant to die.”

“That’s why I don’t go to Scandinavia,” she said darkly. “It’s far too cold and bodies linger too long. I’d much rather die in a nice warm climate where things decompose quickly. No point in hanging around when I am well and gone.”

Mr. Halliday looked at me again and I shrugged. “Ask her about her shroud.”

“Shroud?” His handsome brow furrowed.

Aunt Dove smiled broadly. “Yes, a lovely
tivaevae
I picked up last time I was in the South Pacific.”

“Tivaevae?”

“A quilt from the Cook Islands,” I explained. “Auntie travels with it in case she dies unexpectedly. She wanted something nice for her cremation.”

“You ought to come up and see it,” she told him, leering only a little. “It’s quite the loveliest example of South Pacific needlework—all reds and aquas and a green so bright it matches Arthur perfectly.”

“Arthur?” Mr. Halliday looked well and truly lost.

“My parrot, Arthur Wellesley,” she replied.

She beckoned the waiter over for another bottle of champagne, and Mr. Halliday threw me a rather desperate look. “I wonder if I might prevail upon you for a dance, Mrs. Starke? Lady Lavinia, if you will excuse us, of course.”

Aunt Dove waved us off and I rose and moved into his arms for a waltz. He was a graceful dancer, but not perfect, and it was those little missteps that made me like him even more. He apologised the second time he trod on my feet, pulling a rueful face.

“I am sorry. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate very well this evening.” But his eyes were warm and did not leave my face.

“All is forgiven, Mr. Halliday,” I said.

“John,” he said automatically. “Your aunt is an entirely original lady,” he said. “Like something out of mythology.”

“She can be,” I agreed. “By the way, if you haven’t any interest in sleeping with her, you ought to know what she means when she asks you to come up and look at her shroud.”

He tripped then, and it took him a full measure of the waltz to recover.

“Mrs. Starke—Evie. Really, I would never presume to believe that I would behave in so ungentlemanly—”

I cut him off. “Mr. Halliday, it’s none of my business what you get up to. I just wanted to offer a word of warning in case her intentions came as a surprise. They often do.”

“Often?” His voice was strangled.

“She is affectionate by nature,” I explained. “Demonstrably so. And while many gentlemen are receptive, it can be a trifle unnerving when some poor soul goes to her rooms actually expecting to see her shroud or examine her stamp collection.”

He smiled, almost against his will, it seemed. “Does she have a very fine stamp collection?”

“She doesn’t have one at all.”

“Oh,” he said faintly.

“Sometimes gentlemen misunderstand her intentions,” I explained. “It occasionally results in unfortunate events. I shouldn’t like to see a repeat of the Aegean.”

“The Aegean?”

“There was a young man who thought she was actually kidnapping him. It was all a tempest in a teapot, I assure you, but he happened to be the son of the local magistrate, and things got rather out of hand. That was when I took up drinking as a hobby.”

He smiled deeply, and I saw he had the suggestion of dimples. It wasn’t fair, really, to compare them to Gabriel’s. His had been so deep a girl could drown in them when he smiled. In repose, Gabriel’s face had been decidedly handsome, but when his mouth curved into a cheerful grin and his dimples flashed, the effect had been purely devastating.

Something of Halliday reminded me of him, a trick of the light, the curve of a high cheekbone, perhaps. But Halliday’s eyes were a mild grey where Gabriel’s had been such a startling blue I had sometimes looked into them and completely lost my train of thought. There was something similar to Gabriel’s lazy grace in Halliday’s gestures, his economy of movement, but the effect was of a serviceable copy instead of the glamour of the real thing.

Of course, that wasn’t Halliday’s fault at all, so I smiled back and he tightened his hold. We danced on until the end of the song. When it finished I started to step back, but he did not let me go. “One more?”

I went willingly into his arms. It was a delicious feeling after so many years without Gabriel, and I found myself thinking an unmaidenly thought or two as we moved. The song came to an end, but he made no move to stop dancing and neither did I.

Just as the conductor raised his baton for the next number, the maître d’ thrust his head behind the palms to speak to him. The conductor shrugged and something changed hands—money, no doubt—for the conductor leaned forward and murmured something to his musicians.

They fumbled with their sheet music, casting aside the next song on their list, and launched into a pretty little prelude. Mr. Halliday and I began to dance again, and just as he swung me into a graceful turn, I felt a shiver run down my spine.

“Evie?” His eyes were full of concern, his arm tight about my waist.

“‘Salut d’Amour,’” I said.

“Beg pardon? Oh, yes, I think it is. Pretty little piece, isn’t it? Shame I’ve such a wretched memory for music. Never can remember who wrote it.”

“Elgar,” I said stiffly. “It’s Elgar.”

His expression brightened. “Of course it is. Now, Evie—Mrs. Starke? You’ve gone quite pale? Are you feeling all right?”

I forced a smile. “Quite, but suddenly the room seems beastly hot. Forgive me. I must excuse myself for just a moment.”

He held onto my hand, patting it solicitously. “Anything you like. May I take you back to the table?”

“The ladies’ cloakroom, I think.”

He walked me as far as the door and I turned to put my hand to his sleeve. “Would you mind going to check on Aunt Dove? I oughtn’t have left her quite so long. I’m feeling frightfully guilty.”

He hesitated. “If you’re certain you’re all right.”

“Perfectly. Just a little warm. I will bathe my wrists and be right as rain in a few minutes. Please don’t trouble yourself. Go order some more champagne and I will be back to the table by the time it arrives.”

He trotted off and as soon as he was out of sight, I ducked behind one of the palms. I waited until the maître d’ strode by and jumped out to pluck at his sleeve.

The poor man nearly jumped out of his skin. “Madame! You have startled me.”

“I apologise, but I must speak with you.”

He preened a little, stroking his moustache. No doubt he was accustomed to intrigues in his establishment, but I had other fish to fry. I leaned closer.

“It is a matter of some delicacy, monsieur.”

“Naturellement.”
He put on a conspiratorial smile and laid a finger to the side of his nose. “This way, madame.”

He led me to a quiet little alcove sheltered from the rest of the club by a carved screen. “What may I do for you, madame?”

“The song the orchestra is playing now, ‘Salut d’Amour—’ why are they playing that piece?”