If I Had You (2 page)

“Some American businessman. A film actress. Lady Cubult,” Ivan recalled.

“Who is the actress?”

“I don't remember. I don't go to the movies.”

“You should. What else is there to do?”

Ivan shrugged. “Family, friends.”

“You have some? I thought you were from Russia.” Norman straightened his cap and licked his teeth.

“I came here with my sister.”

“The rest of your family still there, then?”

“Dead,” Ivan said through clenched teeth. He didn't like speaking of them.

“Awful thing, the wars. My little brother died in the trenches, you know. Don't know why I survived.” Norman sniffed.

“I should not have survived either. But we go on. We remember our dead.”
Catherine. My parents.

Norman nodded. “I'm off to prowl the halls. Maybe I'll be invited in for a drink. Someone must know who that actress is.” Whistling jauntily, he strode off.

Ivan went to start his rounds on the main floor. It was still terribly busy at ten
P.M.
because Peter Eyre was holding court in the glittering, silver-and-blue Coffee Room. The real draw, despite the gorgeous geometric wallpaper and stunning parquet floor, could be said to be the glamorous Eyre himself, wandering through most evenings, greeting the anointed, glaring at the out of favor. His eyes would narrow at times as he decided who would be paying the champagne bill for everyone that night, as if mentally calculating the worth of each visitor.

Eyre was an obscure fellow, about the same age as Ivan, and much whispered about in the dens where the maids and valets waited for summonses. He might be an offshoot of some German royal family. Or the son of an Irish peasant. No one knew. He hadn't been to Eton or Harrow, but that crowd adored him as much as they were adored by gossip columnists. He'd sprung whole from the hotel the day it had been reopened. Who knew? He might even be the owner.

But Eyre wasn't the ever-present figure that most intrigued Ivan as he left the Coffee Room and made his way through the web of corridors on the main floor. Miss Loudon, the little mouse who had not run away when that dreadful twosome were coupling on the sofa behind the nightclub. A woman who would not avert her eyes from sex and insisted on listening to jazz.

It would not take much to turn her from a mouse to a cat. She had the very English peaches-and-cream skin, large bright-blue eyes, and yellow hair. Classic beauty, hiding in a dress that was too large. A boyish figure that was all the rage. She could be in style if she wore red lipstick and cut her hair. A little paint, some money for better clothes, and she might be on the arm of some man, entering the club instead of skulking behind it.

He made his way past the Salon, the Reception Room, the Ballroom, the Restaurant, the Reading Room. The only trouble he found was a damp wad of chewing gum decorating the armrest of a chair, and two occasional tables that were missing their ashtrays. He made a note in his book and moved on.

By eleven
P.M.
, he had done a full round of the two main floors of the hotel and had circled the outside of the building. Part of the duties of the night watchman downstairs was to keep an eye on the nightclub. Drunken dramatics tended to spill into the hotel.

After the previous night, he decided he'd better check the service corridor where the honeymooners had been canoodling the night before. He also felt duty-bound to make sure the carpet had been cleaned where champagne had been spilled.

“Excuse me,” said a man Ivan recognized as being in sales, stopping him by the lifts. The man had taken one of the rooms with a parlor set up with a display area for his wares. Garden products. “Can you recommend a place where I can get a plate of kippers this time of night?”

“The Restaurant is closed, sir, but if you go into the alley around the block, Maystone's, our nightclub, is still serving.”

“But will it be edible? I know these places have to serve food to keep the champagne flowing, but I want a meal.”

“You can ask the hall porter to have sandwiches delivered to your room,” Ivan suggested.

“No. I don't like to eat alone.”

“Flash your money around inside Maystone's and you'll have companionship soon enough,” Ivan said.

The man winked and moved off. Ivan wove deeper into the maze of service corridors. Rarely did he find guests, but when he did, they were usually up to no good.

And there she was, the
myshka.
Leaning up against the back door of the nightclub again, still in that same foul dress. Did she not know the Grand Russe Hotel was an elegant place?

* * *

“It isn't midnight yet,” Alecia said when she spotted Ivan Salter coming toward her. She told her traitorous heart rate to slow. While he might be handsome, he wasn't kind. She'd asked the Russian chambermaid who cleaned her room what
myshka
meant. Little mouse, indeed. An insult. She had thought him a creature out of a fairy tale.

As he approached, not speaking, she lifted herself from her slouched pose along the wall and straightened her shoulders. Pins holding her too heavy hair in its prim bun dug into her scalp. She needed to take it down and go to bed, but the music had drawn her. Better than a lumpy mattress, the
Lusitania
sinking.

When he was two feet from her, he stopped. His gaze wandered the space, taking in the empty sofa, and, oddly enough, the carpet.

“What?” she demanded, very un-mouselike. She had resolved to be as belligerent as a maiden aunt. “There isn't a sign saying hotel guests are not allowed back here.”

He cocked his head. She wilted when he sucked in his cheeks, highlighting the magnificent structure of his cheekbones. No. He may have every blessing God might offer a man, but he was only a night watchman. She was just a secretary. Unless she was breaking a rule, he had no right to intimidate her. She would not be cowed.

“Say something,” she said very crisply, as if she was dressing down a young nephew.

His lips curved. She felt a sinking sensation in her midsection. How dare he look so knowing?

“Young ladies wandering about unchaperoned are looking to be kissed.”

“By you?” How stupid she was, to say this.

His teeth were exposed by his widening smile. The top row was perfect, but his two lower front teeth were just a little crooked. She fell in love even more. In lust?

“You knew you would see me tonight. I am the watchman.”

“Very well then.” She lifted her chin. “It is unlikely that I am looking to be kissed. I like to wander and have never been kissed.”

“Never,
myshka
? Such a pity. You are somewhat pretty.”

“How dare you!” Outrage bubbled in her lungs. She could not find any other words.

But the truth was, she could find another thought, even if she couldn't say it aloud. She wanted to be kissed. By him.

S
omewhat pretty?
What a thing for a man to say, especially when he was the most attractive fellow she'd ever come across. Alecia had been in London for two weeks. No one had been remotely as handsome, despite the high-flying celebrities who came to the hotel. And he thought she was a mouse.

“Do you want me to dare?” he asked, his cap sliding slightly to the right as he tilted his head.

She stopped breathing. Was he teasing her? What if he said yes to kissing her? This had been a most scandalous hotel. Maybe the employees were meant to be suggestive. No no, of course not. They wanted respectability now, here at the Grand Russe. She studied him.

One eyebrow was slightly uplifted. His lips were so plush, so kissable. Sadie, her racy younger sister, would say he was born to come to a petting party.

“Mr. Salter.” She didn't know where to put her hands. They fluttered at her sides like a pair of dying peahens.

“It's closing in on midnight. Don't you want to be Cinderella?” he asked, straightening his cap.

“Why would you ask me such a thing?” She'd lost all hope of belligerence now. Her voice had gone soft, betraying her.

“For all that I'm proud to be British now, we Russians have a passionate nature. We don't always think before we act.”

Before she could say another word, he stepped so close to her that she could smell the cucumber on his breath. One hand went around the nape of her neck, just below her carefully coiled bun. She tilted her chin, her eyes closing instinctively. His thumb rubbed across her lip.

“Wind-chapped,
myshka
,” he chided. “You must take better care of yourself.”

Her eyes opened just as his lips touched hers. Electricity sizzled. She shuddered, pressing against him as the shock went through her body, feeling the heat of his mouth. His lips parted slightly and he stole her breath, inhaling her, as she thought,
Yes, mine
.

His eyes were still closed. He angled his mouth, deepening the kiss. Her hands went into that glorious hair, as soft as she'd imagined, but she accidentally dislodged his cap in her desire to have more of him against her skin. It canted sideways and he stepped back, righting it. His hands dropped away and released her. She panted as if they'd had a necking session, instead of little more than a peck.

His upper lip pressed against his teeth. “I am sorry I shocked you. It must be my boots on the carpet.”

“It was memorable,” she said, then chuckled in a way that sounded crazy even to her own ears. She blinked. “I'm sorry. You meant to be sweet.”

He didn't answer her. Was he still tingling from the shock? “I will call you Cinderella now, instead of
myshka
. You had better leave the ball before your clothing turns to rags.”

She glanced down at her serviceable dress. “It won't take much. I hope to buy better clothes soon.”

“You should be dressed to dance in that nightclub, not clean it.” He inclined his head to her and strode away from her, down the corridor, whistling.

She still didn't know what to do with her hands. They twisted at the wrists. She put them to her lips. Finally, a story to write Sadie about, something her sister would actually appreciate. Alecia Loudon, twenty-two, had finally been kissed. Even if it had not been a fairy-tale moment of bliss. Still, he'd been gallant enough. If only she hadn't pushed his cap out of place.

* * *

Greetings from Peter Eyre
, Ivan read the next day on the notice board.

Ivan's eyes scanned the notice, but his brain had disconnected. Georgy Ovolensky was his distant cousin. Nearly seven years before, Georgy had been the betrayer of his sister, his parents. He might as well have been at the head of the firing squad that executed them after Fanny Kaplan's failed attempt to assassinate Lenin. Ivan could see his cousin had used his betrayal to further his position with the present government. He had turned himself into Stalin's lapdog. It had only taken him six years to shed any vestiges of his aristocratic background and become the model Bolshevik.

Did Georgy care that Ivan and his last surviving sister, Vera, had escaped Russia? It had taken them three years to make it to London and a new, more secure lifestyle. He'd just found work again after being sacked a few months ago from a failing, less prestigious hotel than the Grand Russe. Vera was engaged to another Russian émigré, and was catering in the Russian community.

“What's brought that sour face on?” Norman asked, coming up behind him. He peered over Ivan's shoulder. “No haranguing today, eh?”

Ivan nodded stiffly. “The Grand Russe is honored to have such an important visitor so soon after reopening.”

Norman flexed his upper lip. “If you say so. I'd rather have the film stars. You should have seen the number of bottles being delivered to Miss Dare's suite last night. I had a little chat with her maid. Might have an in there.”

“Good luck,” Ivan said.

“Maybe she has a friend. Think we'll be allowed into the nightclub on our night off if we dress properly?” Norman elbowed him.

“Maybe. The man at the door wouldn't recognize us from the hotel.”

“Let's keep it that way. A pity to lose access to such a prime spot, just because we work next door.”

“Yes.”

Norman peered at him. “Everything all right?”

“Right as rain,” Ivan said. His mood elevated slightly when he realized he'd used British slang. While he'd learned English in the schoolroom, his tutor had been much too proper to teach him any slang. It had been a process to unlearn aristocratic speech and talk like a man from the East End.

He wished it were the end of his shift already, instead of the start, so he could tell Vera what was happening. Should he quit his job? Should they leave London for a time? Given Georgy's legendary bitterness toward their father, would he attempt to obliterate the last of the Saltykov line?

* * *

Alecia handed Richard Marvin the next sheet of newsprint. Her employer had wanted to catch up on yesterday's final edition of the
Evening News
. After he grunted his thanks, she chose another piece of toast from the rack and spread it with marmalade.

Before she could put teeth to toast, Sybil arrived, trailing her fox stole carelessly on the floor. Her glittering headpiece might have made sense at Maystone's, but not in the Coffee Room at eleven in the morning, even on New Year's Eve.

“Oh, darling, how very sweet of you,” Sybil drawled, sweeping the toast and jam from Alecia's hand and taking a large bite. She cast herself into a chair dramatically, then looked around to see who might be watching.

Alecia poured Sybil a cup of coffee, then added a generous helping of cream, before reaching for the last piece of toast. She bit into the bread before Sybil or Richard could commandeer it.

“Anything left for me, darlings?” Max Parker said cheerfully, weaving his way through the tables. He wore gray tweed plus fours and a long driving coat, and smelled of the cold, rainy outdoors. Unlike the Marvins, who had no fixed address in London, their agent had rooms in town. He had to keep the pulse on the theater district. The Marvins were his most important clients, but he had others.

Alecia smiled at him and tilted the coffeepot over the last empty cup. Half of the cup filled with the dark fluid. “That's all, I'm afraid.”

“Add cream and sugar and I'll be happy,” Max said with a wink.

She found Max quite attractive, with his twin wings of black hair parted across the length of his head, graying just the slightest bit at the temples. His skin was unlined for a man of thirty-seven, and he had a ready smile, especially for someone who'd spent four years in the trenches, but he did have a few scars, especially on his hands. Powder burns, he'd said, when he caught her looking at them.

The biggest problem with Max was you were never sure if he liked girls and was merely theatrical, or went the other way.

Alecia complied, then waved a waiter over to take their pot and refill it from a larger urn. “More toast too, please,” she requested.

“Oh, my dear, you'll make us fat,” Sybil demurred.

“Never, Sybil,” Max said smoothly. “You are incapable of being anything less than perfect.”

Sybil simpered and laughed, tossing her head back like a girl without a care in the world, instead of a thirty-nine-year-old woman.

“How have your first two weeks of employment been, Miss Loudon?” Max asked.

Alecia knew if Max really wanted to know, he'd have asked her in private. “Very good, thank you. It's been such a treat living here at the Grand Russe.”

“A far cry from the vicarage?” he queried.

“How you ever survived that, a pretty girl like you,” Richard said from behind his paper. “How did you escape the yoke of marriage?”

Alecia thought of the boy she'd thought she loved at fourteen, who had died at Ypres, only eighteen years old. She thought somewhat less fondly of the curate she thought might propose last year, only to confess he was in love with her sister. “I thought I'd be a modern girl and take up nursing,” she admitted. “But it turned out I did not do so well with blood.”

“You're too young to have had anything to do with nursing in the war,” Sybil commented.

“True, but I thought it a noble calling nonetheless. And I'm an orphan, you know. I wanted to make my own way, so my grandfather wouldn't be concerned about my future.”

“Should have found a husband,” Richard said.

“She's doing fine as a professional girl,” Max opined. “A lovely job like this, working for a prestigious theatrical couple. Which brings me to the point, my darlings. I have work!”

Sybil sat up very straight. Richard set down his newsprint and folded his glasses on top of them. His hair was blond, blonder than it should be at fifty-one, but thinning. He had very dramatic blue eyes, an expressive mouth, and a stern, square jawline. Altogether, he looked the part of the stalwart hero. He'd been cast as Henry V many times. Now he did a lot of drawing-room comedy. He'd been cast in a prestigious production of a new Noel Coward play, but rehearsals didn't start until mid-spring. Alecia had questioned the viability of her own position if neither of them worked for the rest of the winter.

Richard folded his hands on top of the newspaper. “Please explain, old friend.”

“A diplomat is arriving here in London in three weeks. He'll be meeting with the prime minister on Russia's behalf. Since you toured Russia so famously in '13, the office in charge of the visit contacted me to request an evening's entertainment.”

“The prime minister will be watching?” Richard said.

“A command performance for the prime minister?” Sybil said at the same time.

“I'll be directing?” Richard inquired.

Max nodded. “I can't say who will be there precisely, but important people.”

The waiter arrived with the refreshed coffeepot. Alecia poured for everyone, then set down the pot and picked up the cream jug.

Richard pulled a flask from an inside pocket of his jacket. “This calls for a little something more.” He poured a dash of amber fluid into his cup, then offered the flask around. Sybil waved it away with an air of distaste.

“Just a capful, darling,” Max said. “Of course, our little Alecia won't want any.”

Alecia pressed her lips together. It was true, but one of these days, she just might.

“Do you know, there are rumors coming out of Berlin that one of the Grand Duchesses might be alive in Germany?” Sybil said. “That poor, dear family. I am so glad we could play for them in happier times.”

“What did we perform?” Richard said. “It's been almost a dozen years.”

“
A Doll's House
,” Sybil said quickly.

“Of course.” Richard sniffed.

“You did some
Hamlet
as well, I believe,” Max said.

“Ah, that's right,” Richard said. “I wonder if we could do Chekov.”

“A Russian playwright for a Russian? How about some Oscar Wilde?” Max asked.

“How Victorian,” Sybil moaned. “We should do something modern. Do you have the script for your new play yet, Richard, dear?”

“No,” Richard said. “How about
The Colleen Bawn
? I had some lovely speeches.”

“Victorian again,” Sybil said.

“
Dracula
,” Richard said, with a waggle of his eyebrows. “The play is new, even if the story isn't.”

“Not much of a role for me,” Sybil said. “This isn't just about you. We toured Russia
together
.”

“You'd have lines,” he said.

Sybil made a face. “
Juno and the Paycock
?”

“Too Irish,” Max said. “No, it had better be Shakespeare.”

The coffee cups were empty again. Alecia lifted the pot, but Max waved it away. “I have to see someone about the O'Neill play Mrs. Marvin read for. Rumor has it that the theater censor might ban it, and I need to keep an ear in.”

“Dreadful,” Sybil said. “The lord chamberlain has too much power right now.”

Max kissed her cheek. “Chin up, old girl. If this production falls apart, I'll pitch you as the understudy for Binnie Hale in
No, No, Nannette
. It's opening in March.”