If I Had You Read online

  “Yes, but he’s willing to do this for Vera. Besides, Georgy has betrayed his aristocratic past to become a Bolshevik. He wouldn’t be worth protecting from a White perspective any longer.”

  Boris rubbed his chin. “Why don’t you want him dead?”

  Ivan clenched his jaw until his cheeks hurt. “Oh, I want him dead, I just can’t be a part of it. I was out of work. I’m just getting back on my feet again. Vera doesn’t make much. And Ovolensky is going to be at my hotel. There is no way I’ll keep my job in the aftermath. Given the hotel’s shady reputation, it might not even survive another murder.”

  Boris lifted his cup and regarded Ivan over the rim. “So you choose money over family honor?”

  “I have no room in my life for family honor,” Ivan said. “I miss Catherine and my parents dreadfully, but killing Ovolensky won’t bring them back. It might, however, destroy our lives now.”

  “How old were you when your family died?”

  “Nineteen. They were executed by firing squad, all of them. Vera and I were out of town, visiting former neighbors who had moved to Narva, when our parents and sister were taken. A servant came with the news and such portable valuables as she could carry. When we heard the news, I insisted we head for Finland, to escape Russia. While Narva was going to be part of the independent Estonia, Russia still controlled the area at that time. I thought it was my duty to keep Vera safe as best as I could. I was afraid we’d be executed too, if we returned.” Ivan’s hand shook slightly. Tea sloshed over the rim of his cup.

  “Will Ovolensky recognize you at the hotel? Can he do anything to you?”

  It was an unanswerable question. “I would prefer he not see me, not recognize me. We’ve committed no crimes, and Lenin is dead now. Why would Stalin care about me or Vera?”

  “He’ll care about you if Ovolensky dies.” With a flourish, Boris lifted his cup and poured the contents down his throat.

  Ivan pounded his fist on the table, rattling the tea set. “Exactly. You see why we cannot do this.”

  “Do you have any revolutionary ties back in Russia? Someone who could end the threat there?”

  “No. No contact with Mother Russia since the day we left,” Ivan said. “Georgy used my family’s deaths to rise in the party. We lost everything. Friends, family, possessions. All we had was some jewelry of Mother’s that she had lent Vera because we were attending a wedding, and what the servant brought. We worked our way across Europe to land here.”

  “What do you have to lose now?”

  Ivan flexed his fingers, stared at the worn cuffs poking out from his coat sleeves. “Not much in material possessions. But our lives, our freedom. Any chance we have to continue our family line. Vera should be married, having a baby, not planning death.”

  “Is Sergei the wrong man for her?”

  “I did not think so until now.” Ivan frowned. Such thoughts made his head hurt.

  In contrast, Boris looked benevolent. “Instead of trying to talk them out of this emotional crime, you might best work on your sister.”

  Ivan smiled. “I like how you are thinking, Boris. It is wise counsel.”

  “She might be best off marrying an Englishman,” Boris said.

  “I could introduce her to one of my fellow employees,” Ivan said, rubbing his chin.

  “Give it a try. Try everything. The less she is with Sergei, the less they can plan.”

  “Very well.” Ivan drained his teacup. “Thank you for the hospitality.”

  Boris rose. “I should see to the young lady with the brooch.”

  “I’ll walk out with you.”

  Boris tucked Ivan’s record money into a cash box on top of his safe, and they both went through the curtain into the main part of the shop.

  * * *

  Alecia’s feet hurt in her cheap, heeled shoes, and she was pretty sure she had a ladder on the foot of her stocking. Her first excursion in London had not amounted to much. She’d enjoyed the taxicab from the hotel to Poplar High Street, but she’d come to London searching for music and color and the high life, not poverty. And sleep, it had continued to elude her. It seemed every time she closed her eyes the four funnel stacks of the Lusitania came into view, just like they had for nearly a decade now.

  She lifted one foot and rubbed the back of her other calf with it. Her muscles were cramping, unused to standing in heeled shoes. Her grandfather didn’t hold with anything fashionable. She stared at the brooch, shining and glamorous amidst the relative squalor of the shop.

  Then, finally, the curtains parted. A rotund middle-aged man came out, followed by a tall, handsome fellow with soft-looking black hair that fell around his face. The brooding expression reminded her of someone, and then it hit her. It was Ivan Salter, in the back of an East End pawnshop.

  “Mr. Salter,” she said, delighted to see a familiar face.

  His expression remained impassive, not matching her smile. “Miss Loudon.”

  “What a treat to see you outside of the hotel,” she said. Her nerves jangled uneasily amid his continuing unfriendliness. Had she offended him somehow? “Russell told me to come here.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “The concierge?”

  Mr. Salter looked at the little man behind the counter. He shrugged, then took a loupe out of his pocket and bent to examine the brooch.

  Alecia noticed the record under Ivan’s arm. “Are you a music lover?”

  “Not like you,” he replied dryly. “This is for my sister.”

  He spoke! “How nice. Is it a dance record?”

  “A fox-trot, yes.”

  “I know how to do that, at least.” She lifted her arms. “I want to learn some of the other dances, like the Charleston.”

  “I don’t dance,” he said.

  She didn’t like to see his beautifully molded lips thinning, those lips that had once kissed her so generously. “I see.”

  “I’m not supposed to be speaking to you,” he said.

  His words startled her. “Why not?”

  He looked above her head instead of at her face. “Mr. Eyre sent out a notice.”

  She remembered his familiarity earlier. Was he laying a claim to her? How shocking. She’d read of such things in novels. “Not to speak to me?”

  “Not to be familiar with the residents,” he explained. “Not just you.”

  “I see.” Not so glamorous then. “Well, better that than something against me specifically.” She worried at her lip. “I was afraid I had hurt your feelings somehow, the way you so pointedly cut me on the stairs.”

  “I must do my job,” he said in a stiff tone.

  “We aren’t at work now. We could even have a cup of tea together.” Her daring thrilled her.

  “There are no nice little tea shops in this part of town,” he said blandly. “Just public houses.”

  “A glass of ale, then,” she suggested.

  “You aren’t meant to be sitting around sailors and traders and hopeless drunks,” he said. “You shouldn’t even be in the East End.”

  She wanted to shake the smile back into him and then kiss that sensual mouth. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I don’t need to. You are a woman with no past.”

  She stepped back involuntarily, stung deeply by his remark. “That’s no longer true, as you well know.”

  “Was that kiss so important to you?” He leaned forward, voice low, and brushed her lower lip with his thumb.

  “Ivan!” shouted the little man with an air of command. He spoke rapidly in a language that Alecia didn’t understand.

  Ivan stepped away from her. “You needn’t worry. She’s just a secretary.”

  “I thought she was from the hotel,” the pawnshop owner said.

  “I live in a valet’s room,” Alecia said, feeling the humiliation acutely. “I work for a married couple who reside at the hotel.”

  “And this is their brooch?” the man said.

  Ivan glanced at the brooch. Aleci
a saw his eyes widen, his face pale.

  “Yes,” she said, frowning. “They want the money for a project, then they want to retrieve the brooch.”

  “That’s what everyone says,” the man murmured.

  “I’ll be going,” Ivan announced unexpectedly.

  “No,” the owner said. “You will wait and escort this young lady back to the Grand Russe. She shouldn’t be in this neighborhood alone, especially with money.”

  Alecia saw Ivan’s jaw shift. He was probably grinding his teeth, and no wonder. She must be ruining his day off. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “I’m in no hurry to return home.”

  She felt a traitorous thrill. “Do you live nearby?”

  “Yes, above the greengrocer’s down the block.”

  This wasn’t a peaceful neighborhood. “How do you get any sleep?” she asked.

  “I have dark curtains. And no one to kiss me awake.” He was still pale, but his mouth twisted into a slight smile after he spoke.

  Her mouth dropped open just as the little man put his loupe away and wrote a number on a piece of paper. “It’s a good piece. I’ll give you this for it, since you are a friend of Ivan’s.”

  The amount was better than she’d been told to expect. “I accept.”

  He nodded and picked up the brooch. “I’ll write you a ticket and get you the money. Look sharp, boy.”

  “Keep that brooch handy, will you?” Ivan asked. “It looks familiar.”

  The man nodded and went behind the curtain. “Boris, Mr. Grinberg, is a good man,” Ivan said.

  “It doesn’t seem like the sort of shop that can handle nice jewelry.”

  “Looks can be deceiving. But he doesn’t keep such things here.”

  “Why did you ask him to then?”

  “It looked familiar, like something my mother used to own.”

  Could she have offered him a glimpse at his mysterious past? She spoke eagerly. “Richard said it was a gift from a Russian aristocrat. From when they toured Moscow in ’13.”

  Ivan’s brow furrowed. “So much of her jewelry was lost. It is probably just a similar piece.”

  She stroked a finger over the countertop, wishing she could smooth his brow. “Or she gave it to the Marvins. Was she a theater lover?”

  Ivan scrubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know if she loved it any more than the next person.”

  Alecia could feel his unease, palpable in the crowded shop. She changed the subject. “You are friends with the pawnshop owner? Does he live above this shop?”

  “Yes, we’ve been friends for years. He has a nice flat elsewhere. Four rooms instead of two. He would be a good catch, if you want a Jewish widower old enough to be your father.”

  Alecia opened her mouth but couldn’t come up with anything clever to say. “I wasn’t looking for a husband.”

  He lifted one of those forbidding dark brows. “Girls like you tend to marry the first boy they kiss.”

  “That would be you,” she pointed out. “But you don’t want to marry me.”

  He chuckled, his mood shifting. “A wife would only keep me from my sleep.”

  Chapter Five

  Alecia couldn’t figure Ivan out. Were all Russians so changeable? Unable to think of a response to his teasing, she just stood there in front of the pawnshop’s counter like a statue, fuming. He wandered away from her, perusing the full shelves. The clerk had vanished. Her head swam a bit, both from hunger and from the exchange with Ivan.

  Not interesting. Doesn’t know how to talk to men. She could hear her younger sister’s voice in her head. How would she ever find a husband? But that wasn’t why she’d come to London, was it? She wanted adventure, a taste of the flapper life, not a dreary life in East End poverty with the first boy she kissed, no matter how handsome. No matter how good a kisser.

  Marriage could be an adventure, but there was no point in having a bad adventure, just for the sake of having one.

  “Who are you arguing with?” Ivan asked, having circled back around to her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have a very intense expression on your face.”

  “Oh. My sister. She’s much more modern than I am. And prettier.”

  “Older?” He took out a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum and offered her a piece.

  She shook her head and watched him put a piece in his mouth, as elegant as if he were lighting a cigarette. “Younger.”

  “Huh.”

  “Where did you get the gum?”

  “American who is staying on the fifth floor. Likes to tip with gum. I suppose he works for a candy company or something.” He grinned. “I’m developing a taste for the stuff.”

  “I guess people can treat you however they like.” She paused. “At work, I mean.”

  “Yes, but the uniform commands respect from most people.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you are quite pretty when you make an effort. I doubt your sister is more attractive, but if she is . . .” He made a fanning motion with his hand.

  She dismissed his words. He didn’t find her pretty, whatever he said. She’d seen how men treated girls they fancied, with care and consideration. Not dismissiveness. “Don’t worry, she’s safe in Bagshot.”

  “One of you has to be sacrificed to the greater good?”

  “I don’t see it that way. Our grandmother is gone, and our mother. Grandfather is all we have.”

  “What happened to your parents?”

  “My father was an antiquarian bookseller. He took my mother out to Boston to see Charles Lauriat Jr., who was a famous bookstore owner. He had an old-book room at the store and lots of the stock came from English estates.”

  Ivan leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Your father procured for him?”

  “Yes, though Mr. Lauriat spent months each year in England himself. He kept doing business throughout the early days of the war, and nothing went wrong. The passenger steamers were supposed to be immune from attack.”

  “But they weren’t.”

  “No. My mother had been ill and my father wanted her to rest. They chose a sea voyage. So they went to Boston, hand delivering some lovely sixteenth-century books, and then came back on the Lusitania with Mr. Lauriat.”

  “They died in the submarine attack.”

  He said it so flatly. She wondered what he’d seen when he fled Russia, to find spectacular deaths in a famous shipwreck so uninteresting. And she wondered why he had fled his homeland in the first place. “Yes. My grandmother’s death was of the mundane variety. Pneumonia after a long bout of influenza.”

  The curtain parted and Mr. Grinberg came out with an envelope for her. “The ticket is inside as well. Make sure you get her directly back to her employers, Ivan. It wouldn’t do to lose her now.”

  “I’ll take good care of her,” Ivan said, straightening. He snapped his gum.

  “Filthy habit.” Mr. Grinberg sighed to Alecia. “I quite despair of this boychick.”

  “He thinks the brooch might have belonged to his mother,” she said.

  Mr. Grinberg put both hands over his waistcoat. “He’ll have to bring his sister in for a look. But you need to take that money to your employer, first.” He made a shooing motion. “Find a cab, Ivan.”

  With a half smile, Ivan shook his head and went outside.

  “I despair,” Mr. Grinberg repeated. “He should be fawning all over a pretty treat like you.”

  “Such applesauce.” She smiled politely but without much warmth, as she would with a parishioner of her grandfather’s that she didn’t enjoy very much.

  “If I had a living daughter, I would treat her like a princess, not set her loose on London in clothing like that,” Mr. Grinberg said softly. “Why are you so alone?”

  “I’m making my way,” she replied. “But I’ve only just come here.”

  “I hope to see you transformed when you retrieve the brooch,” he said.

  “I hope to be transformed.” They
nodded at each other.

  In a crack between objects in the crowded window display, she saw a taxicab pull up next to Ivan. “That’s me. Thank you, Mr. Grinberg.”

  “You are welcome. I will see you back soon.”

  “Hopefully in about three weeks,” she said. “After the command performance.”

  “For Ovolensky?”

  “Yes.”

  He clucked his teeth. “A very bad man, that Ovolensky. A cousin of young Ivan’s, did you know? But he is light. Ovolensky is dark.”

  Alecia nodded as if she understood, but she knew nothing of the Russian diplomat. She went out the front door. Seagulls were circling overhead, cawing, a reminder of the river nearby.

  Ivan held the door of the cab for her, like an experienced doorman, then climbed in himself. The Grand Russe had a black-skinned man from America as the doorman. He was much nicer than Ivan, always smiling and friendly. But he’d never tried to kiss her. Her shoulder touched Ivan’s arm. She felt feminine and petite next to his large, masculine form, and longed for him to put his arm around her, though she knew he wouldn’t. In a moment, the cab started down the road.

  “Are you always going to be a secretary?” he asked abruptly, as if they’d already been having a conversation.

  She couldn’t decipher the reason for his question, so could only answer with the truth. “I don’t know. I’ve only been one for two weeks, but it is better than nursing.”

  “You don’t want to live with your grandfather?”

  He shifted, his arm rubbing against hers. She could smell tea on him, as if he’d rubbed leaves between his fingers. Also dust, as if the suit he wore did not leave his wardrobe often. She wondered if he would spark electricity with her again. Would the flirtatious Ivan return, or was he too intent on the secret of the brooch to pay attention to her? “Part of living with him involved secretarial work. I suppose I was his secretary. It’s how I learned to use a typewriter. I typed up his sermons, handled his correspondence.”

  Ivan continued to stare straight ahead. “Is he well-known?”

  Alecia glanced out the window, trying to soak in London, though this poorer part didn’t offer much of a view. Just soot-stained buildings and rain-soaked pavement and tired people in dark coats. Still, she wanted to see as many ladies as possible, so she would know what to buy when she had money for clothes. She suspected Sybil’s taste was far too theatrical for the average person. “Well respected. Very conservative views.”