Page 15 of Evil at the Essex House
“I am transported that you would allow me the pleasure of your company,” Wolfgang told me, a bit too formally, after the waiter had watched us decide between the shrimp and the caviar for an appetizer, and betweenTortue ClaireandBorschtfor soup. (The entire menu was in French, of course, as wasde rigueurat the Savoy. Except for theBorscht, which is Russian and not German, in case you wondered.)
“It’s my pleasure,” I told him, sincerely. “It’s not every day you meet someone who remembers you from when you were small.” And half a continent away. On the opposite side of a war.
A shadow crossed his face, as if I had said those words out loud (I hadn’t). “But you don’t remember me?”
“I don’t,” I said honestly. “If what you told me was true, I was probably too young.”
His face grew another shade darker. “Of course I told you the truth. I am not a liar.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest that you were,” I said. “Of course you told me the truth. You have no reason to lie.”
He looked just marginally mollified by that. “Is that why your friend, your cousin, escorted you here? Because you do not trust me?”
“I don’t know you,” I said. Politely but honestly, since I’m not the type to beat around the bush or, for that matter, the type to flatter a gentleman needlessly. “I have no reason to think you’re untrustworthy, but I have no reason to trust you, either. Not yet.”
He didn’t seem to like that much, although he nodded, as if conceding my point.
“Christopher went home,” I added. “He’s not going to lurk in the lobby until our dinner is over so he can escort me back. He isn’t like that.” And I had firmly put my foot down so he wouldn’t.
“Tell me about yourself,” I added, since I know that all gentlemen like to discuss themselves. “What are you doing in London?”
He was on some sort of diplomatic mission, it seemed, or if not anything that specific, at least a trip during which he was supposed to meet people and talk to them and rebuild relations between Germany and England after the war. It might have been a personal mission, not a patriotic one. A way to get the Natterdorff family back in good standing again after the aggressions. He wasn’t terribly detailed, to be honest, and I didn’t ask for specifics, partly because I thought laying out the answers might be awkward for him, and partly because I truly didn’t care all that much. It was enough to sit and watch his lips move and have the timbre of his voice, and that almost-forgotten accent, the accent of my father, flow over me like a warm breeze.
“And what about you?” he asked eventually. “How has your life been since you arrived here from Germany?”
By then we were into the main meal—duck for Wolfgang, quail for me—and we spent the rest of that course talking about the Astleys and the Sutherlands. I brushed lightly over Crispin, but I did pay attention in case this whole thing was in some way about using me to get close to Duke Harold and his heir, for some nefarious purpose of Wolfgang’s own. I had no idea what that purpose might be, but the possibility was there at the back of my mind, so I paid attention to it.
It was during this recitation that theGraf’s eyes focused on something over my shoulder and I saw his eyes narrow.
“Something wrong?” I broke off in the middle of the story about how I had gone to the Godolphin School in Salisbury while Christopher (and Crispin) were away at Eton, and how my old school chum Constance Peckham was now engaged to marry my cousin Francis.
Wolfgang’s deep blue eyes flicked to mine for a second. “I thought I saw your cousin out there in the lobby.”
I shook my head, without bothering to turn around. “Christopher went home.”
“Does he always do what he says he’ll do?”
Of course he didn’t. Not always. However?—
“There was no reason for him to lie about this. If he had wanted to hang around to make sure I was safe, he would have told me so and we would have worked something out. He wouldn’t lie about it.”
Wolfgang withdrew his eyes from behind me and focused on my face, but not without maintaining a tiny wrinkle between his brows. “You are close.”
“Cousins,” I said. “Best friends. The next thing to brother and sister.”
He looked relieved. At least I thought so.
“I’m sure it was just someone who looked like him,” I added. “London is full of fair-haired young men in evening kit.”
Especially this time of day and in this sort of setting.
Wolfgang shot a last look over my shoulder in the direction of the lobby, but he must have decided that I was most likely right, because he didn’t say anything else about it.
“So you went to secondary school in Salisbury—” he prompted, and we were off again, talking about Godolphin and Constance and the weekend party at the Dower House in Dorset where Constance and Francis had gotten to know one another.
At the end of the meal—Peach Melba; one can’t really sup at the Savoy without finishing with it—Wolfgang walked me through the lobby and out on the Strand. “May I see you home?” he asked politely, while clasping my hand in his.
“If it’s all the same to you,” I answered, keeping Christopher’s admonition in mind, “I think I’ll just take a Hackney cab. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
