Coronets and Steel (16 page)

At that my mind blanked, then Alec’s instruction
When in doubt look bored
saved me. Pouting, I said, “Bored.”

She gave a false trill. “You must remind her! We insist you come to us in Mykonos. But soon!”

“I’ll tell her,” I said.

They took their leave, the woman giving me air kisses. As soon as they were gone I muttered out of the side of my mouth, “Who were those people?”

He gave me a rueful smile. “Gaston and Tuti Laszlo-Salazar are their names. Does it matter beyond that?”

“They couldn’t possibly have anything to do with—with Ruli’s being missing.”

“Right. Part of your moth—part of Aunt Sisi’s crowd.” He chuckled softly. “‘Bored.’ Brilliantly apt.”

That chuckle zapped through my nerves, but I waited it out.
Drinking buddies.
“Brainstorm, eh?” I polished my nails casually on my sleeve. “So now what?”

“I think we’d better move on today, but you’ll be glad to know that we are nearly done with this masquerade.”

“Has it had any effect?”

“Possibly.”

I started humming the theme from
Jaws.
As he got up and came round to the back of my chair, there was the faintest twitch of his lips to show he’d heard it.

Half an hour later he was gone.

When I came down from brushing my teeth, it was to see Kilber and Emilio finishing a conference—both of them with cell phones in hand. Kilber rumbled something gravelly about
Durchlaucht,
gave me an unsmiling nod of greeting, almost a bow, then went silently to take my bags from the bellboy.

Durchlaucht—I’d heard that before, but never so clearly. An outmoded title in German, but there was no irony in Kilber’s face or voice. Roughly translated, it meant “
your highness
.”

Emilio handed me into the car as Kilber loaded my bags into the trunk. Then, to my relief, Emilio climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine, leaving Kilber to stride away across the parking lot.

 

I had the evening to myself, which I spent working with the Dobreni dictionary.

The next morning I rose, sober and brimming with intellectual triumph and, after a light breakfast, again worked through my ballet and fencing warm-ups—this time more strenuously, to smooth out the stiffness from the stretches the day before.

After that I ran downstairs and took a vigorous hike along the beach, enjoying the beauty of the coast and the oddity of seeing and smelling sand, sea, seaweed, and crying gulls on a southwest facing beach, all the while knowing I was thousands of miles from these familiar things in Southern California.

I’d almost made it back to the hotel when Alec, in slacks and shirt-sleeves, strolled out from the hotel terrace to meet me. After a speculative glance he asked, “How’s your ankle?”

“Totally fine. I felt if I didn’t get some exercise my legs would wither up like the wicked witch’s in Oz.”

I gave him a speculative scan of my own. He didn’t seem to have slept at all.

He met my gaze blandly. “Shall we go turn up our noses at a couple of the shops, then get some lunch?”

I hesitated, aware of the dull colors and lines of exhaustion in the fine skin around his eyes.
He’s not your business, Kim. He’s the real Ruli’s.

“Okay.” I shrugged. “Lead me to it.”

We cruised some of the nicer stores, lingering over handmade Russian mosaics, Turkish rugs, and Greek artifacts, guessing if they were real or fake and trying to convince the other with patently fake scholarship. Nothing serious—nothing intimate. Just easy fun.

At noon we had a long lunch out on the beach terrace. Again we shared some wine. I remembered my vow and sipped, so it wasn’t wine but the good food, the bright sun, and the reflective blue gaze across the table from me that made me heady, particularly when we made a foray into our respective childhoods, specifically reminiscing over pranks we pulled as kids. I felt this sudden, almost paralyzing wish that the moment—the day, the breeze, the company—would never end.

But it did. And when we got up to go, I forgot Ruli’s high heels and tumbled. My hands scrabbled to clutch at the table but Alec was there first, righting me with hands that moved with remarkable swiftness to each of my arms.

“Thanks. Forgot the spikes,” I said breathlessly, looking away from him and making a business of searching over the table for the clutch purse.

His hands lifted and he stepped away. “All right?”

“Whoa, I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much.” I grinned, trying to recapture the earlier mirth. “But you said Ruli doesn’t laugh. I hope I haven’t blown my character.”

He smiled back, and his ring flashed blue fire as his fingers flicked to the single dimple in my cheek in the lightest and briefest of touches. “Not with that.”

No time for a reaction; he went on to talk about the next resort on the list.

But the gesture stayed with me. My grandmother used to touch that dimple on my cheek with her forefinger when I was little, and call it her kiss-spot. The memory was poignant, from living gesture to remembered. But it made me uneasy.

The sense I was missing something strengthened as we drove about Split, looking at the beautiful light stone buildings with the grand archways, and the palm trees. Palm trees! Stupid to think I’d only find them in LA where they weren’t even native.

Everything seemed off-kilter from those innocent trees to the crowded city drenched in the strong Mediterranean sun, so like that at home. The car insulated us from the crowd yet bound us into intimate space. I kept myself busy looking at ancient cathedrals and the boats floating out on the sea, anywhere but at the guy who would soon be out of my life forever.

We stopped for dinner at a hilltop Greek restaurant from which the aromas of roast lamb and spices like cardamom and ginger and saffron drifted all the way to the road, free but powerful advertising.

We didn’t talk much. He seemed even more tired than I was, and he was definitely preoccupied, stilling every time his cell phone burred, and it burred a lot. He was too polite to take calls while we were dining (or too private) but when I came out of the restroom, he was talking fast, his expression tense.

He clapped the phone shut as soon as I rejoined him.

Afterward we went to an exclusive hilltop night spot, packed with a crowd in designer clothes, the guys with burnished tan-framed white grins in Hollywood Hustler duds: flowered silk shirts open to Gucci belts, ultra-tight pants, folds of high-denomination bills in gold or platinum money clips slid snugly into flat pockets. Some of the guys wore super baggy gangsta threads. The women were thin, with brittle movements like angry butterflies, and dark-painted eyes and blood-colored lips.

I felt like I was on Mars in the disguise of a Martian. Disorientation unsettled me as we passed a mirror and a strange woman glared back at me, cold-faced in chic makeup, clothed in an uncompromisingly high-fashion dress, and wary-stepping in strappy high-heeled shoes and a tiny, matching bag.

Alec looked remarkably self-possessed and stylishly unobtrusive against this backdrop. He found us a table with his usual magic (I’m sure it was the magic of money, it’s only that I never saw him do it), ordered drinks, and was lighting my cigarette for me as I breathed, “Curtain up,” when we got our first visitor.

Three guys in a row swooped down and kissed me, but none (after exchanging greetings with Alec who sat smiling and unmoved) tried sitting with us. The last one, a rakishly handsome Italian, was the most caressing. He shot Alec a smiling glance of challenge, then pressed me to dance with him.

This was a first. I shot my own look at Alec, but he sat there drinking, giving me no clues. Surely Ruli danced. Anyway, I never turn down a chance to dance, and hadn’t for ages, and so I got up.

The band was playing an irresistible reggae blood-pounder, and with initial pleasure I saw my partner knew what he was doing. Hips and shoulders moving in slow, controlled circles, we prowled around each other, then he took hold of me in a cross between swing and tango. When he pulled me in close I spun away on my toes, my dark green silky skirt flaring about me.

Ah, it was good to be dancing again; my partner was no more than an adjunct, like the band. Eyes turned to watch, but I did not care, and nothing punctured my fun until a soft kiss pressed, warm and moist, behind my ear. Startled, I turned to see my partner’s face inches away, surprise mixed with a possessive smirk.
Does Ruli dance differently?

Well, too late.
We whirled and twirled and swayed, then once again my enjoyment chilled when he started touching me, longer and longer caresses, his body heat, his breathing, closing me in a cage of smothering lust. I stared up into suggestive dark eyes.

What if she likes him?
I couldn’t shove him away, but I could dance away.

Turning with practiced ease, he stepped close. Hands explored my back as he breathed into the hair above my ear, “You move as if inspired, sweet Ruli.” His hand slid with skill under my arm to brush my breast as he whispered intimately into my ear, “You were always so stiff. So cold, when we danced. Now you are . . .
hot.
” On that last word he shifted from French to Italian, breathing the syllables into my ear. I tried to ease out of his grip, but he was like an octopus, tentacles wandering over my body. “When do you leave the formidable Alexander?” And then he tongued my ear.

Ruli.
The urge to smack him turned into panic. This guy was one of Ruli’s
lovers.
I shrugged his tentacle off my boob and tried for neutrality, since I couldn’t manage friendliness: “Haven’t decided yet.”

“Can I convince you to come tonight?” He pressed against me again, but with a twist of my hips I twirled under his arm and away. And smiled.

“If I change my mind I’ll know where you are, won’t I?” I said, hoping it was true enough (and yet ambiguous enough) to keep him at bay.

He gave me a smug grin that made my palm burn to smack it off his face. This guy was her sweetie. She liked him. I kept my own face strictly bland, and my hands at my sides, and contented myself with keeping free of his grasp for the minute or two remaining of the dance.

At the end he took me back to Alec, who gave me a mildly considering glance and said, “You all right?”

“Another minute and you would have had to ask if he’d be all right,” I stated through smiling lips.

Simmering annoyance made me breathe hard, then Alec added softly, “He never doubted your identity.”

I nodded, the last of my annoyance vanishing. That guy had zero interest in Aurelia Kim Murray, which meant I was convincing as Aurelia-who-likes-to-be-called-Ruli, right up close and personal.

Alec shifted his chair slightly toward mine, his posture subtly intimate. I sensed at once that he was not closing me in so much as closing everyone else out. For his hands stayed where they were, and his eyes gave no clue to the thoughts behind them.

He said in English, “I think we’re done. We’ll go on to Dubrovnik in the morning. You’ve earned that cruise, twice over. Where would you like to go?” He lifted his head to glance around. In French, “Another drink?”

A cruise—the reward to the good sport. Thank you and good-bye.

It was straightforward, it was exactly what we had agreed on, and I’d known it was coming. But that didn’t stop me from feeling truly horrible.

He was waiting for an answer.

I shrugged. “Yes. No. I hate this place,” I muttered like a sulky teenager, and I struggled to get a grip.

“Shall we stroll through the casino?”

“Sure.”

He put a hand on my arm, protective rather than possessive. No one else came near us as we descended into the thickly carpeted gambling room.

Watching the intensity of people’s focus on the turn of cards, the flash of wheels, was no longer any fun. I excused myself to go to the restroom.

I stood at the mirror repairing the lipstick and glared at my mouth to see if the red line was even. As I grimaced that shadow in my left cheek winked in and out. Alec’s touch that morning burned my flesh in memory, a palimpsest over the memory of my grandmother . . .

Oh God. Oh God.

I bared my teeth at the mirror. My mother had the dimple, the same lopsided smile as I had, which transformed her round and serene face into unexpected charm and whimsy . . .

Ruli has the dimple.

“Grandfather,” I said to the mirror. How long had I managed to go without seeing the obvious connection? Because Gran had said of the dimple,
“It’s a family characteristic.”

She had never said which family.

Pressing my fingers into my eyes, I tried to remember—anything—I’d been told about my grandfather, Daniel Atelier. I heard scraps and snippets of voices . . . Gran’s . . . Mama’s . . . Alec’s.

My focus broke when two matrons armored in silk and pearls flanked me determinedly, spearing me with glares of disapproval for hogging the mirror. I fumbled around lighting a cigarette, hoping they would leave, but they stood there, obviously outwaiting me, so I walked out.

Alec leaned on a rail gazing down into the gambling pits. At my approach he straightened up, and said quietly, “What is it?”

I jabbed my painted forefinger into my cheek. “You said Ruli has it, too. From whom did she get it?”

The curve of his mouth tightened slightly, though his eyes did not change. “From her mother.”

“And she from—?”

“From her father.”

“Her father. What did the wicked Count Armandros look like?”

When Alec first told the story I’d pictured some tall, cold guy with slick dark hair and a monocle, a villain in a melodrama. Despite all the obvious evidence surrounding me.

And so I was heartsick but not surprised when Alec said, gently, “He was tall. Blond. Slim. Athletic. Light brown eyes, and a distinctive smile, with a long dimple on one side. He was photographed in the traditional uniform when he came of age.”