The Rules in Rome (12 page)

Gracie did her best to
smile politely as supper was served, but she found Ostheim’s presence eerie. His eyes held no warmth, and she couldn’t forget his occupation as chief interrogator for the Rome Gestapo.

The meal began as an answer to all Gracie’s culinary longings over the past two weeks, but she had to stop before the final two courses because she was full. She wondered how they got away with it: no ration coupons but more food than most people ate in three days, all at one meal. The other guests’ chatter was constant, and though the ache in her head had left with the tomato bisque, she found herself longing for the quiet of her room or Ley’s suite, especially when Ostheim turned his attention to her.

“What do you do, Concetta, when you aren’t attending curfew parties?”

“I’m a student.”

“How delightful. What are you studying?”

“Literature.” Gracie took a sip of water. “And your duties with the SS?”

Ostheim waved a hand at her. “You don’t want to talk about that, I’m sure. Who are you studying with?”

“Several different professors. One of them loves Dante; another loves Horace.”

Ley interrupted, as if on cue, engaging Gracie in conversation before Ostheim could ask Gracie for the names of her professors. But as soon as there was a pause, Ostheim began asking her more questions. Gracie tried to be vague in her answers while sticking to her cover story, but Ostheim was specific in his follow-up. She nervously wrung the napkin in her lap as she concentrated on her answers. Ley seemed to instinctively know when Ostheim’s questions grew too personal or detailed, saving her more than once before they finished the feast.

Zimmerman had been quiet most of the meal, but as the waiters cleared away the last of the dessert and began serving coffee, he turned to Captain Ley. “Hauptmann Dietrich, perhaps you could share with us how you
earned your Iron Cross.” Gracie had noticed Zimmerman eyeing the medal at Captain Ley’s throat more than once that evening.

“Oh yes, a rousing war story would be perfect,” the middle-aged woman sitting next to Zimmerman said.

“It’s not very rousing, I’m afraid,” Ley replied.

“Don’t be modest, Dietrich.” Despite their difference in rank, Ostheim’s words sounded like an order.

“I was fighting the Communists outside Leningrad. The real credit goes to the men I commanded.”

“Come now; more details,” Ostheim requested.

“About Russia? It’s a horrible place, especially in the winter.”

As Ostheim and the woman next to Zimmerman pressed for more information,
Gracie thought she’d return the help Ley had given her earlier. She reached for her water and tipped over her wine. The bright crimson liquid spread across the tablecloth, not spilling into anyone’s lap but prompting the woman next to Zimmerman to push her chair back abruptly.

“I’m so sorry!” Gracie took the napkin from her lap and tried to sop up the spreading red pool. Other nearby diners added their napkins to the mess and one of the waiters hurried over. Gracie apologized to the waiter and stood to get out of his way.

Ley joined her and pulled her away, following some of the other guests leaving the banquet hall.

“Was that an accident?” he whispered.

“No.”

“Well done. I haven’t a clue how Dietrich earned his Iron Cross.”

She grinned, happy the two of them were working as a team. “Before supper, I found out that the contessa’s late husband owned a munitions business. I couldn’t get many details about their actual work, but I picked up plenty of gossip about his partners and their wives.”

Gracie had hoped Ley would be impressed with her discovery, but his smile was halfhearted. “Well, that’s useful information, but Allied Intelligence knew about their company before the war began.”

Gracie’s excitement soured into disappointment. “And I suppose the gossip will be useless too.”

“Maybe, maybe not. We can go over it later, see if anything sounds important. And don’t feel bad—we still have hours to learn more.”

“How are you doing?”

“Not bad so far.” One side of Ley’s face pulled into a grin. “How are you at dancing?”

Gracie glanced around the enormous ballroom they’d walked into. “I can follow well enough.”

The dancing started not long after. Gracie danced a few numbers with Captain Ley and managed to shrug off most of the embarrassment from spilling her wine. It was silly for her to be ashamed when she’d done it on purpose, but the emotion lingered. Her mother wouldn’t have approved, even knowing the reasons behind it. But as she followed Ley smoothly across the dance floor, she realized her mother was mistaken. Embarrassing herself to help someone else had been the right thing to do. And as she noticed a few admiring looks from the other male guests and remembered the way Ley and Ostheim had complimented her, she realized that maybe an aversion to embarrassment wasn’t the only thing her mother had been wrong about.

“I think I detect a smile, Concetta. Does that mean you’re enjoying yourself, or does it mean I’m an awkward dancer and you find my skills laughable?”

“I guess it means I’m enjoying myself because your dancing skills are perfectly adequate. Did they give you a class on that during training?”

Ley shook his head. “I was actually thinking I’m a little out of practice.” He glanced beyond her as the song ended. “Are you feeling up to a dance with Ostheim?”

Gracie hesitated. “I may as well get it over with.” She turned and forced a smile as Ostheim trod toward her.

“Concetta?” Ostheim held out his hand. She grasped it, and he led her a few steps away before placing his other hand on her back and pulling her in as the music started. She hoped her grin didn’t look as frozen as it felt. He seemed content to dance without much conversation, and although he
held her a little more firmly than Ley had, he was otherwise polite.

After two dances, an Italian officer interrupted them. Before releasing her, Ostheim leaned next to her ear; she could feel the moisture from his breath. “I suppose I’ll give you up—for now.”

As she walked away with her new partner, she glanced back at Ostheim and caught a look in his eyes that alarmed her. Earlier that night, she’d thought she’d seen respect and admiration in Captain Ley’s eyes. Ostheim’s eyes, on the other hand, revealed nothing but lust as they took her in from head to foot.

Hours passed on the dance floor, and Gracie was exhausted. She wasn’t used to staying up late—with curfew so early, there was rarely a reason to—nor was she used to dancing with so many men. Her head pounded, and the dance floor proved a poor area for collecting intelligence. The
music was loud and the dances short, so she never got beyond trivial conversation with her dance partners.

When an Italian officer asked her if she’d like to rest, she followed him from the ballroom. Unfortunately, he was more interested in pawing her than in telling her anything that would be useful to the Allies.

Gracie slipped away when he went to get drinks and ran into a friendly young German. His smile was promising, but his Italian was as bad as her German, and she didn’t dare test his English. She put forth a valiant effort to communicate with him, and he reciprocated, but the only thing he seemed to catch was her complaint that she was tired. He found her a chair and spoke earnestly to her for about twenty minutes, but she only understood about one word in ten. After his monologue, he helped her to
her feet, kissed her cheek, and used a few phrases of broken Italian to invite her to one of the mansion’s more secluded areas.

“
Nein
,” Gracie said, glad she knew at least that in German. He was disappointed as he left, but before long, she saw him pursuing a new target.

Gracie yawned, and her stomach growled. She found a clock and saw that it was two in the morning. No wonder she was hungry again. Upon returning to the dining hall, she found an impressive buffet of fruit, sandwiches, pastries, and alcohol.

Even after a snack, the pain in her head persisted. Music from the ballroom filled the dining room and all the sitting areas on the main floor. In the upstairs game room, a record blared. She needed somewhere quiet.

The noise finally faded when she found the library. It was empty and dimly lit, and the chairs and sofas looked far more comfortable than the cheap mattress in her apartment.

Gracie was considering a nap when a shadow fell across the doorway and Otto
Ostheim followed her into the library.

“Hello, Otto,” Gracie said, trying
to smile.

He returned her smile, but on him the expression looked venomous.
“Your boyfriend had a bad night at the card table. I just won your company
for the next two hours.”

“What?”
Would Ley really do something like that?
She thought he would
if it would help the men trapped at Anzio.

Ostheim stepped toward her and firmly grasped her arm. “Come with me.” His breath reeked of alcohol.

She pulled away, but he easily grabbed her again, harder than before. “Let me go!” she said.

He laughed until her elbow caught him in the ribs. After that, he glared,
catching her and pulling her toward a nook in the corner of the library. “Think you’re too good for me, do you?”

“Leave me alone, Otto. You’re drunk.” Gracie tried to punch his face, but he blocked her jab, then gripped her arms.
Would anyone hear me scream
? She doubted it. All the other guests were drunk, asleep, or near loud music.

Ostheim laughed again. “No, for the next two hours, you’re mine, and I intend to enjoy you.”

He was holding her so tightly it hurt, and a growing fear gnawed at her stomach. As he forced her to march forward, she managed to twist one arm away. Then she smashed his nose with the heel of her hand, just as she’d practiced in training. He released her and stumbled back a few steps, one hand holding his nose. When he pulled his fingers away, they were covered in blood. The look in his eyes was murderous.

He seemed set to lunge at her, but before he could pounce, someone
cleared their throat behind them. Gracie and Ostheim both turned toward
the door, where Ley stood, pistol in hand.

“Untersturmführer
Ostheim, I believe you’ve had too much to drink. Perhaps it’s time for you to go home.”

Ostheim glanced at Ley’s Luger and nodded slightly. With one final glare at Gracie, he brushed past Ley, purposely bumping into his shoulder. Ley followed Ostheim with his eyes, holstering his pistol only after the SS man was out of sight.

“Well, I’m glad to see you can take care of yourself,” Ley said as he walked toward her. “I daresay you broke his nose.”

Gracie shook her head at his casual response. When Ley had asked her to dress up for the party, she hadn’t realized he was setting her up as a poker prize. She was willing to sacrifice a lot for the army but not
that.
He could have at least told her about his plan before using her company as part of a bet. When Ley was close enough, she slapped him across the face as hard as she could.

He put his hand to his cheek. His mouth hung open in surprise, and the muscles around his eyes tightened in anger. “What was that for? I came here to protect you!”

“He said you lost a bet playing cards, and
I
was his prize. I can’t believe
you told him he could do whatever he wanted with me. Do you have any idea what his intentions were?”

“I wasn’t even at the card table.”

“Well, he said—”

“And who are you going to believe? Him or me?” Ley took his hand off his cheek. Even in the dim light, she could see the red mark from where she’d struck him.

Gracie felt her breathing grow ragged as embarrassment mingled with the terror she’d felt earlier. “You didn’t tell him he could do whatever he wanted with me for the next two hours?”

“Most definitely not.”

She closed her eyes and tried to control the tremors in her hands. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond right away. She finally opened her eyes and saw him glance at his watch. “Look, it’s late—or early. You’re tired and scared, all the men I came to see have slipped from drunk-and-talkative to drunk-and-nearly-comatose, and there are still several hours before we should leave. Take a few deep breaths and relax. We’ve done enough for the night.”

Gracie sank onto the couch behind her as her legs started to shake.

“Are you all right?” Ley asked.

She nodded and drew in a labored breath.

“Did he hurt you?” Ley sat next to her.

Gracie held her right arm out. “I’ll probably have a bruise where he blocked my punch, and my hand is a little sore, but other than that, no. I’m . . . I’m sorry I hit you . . . I should have realized he was lying, but I was so scared . . .” She stopped when her voice cracked.

“It’s okay.” He brushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen into her face and put his arm around her quaking shoulders. She snuggled in next to his chest and closed her eyes, ashamed that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, relieved that he’d come when he had. Her headache still raged, but it wasn’t quite as bad with her eyes shut. She knew the cuddle was just
part of an act, but she didn’t want to be alone if Ostheim returned, and for tonight, she didn’t mind playing along.

* * *

Bastien slept in the morning after the curfew party, rising in time for the midday meal of sausage and potato soup.

“How was the party?” Heinie asked as Bastien sat next to him.

“You didn’t miss much.”

Heinie laughed softly. “I can tell when you’re lying.”

Bastien hoped that wasn’t really the case. “Music, endless food, an elegant mansion, and a beautiful date. Not bad.”

“Did you take that Italian girl? Concetta?”

Bastien nodded and looked at his watch. “We’re actually meeting again this afternoon.”

“Hmm.” The noise was part speculation, part interest. “And what will you do together?”

“I’m not sure yet. Have you heard from Maurleen recently?”

Heinie’s smile was answer enough, and he whistled “Lili Marlene” as he left the dining hall.

When Gracie came to Bastien’s room a few hours later, he gave her his report. It was a long one because the excess alcohol had loosened more than one man’s tongue at the party. There was continued suspicion that the Allies were preparing an invasion near Civitavecchia, complaints about inadequate supplies, even a few detailed contingency plans. The snippets Gracie had picked up were of questionable worth, but Bastien decided to include them.
If nothing else, it might help the Allies track down Italian war criminals if they chose to hide in the homes of former mistresses.

Gracie sat at the table to encode everything, then looked over at him when she finished. She seemed more relaxed than the night before, partly because her dress was more casual and her hair was down, but it was also in her face—less nervous, less worried. “I’m sorry about this morning.” She mimed a slapping motion. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“You already apologized,” he said.

“I thought maybe I should apologize again.”

“Once is enough. I’m not one to hold grudges.”

“Unless it involves Vaughn-Harris?”

“That’s more him holding a grudge against me than me holding a grudge against him. Besides, he never apologized.”

He got a soft laugh out of her and a deeper smile.

Bastien leaned forward in his armchair. “Look, about this morning, I want you to know I would never ask you to seduce
Ostheim in order to get information. I wouldn’t ask that of anyone, especially someone like you.”

Gracie nodded, looking at the table, and some of her dark hair fell forward across her shoulders.

When she stayed silent, he tried again. “I’m sorry it was even a question. I guess my actions haven’t given you much confidence in me, and I apologize.”

She met his gaze, her brown eyes solemn again. “It’s not that I lack confidence in you. I can tell you’re very good at what you do. It’s just hard to trust you and a little frustrating because I know so little about the real you.”

He was quiet for a while, thinking back to an earlier conversation. “My real blood type is A. Adalard’s is B.”

She raised one hand in frustration. “That’s not very helpful.”

“All right. What would you like to know?”

Gracie’s mouth opened, then closed again as if she didn’t believe he would really answer her questions. “We could start with your first name.”

“Not that.” He’d almost slipped a few times and called her Gracie instead of Concetta and assumed it would be equally difficult for her to call him Adalard if she knew his real name. Ignorance, in this case, would make her job easier.

She sighed, disappointed. “Do you always tap your foot like that?”

Bastien looked at his legs and noticed the left one was moving.

“You don’t even realize you’re doing it, do you?” Gracie asked.

“Not usually.”

“Colonel Ambrose said something happened between you and Vaughn-Harris before Annie.”

Bastien nodded.

“Well, what was it?” she asked.

“What was your final OSS training assignment?”

Gracie raised one eyebrow as if to chastise him for steering the conversation into a tangent, but she answered his question. “For my team assignment, we were told to go through the motions of sabotaging train tracks in Philadelphia. So we planned our routes, entered the city separately, then met in the middle of the night and wired the tracks.” As she spoke,
her hands moved along the table, tracing the routes each team member had taken, he supposed.

“Did you get caught?”

“No. It was scary, really. We could have paralyzed the city’s entire transportation hub had we been German saboteurs.”

Bastien leaned back into the chair again. “And your individual test?”

“I was asked to gather intelligence about the Sparrows Point Shipyard near Baltimore. I got a job as a telephone operator, under a pseudonym, and listened in on conversations for a few weeks. I ended up with information about what materials they needed, when they arrived, how much they cost. I also gathered the names of the most important people working there or working with them. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but my trainer was pleased.”

“Sometimes even mundane information is important when you piece it all together,” Bastien said.

“Yes, but what do my tests have to do with Captain Vaughn-Harris?”

“For my test, I was asked to find out how a certain congressman would vote on a particular bill. So I broke into his office.”

“That was bold.”

Bastien shrugged. “My accent would have put everyone on alert if I’d tried to find out in person.” There hadn’t been much of an alternative.

“I assume you succeeded?”

“Yes. And in addition to discovering how he planned to vote, I uncovered evidence that he was accepting bribes from a defense contractor. A company owned by Vaughn-Harris’s father.”

Gracie’s mouth opened in surprise. “Was there a scandal?”

“No, but the congressman didn’t run for reelection, and the Vaughn-Harris family lost most of their contracts.”

“So Vaughn-Harris thought he would take revenge on you by marrying Annie?”

Bastien knew few details of Annie and Vaughn-Harris’s courtship—just that it had ended in marriage. “Maybe. She might have shown interest on her own. She wanted to be married, not just engaged. The government sends monthly checks to brides, not to fiancées. Of course, the only reason Vaughn-Harris was still around to date Annie after we finished training was because he relaxed a little too much at the OSS party celebrating the
end of training. You had one of those, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t drink anything?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“No. And I figured out it was a hidden test fairly quickly.”

“Vaughn-Harris didn’t. He had to repeat some of his training, and I don’t think Ambrose has ever sent him into the field. Doubt he trusts him.”

“So you hurt his father’s business and showed him up in training, and when he tried to take revenge on you by marrying your fiancée, you were relieved instead of heartbroken.” Gracie smiled at him. “No wonder he hates you.”

“Mmm.”

Gracie tapped a finger on the table. “But how could you be engaged to someone and not care when she married someone else?”

“Getting engaged to Annie was an accident.”

“How do you get engaged by accident?”

Bastien shrugged. “We’d been on a handful of dates. When I walked her home after a movie, she told me her roommate was out of town until Monday and invited me to stay the weekend. I told her I didn’t think that would work since we weren’t married. So then she asked me if I’d want to get married before I spent the weekend with someone, and I said yes, and then she said she accepted. It took me a minute to figure out that I’d somehow proposed to her.”

“So why didn’t you sort it out right then?”

“I was afraid if I stayed much longer, she’d convince me to stay the night. And I was leaving in a few weeks to go overseas. I guess part of me liked the idea of having someone waiting for me. I wasn’t sure I’d make it home anyway, so I postponed dealing with it.”

“And then Captain Vaughn-Harris came along and stole her from you?”