Where the Heart Chooses (6 page)

“Damn Commies. I’ll tell you once we’re on
the road.” He got behind the wheel and lit a cigarette, then
started the car, switched on the running lights, and drove out of
the airport.

Tony had the radio set for a classical
station, and I closed my eyes and let Borodin’s “String Quartet in
D” wash over me. I knew he would tell me whatever I needed to know
whenever he was ready.

After a few minutes, he said, “I know you
intended to return to school for your master’s degree. I’m afraid
that will have to be put on hold.”

“Oh?”

“You know the Hungarian Revolution
failed.”

“That’s yesterday’s news, Tony.” The
Revolution had been over for at least three months.

“Yes, well, there’s been a lot of chatter
between Moscow and the puppet government the Soviets established in
Budapest.”

I glanced at him sharply.
Is that what’s
been keeping you up nights, big brother?
Because it was easy to
see that if something was disturbing him, it wasn’t a romantic
liaison gone awry. “I imagine they’re doing this in code?”

“The NSA is—” His head whipped around to
stare at me as what I said sank in. “Have you heard of the Venona
Project?”

“Should I have?”

“No. It’s classified.”

“Then obviously I haven’t. And please keep
your eyes on the road. I’ve spent the past nine months in England,
which you know, and it feels as if you’re driving on the wrong
side.”

He laughed, and, as I’d hoped, relaxed, but
not for long.

“I need as many people as I can find who are
fluent in Russian.”

“Is that all that difficult?”

“Two words, little sister—security
clearance.”

“Ah. I see.”

“I hope so. Father’s seen to it that you
have that level of clearance, Portia. I need you to join us.”

“So this is why he wanted me home?”

“Yes. Do you mind?”

“You’re joking, aren’t you? Tony, I’m
flattered that you can use my expertise!”

“No, I mean do you mind that you had to
curtail your visit?”

“Of course I don’t! This is important!” But
I thought of Folana Fournaise, and the brief time we’d had
together, and I gazed out the window, seeing only my own
reflection.

* * * *

The entire family was there to welcome me,
even Jefferson.

“I thought you were still in England.” I
noticed his gait seemed a bit stiff, and I arched an eyebrow at
him.

“Father sent for me.” He ignored my raised
eyebrow and kissed my cheek. “I was able to get a flight out early
last evening.”

“I imagine someone was very disappointed,” I
murmured.

He grinned and shrugged. “‘Someone’ was
extremely grateful for the time we had together. Unfortunately,
‘someone’ had to leave last night also.”

“Hmm.”

Bryan looked from Jefferson to me, and then
studied Jefferson more closely. He smiled. “Strained a muscle,
Jeff? I know a good masseuse.”

Bryan was the quiet one of the brothers,
speaking only after he’d weighed all the factors, taken everything
into consideration, examined it from every angle. His position as
analyst in the CIA suited him down to the ground.

“Thanks, Bry. I might just take you up on
that.” Jefferson’s grin was rakish.

“Your love life will have to take a back
seat, Jefferson,” Father interrupted. “We need to bring Portia up
to speed on this project. Mary?” He addressed Mother.

“You have about an hour and a half before
dinner, Anthony.” Which would be at eight, as usual. “I’ll have a
tray of hors d’oeuvres brought in to your study.” Beyond the
entertaining required by Father’s position, Mother chose not to be
involved in his work.

“Thank you, my dear. All right, children.
Let’s retire to my study.” Once the door was closed, he poured us
each a glass of sherry. “Has Anthony told you about the Venona
Project?”

“He touched on it briefly. I’d help decipher
the Russian codes?”

“Yes. You’ll be staying with him, rather
than driving back and forth. I’ve convinced your mother that’s the
safest thing.”

There was a tap on the door, and Plum, the
young man who was in training to replace his father as our butler,
entered. “The hors d’oeuvres, sir.”

“Thank you, Plum.”

I took a piece of cheese and popped it in my
mouth. “I don’t get my own apartment?” I asked after Plum left.

“You stay with me, Portia.”

“But Tony, suppose you want to entertain a
lady friend?” I opened my eyes wide, unable to resist teasing him.
“Overnight?”

“I take my dates to dinner and a show. I do
not do overnight entertaining in my apartment.”

“Well, suppose
I
—
”

“I don’t want to hear about my baby sister
entertaining a man overnight.” He scowled at the other three, who
were laughing. “Don’t encourage her! You aren’t the ones who’ll be
there worrying!”

“Ah, you’re such a good brother, Tony.” I
put my arms around his waist and rested my head against his chest.
“I’ll behave. Aren’t I a Sebring?”

“But not for long, I’m sure,” Father mused.
“Some man is going to take one look at you, decide you’ll be his
perfect hostess, and snap you up.”

Jefferson opened his mouth, and I wondered
if “someone” had told him about the time I had spent with Folana,
and if he was going to say anything about it, but then the corner
of his mouth crooked in a grin, and he reached for his glass.

“Here’s to them all, the men and women
who’ll love us, in spite of what we do.”

We finished our sherry and went back to
discussing the Venona Project.

* * * *

True to his word, Tony never brought a date
home. I ran into him a time or two when I was on the town myself,
and I’d met some of the women he squired around the D.C. area. I
wondered if he realized how much alike they were. Whether blonde,
brunette or redhead, they were all cool and emotionally
distant.

I came home from a date one Saturday night
to find him sprawled on the sofa. His eyes were closed, and he had
a glass of scotch in one hand while the other was folded behind his
head. Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
was on the stereo.

“You’re home early.”

“And I’m in a miserable mood,” I snapped and
threw my little clutch bag on the coffee table, where it bounced
before it skidded off onto the carpet. I shoved his legs off the
end of the couch, dropped down, and took his glass from him.

“Hey!” he protested as I took a healthy
swig.

I glowered at him over the rim of the glass
before lowering it. “Why are men such asses?”

“Problems in paradise, little sister?”

“I thought Thomas Winston was a gentleman.”
He cocked a brow at me as I handed his drink back. He had
introduced us. “The first time we went out, he was so sweet. And
then tonight we went to see the latest Hepburn and Tracy at the
Valencia. He took me up to the balcony, and all of a sudden he grew
octopus arms! When I told him I wasn’t interested in being
deflowered in the balcony of a movie house, he got nasty.” The fact
that I hadn’t been a virgin since my last year in
Tidewater—Sebrings might love only once, but we dallied where we
chose—wasn’t something Winston had needed to know. And neither did
my big brother. “He wanted to know if I thought I was Princess
Grace and had the temerity to call me an ice princess!” Which was
his way of saying he thought I was frigid.

Tony bolted upright, spilling some of his
scotch. “Son of a—!” He bit off the epithet; he never swore in my
presence. “I’ll black his eyes and break his nose!”

“Are you insinuating that I couldn’t?”

A slow smile replaced his scowl. “Does he
have his teeth left?”

“Yes, but only just. Mother would have been
proud. I didn’t raise my voice, much less my hand.” I began to pull
the pins from my hair. “Tony, have you heard anything regarding
me?”

“Regarding what about you?” he hedged.

“You know, I hate when you answer a question
with a question.” I ignored the fact that I did that even more
often than he. “Lately, I seem to be hearing this quite a bit, that
I’m an ice princess.”

He suddenly looked pensive. “You know,
Richardson is in D.C.”

“Should I know the name?”

“Under-secretary to the under-secretary to
the British Ambassador.”

“The name still isn’t ringing a bell.”

“That’s his official cover, little sister.
He actually works for the Special Intelligence Section of the
Foreign Office.” Sir Joseph Bowne’s Section. “He was in London
around the same time you were.”

I scrubbed my face, and then stared at my
palms, irritated that they were now covered with Elizabeth Arden.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” I muttered. I had told him how
Folana Fournaise had attempted to throw up a smoke screen to keep
the SIS away from me.

“Well, Folana seems to have done an
excellent job in portraying you as emotionally frigid. Is there a
possibility we can get her to work for us, do you think?” He saw my
expression and held up his hands. “No, I imagine not. Why don’t you
wash that war paint off your face and get some sleep? Tomorrow
we’ll take a ride home and see what Father has to say about this
turn of events.”

“Very well,” I sighed, “but it’s a waste of
a perfectly good Saturday night.”

“You could always reread
War and
Peace
in the original Russian. It’s much less complicated!”

“Perhaps.” But it was still a waste of a
good Saturday night.

* * * *

Father volunteered to vet my dates. “I know
some rather nice young men in State, Portia.”

I knew exactly the sort of men they would
be—cold, undemonstrative, and so wrapped up in their careers they
were about as sexually exciting as a bowl of tapioca.

I sighed. “No, thank you, Father. I think
I’ll take a respite from the dating scene.” I was surprised when he
didn’t pursue the matter.

Tony knew better than to offer.

I wouldn’t have had the energy anyway;
things in the intelligence community had suddenly heated up. It was
a rare night that I arrived back at the apartment I shared with
Tony before midnight, only to return to Arlington Hall by eight the
next morning.

Of course it wasn’t as bad as the previous
autumn, Tony hastened to assure me, when, on October 4, the
Russians had launched their Sputnik I into space. All hell had
broken loose, with the American public terrified that the
Communists would be able to fire nuclear weapons from Europe to the
U.S. They were almost rabid in their demand to know how the
government could have missed such crucial intelligence.

In a joint effort with the CIA, the NSA had
intercepted a code that revealed the Soviets would be launching
Sputnik II early in November, and this time the payload would be
the passenger it carried, a dog named Laika. It lit a fire under
the Defense Department, who provided funding for Wernher von Braun
and his team to begin work on the Explorer program.

Still, with Kruschchev becoming Premier of
the Soviet Union and Castro’s army attacking Havana, I thought we
might have more to worry about down on the ground.

I was working a code that I’d been given
earlier when the in-house phone buzzed. “Yes, Tony?”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?” I laughed to myself, knowing full
well what he meant. I could tell unerringly when my oldest brother
was on the line.

“Never mind. Listen, I need you in here
right now. Jefferson’s forwarded a new code to us, and there’s
something about it that’s driving me out of my mind.”

“I’m on my way.” I pushed my chair away from
my desk and stood, digging my fists into the small of my back and
arching to work out the kinks. Then I made sure my blouse was
tucked neatly into my skirt. Just because it was nine at night, and
everyone else had gone home, there was no reason for me to appear
looking sloppy.

His door was closed. I tapped briskly and
walked in. “What have you got, Tony? Oh!” I halted abruptly. He
wasn’t alone.

The other man had one hand braced on Tony’s
desk, his attractive face tight with impatience.

I had seen him occasionally in Arlington
Hall, in the corridors, on the stairs. We’d passed each other with
nothing more than cool glances. Occasionally I’d wonder if his
glance concealed as much fascination as I knew mine did.

He was about average height and appeared to
be a number of years younger than my brother, which would make him
about twenty-nine. A lock of sable brown hair spilled onto his
forehead, and eyes a changeable hazel regarded me with interest.
His vest was unbuttoned over a flat stomach, his shirtsleeves had
been rolled up revealing muscular arms dusted with dark hair, and
his tie loosened.

Abruptly, I was reminded of the seascape
that I’d purchased in that little London bookshop. I couldn’t
decide to whom I should give it, and I’d wound up hanging it on my
bedroom wall, where it was the last thing I saw every night.

There was something about this man that
spoke to me of that expanse of sea, aloof, alone, contained,
stretching to meet turbulent clouds…

I shook that fanciful notion out of my
head.

He gave me a slow, deliberate smile and
straightened, and my knees went weak with desire.

“I’m sorry.” I reached up to make sure my
hair was tidily confined in its French twist, something I never
did, and I felt my cheeks heat. I touched my tongue to my lips.

His eyes seemed to catalogue each of my
movements.

“Portia, this is Nigel Mann. He’s been
vetted to us from Bryan’s department. Nigel, my sister.” He became
aware that Mr. Mann was staring at me. “Yes, we’re aware there’s a
resemblance, so—”

“Actually, she’s much prettier than you or
either of your brothers, Sebring. Miss Sebring, it’s a pleasure.”
He crossed the geometrically-patterned area rug that took up most
of the floor in Tony’s office, his hand held out.