City of Silence (City of Mystery) (34 page)

She
hesitated.  She was miserable in her clammy gown but to undress in front of him
would only lead to an encounter she did not want.  An encounter she knew she
could not endure.  Not with the smell of Konstantin still on her.  She would
not allow Filip to erase the last vestiges of his presence, to so quickly blot
the memory from her skin.  A woman who sleeps with two men finds her morality
where she can, and it had been a point of honor with Tatiana that she had never
lain with both Filip and Konstantin on the same day.  She would not break her
rule now, especially not now, when all she wanted to do was lie in her bed and
weep over the events of the past hour.

“I
am unwell,” she said.  This excuse had not always stalled him in the past, but
it was worth a try.

“Yes,
I know, and that is what I have come to talk about,” he said, rubbing out his
cigar and standing to move toward her.  “You must leave St. Petersburg at once.”

Chapter
Twenty-Two

The
Winter Palace – The Guest Quarters

7:12
PM

“I
fear I do not have the legs for this costume,” Tom said, turning one way and
then the other to study his reflection in the long mirror.

“If
it is any consolation,” Rayley said, “I would imagine few men do.”

“It
is a matter of calf definition,” Tom muttered, looking critically at his lower
legs which seemed to him thin and rather boyish when encased in the bright
yellow stockings.  He tried not to ponder the fates of the previous two
occupants of the gypsy king costume – the unfortunate Konstantin Antonovich and
the even more unfortunate Cynthia Kirby.  The shirt hung a little too loose as
well, and he wondered if it was folly to imagine he might be able to
convincingly pass as the Siberian dance master. 

As
if reading his mind, Rayley rushed to reassure him. “The mask and the hat will
hide your hair and face,” he said, “and the cape will conceal any differences
between your frame and Antonovich’s.”

“What
of the difference in height?” Tom said.  “Everyone speaks of how admirably tall
the man is and I am barely north of average.”

“If
you are costumed and masked, nothing else will matter,” Rayley said, silently
thankful that his own spindly frame had ensured that he wouldn’t be the one
tapped for this particular ruse.  “You’ve read the reports from the Yard.  Most
people see only what they expect to see and nothing more.”

“So
they claim,” said Tom, plunking the large plumed hat over his blond hair.  “But
we are betting rather heavily on that, wouldn’t you say?”

The
Winter Palace – The Servant Wing

7:14
PM

When
Emma had asked the young man in the hall for directions to Konstantin
Antonovich’s room she had received little more than a vague pointing gesture
and a rude smirk.  There was only one reason, she supposed, that women living
in her part of the palace came to visit men living in his, and she wondered how
many of the imperial women had indulged in flirtations with their dance masters. 
Flirtations and perhaps more.

After
a few more inquiries she finally found the room, but he did not answer her
knock.  The door was actually a bit ajar, so she knocked again, waited, then
pushed it open.

The
room was as plain as a monk’s cell.  A bed, table, cot, and chest of drawers. 
Two of those drawers were pulled open and the bed was mussed.  Emma noted how
few personal possessions the room held, and she looked especially for the red
satin bag in which Konstantin carried his dance shoes.  They were his most
prized possession, he had told her, ordered from the west when he had begun his
career within the Winter Palace and he only put them on at the last minute,
just as they were about to step onto the dance floor.  The minute their lesson
was complete, he likewise took them off. 

It
would not take long to search a room of this size.  She pulled open the
remaining two drawers, threw back the blankets, looked under the bed.  No red
satin bag. With a sigh, Emma sat down on the narrow cot and stared straight
ahead at the wall.  

If
his dance shoes were gone, so was Konstantin.

The
Halls of the Winter Palace

7:42
PM

Trevor’s
thoughts raced even faster than his feet as he hurried up the steps leading to
the imperial suites.  Rayley was helping Tom into the gypsy king costume, which
had been retrieved that afternoon from the palace police, and Emma was off
somewhere in the direction of the servant quarters.   Her purpose was to warn
Konstantin Antonovich of their plan so that he would not appear at that night’s
dress rehearsal and thus shatter the illusion they were straining to create. 
Davy had been dispatched to the theater to procure information on all of the
entrances and exits, especially those most likely to be used by the tsar and
his family.

And
Trevor was on his way to see Ella.  For while it would be nice to solve a
Russian crime, he had not been distracted from his main function, which was to
protect Victoria and her granddaughters.   The Queen, when informed of the
situation, had readily agreed to stay in her suite along with Alex and Prakov
had sent an entire contingent of the palace police to stand guard in the halls
beyond.  But Ella was temperamental and determined to prove to her grandmother
that the palace was safe.   Persuading her to abandon the rehearsal would
likely prove to be more of a challenge.

Trevor
rapped gently on the door leading to Ella’s parlor and waited.  In their past
visits to the royals, the group had always been ushered in by Ella’s private
maid, a dour looking creature named Alina, so Trevor was shocked momentarily
speechless when the door opened to reveal none other than Ella’s husband, the
Grand Duke Serge.  He regarded Trevor with an expression that managed to be
simultaneously bored and suspicious.

Trevor
stammered out his rank and the reason for his visit while the Grand Duke
surveyed him coolly.

“I
do not report to my own bodyguards,” he said.  “And most certainly not to those
of my wife’s grandmama.”

Irritation
stirred in Trevor, but he suppressed it.  “I only wished, Your Excellency, to
suggest that your wife might avoid the rehearsal theater this evening.  We have
reason to suspect there may be some sort of trouble.”

“Some
sort of trouble…” the Duke said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.  “Could
you possibly be more specific?”

But
Trevor had scarcely begun when the Duke waved off the very explanation he had
requested and said, “It doesn’t matter.  My wife has left today for our villa
by the sea.  I bade her goodbye just minutes ago.”  And with that he would have
shut the door if Trevor had not managed to slip in the toe of his shoe at his
last minute. 

“She
traveled alone, Your Excellency?”

“Of
course not,” the Grand Duke snapped, his limited patience at an end.  “A lady
in waiting and her maid are with her.”

“Her
new lady-in-waiting?  Tatiana Orlov?”

“Why
should I know the name of a servant?  There was a carriage with ladies, headed
for the coast and my wife was among them.  If you have anything more to say, I
suggest you say it to your own Queen.  Good day.” 

And
with that the door between the Romanovs and Scotland Yard was closed for good.

The
Grand Ballroom

8:18
PM

His
first mistake was his promptness.  The rehearsal was scheduled to begin at eight
o’clock and Tom had entered at 7:55 only to find himself standing in an empty
lounge, waiting for the rest of the performers.  It was the same room he and
Emma had been exploring just before they had stumbled upon Tatiana and
Konstantin, he noted, and was evidently the hub of any number of theatrical
activities.  He paced around nervously until he finally heard the sounds of
others arriving downstairs, their voices growing louder as they climbed the
stairs, and Tom wished, for the hundredth time in the hour, that he spoke even
a smattering of Russian.

At
least the first person through the door was someone he recognized.  Xenia, the
tsar’s daughter, and Emma had briefed him that she was the first person
Konstantin was scheduled to dance with during the imperial waltz performance.  Tom
supposed he must greet her, and he sank into an exaggerated bow, holding his
cape out to one side.

“Good
evening, Milady,” he growled, attempting an accent so outrageous that she would
not recognize that it was not the voice of her dance master.  “Welcome to the
hidden lair of the Gypsy King.”

She
laughed and responded to his English with English of her own.  The vast
majority of those within the Romanov court were multilingual and at times the
palace seemed a virtual Tower of Babel to Tom, with any number of languages
being spoken almost interchangeably.  But he had noticed that whoever spoke
first seemed to dictate the language of the conversation to follow and this
time was no exception.

“Why
are you dressed so silly?” Xenia asked.  “They said we would practice the waltz
first and then the theatricals.”

“There
have been a change of plans, my gypsy princess,” he said, noting that she was
indeed dressed for the waltz, in the same spangled red dress that Emma wore. 
Presumably all the women in that performance would be wearing the same costume,
along with silk masks and feathered headbands, which would only make his task
more difficult.

But
Xenia appeared to take him at his word, merely nodding before turning to admire
her reflection in one of the room’s many mirrors.

Nice
job, Bainbridge, Tom thought.   You have at least managed to fool a twelve year
old girl.

8:34
PM

Emma
bunched the voluminous red skirt beneath her and perched on one of the balcony
seats.  It was the perfect vantage point for studying the ballroom below.  She could
see Davy at one set of doors, Trevor at another, and Rayley at the third –
postings which might have seemed suspicious at any other time, but there was so
much hubbub in the ballroom that no appeared to be taking note of their
presence.   Between the three of them they would get a good look at anyone
entering from the public floors.  It was up to her and Tom to monitor the
entrances from the performance level.

Speaking
of Tom, he had entered the main ballroom as well and Emma internally winced as
she watched him cross the dance floor.  With the plumed hat he was nearly as
tall as Konstantin, but Tom had little of the dance master’s natural grace.  He
made his way to a distant edge of the room, one of the four shadowy entrance
points for the waltz, each tucked behind the base of a stage set, and stood on
the periphery of a group of ladies who were all wearing the same red dress as
Emma.  He seemed to sense her gaze for he glanced upward toward the balcony and
made a stiff little bow in her direction. 

It
seemed to be going well enough from what she could tell.  He wouldn’t try to
dance, of course.  When the music began, it was a signal that the performers
had a few minutes to warm up before the rehearsal.  Tom and Emma had agreed
they would find each other at the sound of the first note from the pianist,
grandly parade to the center of the floor, and that Tom would pretend to roll
an ankle almost immediately.  Since their feet and legs were their livelihood,
the dancers took even the slightest injury seriously.  No one would be
surprised if Konstantin quickly retreated to his room to pack his sore ankle in
ice.

After
all, this was merely the dress rehearsal.  The rehearsal for the dancers and
for the forensics team as well.  If there were truly danger on the horizon, it
was unlikely to come to fruition until tomorrow night, when the theater would
be packed with an audience full of aristocrats.  Tonight was the team’s chance
to get a sense of how the performers moved around the ballroom, where any lulls
or points of drama were likely to occur in the program.  Tomorrow they would be
back in their places with more information, and the palace police in full force
as well. 

Emma
gave a final quick look around the room before pushing to her feet.  The
costumes and matching dresses made it a little harder to tell, but she had not
so far seen anyone whom she could not identify as one of the dancers,
musicians, or performers.  There were a few workmen adding last minute touches
to the four theatrical sets in the corners and it struck her that this might be
an easy way to gain access to the theater.  Props were being carried in, while
tools and pails of paint were being carried out, and around the cottage set
were piled a virtual wall of burlap bags, evidently holding soil in which
someone would plant flowers.  But Trevor had noticed all this as well.  He was
leaning against the gilded doorframe of the entrance he was guarding, his eyes
flickering from one set to another.

The
musicians had entered.  The pianist was seated, sifting through his papers. 
Emma turned to head downstairs and – despite the fact nothing was likely to
happen tonight, despite the fact this was little more than practice – her heart
was pounding.  She must hurry.  She must guarantee that she would be the first
of Konstantin’s partners to reach Tom’s side.  Because, God knows, they
couldn’t let him try to dance.

The
Halls of the Gentlemen’s Enclave

8:53
PM

It
was strange to walk through halls that he had only seen in drawings.  Strange
to see Yulian’s careful blueprints brought to life.

Yulian
had suggested the idea of bringing in the flowers through the docks and Vlad
had to admit it was genius.   He had said that one of the theatrical sets was a
cottage in the woods and it would be crammed full of flowers.  For the sake of
freshness, they would only be planted the night before the grand ball.  So the
dockworker on duty had not been surprised when Vlad and Gregor had rowed up in
a boat full of lilies.