Zivon squeezed Lily’s hand. “I should—”
“Of course you should.” Color had returned to her cheeks, and she looked up with a muted smile. She returned the squeeze of his hand and then released it. “Go and help her.”
With a collection of pardon-mes, he squeezed through the crowd and intercepted the woman. “Perhaps I can help you,” he said in Greek. “You are looking for your husband?”
Pure relief washed over her face. “Oh, bless you! I know so little English, even after all these years. Estevan has always translated for me. He said he would be right behind me, but these crowds!”
And when one couldn’t communicate with them . . . Zivon nodded and offered his arm. “Come, we will search for him together. What does he look like?”
She described him down to the color of his waistcoat. Zivon didn’t recall seeing anyone of his look pass by, so he aimed her back toward the entrance and then past it. He spotted many of the wedding guests among the crowd, but his colleagues from the OB merely grinned and shook their heads when they heard him carrying on a conversation in Greek about the woman’s grandchildren.
“Estevan! There you are!” With a thanks to Zivon, the matron hurried to her husband’s side.
Zivon turned with a smile, glad that the search, at least, had a quick and happy resolution. He nearly ran headlong into another smiling man—the last one in all of London he’d hoped to see.
“Zivon! Zivon Marin, of all the surprises!”
Blast. Fyodor Suvorov was dressed for the opera or theater, as was the beautiful woman on his arm—Kira, he recalled absently. A former ballerina. He’d been invited to their wedding just before the war broke out. Zivon had no choice but to smile and reach to shake the hand held out to him. He answered in French, which was what Suvorov had spoken in. “Fyodor. You are in London?”
He laughed. “We came for our honeymoon—and then were stranded here. Though there are worse places to be stuck, given that Kira has friends in England, and my cousin is here. Kira, do you recall Zivon Marin? The most brilliant linguist we had in the Foreign Ministry.”
She smiled in the very way she’d been pictured on the poster Evgeni had once had tacked to his wall. “Of course. How good to see you again, Mr. Marin. Though I wish the circumstances were different.” She glanced around her with a concerned frown when a bigger tremor made itself felt. “Will it never stop? Ilya will be so frightened if she wakes up. And you know how Tionna fears these raids too. She’ll do little to calm her.”
“Konstantin will surely discover something. He should be back any—ah, there he is now.”
No. No, no, no. Zivon took a quick scan of the crowd, the escape routes, whom he could duck behind. But the people were packed too tightly in all directions but the one from which Nabokov came. There was no help for it. He’d done nothing to untangle the mess he’d made.
And now it had caught him up.
The ambassador was before him even now, drawing even with Fyodor. Eyes lighting in recognition. Reaching out a hand with “Filiminov, good evening!” even as his cousin said, “Are you familiar with . . . who?”
Zivon sighed and granted himself a single moment of closed eyes. When he opened them, the confusion had already shifted to suspicion on both of their faces. There was nothing for it but to straighten his spine. Lift his chin. And say in Russian, “Forgive me. I didn’t know whom I could trust.” He executed a quick military bow to the ambassador. “Kapitan Zivon Marin of the Imperial Navy, Intelligence Division. At your service, sir.”
14
Lily leaned her head against the seat, grateful for the silence in the cab of the embassy car. Exhaustion had settled on her limbs as heavily as the guilt, but at least the sirens had finally ceased. The fires had been put out. If only she could silence the barrage of accusations in her mind so easily.
This was her fault. Yes, she had been obeying Hall’s orders, but even so. Instead of convincing the Germans not to attack a superior force, they had only convinced them to send a superior force. If Londoners lay dead tonight, she was partially to blame.
The streets had been choked with people trying to return home. And the drive, graciously offered by the Russian diplomats Zivon had introduced her to, had been interrupted with enough necessary stops that she had to think it would have been faster to walk home.
They’d gotten out the first time the car stopped, when it became clear a bomb had struck the neighborhood through which they were driving. Or perhaps multiple bombs. The streets had been covered in glass from the windows, like a million crystals of snow. A terrible, heartbreaking beauty. Zivon had rushed to help a family push their way back into their battered home, but after making certain no one needed her help, Lily had drawn out her camera.
To remind herself. So she’d never forget the cost of this work she’d thought was so good. So noble. So worthwhile.
She’d gotten a few shots she couldn’t shake from her mind’s eye. One of a broken roof silhouetted against the moon. One of a passel of children, some awake enough to be playing and some succumbed to exhaustion on the pavement. One of Kira Suvorova embracing her toddler daughter upon gaining their thankfully spared home.
And one of Zivon with an expression on his face she’d never seen before. He’d looked . . . haunted as he hurried to a doorstep to check on an adolescent girl who had slumped there in fatigue. She’d been well, but Zivon had seemed shaken to the core. They’d climbed back in the car after that, and neither had suggested getting out the next time the driver was forced to halt.
They were alone in the cab now, the Suvorovs and Nabokov all safe in their respective homes. Zivon’s fingers had found hers again, and they still sat as close as they had when the diplomat’s wife was squeezed onto the seat with them.
“This is not exactly how I envisioned the night going.” His voice was little more than a breath at her ear, slipping easily into the silent car. Quieting the thoughts pelting her heart. “I had grand plans for a moonlit promenade through the garden. Hopes that perhaps I could convince you to accept a kiss.”
She levered her eyes open, though she could see nothing but his outline against the window. He’d wanted to kiss her? Had been planning it?
Her fingers were keenly aware of his. Her bare arm—she had no idea where her wrap was, though she’d likely left it in the ballroom somewhere—was warm against his jacket. Those twelve inches she’d always felt between them were nowhere to be seen.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them away. They should have had that. They should have had that instead of this broken, shattered version of a night. She should have been coming home in a rapture over her first kiss instead of struggling to swim through the waves of guilt. Her voice, no louder than his, was stained with that yearning. “I may have been convinced to accept.”
The fingers of his other hand skimmed her cheek. He’d taken off his gloves at some point. She’d scarcely worn hers all evening, as she found it difficult to operate her camera with them on, and the feel of his fingertips on her skin sent a frisson of unexpected wanting through her. That touch bade her turn her face toward his. Her breath lost to her, she obeyed.
He was so close already, to whisper in her ear as he’d done. Just that small turn had his nose brushing her cheek, and somehow he made it feel like an intentional caress rather than an accident. Though she couldn’t see much of anything, she could sense his lips all but touching hers. Almost, nearly. But hovering there just out of reach.