The Wild Rose (22 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

Seamie took a swallow of the whiskey he’d poured for himself. It burned his throat. Made his eyes water. He took another.

Glass in hand, he walked to the window of his hotel room, at the Coburg, and looked out of it. Night had come down. The street lamps were all aglow. He gazed at the street below but did not see the person he was looking for. He turned from the window, caught sight of himself in a mirror, and quickly looked away.

“Leave,” he said out loud. “Now. Get out of here before it’s too late.”

He could do it. He still had time. He
would
do it. He put his glass down and grabbed his jacket. He was across the room in a few quick strides, had his hand on the doorknob—and then he heard it: a knock at his door. He stood there, frozen. Ran a hand through his hair. The knock came again. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

“I didn’t know if you’d really be here,” Willa said.

“Neither did I,” he replied.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

He laughed. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Sorry.”

He took her jacket and hat and placed them on a chair with his own jacket. She was wearing a cream silk blouse under it and a navy skirt. He commented on her outfit and she told him she hated it, but had worn it to blend in. She didn’t want to be recognized here.

He offered her tea, but she wanted whiskey. He was so jittery, he sloshed some on her as he handed it to her.

“It’s all right, Seamie,” she said. “We can just talk, you know. Like adults. We can try to sort things out.”

That’s what they’d decided to do at Lulu’s party. They hadn’t made love. Instead, they decided they would meet in a private place, at a time when emotions were not running as high, and there they would put the old ghosts to rest. They would talk about Africa, and about what had happened there, and when they’d finished, they would go their separate ways. They would part friends—not enemies and not lovers, but friends.

Seamie laughed mirthlessly now. “I told myself that, too, Willa. On my way over. I told myself all we would do tonight was talk. But I knew if I came here, I’d do more than talk. And I think you knew that, too.”

He had booked a suite—a room with settees and chairs and a desk—so that the large, inviting hotel bed would be firmly out of sight. He’d hoped that would help. It hadn’t. He wanted her so badly right now, it was all he could do not to take her on the floor.

She nodded at his words, looking at him as she did. Her eyes were frank and unflinching. He could see the love in them, and the longing.

“One time, then, all right?” she said quietly. “Just this one time and never again.”

As she spoke, she put her drink down and started undoing the buttons of her blouse. She shrugged it off and let it fall to the floor. She had nothing on underneath it. She undid her boots and stockings. Then unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt and let that fall, too.

She stood before him, unashamed of her nakedness, or of the scars on her body, and he moved toward her as if in a trance. He knew what he was doing was wrong, and he knew, too, that he would pay a heavy price for his sins. The memories of this night would torture him for the rest of his life.

But he would pay that price. He’d pay any price to be with her.

He didn’t take her in his arms. He would, but not yet. He wanted to see her, to discover and know every inch of her. And so he went slowly, taking his time.

He kissed her gently on the lips. Then on her neck. He took her hand, held her arm out, and kissed his way from her shoulder to her palm, brushing his lips along her muscled upper arm, the hollow of her elbow, over the veins and sinews of her forearm, to her hand, scarred and strong.

He kissed her throat, the bronzed skin of her chest. His mouth moved to her breasts, and he felt her arch against him as he teased her small, hard nipples with his tongue and teeth.

He turned her around and kissed the nape of her neck, ran his hand over the graceful flare of her back. He traced the knotted pearls of her spine one by one, kissed the jutting bones of her hips. He knelt down then and turned her once more. Toward him.

He slid his hands to her bum and pulled her hard against him. He kissed the place between her legs, and touched her there. She was soft, so soft. And warm and wet. He felt her fingers dig into his shoulders, felt her shudder against him, heard her cry his name.

That sound, the sound of her crying his name, maddened him with desire. He wanted to have her, to possess her body and soul. He wanted to hear her call his name again. His name. He’d wanted it for so long.

He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He had his own clothes off in seconds. And then he was on top of her. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. Then she pushed him off of her.

“No,” she said in a rough, husky voice, her green eyes glittering. “It’s my turn.”

She pushed him down on the bed, onto his back, then lay next to him on her side. He grabbed her hips, wanting only to be inside her again, but again she told him no. She took hold of his wrists and pinned them to the pillows. Then she kissed his mouth, biting his bottom lip. She kissed his forehead and his chin. Bit his shoulder. She kissed his chest, trailing her tongue down his torso. Bit his hip and made him shiver, as he’d done to her. She went lower, tormenting him with her mouth. “Jesus, woman,” he groaned.

And then she was kissing his mouth again, taking him inside her, moving with him, her eyes closed. He cupped her face in one hand, touched his forehead to hers.

“Tell me, Willa,” he said, his voice barely more than a gasp. “Tell me.”

She opened her eyes and he saw that they were bright with tears. “I love you, Seamie,” she said. “I love you so.”

He came then. Wildly. Helplessly. Overwhelmed by lust and love and sorrow and pain. And she did, too. When it was over, he held her close. He kissed her, brushed a stray tendril of hair from her sweaty cheek.

There was a vase of roses on the bedside table, lush and bright, their perfume strong and enticing. They were no scentless, lifeless hothouse blooms. They’d been cut for their perfume and their color, cut from a hedgerow in the country where they’d grown wild and brought to London. They didn’t belong here in this hotel room, in this gray city. Neither did Willa. Seamie took one out and tucked it behind her ear. “A wild rose for my wild rose,” he whispered to her. He smoothed a piece of hair out of her face, then said, “Why did you come back into my life, Willa? You’ve ruined it. Ruined me. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and the worst.”

“I told myself it would only be once,” she said. “I told you that, too. But it can’t be, Seamie. I can’t leave here tomorrow morning knowing I’ll never have this again. Never be with you like this again. What are we going to do?” she asked desolately. Just as she had at Lulu’s party. “What on earth are we going to do?”

“Love each other,” Seamie said.

“For how long?” she asked, her eyes searching his.

He took her in his arms and held her close. “For as long as we possibly can,” he whispered. “As long as we can.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Maud hurried along the third-floor corridor of the Coburg, the key to Max’s suite of rooms in her hand. She’d just bribed a bellboy handsomely to get it. In her other hand, she carried a small, beautifully made traveling case. It contained two tickets to Bombay, a compass, and a pair of field glasses. They would go in the autumn, after she returned from visiting India in Point Reyes. Bombay was only the first leg of the journey, of course. Once there, they’d have to make their way north to Darjeeling, then to Tibet. And Everest.

It was a birthday surprise for Max, one she’d been planning for ages. He would turn thirty-four tomorrow and she wanted him to find the gift when he came home today. He’d been away in Scotland for a few days. “Shooting with friends, darling,” he’d said. “Men only, I’m afraid. I’ll miss you horribly.”

Maud smiled now, as she fit the key into the lock, imagining the look on his face when he opened the case. He adored Everest. He was forever talking about it, and always with such passion, such longing. In fact, if Everest had been a woman instead of a mountain, she would have been quite jealous. She opened the door and quickly went inside. The plush, luxurious rooms were dark and silent. She could hear the echo of her heels as she walked across the foyer’s marbled floor.

Now . . . where should I leave the gift? she wondered. Here in the foyer? No, he might trip over it. On the sitting room table, perhaps. That wouldn’t do either. He’d likely walk right by it.

She decided to leave it on his bed. He’d be sure to see it there. She walked into the bedroom and laid the case on his pillow. It looked a bit lonely there, so she decided to leave a note as well. She sat down at his desk, placed her large silk clutch purse down next to the blotter, and shrugged out of her fur coat. Then she pulled open one of the desk drawers and rooted about for a pen and a sheet of paper. She found the first, but not the second. She opened another drawer, and then another, but still no paper. Frustrated, she picked up the leather desk blotter, to see if there might be a few sheets under it, but there was nothing. She’d tilted it slightly as she’d lifted it, and when she went to put it back on the desk, she noticed that something had slid partially out of it—out of a thin slit, one that had been cut almost invisibly into the bottom edge of the blotter.

It looked like the corner of a photograph. She tugged it all of the way out and saw that it was a black-and-white photo of a naked woman. “Why, Max, you dirty little bugger,” she said aloud. She had no idea he collected pornography.

She shook the blotter and the edges of more photographs slipped out. Five in all. A whole collection. Maud looked at them, expecting something seductive and erotic, but there was nothing alluring about these pictures. They were wretched. Disgusting. The girl in them looked drunk or drugged. Her legs were spread. Her hands were behind her head. And her face . . .

Her face
. Maud gasped. She recognized it. She knew this woman. “My God,” she said out loud. “It’s Gladys. Gladys Bigelow.”

She knew Gladys from suffrage meetings. She’d been one of Jennie Wilcott’s students and was now Sir George Burgess’s secretary. What was she doing in these horrible photographs?

Maud scrabbled in Max’s drawers until she found a letter opener. She poked it into the blotter, widening the slit. There was something else inside, she could see it. She wedged her fingers in, expecting to pull out another awful photograph. Instead she pulled out a thin sheaf of folded carbon papers.

She held one up to the light. It took her a minute to read the backward type, but as soon as she did, she realized she was holding a letter from George Burgess to Winston Churchill regarding the acquisition of fifty Sopwith airplanes. Another, from Burgess to Asquith, requested further funds for something called Room 40.

The horrible pictures of Gladys, the carbons of sensitive letters written by her employer—Maud put the two together and realized that Gladys was being blackmailed by Max.

There were more letters from Burgess, but she didn’t read them all. With her heart in her mouth, she reached into the blotter again, dreading what she would find.

She pulled out a folded blueprint of what seemed to be a submarine. All the words on it were written in German. She found more carbons, but these, too, were written in German. They were addressed to a man whose name she recognized—Bismarck.

The blood froze in her veins as she pulled out the last item inside the blotter—a white card, with printing on the front, measuring about five by seven inches. She recognized it—it was the invitation Max had received to the Asquiths’ country home, the Wharf. She had received one just like it, and they’d gone there together about a fortnight ago.

She turned it over. There was handwriting on the back—Max’s. The words were in German. Maud spoke and read some German, enough to understand what she was seeing: Asquith’s name and the names of French, Belgian, Russian, and American diplomats, as well as place names, times, and dates.

With horror, she remembered their first evening at the Wharf. She remembered Asquith’s secretary coming into the room and telling the prime minister that there was a telephone call for him. Asquith had decided to take the call in his study. He’d left them, and after he had, Max had asked where the study was.

It’s upstairs. Right above us. Henry’s just being cross. He doesn’t like stairs,
Margot had replied.

“He’s a spy,” Maud whispered now. “My God, he’s a German spy. And he used me, and my friendship with Margot, to get to Asquith.”

The names and dates—they were notations of meetings the prime minister had had with foreign diplomats, or was going to have, Maud thought. They were very likely secret meetings, or else why had Max bothered to note them down? If they weren’t secret, they’d be reported on in the daily papers, where anyone could read about them. Max must’ve gone to Asquith’s study later that night, riffled through his diary and his papers, and written the information down.

But why, if he was passing British information to the Germans, did he also have a blueprint of a German submarine and carbons of letters written to Bismarck?

Maud didn’t have an answer for that, and she knew she had no time to find one. With shaking hands, she shuffled together the papers she’d pulled out of the blotter into a stack, folded them over, tucked the photos inside, and put the whole bundle into her purse. She had to get out of here. Now. She didn’t know exactly when Max was returning to London. He could arrive at the Coburg at any minute. She decided to take the traveling case with her so he’d never know she’d been here. Once she was outside of the hotel, she’d flag down a hackney cab and tell the man to take her to Downing Street. To Number 10. There, she would tell Asquith where she’d just been and give him the papers. He would know what to do.

Maud positioned the blotter exactly as she’d found it, then made certain all the desk drawers were closed. She stood, pulled her coat on, and was about to grab the traveling case off the bed, when a sudden movement in the doorway startled her. She gasped out loud. It was Max.

“Max, darling, you gave me such a fright!” she said, pressing a hand to her chest.

Max smiled, but his eyes were cold. “What are you doing here, Maud?” he asked her.

Maud was terrified, but knew she mustn’t show it. She must appear simply to be flustered, and to use that to her advantage. It was her only chance.

“Well, if you must know, I was trying my hardest to surprise you. For your birthday. I was just trying to write you a note, but I can’t seem to find any bloody paper in your desk.”

“You were trying to surprise me?”

“Yes. Seems I’ve failed miserably though. There it is,” she said, pointing to his bed. “Go on, open it.”

Max looked past her. He smiled again. It was a real smile this time, warm and engaging.

“I can’t wait to see what it is,” he said. “But let’s make it a proper celebration. Hold on . . . stay right there. I’ll bring some wine.”

He disappeared into another room and Maud let out a ragged breath. A few seconds later, she heard him pull a cork. She’d fooled him, she was sure of it. Why wouldn’t he believe her? The present was on his pillow. He’d open it in a few minutes, and thank her, and then she’d suggest they go out for dinner. As soon as she was downstairs, in the lobby, she’d say that she forgot something in his room and would he be a dear and run back up for it. When he did, she would make a dash for it.

“Here we are,” he said, returning with two glasses of red wine. He handed her one. “A Pomerol. 1894. I had one just last night. It was wonderful.”

She touched her glass to his and smiled. “Happy birthday, darling,” she said, kissing him for good measure. She took a generous swallow for courage, then licked her lips and said, “You’re right. This
is
wonderful.”

“I’m glad you like it. Drink up. I’ve plenty more.”

She took another sip, then said, “Go on, then. Open your present.”

“All I really want is you,” he said, sitting down on the bed.

“You already have me,” she said, laughing and taking another large gulp of wine. She must steady her nerves. He mustn’t see her hands shaking. “Open your present,” she said again, sitting down next to him.

“All right, then, I will.” He reached behind himself for the case.

As Maud watched him opening the locks, she began to feel dizzy. She suddenly saw two cases on his lap. Then one again. A low buzzing started in her ears. She looked away from Max, at the floor, trying to clear her head. But it didn’t work. The dizziness only got worse. Was she drunk? On half a glass of wine?

“Max, darling . . . I feel rather strange,” she said, putting her wineglass down.

She looked at him. He wasn’t holding the box anymore. He’d put it down. He was watching her.

She tried to get up, tried to stand, but her legs went out from under her and she hit the floor. She closed her eyes, tried to take a deep breath. When she opened them again, Max was standing over her.

“I’m so sorry, Maud,” he said quietly.

“No, Max,” she said, though it was difficult to speak. “It’s my . . . it’s my fault. Too much wine, I think. Can you . . . can you help me? I . . . I can’t seem . . .”

“Don’t fight it,” he said. “It’s easier if you just let go.”

Let go? Let go of what? Hadn’t she put the wineglass down already?

The wineglass.
He’d put something in her drink.

She tried once more to get up, but her arms and legs seemed as if they were made of lead. The room was whirling. Her vision began to fade.

“Max, please . . . ,” she said, reaching a hand out to him.

He looked at her, but did not move to help her. There was a strange expression on his face. Maud didn’t recognize it at first, but then suddenly she did; it was grief.

“Let go,” he whispered.

“Oh, God,” she pleaded. “Somebody help me . . . somebody, please help me. . . .”