Page 24

“My great-grandmother did not fare well after the revolution,” he continues.

“Sadly, she was unable to escape Russia as so many did. But having once been mistress to a very powerful man at court, and extremely beautiful, so I’m told, she did manage to escape death or imprisonment by becoming mistress to another very powerful man.

Their son, Leon Stenyavina, though illegitimate, managed to distinguish himself during the Second World War and was even granted a decent inheritance when his father died.

By the time Leon married and my mother, Irina, was born, he was a decorated army veteran with considerable means.

As a result, my mother married extremely well—to another military man, Karl Volkov. ”

He leans forward and crushes out his cigarette.

“My mother was an only child, as was her own father. She spoke sometimes about the Fabergé egg that had once been in my great-grandmother Mariya’s possession.

She’d grown up hearing the stories about it.

My father thought it was a fanciful story, of course, and would become very impatient when she mentioned it.

And anyway, such treasures rarely survived the revolution—even if those entrusted to Prince Naryshkin for safekeeping had a remarkable tendency to turn up in crates of vodka decades later.

” His eyes gleam with a sardonic humor so exactly matching my own mood that I almost want to laugh.

“But I imagine,” he says politely, “that I’m beginning to bore you with family history. ”

I crush out my own cigarette. “I think we both know this is anything but boring, Mr. Volkov. And I believe you’ve answered the question I came here to ask, which is whether or not Mariya Stenyavina may have had any other living descendants.”

“But then,” says Leon, waving a careless hand, “I would say that there were no other descendants, wouldn’t I? Especially if there was any chance such a treasure might have survived.”

“You could certainly say it.” I grin. “But although your own history might have been scrubbed whiter than the Russian snow, Volkov, the internet is a remarkable tool. And in this case, your story matches our research. I wouldn’t be here with this”—I pat the wooden box—“if it didn’t.”

“Then I have to ask, Mr. Stevanovsky.” His eyes narrow curiously. “Why the questions? If you already know who I am, why dance around the topic?”

I lift my shoulder. “Because some things are too precious to simply be given away, Mr. Volkov. And when it comes to this particular piece, I happen to think it deserves better than to be handed over to some philistine with no regard for its true value.”

He sits back in his chair, regarding me with even more interest. “Does that mean you might have chosen not to return it at all?”

I give him another grin. “I guess you’ll never know, will you?”

He inclines his head, smiling. “That’s true enough. Allow me to say that from the perspective of one who prizes art for more than its monetary value, your diligence is pleasantly surprising.”

I push the box across the coffee table. “Open it, if you like.”

He makes no move to touch it. “Shall I tell you what is inside it, Mr. Stevanovsky?”

I accept another cigarette as he pours more vodka. “Go on, then.”

“The imperial eggs were all rather larger than the others Fabergé made.” His eyes rest on the box, almost caressing it as he speaks.

“The one inside that box is quite extraordinary and very distinctive. It is gold and created to look like the feathers of a peacock, with sapphires and emeralds coloring the end of each gold leaf. The egg splits into two parts, fitted together with an ingenious lock that has a hidden catch. Inside the egg is a diamond mountain. Atop it sits a small jeweled peacock, complete with a luxurious tail of gold leaf. The imperial peacock egg is considered no more than myth by most people, although Fabergé did make another, smaller one for commercial sale.”

His expression has changed throughout his description. There’s something almost sad in his eyes as he finishes speaking.

“You really do know this piece.” I sip my vodka, watching him.

“ Da .” His slip into Russian seems unconscious.

“There was a time,” he says softly, “when I dreamed of finding it. Back then, I thought it could solve all my problems.” He touches the box briefly, then takes his hand away and gives me a rueful smile.

“But we are all fools when we are young and in love, are we not, Dimitry?”

“Fools.” My laugh is harsher than I mean it to be. “You’re right there, Mr. Volkov.”

Six months I’ve been a fool.

Discreetly, I check my phone.

It’s midnight in Australia.

It’s pathetic that I know the time difference between London and Western Australia better than I do the one between London and Miami. Tragic that it’s the first thing I check, wherever I am.

Abby isn’t coming back.

I know it, and yet no matter how many times I say it, aloud or in my head, it still doesn’t seem true. And that makes me worse than a fool.

It makes me a pathetic idiot.

“Please, call me Leon.” I realize Volkov has been watching me when he gives me a small smile. “Mr. Volkov will always sound like my father.”

I’ve done it again, gone off into my own Abby-focused world. I’m normally more disciplined than this. There’s something about the peace of this house, its comfortingly familiar feel, that seems to have slipped under my normally pretty fucking rock-solid skin.

“I’m sorry, Leon.” I toss off the vodka, putting the glass down with slightly more force than is polite, and stand up. “It’s been a long day, as I said. I should let you go.”

A wall hanging behind his head catches my eye. It’s an oriental painting on silk, a peacock in a garden with its tail fanned out. The peacock is caught in exquisite detail and vibrant color—and so familiar to me that I almost know how the silk feels under my hand.

Suddenly I’m a small child, curled up against my mother on a lumpy single bed in a small room that smells of old sweat and other people’s cooking.

“As long as we have our peacock to look over us,” she whispers against my head in Russian, “we are safe, moy syn.”

My son.

The sudden bolt of emotion that grips my entire body is such a visceral stab of pain it leaves me almost breathless.

“That print.” I nod at it, clearing my throat. “I—my family had one like that when I was very young.” I breathe in sharply, regaining control. “Sorry. I just haven’t—I don’t think I’ve ever seen another one quite like it, though I imagine it’s a common enough image.”

I shake my head and give Leon a rueful smile. “I’m not normally so fucking maudlin after vodka, I promise. My apologies. I’ll leave you to your afternoon.”

Still seated on the sofa, Leon waves me down with a slight smile. “It’s a Friday, Dimitry, and your letter was intriguing enough that I cleared my schedule for the day. I was going to ask if you might like to join me for dinner?”

I debate for a moment, but really, where do I have to go?

After I leave this room, all that happens is that I end up in some bar or another, drinking until they won’t serve me anymore.

And then, most probably, picking a fight with the biggest bastard I can find and hoping he can hit hard enough to knock me out for long enough that I won’t see Abby’s face when I fall asleep.

“Sure,” I say, sitting back down. “Why not?”

I wake completely disoriented, in a dark room with a dry mouth and my heart thudding from a surfeit of alcohol.

Christ.

I sit up, reaching for the bottle of water by the bed as the events of the previous night slowly reassert themselves.

Leon had some restaurant nearby deliver a superb three-course meal and then opened the first in a series of exceptional wines, each better than the last. He turned out to be a seriously great conversationalist, and not just about art and history.

Although, having learned a lot about both since taking on this role, I found that part of the evening fascinating, especially given his almost encyclopedic knowledge of Russia, both past and present.

But he was just as well-informed about boxing, which did take me by surprise, and about hunting.

By the time we started in on our mutual love and respect for the crossbow, we were on to dessert and the third bottle.

Up until that point it was, in fact, a perfectly respectable evening.

It was then that Leon somehow steered the conversation away from broad topics and onto Abby.

It was also about then that he produced a cognac of such venerable quality that one glass could never do it justice. I’m pretty sure that by the time we finished the bottle, I’d given Leon chapter and verse of the entire dismal saga.

Way to be professional, Dimitry.

I check my phone. It’s three a.m. Too early to start stomping about a stranger’s house. Not to mention the alcohol is still racing through my system, making me bleary and only half present.

Abby’s face floats in front of my eyes like a sinful temptation.

Normally, I don’t allow myself to linger on it.

But I’m too tired, and still too goddamn drunk, to stop the dreams from coming.

It’s only as I sink back into the alcohol-fogged twilight that I realize the dreams aren’t taking me to the good place.

They’re taking me back to the night Abby drugged me.

To the night it all started to fall apart, though I didn’t realize it back then.