Mission To Seduce

‘How sweet of you to reassure me. And where will you be based when you leave Russia?’ she asked him. ‘Back in London—or do you just dutifully go wherever you’re sent?’

The edge of sarcasm in her tone wasn’t lost on him. Drake’s eyes narrowed, but he admitted, ‘I go where I’m needed. But isn’t that what you do?’

She gave one of her sudden, impish and completely natural smiles. ‘Touché.’ His eyes came swiftly to her face with an arrested expression, but before he could speak Allie pretended to stifle a yawn. ‘It’s been quite a long day. Would you mind taking me back to my hotel?’

‘Of course. You must be tired after your journey.’

She wasn’t; Allie had seldom felt more inwardly alert as they drove back to the city centre, but she lay back against her seat, letting him think her exhausted.

When they reached her hotel, she turned to thank him for the evening, but Drake said, ‘I’ll see you inside.’ And, opening the passenger door of the car, he escorted her into the entrance.

There she turned and offered her hand, gave him a practised smile. ‘Thank you so much for a wonderful evening. It was a perfect start to my stay here. And thank you again for meeting me and everything. I’ll be sure to tell Bob how kind you’ve been.’

There was dismissal in every sentence, distance in her smile. Drake took her hand but not the dismissal. Instead he said, ‘It was my pleasure. I know you’ll be working during the day, but have you any thoughts on where you would like to go tomorrow evening?’

‘That’s very kind of you, but I expect I’ll be busy working out my shooting schedule, that kind of thing,’ she responded easily.

‘That’s a shame. The ballet are performing tomorrow and I’m sure I could manage to get a couple of tickets.’

‘The ballet? Russian ballet?’ Allie was immediately torn; seeing the ballet performed here in Russia was a lifelong ambition. Well, she’d intended to see it some time while she was here, so why not let Drake take her? So she smiled and said, ‘You’ve found my weakness. I couldn’t possibly refuse a chance like that.’

‘Good. I’ll meet you here at seven tomorrow, then.’ And only then did he let go of her hand.

Allie smiled. ‘Thanks again. Goodnight.’ She turned and walked across the deep foyer to the lifts, joined a small group of waiting people. When the lift came she glanced back. Drake was still there, hands hooked into the pockets of his trousers, watching her. She lifted her hand in a small wave goodbye and walked into the lift.

As Drake watched her walk away from him his thoughts were on her legs. Although she was so petite her figure was perfect and her legs very shapely, with the kind of slim ankles that he liked on a woman. There were other tourists, women among them, waiting for the lift and he was sure she would be quite safe, but he stayed where he was. When Allie waved, he merely nodded, and waited until the lift doors had closed before going back to the car.

He was fully aware that she didn’t want him around; Bob had warned him that she was an independently minded girl. What he hadn’t been warned about was her attractiveness, her air of fragility that immediately appealed to his protective instincts. Fleetingly he wondered if Bob, who knew everything about his past, had deliberately brought them together for reasons other than that of convenience. But he pushed that thought aside. What intrigued him now was that moment of open fear Allie had shown earlier. If her secondary reason in coming to Russia had been merely to write a children’s book, why be so frightened that he should know? No, there had to be something more than that. Something that Bob Delaney didn’t know about.

Drake negotiated the streets and pulled into the garage below his apartment building, pondering the problem. Had she perhaps undertaken to carry out an assignment for some other organisation at the same time as Bob’s? Working for two companies without telling her employer? It was possible, he supposed. From only spending one evening with her he was aware that Allie was very ambitious. If she thought it might help her career she might well agree to take on the extra work, even though she probably knew that Bob wouldn’t approve.

Maybe she was even lining up to move on to another company, or to start up as a freelance. So perhaps it was the fact that she was deceiving Bob, who was his friend, that had made her so prickly towards him, made her react so guiltily. Whatever it was, he would do his best to discover it, Drake decided. After all, Bob had been a good friend to his parents, and to him when he’d most needed one; he owed it to him to find out.

But as he entered his flat and moved over to the window to look out over the lights of the city in the direction of her hotel Drake knew that that was just a feeble excuse; the truth was that he was intrigued by Allie herself and couldn’t resist getting to know her better. But whether that was wise, in view of his own past and even more uncertain future, was an extremely debatable point.

Allie was eager to get down to work the next morning but found that it was first necessary to get to know Professor Martos and his assistants. She was given a tour round the whole museum, which was fascinating, but her mind was entirely on the Fabergé eggs which she was shown last. The professor took her to the display case but stood with his back to it as he gave her a lecture on Fabergé and his factory, before at last moving out of the way, indicating the eggs with a flourish of his arm, like a conjuror waving his wand.

Allie gasped, and stared. The treasure that he’d revealed was the cream of an Aladdin’s cave. Gold, silver, the flash of diamonds and rubies, the gleam of platinum and crystal—all these were there, but those were mundane in comparison to the fantastic workmanship in which they were contained. There were ten eggs in all, arranged on two shelves of the large cabinet. Some of them were large, some small in comparison, but all were different. And most of them had a hidden surprise.

One of them was a clock crowned with a delicate bouquet of lilies carved from onyx, another had a scale working model of a Trans-Siberian railway train that folded to fit inside, the tiny key that wound the mechanism lying beside it. A third was a music box, and others contained miniature portraits of the Imperial family, their young faces smiling confidently into the future they would never see. A small replica of the royal yacht floated on a crystal sea, another egg opened to show a painting in a golden frame.

Her eyes wide with wonder and pleasure, Allie gazed at the eggs, the Easter gifts of the last Tsar of Russia to his wife and his mother. Last of all, she allowed her gaze to move to one of the smallest eggs. It was covered in clover leaves of transparent, bright green enamel, their shapes outlined by gold threads. Here and there between the foliage wound a thin golden ribbon paved with rubies. Although one of the smallest examples it was also one of the most attractive, a masterpiece of the jeweller’s art.

‘Doesn’t that egg have a surprise inside?’ she asked, pointing to it.

Professor Martos raised his hands in a helpless gesture and said, with his heavy accent, ‘Alas, it has been lost But records show that it once had four leaves set inside it, each with a portrait of the emperor’s daughters, and was set with twenty-three perfect diamonds.’

‘What a shame,’ Allie murmured, and hid her excitement by immediately pointing to a different egg and asking questions about it.

The professor was pleased to air his knowledge and practise his English, and they got down to fixing shooting schedules. It was arranged that they would photograph one egg per day with a break for Sunday. The eggs were to be taken from the show cabinet to a special room, but Allie wasn’t to be allowed to handle them, she was warned; the professor and his assistants would do that. But he promised he would give her all the help she needed for the very handsome fee that her company was paying the museum. She was shown the room where the shoot was to take place; it was adequate, about thirty feet square, windowless, and with the walls painted white to reflect the light. ‘I will want to take one film of all the eggs together,’ she warned.

Allie took a loose-leaf binder from her document case and showed Professor Martos the outline that she envisaged for the CD-ROM. ‘We’ll need a wide shot of all the eggs so that people can click on to the one they want to go to,’ she explained.

‘It will have to be done at night, or when the museum is closed,’ he told her.

They were discussing arrangements when footsteps sounded in the empty gallery. Allie thought it was the tourists entering for the next visiting period, but when she glanced round she saw only one man—Sergei Morozov.

He shook hands first with the professor and then with her, holding her hand longer than was necessary as he told the professor how they had already met. ‘You have already seen round the museum? That is a shame; I had promised myself that pleasure. As you’ve already seen the Armoury perhaps you would let me show you round some other museums instead?’

Allie sensed that the professor wasn’t too happy about having Sergei hanging around, so she said, ‘Having seen these wonderful eggs, it looks as if I’m going to be very busy, but perhaps I could give you a ring when I have some free time.’

‘“Give me a...?” Oh, you mean call, telephone. I understand. But it will be easier for me to call your hotel, I think.’ He turned to the professor, said something in Russian to which the older man shook his head, then glanced at his watch and said a time. One o’clock. The phrase was easy enough for Allie to understand it.

When he’d gone they finalised arrangements for the day on which all the eggs were to be photographed together, everyone agreeing that early the following Sunday morning would be best. An hour or so later Allie left the museum, walking out of its cool atmosphere into the midday heat. She paused to put on her dark glasses and wasn’t at all surprised to see Sergei leaning on the railing outside, waiting for her.

Straightening, he came forward and said with an easy smile, ‘I remembered that I have to go to a very famous monastery not far from Moscow this afternoon. To check on the building, you understand. And I thought, on such a beautiful day, what could be better than to show this most beautiful place to our most beautiful tourist?’

Allie wrinkled her nose at him. ‘Sergei, that is the corniest line I ever heard.’

He laughed. ‘But it is what they say in the movies all the time.’

‘You must watch some very old movies.’

He laughed again, not in the least put out. ‘But you will come with me, yes?’

‘Where is this place?’

‘At Zagorsk. It is the biggest monastery in Russia as well as being the most beautiful. Everyone goes there. You must not miss it.’

She had heard of the place, of course, not only from her reading about Russia in preparation for this trip, but in tales told long ago. And she’d had every intention of going there, so if Sergei wanted to take her—well, why not? ‘Sure. I’d like to.’

Rewarding her decision with a delighted smile, Sergei led her out of the Kremlin, saying, ‘My car is just a short distance away.’

As they walked along, the sun rippling on the surface of the River Moskva on their left, Allie remembered Drake’s warning about getting too friendly. She smiled inwardly, quietly confident of her ability to handle Sergei if the need arose. But then the forcefulness in Drake’s voice came back to her; maybe it wouldn’t do any harm to be cautious. So when they reached Sergei’s car, a well-polished but old German model, she said, ‘I’ll have to go back to my hotel first; I can’t visit a monastery dressed like this.’

He tried to demur but she insisted, and while in her room she wrote down where she was going and with whom, leaving the note with the receptionist to give to Drake if he should ask for her.

As it turned out the precaution was completely unnecessary. Sergei drove the seventy kilometres or so to Zagorsk, telling her something of his life in Russia but far more interested in life in London.

‘Haven’t you ever been there?’ she asked him.

‘For one week only, to study the architecture. It rained all the time.’

Allie laughed. ‘It does tend to do that.’

‘But I have been to America,’ Sergei told her. ‘Now that is an amazing country. I studied English and architecture there for nearly two years.’

‘I thought your English had an American accent.’

‘It does? I did not realise that.’

The monastery was everything Sergei had promised. Its buildings covered a vast area and it came complete with onion domes in gold, and brilliant blue encrusted with gold stars, with towers and steeples, with an uncountable number of religious buildings, and even a museum full of beautiful icons.

Being with Sergei was definitely a help; where the way into a church was barred to ordinary tourists, he merely spoke a few words to the robed and bearded priest who guarded the entrance and they were allowed inside. Allie had changed into an ankle-length skirt and a long-sleeved blouse back at the hotel and had covered her hair with a lightweight scarf as they’d entered the monastery, so she didn’t stand out too much from the crowds of worshippers who packed all the shrines and churches. All of these were breathtaking; richly adorned, their walls of painted icons, most of them overlaid in gold or silver, reflected the sunlight. There were no seats inside these holy places; in the Russian orthodox church everyone stood, murmuring their prayers.

Her only regret was that she wasn’t alone, but without Sergei she probably wouldn’t have been allowed inside these sacred places. He stood quite close beside her, but Allie shut her eyes and tried to forget him, to lose herself in the atmosphere of veneration around her. It must have been like this for hundreds of years, she thought, for all the ancestors who had lived in Russia so long ago. They must have stood in churches just like this, prayed as these people were praying, worshipped in exactly the same way. She tried to feel as they must have felt, but it was all too strange, too alien to her upbringing, to the modern western woman that she had become.

Outside again, they wandered around.

‘Didn’t you come here to do some work?’ Allie asked after a while.

Sergei gave her a bland smile. ‘But that is what I’m doing as we walk around.’

Allie laughed as she was meant to. ‘It’s very kind of you to show me round like this, but I wouldn’t want you to neglect your work.’

‘It’s my pleasure. But you have seen very little as yet. There is much of Moscow still to see.’ He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘And you must try some typical Russian food. Perhaps you would let me take you to a restaurant I know tonight?’

‘How nice of you to ask me, but Drake Marsden has already invited me out.’

‘That’s a great shame. Perhaps—’

‘Some other time? Of course. Although I’m going to be rather busy with my work, of course. Oh, look at that amazing tower!’ she exclaimed as they turned a corner. ‘How old is it, do you know?’

Her ploy to change the subject worked and they talked Russian history until it was time to leave. Sergei drove her back to Moscow but they got snarled up in the traffic and it was quite late before he dropped her off at the hotel. Allie cursed a little as she hurried to change; this was probably the only time she would ever get to go to the ballet at the Bolshoi and she wanted to look good for the occasion. As she sorted through her wardrobe for something suitable to wear Allie remembered Drake’s comment about her look of fragility and pouted a little. If he thought she didn’t look capable of taking care of herself it was going to be even harder to get rid of him. So maybe ‘it wouldn’t do any harm to show him another side of her persona. Smiling, she took out her red dress.

After washing her hair, Allie drew it smoothly back from her head but with a knot of curls at the nape, fastened with jewelled clips. The red dress wasn’t really all that revealing, at least when viewed from the front. It was when she turned round that the perspective changed. The front had a high halter neck, but was completely bare at the back. The skirt was long, but had two slits up the sides that reached to her thighs. And it clung so sleekly that it was quite impossible to wear anything underneath it. Adding a pair of red suede wedge shoes, Allie slung a small evening bag on her shoulder, laughed at her reflection in the mirror, and went down to give Drake ample opportunity to revise his first impression of her.

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