Sealed With A Kiss

“Good evening,” said the smiling woman behind the polished mahogany counter.

“Hej,” Bax said, using the Swedish word for hello. He then astounded Joss by producing a stream of what sounded like Swedish. Once or twice, he searched for a word or the desk clerk frowned, but mostly they chattered along like magpies. Finally, he signed the registration card and received the key.

“Was that what I thought it was?” Joss asked as the bellhop collected their luggage and they headed toward the elevator. “Are you fluent in Swedish?”

“Not exactly. I’m fluent in Danish. I can get by in Swedish. Not all the words are the same, but the two are close enough that we can generally understand one another. I’m sure nearly everyone here speaks English—but I wanted to get the rust off.”

“Didn’t sound like there was any rust on it to begin with,” Joss said, thinking of the lilting conversation she’d listened to.

Bax shrugged and punched the call button for the elevator. “My mother was Danish. I lived in Copenhagen until I was about six.”

“No kidding. Was your father Danish, too?”

Bax shook his head. “American. He was a marine, an embassy guard. We lived all over Europe until I was about sixteen.”

“Wow. You must be one cultured guy.”

“I have my moments.” The elevator appeared.

“So do you wish you lived over here?”

He shrugged and opened the door to let her walk into the car ahead of him. “I’m not sure I know. I don’t exactly feel like an American, but I don’t really feel like a European anymore. I’m somewhere in the middle.”

“I know what you mean,” Joss said as they got into the tiny car. “I grew up in Africa.” An experience she wouldn’t have traded for anything, but one that had left her homeless in a way, and always searching for more.

“Really?” He looked at her with interest. “How did that happen?”

“My parents are doctors,” she explained. “We lived all over. Zimbabwe, Botswana, Tanzania, mostly out in the bush.”

“What was it like?”

“It was amazing, the animals and the landscape and the people. I loved it. There was always something new. I was free there, you know? No rules.” And it had been so hard to get used to life in the real world.

“Ah. Now it all makes sense.” The car stopped on their floor and they got out.

Joss gave Bax a quick smile as they stopped at the door to the room. “Are you saying that I’m not good with rules?”

“I’m saying that you like to make your own.”

He stood there in his jeans and denim shirt, his jaw darkened with stubble from the long flight, looking just about good enough to eat. Joss took a step toward him and flowed into his arms. “Let me tell you about my rules,” she began.

“Good afternoon,” someone said cheerfully from behind them. They turned to see the bellhop walking toward them with their suitcases on the shiny brass birdcage luggage cart. “Welcome to the Royal Viking Hotel.”

Joss gave Bax a rueful grin as the bellhop opened up their door.

It was like walking into a room in some eighteenth-century palace. Glossy white paneling with gilt moldings spread across the walls. White and gold swags of fabric framed the wide windows that overlooked the waterfront. Rich aquamarine damask covered the reproduction antique chairs—surely they were reproductions, she thought feverishly—as well as the coverlet of the half-tester bed. And what a bed, high and wide and piled with pillows, just made for all manner of aristocratic decadence.

She looked over at Bax and their eyes met. And desire throbbed through her.

The bellhop came through the door with their last bag and set it down. “Let me just get your suitcases,” he began reaching for the luggage rack.

Bax took it from him and set it aside. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said smoothly.

“Well, then, I can show you—”

“Nope, won’t be necessary,” Bax told him, turning him around and ushering him toward the door. “In fact, I think we’re all set.” Bax slipped a twenty-five kroner tip in his hand and closed the door in front of his startled face.

“Now.” Bax walked back toward Joss and tumbled her onto the bed with him. “What was that you were saying about rules?”

WHEN JOSS opened her eyes the following morning, it took her a moment to remember where she was. The big bed was empty but for her, the room silent. Yawning, she found her way to the bathroom, with its aqua and white tile walls and gleaming chrome. By the time she’d brushed her teeth and washed her face, she was feeling almost human.

Wrapping herself in one of the hotel’s thick terry robes, she wandered over to the window to look out over the water. Beyond, in a pastel fantasy, lay the island of Gamla Stan, the oldest part of Stockholm. It beckoned to her from across the water. Forget about the room, however gorgeous it was. She wanted to be out there, exploring.

In time with her thoughts, there was a rattling at the door and Bax came in.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.” She jammed her hands deep in the pockets of her robe. “I thought maybe you’d headed out for the day.”

For a moment, he looked taken aback. “I was downstairs having coffee. I didn’t want to wake you. Sorry, I should have left a note.”

It was awkward, she thought. They’d become lovers without warning. Now, they were essentially living together as intimate strangers. She knew how to make Bax shudder with arousal but couldn’t name his favorite color. They still hadn’t found their rhythm with one another, they didn’t know what to expect.

At least not out of bed.

“Well, I’m up and around now,” she told him, sitting down on the bed. “Hey, is anything important going on today? The guide book mentioned a postal museum on Gamla Stan. I thought it might have some useful information for us. You know, stamps and stuff.”

“Sure.” He walked restlessly over to the windows to peer out. “By the way, I saw something in the paper about a stamp auction later on this week. The preauction viewing and reception are tomorrow night.”

“So?”

“So Silverhielm will very likely be there. It might be a good opportunity to make his acquaintance.”

“Wouldn’t that be convenient?” Joss said, watching Bax. He was tense enough that he was making her tense. Too many more days like this and they’d be crawling the walls. It was definitely time to do something about it.

She reached for the sash of her robe. “Well, if we’re going to be meeting Silverhielm, we should probably get prepared.”

“I think I told you, we’re going to get a briefing.”

“I mean you and I should get prepared,” she said, sliding her robe off her shoulders.

“Get prepared how?” Bax turned away from the window to look at her.

Joss gave him a wicked smile. “If you’ll just come into the shower with me, I’d be happy to explain.”

THE NARROW cobblestone streets of Gamla Stan wound between the high gabled buildings, the air still echoing with the past. Tourists and Stockholmers sat at the sidewalk cafés drinking coffee in the warm afternoon. The whole scene held the feeling of a gentler age.

Inside the postal museum, history permeated the air. All around them were displays with stamps from other eras, other places. They walked past the prize holdings of the stamp world. At least, that was Joss’s assumption. Given that all the signs and labels were in Swedish, and her current vocabulary consisted of “hello,” “goodbye,” “please” and “thank you,” it was hard to be sure.

Context was everything, Joss thought with a sigh. Otherwise, the stamps were just colored squares of paper. “I don’t suppose you could translate for me, could you?” she asked Bax.

He gave her a calculating look. “I suppose, but it’ll cost you.”

Joss frowned. “Wait a minute, I thought you were supposed to be my devoted lover. Wasn’t that what we were just talking about?”

“Well, I’m not sure that includes translation services beyond la langue d’amour.” He stuck his tongue in his cheek.

Joss raised her eyebrows. “La langue d’amour?”

“I was raised in Europe,” he said blandly.

“I see.” This was a new Bax. She’d never seen him be playful before. It was something she could get used to. “Well, if I could talk you into translating, I’d be happy to discuss some sort of compensation for your efforts.”

“What do you have in mind?” He looked at her speculatively.

“Perhaps we could take it out in trade.”

“I can work with that. Let’s see,” he squinted at the label. “Well, what you’re looking at here is a stamp on a letter.”

Joss crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway to the display case. “You don’t say.”

“It’s true. If you want to hear more, I’ll need a deposit.”

It took her away, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his arms around her. It didn’t matter that they’d just spent a couple of hours making love. She wanted more, and more wouldn’t be enough.

Sounds echoed into the exhibits area from the next room, the voices of children in a school tour. Hurriedly, they broke apart.

“I trust you found that sufficient?” Joss pressed her lips together.

Bax grinned. “Well, we do have a minimum deposit, but I suppose under the circumstances I can waive it.”

“You’re so kind.”

They worked their way slowly through the museum, past rare stamps and printing presses, past relics of ages gone by. In the next room, Bax drifted past her to look at a perforating machine with its pointy-toothed wheels. Just inside the doorway sat a small safe on a pedestal, its thick, black door swung wide. Inside, on even tinier pedestals stood a pair of stamps.

Joss took a look and blinked.

One blue, one reddish orange. A white profile of a queen wearing a circlet around upswept hair showed on each; the words Post Office ran along the left-hand margin in white block letters and Mauritius on the right. The indigo stamp was twin to the one they’d installed in a bank vault earlier that day.

“Bax,” Joss said softly.

He was on the other side of the room.

“Bax,” she said again.

“What?” He walked over to stand at her side.

She pointed to the safe. “It’s them. The Post Office Mauritius pair.”

He studied them. “The queen doesn’t look the same on the orange one. Her hair’s different. They look more like sisters than the same person. Look, the one on the Blue Mauritius almost looks like she’s smiling.”

“So, what are the chances that we’d stumble across them here?” Joss commented.

“Not necessarily that surprising, when you think about it. Maybe seeing them here is what whetted Silverhielm’s appetite to have his own.”

“Maybe.” She continued to stare at the little squares of color, still vivid after all these years. So small, so fragile to have caused such grief. “I thought it would be a different color. More yellow, from what Gwen described.”

“Didn’t you ever see your grandfather’s copy?”

She shook her head. “It was always in the vault. The only reason I’ve seen the Blue Mauritius is because we brought it here.”

The two stamps sat on their little pedestals under the lights, the plump-jowled images of the monarch looking serenely off to the left.

“Hard to believe that people are willing to pay so much money for something like this, isn’t it?” Bax said.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s a bit like owning a piece of history, isn’t it? A little bit of immortality. I think that’s what my grandfather finds so magical about them.” She stroked her finger down the glass protecting the contents of the safe.

“We’ll get it back,” Bax whispered. “One way or another, we’ll get it back.” He kissed her forehead.

First playful, now nice. Joss blinked back the sudden stinging in her eyes and blew out a breath. “Well, I think we’ve seen everything we need to here. You want to stop and get something to drink somewhere? Maybe that café we passed?”

He tangled his fingers in hers. “I’ve got a better idea.”

SLUSSEN, just across from Gamla Stan on the island of Södermalm, was a whirlwind of motion. Cars and buses converged on the transportation hub from a dozen directions. Ferries lined the waterfront, poised for journeys to the archipelago and beyond. After the charm of old town, Slussen seemed garishly modern, but even here there was the beauty of the water, the green of trees, the aged loveliness of historic buildings.

Joss and Bax sat in the broad public square in front of the Swedish state museum, watching pigeons search for crumbs among the cracks of the cobblestone-striped concrete. To their right, the bluffs of Södermalm rose sheer and high. On their left, bridges vaulted to Gamla Stan. Directly ahead of them, propped up at the far end by a fragile-looking tracery of iron, a slender finger of blue projected out from the building that climbed up the face of the bluff.

“What is that?” Joss asked.

“Gondolen. It’s a restaurant bar, very fashionable. The strutwork at the far end is the Katarinahissen, an elevator that takes you up to the public walkway on top. It’s a pretty amazing view.” Propped up on one side by the office building and across the street by the Katarinahissen, the restaurant hovered high in the air over one of the streets that fed into Slussen.

“It’s almost cocktail hour,” Joss said. “Why don’t we go on up and have a drink and you can show me?”

“In a bit. We’re here for a reason. Our friend Silverhielm has his city offices in the building attached to the restaurant.” Bax glanced at his watch. “I’m told he comes out between four and five every afternoon.” He rose and held out a hand to her. “Would you like a closer look at the Katarinahissen?”

Joss grinned. “Lead the way.”

Crossing the various streams of traffic between the square and the Katarinahissen took longer than she expected, but eventually they stood by the doors to the elevator, across from the office building. Bax led her a few steps along the sidewalk, staring out at the water. Without warning, he swept her into his arms, his mouth hard on hers.

It should have been different. They knew one another’s bodies now, they’d kissed plenty of times. It should have been pedestrian. It shouldn’t have sent her blood fizzing through her veins.

It shouldn’t have left her stunned with wanting.

“There, coming out of the doors,” Bax murmured against her lips and lifted her off her feet to spin her a little, as though he were a lover overcome with the moment. “Take a good look so you’ll know him later.”

Face pressed into his neck, Joss opened her eyes and looked across the street.

There was no doubt which one was Silverhielm. Bodyguards flanked him but he walked as though he were alone, head raised arrogantly as he approached the gleaming black sedan that sat idling at the curb. He wore an impeccably tailored suit, slate-blue with a chalk stripe. His hair was thick, wavy and entirely gray; his eyes were pale. About him, there hovered an indefinable air of implacability and menace.

It was a well-choreographed scene, like the footage she’d seen of presidents and prime ministers walking to vehicles. In seconds, he was safely ensconced in the car and his entourage was inside.

The sound of the car door slamming behind him echoed across the street. Joss shivered as the car drove away. “So that’s him.”

Bax nodded and released her.

It shouldn’t have shaken her. There was no good reason why it did. Joss walked away from the lift building to lean on the railing and look across the water to Gamla Stan. “He looked…ruthless.”

“He hasn’t gotten to where he is by being kind. So are you ready to step back from this and let me take care of things?”

“No.” She turned to him, shoulders squared. “I know who we’re up against now, which is going to make me that much better against him.”

“Stubborn,” Bax commented, bouncing his loosely curled fist lightly off her chin.

“Determined,” she countered.

“Not to mention sexy as hell. I seem to remember something about a payment due, by the way.”

“Payment?” she echoed innocently.

“If I don’t get it, I’m going to have to send you to collections,” he warned.

Joss smiled. “Well, then, I guess I’d better pay up.”

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