Part 30 (1/2)

He breathed lightly and felt a sharp unmistakable flicker of anger rise up in him. The dance and the music were strange to his senses, but Lydia Ivanova's actions were clear. She was moving the way a young female cat moves in front of a likely male when she's ready to mate, swaying and seductive, seeking out his advances, rubbing and purring and twitching her flanks.

The man was acting uninterested, his body soft and boneless in the strip of yellow light from the window, but he didn't leave. His eyes hooked into the dancing girl in such a way that it made Chang want to skewer him on the tip of a fis.h.i.+ng spear and watch him writhe. It was not only the Black Snakes that slithered toward her. The boneless man's hands forgot to smoke the cheroot between his fingers, but his half-closed eyes did not forget to watch each graceful dip and rise of her hips. He stayed there.

Like the shadow stayed. The one by the steps up to the terrace, the one merging with the bulk of a water b.u.t.t, deeper black against black. The one whose breath would end. A gleam from a window glinted on the metal of a shuriken shuriken in a poised hand. in a poised hand.

Chang drew his knife. He watched over her.

25.

'Mama, is it true my father played the violin?'

'Where did you hear that?'

'At the soiree. Is it true?'

'Yes, it's true.'

'Why did you never tell me?'

'Because he played it so badly.'

'Did he once throw a violin into a fire in anger?'

Valentina laughed softly to herself. 'Ah yes, more than once.'

'So he had a temper?'

'Da. Yes.' Yes.'

'Am I like him?'

Valentina turned back to painting her nails. Her glossy new bob swung over her cheek, hiding her expression from Lydia's sharp gaze. 'Every time I look at you, I see his face.'

'Get out of bed.'

'No.'

'Darling, you drive me crazy. You've been lying in bed all week.'

'So?'

'I don't understand you. Usually you're in such a rush to be out and doing things but now . . . Oh dochenka dochenka, you make me spit, you really do. Just because the school term is finished and you've got yourself a mountain of books there, it doesn't mean you can read the rest of your life away.'

'Why not? I like reading.'

'Don't be so wretched. What is that big fat book anyway?'

'War and Peace.'

'Oh gospodi! For G.o.d's sake, make it Shakespeare or d.i.c.kens or even that imperialist pig Kipling, but please not Tolstoy. Not Russian.' For G.o.d's sake, make it Shakespeare or d.i.c.kens or even that imperialist pig Kipling, but please not Tolstoy. Not Russian.'

'I like Russian.'

'Don't be silly, you know nothing Russian.'

'Exactly. Time I did, don't you think?'

'No, I do not. It's time you got out of bed and went over to Polly's to eat some of her lily-white mother's plum pie that you always sing the praises of. Go out. Do something.'

'No.'

'Yes.'

'No.'

'You must.'

'Why do you want me out of here? Because you want to jump into bed with Antoine?'

'Lydia!'

'Or is it Alfred now?'

'Lydia, you are a rude and impertinent child. I just want you to be normal, that's all.'

'What is normal, Mama?'

'Anyway, I've finished with Antoine.'

'Poor Antoine.'

'Poof, he deserved no better.'

'And Alfred? What have you decided the Englishman deserves?'

'Alfred is a very kind man with a generous heart, and I would remind you that G.o.d says the meek shall inherit the earth.'