Lazlo’s Last Stand

feel his hand on her back, sliding low…pressing her close. Could almost smell his skin…taste it.

Ruthlessly shaking off the memories, she washed quickly, noting as she did that the bathroom, like the adjacent bedroom, was cool but not frigid, in spite of there being no evidence of a heater anywhere. Another aspect of being underground, she imagined. Most likely it would stay evenly cool year round.

Deciding her hair was a wild tangle that she lacked the patience to deal with this morning, she caught it into a gold clasp at the nape of her neck and finger-curled the few tendrils that had managed to escape capture, so that they fell naturally against her cheeks and temples. Then, heart quickening, she composed herself and opened the bedroom door.

And found herself in a large, bright kitchen, which, to her chagrin, was empty except for the woman busily rolling out pastry dough on the flour-covered table. Obviously the singer-she was still humming the jaunty little tune. Evidently, it was firmly stuck in her mind, too.

She broke it off and turned at the sound of the opening door. In spite of a dandelion fluff of snow-white hair, her face was young, unlined except for smile creases at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She was quite short, and plump in an appealing way, so well-endowed both fore and aft that she reminded Lucia of a little white hen. Her skin was sprinkled with light brown freckles, and her eyes were a clear, vivid blue. Corbett’s eyes.

Seeing Lucia, her flushed face blossomed with a smile, and she gave a little cry that was both a delighted welcome and dismay at her own floury, disheveled state. Hurriedly brushing her hands on her apron and chattering too rapidly for Lucia to understand, she became a small whirlwind of activity, somehow managing to guide Lucia to the far end of the table while almost simultaneously, it seemed, providing her with plate, utensils, napkin and a cup of steaming hot coffee. Lucia barely had time to note that both the napkin and tablecloth were snowy white and decorated with the same exquisite embroidery as the wall hangings in her room, before platters heaped with cold meats, fresh rolls, hardboiled eggs and assorted pickled vegetables and fruit preserves appeared before her.

At the same time she was flitting about the kitchen, the woman kept up a rapid-fire chatter that didn’t seem to require a reply. Lucia kept smiling and nodding and saying the words, Koszonom szepen, which she knew meant, thank you very much. And when, during a pause in the other woman’s monologue, she managed to insert the Hungarian words for milk and sugar, the woman clapped her hands like a delighted child.

Having produced a pitcher of milk and a small bowl of sugar, the woman paused, pulled out a chair and seated herself on its edge, like a hen on her perch. Then, speaking slowly and carefully, she asked-in Hungarian-if Lucia spoke magyarul. And she had an odd way of pronouncing her name, making it “Lee-sia,” rather than Lu-see-a.

Lucia shook her head apologetically. “Only a little.”

The woman merely smiled even wider and made an erasing motion with her hands as if to say, no problem. Then, speaking slowly and with much use of gestures, she introduced herself as Kati and asked if Lucia had slept well.

Once again Lucia was able to produce the right words from her tiny vocabulary. “Nagyon jol, koszonom.” She was less successful, however, when she tried to ask about Corbett.

Kati seemed confused until Lucia tried asking instead about “Mr. Lazlo.” This time she got a bright smile, a nod and an enthusiastic, “Ah, Lacsi!”

From there she went happily into explanations, apparently having forgotten Lucia’s language limitations, until interrupted by some thumps and scufflings from outside the door. At this she popped out of the chair, clutching her apron, and began to bustle about, setting another place at the table.

Lucia sipped coffee and fought to compose herself while her heart lurched into overdrive.

The door opened and a man entered the kitchen along with a swirl of cool damp air. Corbett, of course. Yes, but a Corbett so different from the one Lucia knew, if Kati had introduced him to her as some other Lazlo-a long-lost brother or cousin, perhaps-she would not have been surprised.

He was wearing a fur hat, dark wool trousers tucked into high boots, a heavy coat that hung open to show its sheepskin lining and a laced-up vest over a dark green shirt. In the crook of one arm he carried a rifle-not the first time Lucia had seen him with a weapon in his hands, of course, but this time Corbett seemed at once less lethal and more…stalwart. Masculine. Though, that may have been partly because he was also unshaven, the dark stubble and cold-reddened cheeks making his eyes seem even bluer than they usually were.

I can’t stare, Lucia thought, and quickly looked away. My eyes…my face will surely give me away.

But Corbett barely glanced at her, his eyes flicking over her as he nodded a mute good-morning.

Lucia watched silently from the corner of her eye as he put the rifle on brackets above the door then turned to greet Kati with a wide smile, bending down so she could kiss him soundly on both cheeks. This activity left him liberally dusted with flour, which Kati tried to brush off his vest, only making matters worse.

Sadness, a kind of wistful envy, caught at Lucia’s throat as she watched the two of them laughing and bantering back and forth with what was obviously easy familiarity and genuine affection. It spread through her chest like a strangling vine, when Corbett, having shed his coat and hat, seated himself at the table and faced her at last, and she watched the robust stranger vanish in a heartbeat, along with the smile.

“Did you sleep well?” The question and tone were formal, proper, correct. Corbett as usual.

The well-trained butler was back, Lucia thought as she replied, “Yes, thank you for asking,” determined not to be outdone in the matter of manners, at least. She picked up her coffee cup and sipped without tasting.

“I see you’ve met Katalin.”

“Yes, though the introductions just about covered the extent of my Hungarian.” She smiled and raised her cup to Kati, who was standing behind Corbett, beaming at the two of them, floury hands wrapped in her apron.

“Ah. Perhaps I should tell you, Kati can speak English,” he said dryly. “She just prefers not to.”

Upon hearing this, Kati made a hideous face at Corbett’s back, and Lucia ducked her head and drank more coffee to hide a smile and a quivery gulp of laughter.

After a moment she set down her cup and steeling herself, lifted her eyes to his face. He wasn’t looking at her, of course. He hadn’t, not really, not directly in the eyes, since the encounter in his dressing room. When he’d come so close to kissing her. So this was how it was going to be from now on?

Damn you, no!

Clamping her teeth together, she counted slowly to five, then asked bluntly, “And how are your ribs this morning? Were you able to get any sleep?”

He grunted and made a brushing motion with his hand, dismissing both the question and his injury as of no consequence. So much, she thought, for good manners.

Silence fell, except for Kati, who had gone back to her pastry and was once again humming the catchy Hungarian tune. The room was sultry and fragrant with cooking smells. Warm. Cozy. Comfortable. Or it should have been.

The silence became too much for Corbett. The twin spots of color on Lucia’s cheeks shamed him. The images in his mind tormented him-her eyes, bright with angry tears as she’d said the words he’d been hearing ever since, even in his sleep.

“You’re not my teacher anymore…”

But what had happened-almost happened-between them was in no way even remotely her fault. He was behaving like a first-class jackass.

Taking up his coffee cup, and along with it his lagging self-control, he produced what he hoped was a pleasant expression and directed it at the object of his tortured thoughts.

“So,” he said, “what do you think of my hideaway?”

She gave him a sideways glance as she attacked a chunk of kolbasz with her knife and fork-obviously angry with him still. “I haven’t seen much of it, except for my room and this one.”

“Well, then, you’ve seen most of it. Other than that, there’s just my study. There.” He gestured with his cup toward one of the two doors that opened off the back of the kitchen.

She paused with a bit of sausage halfway to her mouth to look at him with eyebrows raised. “Then…I’ve taken your bedroom?” She put down her knife and fork, her lips tightening. “You shouldn’t have done that. I can just as well sleep in the study.”

“Actually, you can’t,” Corbett said, spearing a slice of ham with his fork and bringing it to his mouth. “I’ll show