shoulder.
“It wasn’t?” Witherspoon said.
30
“Welcome home, m’lord,” Pelham said, swinging open the wide mahogany door at the entrance of Hawke’s new Georgetown home. He’d heard the familiar roar of Hawke’s motorcycle outside and made his way across the black-and-white checked floor of the foyer.
Hawke shut down the motorcycle and reluctantly climbed off. He loved firing up the old Norton Commando and was glad of any excuse to use it. After leaving Vicky’s office the previous afternoon, he’d had only an hour or so in his new home. In the splendor of his cerulean blue bedroom, he’d had just time enough to call his decorator Le Coney in New York, thank her for the splendid job, then hop into a shower, a dinner jacket, and then out to the garage and onto his Norton for the short sprint around to the Georgetown Club.
“Hullo, Pelham, old thing,” Hawke said, mounting the stone steps and smiling at his butler. “Glad to see you’re still among the living this morning.”
“As Alfred Lord Tennyson put it so succinctly in his poem ‘The Brook,’ I go on forever, m’lord,” the aged butler said, with a slight bow.
Pelham Grenville had to be nearly a hundred years old. He still had a good head of thick white hair, an imperious nose, and twinkling blue eyes. He wore spotless white gloves, a cutaway jacket, striped trousers, and a stiff white tie at his throat every day of his life.
He’d spent the majority of that lifetime working for one member of the Hawke family or another. Though he was in fact a thoroughly professional butler, the family had long since ceased to think of him as a servant. He was a member of the family. He was Pelham, that charming fellow who kept successions of Hawke properties, town and country houses, well oiled. And, until they could be shipped off to Eton or Harrow or, later, Dartmouth, he also kept generations of Hawke children on the straight and narrow.
Pelham had insisted on coming over to Washington to supervise the restoration and decoration of The Oaks. Hawke didn’t have the heart to say no. With Hawke away on business, and with only the odd aging aunt or cousin dropping by for tea, there was certainly not much activity in the London house in Belgrave Square. Besides, he enjoyed Grenville’s company enormously.
Hawke gave Pelham a stern look.
“Now, none of this bowing and scraping stuff to anybody over here,” Hawke said, as the butler took his overcoat. “This is America, Pelham. Land of freedom and equality.”
“Please,” Pelham sniffed. “I’ve been in service for over eighty years. I hardly need—good heavens! Look at you, m’lord, you’re all bloody.”
“Must have been someplace I ate,” Hawke said, smiling at his own little joke. “Do I have time for a quick shower?”
“Very little, I’m afraid,” Pelham said. “Madame Secretary just rang. She’s on her way.”
“Is it that bloody late?” Hawke said, looking at his shattered watch. He’d been unable to tear himself away from Vicky’s bedside and forgotten all about the time.
“I tried your mobile, but as usual it wasn’t turned on.”
“Well, yes, there’s that. I wonder if you could possibly get the secretary some tea and apologize for me, will you? I’m going to have a scrub and put on something clean.”
“Indeed, sir. Your current appearance leaves a great deal to be desired. One might use the word ‘frightening.’ I’ve taken the liberty of laying out one of your favorite gray Huntsman suits,” the butler said. “And may I suggest a tie? A nice Turnbull Navy foulard should do quite nicely. After all, your guest is a personage of great—”
But Hawke was already halfway up the sweeping marble staircase, mounting the steps three at a time.
“Lord Hawke is bloodied but unbowed, I see!” the old fellow muttered under his breath.
“Indeed, I am!” Hawke shouted back over his shoulder.
Ten minutes later, he’d showered and, ignoring the wardrobe laid out by Pelham, donned a pair of faded Levis, Royal Navy T-shirt, and an old black cashmere sweater. If Conch saw him in a coat and tie, she wouldn’t recognize him.
Entering the library, he found Consuelo de los Reyes sitting by a crackling fire, sipping a can of Diet Coke through a straw, and staring at the television.
“You’re here!” Hawke said. “Sorry, I didn’t—”
“I figured out how to turn this damn thing on. Hope you don’t mind.”
She was watching herself on CNN Newsbreakers. Hawke couldn’t help smiling at Conch’s television appearance and demeanor.
Very genteel. Black dress, pearls. And, Hawke noticed, a marked absence of the usual stream of four-letter words that flowed so naturally from the mouth of the American Secretary of State.
“Does that dress make me look fat?” Conch asked.
“No dress makes you look fat, Conch.”
Today, Conch had on a tight pink cashmere sweater. It was a sweater he remembered quite well. It buttoned up the back. Or unbut-toned, as the case may be. Beyond the tall crystalline windows on either side of the hearth, a snow-covered Washington basked in the brilliant morning sunlight.
“Well, you’re my first guest,” Hawke said, pulling up a chair by the fireside. “I guess since you found the house for me, by all rights it should be you.” Conch owned the house just across the street and had first shown Alex the pretty Georgian brick home he now owned.
“Good God almighty, Alex,” she said, reaching over to flip off the television and looking around. “You’ve turned the old dump into Brideshead Manor.”
“Decorators certainly captured the English Country look in this room, didn’t they?”
“Feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a goddamn Polo ad. Like Ralph’s going to walk through the door any minute and plop down amidst the chintz with a couple of springer spaniels.”
Hawke smiled. Conch’s tastes ran to bamboo, rattan, and mounted blue marlins, even in Georgetown.
“Dreadful business last night at the Georgetown Club,” he said. “I’ve just come from the hospital.”
“Hell of a fright, buster. I got a call during dinner with the president. The Georgetown Club! We’ll nail these guys, whoever they are. And then we’ll nail the sonsabitches’ balls to the walls, believe me. Tell me about it. What happened to your hand?”
“Just a salad fork through it, Conch. I was lucky.”
“And Victoria?”
“I would say that she is extremely lucky.”
“Meaning?”
“This may be difficult for you to believe, but—” Alex broke off what he was saying when Pelham suddenly floated into the room.
“I’ve laid a breakfast out on the table there, m’lord,” he said. “Fruit, cereal, coffee, tea. Muffins with your favorite strawberry jam. Please ring if you need me. Otherwise I shan’t disturb you further.”
Hawke smiled as the butler withdrew, pulling the double doors closed, and said, “At any rate, I know it’s preposterous, but I think it’s possible that bomb was meant for Vicky.”
“Oh, Alex, get serious. Why in hell would anyone—”
“The bloody Cubans, perhaps. After all, that submarine was purchased by this Telarana bunch. Could be trying to scare me away.”
“Alex, if they really wanted to, why not just kill you?”
“Too much bad publicity? I don’t know. Look, I’ll be honest. I gave those Russians a fairly rough go of it. Forced them to divulge who bought the Borzoi. They were terrified of the possible repercussions. In order to cover themselves, they’d go straight to the Cubans and tell them about my keen interest in their activities. So, I expect the new Cuban government aren’t exactly happy with me at the moment.”
“Big-time CYA.”
“Sorry?”
“Cover Your Ass. Your Russian friends are covering theirs with the Cubans,” Conch said. “That’s precisely
