Ted Bell - Tsar

“So you’re not…roommates? Partners?”

“Roommates?” Pelham said, almost choking on the word. His starched collar suddenly seemed far too tight, and indeed his face had turned a startling shade of red.

“Are you all right?” Asia asked, fearing he might be suffering from a coronary event or worse. She hurriedly poured him a glass of water.

Summoning every ounce of his dignity and with his exquisite patina of noblesse oblige barely intact, Pelham was able to croak in a strangled voice, “Hardly roommates, Madame.”

At that moment, Alexander Hawke strode into the room. He was naked save a small towel wrapped precariously around his waist. His body and his dark hair were still damp from the recent shower, and he wore a creamy white beard of shaving cream. In his hand was an old-fashioned ivory-handled straight razor.

“Oh, terribly sorry. I’d no idea you’d arrived,” he said, glancing at Anastasia. His eyes moved to Pelham, who seemed a bit rattled and was shakily knocking back a goblet of water or perhaps something stronger.

“My fault entirely,” Ansastasia said, swiveling her stool toward him. “I thought I’d get lost finding you, so I arrived far too early. Pelham and I have been having a grand time.”

Hawke and Anastasia stared at each other for a few long moments, neither of them willing or able to speak. Finally, Hawke’s face broke into a wide grin.

“Ah. Good. Good for you two to have some time to chat. Get to know each other a bit. Well. Perfect. I’ll be with you shortly. Pelham, you don’t have something brewing back there with my name on it, do you?”

“Indeed, m’lord,” Pelham squeaked.

Pelham came out from behind the bar with a frosted silver julep cup on a silver tray. Hawke took it and smiled at Asia. “My ‘dresser,’ you see. I always have a wee cocktail while I’m suiting up for dinner.”

“Good idea,” she said, smiling. “It’s reassuring that you haven’t finished dressing.”

Hawke looked at her, then down at his towel, seeming to have momentarily exhausted his gift for dialogue.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Give me ten minutes or so. You look stunning in red, by the way.”

She nodded and watched him disappear down the hallway that led, she imagined, to his bedroom. When she turned her glance back to Pelham, her eyes were softer than before.

“Are you quite all right?” he asked her after a few moments of silence.

She looked up at him, her eyes shining.

“There’s an awful lot of little boy in that big man.”

“Most perceptive of you, Madame Korsakova.”

“A sad little boy, I’m afraid. What was he like, Pelham? As a child? Was he a very sad little boy?”

“His boyhood? Sad? Indeed, I suppose it had some of that, as everyone’s does.”

“Would it be terribly indiscreet of you to talk about him? You hardly know me, after all.”

“I know you well enough, I think, Madame. At least, where he’s concerned. We do have a few minutes before he returns.”

“Tell me a story, Pelham,” Anastasia said, leaning forward and resting her chin in her hands. “About the little boy you knew.” Her green eyes, shining and moist, had a lustrous depth, Pelham noticed for the first time.

It was only with some difficulty that he avoided falling into them himself.

“Shall we move out to the terrace?” she said. “The fresh breeze off the ocean is lovely.”

“LORD HAWKE WAS born healthy and boisterous as a three-ring circus on Christmas Eve around seven o’clock in the evening. He was born to a somewhat absent father, a career Navy man, and a doting mother in a leafy corner of Sussex,” Pelham said quietly. Anastasia sat back against the cushy linen sofa and placed one of her thin red cigarettes in a carved ebony holder. Pelham pulled up a chair and leaned forward to light it, an old Dunhill table lighter somehow appearing in his hand.

“His lordship spent a rather normal childhood in the company of various corgis and terriers, stern-faced maiden aunts, and an unending parade of frowning nursemaids, all supervised by yours truly.

“But how his eyes would light up at the sight of his mother. Often, she would venture upstairs to his nursery for his bedtime prayers, dripping with dewy raindrop pearls that never quite fell, whispering the softest ‘Good night, sleep tight,’ before vanishing again.

“On warm summer afternoons, Alex was always brought down to her rooms at tea time. The windows were opened to the gardens, and bees buzzed in and all about. She would read to him, stories of pirates and knights and fair damsels in distress. He loved them all. Rather fancied himself a swashbuckling pirate, I daresay.

“Eventually, they would both die, of course, Lord and Lady Hawke. Murdered by real pirates aboard their yacht on a family Caribbean vacation. Alex was only seven when it happened, but he witnessed the murders. It was horrible, ma’am, horrible beyond words. I don’t think he’s ever quite recovered. I-I know he hasn’t.

“He spent those awful months following the funeral at the shore below his grandfather’s home, building elaborate sand castles, tears streaming from his eyes. When a castle was complete, perfect, he trampled it, kicking away the turrets and battlements until it was just sand again. Then he would wander off along the sand and start another castle somewhere. So many ruined castles. So many sad days.

“The boy’s happiest early recollections would be of the great heaving blue sea beyond his windows. I can see him even now, ma’am, wheeled outside, on a small bluff directly overlooking the sea. He would sit bolt upright in his formidable navy-blue pram (it was made of steel, his first battleship, really) enraptured for hours on end.

“When storms came, nursemaids would squeal with fright and wheel their small charge back indoors. The young master, red-faced with fury at this removal from his beloved perch, would beat his small fists against the steel-sided pram, raging at the injustice of it all. He adored foul weather, always has.

“Around the age of sixteen, he left home for good. He studied first at the naval preparatory school, Homefield, in Surrey. The regime was harsh, with a curriculum geared to the needs of future midshipmen and commodores. He excelled and was accepted at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He was a natural leader of men. He excelled on the athletic fields. He adored reading military history and the classics. Still does. Later, in battle, he learned that he was naturally good at war.”

“He’s a soldier?”

“He was. A pilot, Royal Navy. Now, he’s in business. Family enterprise. Quite extensive.”

“Is he happy?”

“In the absence of war, his spirits seem to go into steep decline. Sunshine and salt air help. It’s partly why we came to Bermuda. To try to mend-”

“Oh, hullo!”

Pelham stopped in midsentence and looked up.

“Fascinating stuff,” Hawke said, smiling at Pelham. “Please don’t let me interrupt.”

“So, you like war, do you?” Anastasia asked, once they were alone on the terrace.

“There is nothing quite so exhilarating as being shot at without effect,” Alex Hawke said, escorting her to the little red-checkered table, drink in hand.

“Churchill?” she said.

“Good for you. Winston nailed it, as usual. All right, then, who’s hungry around here? I’m famished!”

Dinner was served at the table for two overlooking the moonlit sea. A single candle inside a hurricane glass illuminated Anastasia’s face in a flickering umbra. They had simple fish, freshly caught in the grotto below, and a clean, cold white wine. Hawke had found cases of the stuff in the musty cellar.