Elliott Roosevelt caught a glimpse of Pamela with the OSS fellow as he swung through the doors of the Park Hotel, but he had no intention of stopping to talk to them. He knew Pam Churchill was a whole lot of trouble, and he had enough of it on his hands. His first marriage had lasted only a year; he was extricating himself from his second—the war hadn’t done wonders for connubial bliss. But that suited Elliott just fine. He loved planes and everything to do with flying, and a protracted war was the perfect excuse to stay in the air and a continent away from his wife and kids. The war had freed up all kinds of attractive women, and with the threat of death hanging over them daily, they were always ready to waste a few hours on FDR’s son. Elliott had been damned lucky in his Pop. He’d hated prep school—hated the rules and the ridiculous expectations, all the Republican kids derisively chanting his last name—and he’d refused to go to college even after Pop had gotten him into Harvard. But Elliott figured he could trade on his war record and access to top circles when the fighting was over. There was money to be made in air route expansion after the war, and Elliott knew how to make it. The trick was not to worry too much about rules. Influence was everything.
You scratch my back, he thought, and I’ll scratch yours.
He kept his head down and walked swiftly past Pamela and the Intelligence guy, making directly for the hotel elevator. From the back, he’d be just another man in an Army Air Corps uniform, and there were enough of them in Tehran right now to sell. He punched the call button and the cage descended; when it halted at ground level, the operator slid open the heavy grilled door. His right hand fingered the elegant card of scented paper he’d slid into his pocket that afternoon. It had been delivered to the American legation, where nobody was staying anymore, but Louis Dreyfus made sure all official papers were sent over to the Soviet Embassy several times a day. Elliott had read it in plenty of time.
Room 318, it said. Midnight. I will be waiting for you.
A slight thrill of anticipation as the elevator lifted. He gave the operator a few coins. He hadn’t bothered to calculate what the local currency was worth.
She answered his knock almost immediately, as though she’d been waiting by the door. As exquisite as he remembered—a porcelain princess in a silk robe.
“May-ling,” he murmured.
She drew him quickly inside.
He stood awkwardly for an instant after the door closed, uncertain—as he rarely was—of his next move. Should he be passionate? Sweep her into his arms? They had never been alone like this—shut into a private room—and he had no script for what came next. He took a tentative step toward her.
She turned swiftly and led him into her suite’s sitting room. Her maid was there, arranging teacups on a tray.
Disappointment crashed over him.
She said something sharp and incomprehensible in Chinese and the maid bent double in obeisance, scuttling in the direction of what must be the bedroom.
May-ling was offering him tea.
He took the cup and looked at her fully for the first time. Her dark eyes were smudged with sleeplessness, and there was a purplish bruise high on her right cheek.
“Please, Elliott,” she said softly. “Sit down.”
He took one of the easy chairs.
She curled herself like a cat on the suite’s couch, and reached for her own teacup. Poise. That was the quality May-ling had. She made Elliott uneasy.
“What are you doing in Tehran?” he asked abruptly.
Her eyes flicked up at him. She took a deliberate sip of tea. “I had nowhere else to go.”
“But—I thought you and the Generalissimo were headed back to China.”
“My husband has already arrived. I was not permitted to accompany him.” Her voice was impersonal, almost remote. She set down her cup and rose from her seat.
Mesmerized, Elliott watched May-ling approach him. Swaying, graceful, like a reed in the wind. She lifted his tea from his hands and placed it on the coffee table. Then she slid into his lap and put her arms around his neck.
“I have been banished, Elliott, because of you,” she whispered. Her lips moved over his cheek as she spoke; the sensation was intoxicating. “My husband says he will divorce me. That I have shamed the name of Chiang by pursuing you in public. I will no longer be the uncrowned empress of China, Elliott. You are all I have, darling.”
“But—” He drew a shaky breath, bewildered. “He’s out of his mind! What can I possibly do, May-ling?”
She stared deep in his eyes, her own tragic. “Marry me,” she said.