A Calculated Risk by Katherine Neville (best time to read books .txt) 📗

she added. “I was shoveling cowshit the entire trip! While she paid our entire passage to Morocco by lavishing sexual favors on the handsome golden captain and his crew of young Adonises—”

“The crew as well,” echoed Tor, raising an eyebrow.

“There wasn’t one that was over twenty,” Georgian raced on, hardly pausing for air. “She swam in the buff, cavorting like a dolphin with the lithe young junior officers as they fed each other papaya with their fingers—”

“This was Morocco—not Tahiti,” I pointed out, tapping my foot in impatience.

“—it was like something from Mutiny on the Bounty.”

“Page three-twenty-seven, to be precise,” I said, wondering if the torture would ever end.

“But it was the captain she really fell for,” said Georgian. “A woman like True needs to be mastered; she admired him for having the audacity to take the upper hand.…”

“There’s a lesson in this, is there?” said Tor, still trying to suppress his smile.

“I’ve no doubt that she hoity-toitys around with you—calling you her colleague, and comporting herself, and such. But don’t be misled by her cool demeanor and tentlike attire!”

She stood up and went behind my chair, where she dug her hands into my mess of already disheveled hair, and messed it further.

“While inside is this seething, writhing, insatiable mass of unfulfilled passion!”

“It’s lucky you’ve torn the veils from my eyes,” said Tor as I spat hair from my mouth in fury. “My dear Verity—now that I’ve seen this other side—”

“What side?” I stormed. “There is no side! Can we please get down to work?”

“Naturally,” said Tor, looking warmly at Georgian. “Now that things are more aboveboard, may I add that I think this is the beginning of a most productive relationship?”

Though Georgian was still behind me, I swear that what passed between them was a conspiratorial wink.

I’ve neglected to mention that the Blue Room was one of the seven wonders of the world. It appeared small, but I’d measured the dimensions once while helping Lelia install the pink quartz faux mantel, carved with dimpled cherubim, entwined with eglantine and wild swans.

That room embraced no fewer than seventeen chairs, sofas, ottomans, fauteuils, and recamiers—all upholstered in ice blue with white lacquer trim—and ranging in style from Louis XII through XVI. The tables, ranging in height, were heaped with piles of Lalique, cloisonné, and porcelain—so overburdened that it seemed they’d topple over from the sheer weight of bric-a-brac.

The walls were decorated in trompe l’oeil lattices, through which one caught tantalizing glimpses of so many vistas that walking around the room gave the dizzying impression of completing a world tour by merry-go-round.

As an added touch—if anything else were needed—Lelia’s exhaustive collection of photos and miniatures was scattered wherever space afforded. Many of these memorabilia were affixed to the lattices, so it seemed hundreds of eyes were watching as the viewer tried to bring into focus the dizzying landscape beyond.

That Georgian, Tor, and I sat there for four hours was a testimonial to our stamina. Perhaps the vodka helped. But by the end of the third hour we were sprawled on the floor, singing “Troika”—I playing the part of the sleigh bells, as I knew no Russian. We were interrupted by the maid, who entered with great decorum, daintily stepping over our bodies and bearing a tray of food.

“What did I tell you?” asked Georgian, looking up from her daze. “Piroshki!”

“And clear borscht!” added Tor, sniffing the air like a bird dog. “With real Russian curds!”

He staggered to his feet as the maid departed, and with great ceremony spooned food into plates and bowls, spilling a bit here and there. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I smelled Lelia’s cooking.

“This borscht is delicious,” Tor said between slurps.

“Don’t eat too much; you’ll encourage her,” said Georgian from the floor. “Then the food will come marching in like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice—we’ll be buried in mountains of food—we’ll have to throw ourselves against the door to keep it out.”

“I’d gladly die this way.” Tor sighed, inhaling the aroma of the piroshki. He reached for the nearest one and wolfed it down. “But now, since the singing’s done, I may as well tell you why we’re here.”

“My God—back to business?” said Georgian, rolling over and putting a pillow over her head.

“Verity and I have made a little wager,” he informed the pillow. He paused, resumed spooning down borscht as if it were lifeblood. “And, if she loses this wager—she’ll have to grant my fondest wish.”

Georgian’s head came out of the pillows. She sat up and looked at me.

“A wish? Give me a bowl of that soup. What kind of bet is that?”

“One that I think you might enjoy being party to,” said Tor with a smile, dishing up the soup. “To beat her, you see, I’m going to need an ally—a very good photographer.”

Georgian was now fully alert.

“What does each of you get, if you win?” she asked Tor.

“If Verity—True—wins, she gets a job at an even more boring financial institution than the one she’s imprisoned in now,” he said as Georgian wrinkled her nose and grimaced at me. “But if I win—she’ll have to come to New York and work for me—be my slave, if you will—for a year and a day. You see, your little story had a moral, after all.”

Georgian looked at him as over her face spread a beatific, and dangerous, smile. She held out her hand, and Tor took it.

“Do you mind if I call you Thor?” she asked.

“Thor?” He looked at me with curiosity.

“I think it’s Old Nordic for ‘death by conspiracy,’” I said.

PART 2

FRANKFURT, GERMANY

AUTUMN 1785

Thirty years before the morning Nathan Rothschild had waited for a bird to arrive at the small room in Frankfurt’s Judengasse, two men sat in a drafty castle outside the city, playing chess. They did not know that this particular chess game would mark the first move in the Rothschild banking dynasty—which was to take root that very night.

“So, have you taken my advice, Landgrave?” the general asked,