Butterfly and the Violin (9781401690601) Read online

  Sera had tripped over her words enough in front of him. She’d meant that there was already a combustible situation to contend with. Who knew what would happen with the painting and the inheritance?

  Was it smart to get involved?

  “Sera, we’re both looking for the owner of this painting. And since you showed up on my doorstep, we’re joined by this mystery of Adele and Vladimir. I understand that there’s a lot riding on this. You don’t need to tell me that my family has skin in the game here to the tune of everything we own.” His hand reached up to calm a long lock of her hair that had danced out on a soft breeze. He tucked it back against the side of her face. Her cheekbone tingled with the touch. “What I’m trying to say is, I want to talk—to you.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I flew here all the way from California to do so.”

  Sera nodded softly.

  So she’d guessed right. Work was work, but he was in New York to see her. “But what if it doesn’t work out? I can’t lead you to the painting only to find that you’re serving its owner with a court summons at the end of it all. I can’t bring myself to do it, no matter how much I want that painting.”

  “You can’t trust me?”

  There was no point in beating around the bush. She’d already laid her cards out on the table when she’d mentioned Michael. “I’m not sure I can.”

  He seemed to be considering what she’d said, for he brought his hands behind his head and stretched out in his chair in a casual manner.

  “So, what you’re saying is that I can ask you out again for roughly the price tag of a hundred million dollars?”

  Sera closed her eyes on instinct, her heart sinking. That was how she’d said it, wasn’t it?

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I accept.” His interruption was easy. “Or I should say—I’m asking. If you agree to dinner with me tomorrow night, I won’t pursue legal action until I’ve spoken with you about it. We’ll find the painting together, and I promise to consult with you before any further steps are taken. Agreed?”

  She looked up at him, eyes searching every corner of his face for any indication of manipulation. “So you’ll make me a full partner in this.”

  “Yes. I’ll up your fee.”

  “I don’t care about my fee,” she admitted, waving him off. “I probably shouldn’t mention it to a client, but for this painting, I’d pay you.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  “So we decide what the next steps are, together.” She paused, then said, “And I have your word on that?”

  William smiled, easily it seemed, and nodded. “You have my word, Sera.”

  Sera smiled and for the first time in a long while felt a genuine release of a fear that had been walled up in her heart. A fragrance-laden breeze sailed in then, rustling the hair on his forehead. He leaned in and opened his hand palm up on the table, offering it to her.

  She accepted it, lacing her fingers with the warmth of his.

  “How long are you planning to stay in New York?”

  “I don’t know, Sera. You tell me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  June 22, 1940

  Adele had traveled to Germany with her parents on multiple occasions. They’d gone on holiday several summers ago. She’d even played in Berlin a time or two. But this trip with the troupe of musicians from her college made her feel far more grown up. It was the first time she’d left her home behind and had toured without her parents’ watchful eyes glued to her.

  She adored the new traveling suit her mother had bought for her. It was one of the only outfits that actually fit both of their tastes. Wearing the black-and-white hat with the bright red poppy and the tailored pin-striping down the length of the fabric, she felt fashionable and older than her eighteen years. Margie must have felt the same, for she’d also donned her best dress in a deep jade and a new black-feathered hat for their dinner in the city.

  “Isn’t it exciting, Adele?” Margie’s usual bubbly enthusiasm couldn’t be contained. She glanced around like a child on Christmas morning, her eyes popping at the bustle and color of the city outside the car windows. “Look at him,” she whispered, playfully nudging Adele in the side when a rather dashing suited officer walked past their car. He tipped his hat to them in respectful greeting. “Wouldn’t your mother be happy if you met someone like him?”

  Adele forced a smile at the sight of the German officer, likely on furlough for the weekend. He was handsome, to be sure, and tall and catching every woman’s eye as he crossed the street—except hers.

  Margie sighed next to her. “In dreams, right, Adele?”

  “No. My dreams are different.”

  It was true.

  She wanted nothing more than to walk across the street on Vladimir’s arm, but that dream had been snuffed out. The night he’d walked her home from the dance hall the previous September had been the last time she’d entertained the thought of actually having a future with him.

  She recalled the horrified look on her mother’s face when she waltzed through the front door, feeling like she was dancing on air, though the world was in chaos around them. Vladimir Nicolai had been every bit the gentleman on their walk home, of course, but something stirred in her heart that his affections had indeed been turned toward her on that night.

  Adele had twirled around the dark entryway, unaware that her mother watched from the second-story landing, ready to pounce on her hope of seeing more of the dashing cellist.

  But it wasn’t to be.

  Both her father and mother had taken it upon themselves to smother her from that moment on. She was escorted nearly everywhere. As her father was in active duty for the empire, her mother had taken the primary role in her surveillance. She’d been escorted by her mother or a carefully selected driver assigned to report everything back to the Von Brons personally. There was no way she could meet Vladimir at college, a dance hall, or anywhere in between without them hearing about it.

  So they’d taken to meeting in secret, in their garden before performances, up until that summer at least. For some reason, he’d been avoiding her. He hadn’t shown up in their garden for weeks, though she waited for him before each performance. The only time she’d seen him had been onstage, and even then he’d avoided making any eye contact with her.

  She felt the sting of tears weighting her eyelashes and turned away, gazing out the window as the flash of city lights passed by.

  “You’re thinking of him again.” Margie broke into her thoughts with the knowing comment. “Aren’t you?”

  Startled from the memory, Adele raised a gloved hand and smoothed the curls beneath her hat. “Who?”

  “Vladimir. You’re here in beautiful Munich, surrounded by nearly every handsome man in Germany, and all you can think about is that merchant’s son.”

  Defensive at once, she scolded, “Don’t call him the merchant’s son!”

  “I meant no offense, Adele. I merely thought to bring up the fact that you’re blind to anything or anyone outside of him, though I can’t think why.”

  The merchant’s son? Adele hated that nearly everyone had taken to referring to him in such a manner, as if he couldn’t have any worth because of it. Her mother had labeled him so with a revolted sigh and an upturned lip, as if the very manner of his existence disgusted her. Her father, always distant and authoritarian, had forbade the mention of his name in their home, expecting that his every order was to be explicitly followed. And after Vladimir had severed association with her weeks before, Adele’s friends had jumped on the defense and no longer thought him to be quite as dashing as he’d once seemed. To them, he amounted to the number of coins in his pocket and nothing more.

  “There is more to him than his station, or his father’s pile of money.”

  Margie scoffed in a silly, flippant manner. “Or lack thereof?”

  “How can you be so unfeeling, Margie?” Adele’s voice rose enough that the uniformed dri
ver took notice. He cleared his throat loudly.

  “Hush, Adele.” Margie issued the light reprimand and tilted her head to the front seat. “Your mother may not be here,” she said, leaning in closer to Adele’s side, “but he is. You don’t want him carrying tales back to your parents, do you?”

  Adele noticed the driver’s quick glance in the rearview mirror and once again turned her eyes out the window. “No. I suppose you’re right.”

  “Look, I know you liked him. We all did,” Margie said, patting a gray gloved hand to her elbow, almost as one would do to comfort a grieving widow at a funeral. Perhaps she thought the action was being supportive. “He’s got a dashing smile—I’ll give him that. But it’s just not to be. He’s not good enough for you.”

  “Not good enough?” Adele rolled her eyes. She might as well have been traveling with her mother, because Margie sounded like her carbon copy. If anything, Adele felt she was the one chasing a prize. A diamond in the rough maybe, but something special nonetheless.

  “Come on, Adele. Look around you! We’re in the city,” she noted happily, then lowered her tone to a barely there but excited schoolgirl whisper. “It may not be Berlin, but Munich is just as exciting, I’m told. And we’re alone . . . It must be fate that your mother had a concert in Berlin this weekend. She’s playing her piano half a country away! Can you believe it? Let’s meet some cute officers.” Her whisper pitched an octave higher as she continued. “And after we ditch the driver up there, let’s go have the night of our lives, huh?”

  Adele didn’t want to have the night of her life, that was for sure.

  They’d finished playing a performance for the college. That had been magical—she always felt alive when she was playing, like she’d been transported to heaven somehow, and was lost in the beauty of the music until she had to come back to earth at the end of the piece. But to try to go out on the town now in her painted smile and dolled-up clothes felt empty. Especially since she’d left her butterfly clip at home—this time, on purpose.

  Margie flitted her lashes and unfurled her rouged bottom lip in a girlish pout.

  “Please?”

  Adele laughed, unable to fight off her friend’s amiable charms. She caved as she always did when her friend broke out the sulk.

  “Fine. We’ll have dinner and I promise to smile the entire time.” She beamed at her friend with an exaggerated wide-toothed smile. “There. Happy?”

  “And dancing?”

  Adele shook her head. “Don’t press your luck.”

  Margie shook her head and giggled as she looked around the busy streets. “We don’t need luck tonight, Adele. We’re on a single girl’s holiday if there ever was one.”

  Whether fortuned with luck or not, Munich’s nightlife was certainly eye-opening. They had the driver drop them off at a respectable dining room that had what Margie described as “the stale look of a family restaurant.” No doubt the oblivious driver still sat reading the newspaper out front while they’d managed to sneak out the back of the establishment and scurry over to one of the bustling clubs a few streets over.

  Sneaking into the Blaue Kaskade club hadn’t been Adele’s idea, nor did it sit well with her to risk getting caught and sent home on the next train just for a night of glitz and glamour. But her apprehension was short-lived. Always the master of persuasion, Margie used her wiles to convince the young man standing guard at the entrance to allow them to pass, but only after she’d promised him a dance once his shift was over.

  “Are you really going to dance with him later?” She had to shout over the band’s riotous music. She grabbed onto Margie’s arm and was tugged along, fearful that the swarm of people would envelop and separate them if she didn’t hold on for dear life.

  Margie’s eyes danced around the room, her eyes sparkling with the lights and glamorous entertainers on the club’s small stage. “Are you kidding? I plan to be in a quiet corner with an officer long before then.”

  Adele’s heart thumped in her chest. If it was staying away from the wrong kind of men they wanted, her parents had made a gross miscalculation in allowing their only daughter to parade around a strange city with the man-attracting Margie.

  “Blue cascade indeed,” Margie said, noting the establishment’s name. “I see an ocean of dark uniforms all around us, moving like a sea of eligible men. Take your pick, honey.” She tugged on Adele’s sleeve to pull her closer. “Come on. Let’s go get a drink.”

  Adele exhaled and followed, though she couldn’t say she really wanted to. She had a feeling she was going to be a young musician-turned-den-mother in short order. Margie had a bit of a wild streak that being apart from her own parents for a few days had evidently loosed with striking speed.

  “Are you sure you want a drink?” Adele looked around, noticing the eyes of several groups of anxious young men washing over every inch of their forms. She reached up to close the top button of her jacket in response. “Can’t we just have a quiet dinner together?”

  “What?” Margie half shouted over the band.

  “Dinner,” Adele repeated, wishing the trombone players would take a rest so she could think for more than five seconds. “Can’t we have a quiet dinner?”

  Margie scoffed. “A quiet dinner? In an exciting city far from home? You’re crazy, little Miss Sweetheart. I want to dance.”

  It turned out Margie was more correct than she knew.

  Adele was paraded in front of scads of young men as Margie carried her along, introducing them as musicians from Vienna. Adele politely declined the drinks that were placed in front of them and ordered a soda water, but she watched as her friend downed tumblers of gin and hopped out to the dance floor like a desperate bird freed from a cage. She flitted around the oversized main hall of the club, moving from officer to officer, having the time of her life while Adele sat at their table and watched. After the fourth officer approached and asked her to dance, only to have to be politely rejected, Adele felt that she needed some air.

  Pretending to have fun wasn’t working.

  She made sure to check on Margie, who saw when she tilted her head toward the back door. Margie winked from the dance floor, giving a signal that she’d be fine until Adele returned. And with that, she made her way around the side of the room to the door in the back.

  It wasn’t until she’d stepped through it that she could finally exhale. She rejoiced to have found peace outside.

  There was no cloud of thick cigarette smoke to wave through, no screaming instruments or booming laughter echoing from the dance floor. The glittery flash of sequined dresses had been replaced by the dark stillness of the club’s back entrance. It was a common enough alleyway, with brick buildings on both sides and a thin strip of sky that offered a peek at the stars overhead. Water dripped from somewhere behind her, making the only sound near her.

  What am I doing, Lord? I don’t even want to be here.

  She took off her hat and turned it over in her hands, waving some fresh air in her face. The club had been so stuffy. She was glad to be free from it, if only for a moment.

  As she turned around, a faded sign caught her notice.

  Dachgarten.

  A rooftop garden in the heart of the city? There was a metal staircase, sturdy it seemed, and an arrow that pointed up to the top of the building. Adele gladly left the club behind and without a second thought began a slow climb up the stairs.

  The sign was inadequate to describe the beauty she found on the club’s roof. There was a virtual paradise, blanketed by the night sky overhead, with bloom after cascading bloom growing in abundance. Roses. Peonies. Even summer sunflowers that looked ready to explode with their own definition of yellow sunshine. She walked around the silent garden, moving between the rows of carefully tended blooms, drinking in their sweet fragrance and offer of unexpected solace. She noticed a leaded glass greenhouse at the far end, it too looking enchanted and twinkling in the streaming moonlight.

  She breathed out a prayer of thanks. Though she
was trespassing on a private sanctuary, it was still a tranquil moment. If she’d been gifted with any measure of peace in the midst of her uncertain life, she’d accept it, gratefully. Between her parents’ fervent wish that she marry well, the space that had been growing between her and Vladimir, and the overwhelming nightmare of war . . . she just wasn’t sure which way was up anymore.

  “Adele.”

  She whirled around at the whisper of her name, sure she’d find that some eager young officer had followed her up the stairs. Her fists were instinctively balled up in front of her, ready for a fight. But before she had time to feel threatened by the presence of a stranger in the quiet garden, the voice connected with the image of a man standing before her.

  She squinted in the moonlight, shocked when she recognized his face.

  “Vladimir?”

  He approached with quiet steps and picked up the hat she’d dropped.

  “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” It was all she could manage to say.

  He offered the hat to her.

  “It’s not safe to walk about a strange city on your own.”

  It wasn’t until he’d taken the several steps forward that she was close enough to read the expression illuminated by the moonlight on his face. Was he . . . angry? Forget the fact that she’d have been delighted to see no one else in the rooftop garden, the look on his face was rather murderous.

  “But what are you doing in Germany?” She asked the obvious question a scant second before the next accusatory words tumbled out her lips. “How did you find me?”

  “You don’t have any idea what could have happened up here? You’re alone, Adele. Alone and stupid, I might add. You’ve got to be smarter than this.” He issued the reproach easily and reached out with a hand that clamped like a vise around her elbow.