Chapter 27

Dear Anne,

I have arrived in the Finnish village of Ivalo...

D aisy paused as she sought to grapple her thoughts into some sort of arrangement, before crumpling the page, the pretense no longer possible to maintain.

Anne Vanderbilt was dead.

She knew it. She understood it. And yet it was impossible to stop thinking of her as being just a letter away.

One didn't notice the ground upon which one built a life until a piece of it crumbled, leaving only emptiness. A hole filled with nothing but memories. The two of them had grown old together, intertwined through marriage and friendship and tragedy and work. It was a dizzying feeling, this break. As if a tether had been cut and she was falling free with no net. Anne had been a steadfast presence, a sounding board. Someone who understood Daisy's ambitions because she shared them. That need to be more than what society expected. To use the advantages bestowed by birth for a greater purpose, to work for something bigger than oneself or one's family name.

Had it been the age they grew up in that created this sense of duty? An era of great excess alongside an era of great responsibility? Had those values passed her by when she wasn't looking? Or were there still men and women willing to struggle and fight for a larger cause?

Her thoughts turned to Cleo, the reason for Daisy's discarded letter to her sister-in-law and perhaps her melancholy as well. No, not melancholy. That wasn't a strong enough word for what burned under her ribcage. Pessimism? Discouragement? Defeat? No. She refused to admit defeat. That went against her nature. Always had. As had these dismal broodings. She was built of sterner—and more optimistic—stuff.

They arrived in the Finnish village in the small hours of the morning though the sky had never really darkened much beyond a twilight blue. It was a loud chaotic reunion of arriving buses, travel-weary passengers seeking luggage as they shouted greetings to one another, behaving as if they hadn't seen each other in years rather than hours.

Captain Waddell, one of their escorts, roared to make himself heard over the din while Lieutenant Bayard moved from group to group, answering questions, soothing nerves, calming tempers, and assisting as he could.

Once or twice, Daisy caught sight of Cleo, but only from a distance before Mr. Whitney appeared at her elbow, directing her to the hotel, offering updates on their progress as they climbed the steps into the lobby. The scents of paint and fresh lumber hung in the air from recent reconstruction after the Russo-Finnish War the past winter, but the food was hot and the rooms welcoming after the long trip.

"We're stuck here until the last of the buses arrive," Mr. Whitney grumbled. Always punctilious, he'd grown practically autocratic over the course of the last few days. He hadn't brought up Cleo or Micky Kominski since that morning in the train station, and for that Daisy was grateful. She wasn't sure she'd be as successful fobbing him off a second time. "This doesn't leave us a lot of time to make our rendezvous at the port in Petsamo. I've warned Lieutenant Bayard to make sure all is prepared so we can get back on the road as soon as we can."

"And Her Royal Highness?"

"She's been given rooms in a guesthouse on the premises. She's there now, resting ahead of the next leg of the journey, ma'am."

Rest. It was exactly what Daisy should do, but her mind spun and, with no outlet, she found herself unable to settle. The promised dawn came within a few hours, the sky brightening to a high milky blue streaked with mare's tails. If she couldn't sleep, she'd enjoy a last taste of adventure.

Changing into a country suit of sturdy corduroy and lacing on her boots, she left the hotel unseen by anyone who might stop her. This early, no one would notice her missing. Most still slept, and those who were up and about barely recognized her under her outdoor gear.

"Sneaking away, Mrs. Harriman?"

Daisy froze, slowly turning to see Her Royal Highness leaning against the porch railing, a cigarette in her hand. She wore a handsome dress of forest green to match the dark woods surrounding the hotel, her features smooth though there were shadows in her gaze if one cared to notice.

"You've caught me fair and square, Your Royal Highness. I thought I'd take advantage of our respite to revisit an old haunt. Who knows if I'll have the chance again?"

"Indeed" was the crown princess's caustic response before she tossed her cigarette away. "Best say your farewells while you can. I only wish I could join you."

The Ford sat at the edge of the woods, keys in the ignition. Daisy smiled to herself as she started the car. Driving was like riding a horse. Once you learned, you never forgot, and she'd learned under the direst of circumstances—her lessons etched in the charcoal grays of war as she steered her ambulance over the cratered tracks and muddy lanes of France. This drive wasn't nearly as dangerous, though rumors of German infiltrators had followed them north into Finland.

She rumbled over a wooden bridge, the river below curling with foam over a rocky bed, the water so clear one could see every stone and stick and darting fish. Some thought Lapland disorienting, too lonely, devoid of the color one saw in more temperate zones. Daisy disagreed. In the summer, the sunrise burst like fireworks while the winter nights conjured the shimmering dance of northern lights overhead. The air was clear and sweet with a tang of fir.

Pulling up outside the rustic fishing lodge at Inari, she breathed her first deep breath. But here too, signs of the war with Russia were visible in the discarded crates of old medical supplies and the stripped trees and beaten oil-soaked earth where idling trucks had discharged the wounded.

"Hello!" she called, the lodge oddly quiet for this time of year. Normally, the guests would be gathering as the local guides organized gear and plotted the best stretch of river for a day's fishing.

An older man with a weather-beaten face maneuvered through a side door, confusion and agitation uppermost in his stark, pain-bitten features as he angled his crutches on the steps. "We're not taking fishing parties out today... or indeed any day."

"Is something wrong?" She assisted him as he lost his balance on the uneven ground.

He glanced nervously at the road leading away to the east. "Wrong? Haven't you heard? The Russians are on the way... or maybe it's the Germans. Either way, every man hereabouts has been called back into service. You should leave, ma'am. Leave before it's too late."

T he hotel in Ivalo was situated near a small stretch of green that ran alongside the river. Some of the guests had spread blankets on the ground. Children skipped stones or chased each other along the riverbank. Cleo found a patch of grass where picnic tables had been set up under the trees.

"Astrid? Hvor er du? Where have you run off to, you naughty girl?" A rather harried middle-aged woman ran from group to group in search of her missing charge.

"Can I help?" Cleo asked.

The woman, recognizing her as the U.S. minister's goddaughter, smiled with relief. "Please. She was playing by the water a minute ago. I turned my back and, poof, she's gone."

"You check up by the hotel. I'll walk along the riverbank. She might have followed the other children downstream."

They separated, each calling out for Princess Astrid. Cleo picked her way over the uneven ground. An enormous stand of firs marched down to the riverbank. Briars and undergrowth tangled their way around trunks, and the air smelled sharply of pine resin.

"Astrid? It's Cleo! Are you here?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Cleo caught a glimpse of blond hair and blue ribbons among the thick shadows and leafy scrub.

"Astrid? Is that you?"

The little princess knelt beside the river, dipping a cup into the water, inspecting the contents, and then pouring them out.

"What on earth are you doing?"

Astrid spun, catching a hair ribbon on an overhanging branch. "Oh. I thought you were the funny man. He was here a minute ago."

"Who's the funny man?" Cleo asked, untangling the runaway while surreptitiously checking her for visible signs of damage .

Princess Astrid held out her cup. "Is that gold? I can't tell."

Cleo wrinkled her nose. "It looks more like mud."

"The funny man said this river is famous for its gold. That I might find some if I tried. He gave me the cup to use."

"That was kind of him."

"He said my grandfather has lots of gold, and that I should be clever and find some for myself."

Was this a homesick child's imaginary friend? Or something more sinister? Cleo glanced around her, but there was no one nearby. "Let's go find Nurse, and you can tell me all about this funny man."

Astrid took her hand and the two of them retraced their steps. "What did your funny man look like?"

"I don't know. Just ordinary."

"Why do you call him a funny man?"

"Because he made me laugh. He told me riddles and he pretended to be a dog. He said he had a kitten for me. That I could take it with me to America if my mother let me. He was going to show it to me, but then you came." Cleo's hand tightened around Astrid's until she squirmed and pulled free. "You're squeezing too hard."

Cleo let go but glued herself to the little princess's side, assuming a guard-dog stance. If she could have bared her teeth, she would have.

The royal family was settled in a rustic log guesthouse set a short distance away from the main hotel. Cleo had seen the small military detail set to guard them, though to her untrained eye they seemed more decorative than capable, and she wondered how much use they'd be if the Germans really did attack. Right now, one was standing in the shade of a pine tree enjoying a cigarette. Another was patrolling the car park, though his gaze kept sliding enviously toward the waterside. She had no idea where the other two were, but they had seemed equally unconcerned about possible ambushes. Maybe she was being paranoid, but Sofia's warnings kept Cleo on her guard, watching her surroundings as she searched for any hint of trouble. She'd seen nothing to worry her—until now.

Maybe Astrid's funny man had merely sought to be friendly. Perhaps he was missing his own little girl or had come upon Astrid playing at the water's edge and sought to keep her safe. But then why did he slip away upon Cleo's approach? Why did he not introduce himself to Astrid or do as Cleo was doing and escort the little girl back to her nurse?

The guard with the cigarette saw Cleo approaching with the princess and nodded her on toward the door. She knocked, but there was no response. Turning the latch, she poked her head inside. "Hello? Anyone home?"

The log house's interior was dark and dominated by an enormous stone fireplace. Doors opened off a cozy central room, and a wooden ladder led up to a sleeping loft. Hardly palatial or even grand. She wondered what the crown princess thought of her temporary accommodations.

"No one is here," Astrid pointed out. "Can we go back to the river?"

Cleo ducked her head into a bath, a small study, and a tidy bedroom that must belong to the crown princess. There was a heady floral citrus scent of expensive perfume and closet sachets though another odor crept along the floorboards and gathered near the closet. She inhaled, trying to figure out what it was. Damp wood? Mildew? Perhaps a small animal had made a home here. A weasel, perhaps.

"Astrid! There you are." The children's nurse hurtled through the door, flushed and wild-eyed. "Naughty girl! I thought you had fallen in the water and drowned."

Astrid didn't look the least bit contrite as she confronted her nurse. "I'm not drowned. And Miss Jaffray is Mama's friend, so it's all right."

"Your mother is cross and asked that I bring you straight to her." She shepherded the little girl out the door and down the front steps, frog-marching her across the car park toward the hotel.

Cleo dawdled until they were out of sight before reentering the cottage, hands on hips. "I know you're here, Micky. I can smell that horrible cologne you insist on wearing. Come out now or I'll holler up one of those guards out there to shoot you."

The soft snick of a lifting latch was her answer.

She was right. It was a weasel.

"D o you know what they would have done to you if they found you there? Then what they would have done to me? How would Aunt Daisy have explained the situation to Her Royal Highness? Or to her superiors in Washington?" Cleo choked down her fury until her throat hurt.

"I saw him, Cleo." Micky sat across from her in the hotel dining room, rattling his coffee cup in his saucer, knocking a fork to the floor in his agitation. "Heimmel's here in Ivalo."

"And you thought what? You'd throw some of the crown princess's jewelry at him to keep him happy?"

"It was stupid, but I panicked. I didn't know what else to do."

She carefully set down her knife and fork. Run or fight? Keep quiet or come clean? She was running out of options. "Are you sure it's you he's after?"

He considered. "You think he's after a bigger prize?"

"I think this has gone way beyond a ticket home." She pushed back her chair. "I have to go find the lieutenant."

"You'll give me up?"

"I'll do what I should have done in the first place."

"What about me? What the hell am I supposed to do while that madman's wandering around free?"

"Lock yourself in your room. Try not to get into any more trouble."

"Everything would have been fine if you hadn't grown a damned conscience." Micky shoved back from the table, knocking his water glass over, the spill spreading along the table, dripping onto the floor. He paused for a moment as if debating whether to stay and help mop up before hunching his shoulders deeper into his jacket and storming off, scattering diners like pigeons in the park.

Not the first time he'd left Cleo to clean up his mess.

She righted the water glass and mopped at the spill with her napkin. Maybe he was right. Maybe she shouldn't have given the necklace to Sofia. The diamond, though it had hung round her neck for almost a year, had never been hers to keep or give away. Perhaps it would have been best to try to find its rightful owner and return it, though how she would have accomplished that, she had no idea. All she did know was that handing it over to Micky was definitely not the right decision.

She put her hand to her throat as she'd done a million times, but this time instead of a gaudy pink diamond in an even gaudier ruby setting, she felt the delicate scalloped edge of a butterfly's wing. Her doubts faded. She might have been a fool in a million different ways and crashed from one crisis to another, but in this instance, she knew she'd done the right thing. Sofia would find a way to turn Micky's crime into a gift of hope.

And right now, hope was all Norway had.

She was sure the owners of the necklace would understand and applaud.

She left the dining room in search of Bayard, who had conscripted the hotel manager's office and was shouting on the tele phone. ". . . call me back at this number if you hear anything at all." He hung up, ran a hand through his hair in agitation, then lit up a cigarette. "If it's not good news, I don't want to hear it."

"What's wrong?"

"We've started hearing troubling reports coming in of Russian saber-rattling. We might need to get back on the road sooner than we'd scheduled."

"What does Aunt Daisy think?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." He leaned back, his gaze growing thoughtful. "You're looking a little peaky. Is it the fish from breakfast or maybe the fish from lunch? Hopefully not the fish from dinner last night."

Cleo tried to smile but her face wouldn't seem to relax. She would have killed for a smoke right now, but she'd left her cigarettes back at the table. She shoved a hand into her cardigan pocket, fiddling with a bit of fluff at the bottom.

"Cleo?" Bayard asked again, his smile fading in the face of her obvious worry.

"We might have a problem."

"That seems to be all we have right now."

Outside, a car horn blared. Once then twice more. Cleo ran to the window in time to see Aunt Daisy's Ford pulling to a stop. She emerged dressed in rough country corduroy, her boots muddy, her cheeks pink with sun.

"Here she is now," Bayard said. "Come on."

"I can't." Cleo started to back up. "Aunt Daisy's already furious with me—and rightly so. This will only make it ten times worse."

Bayard took Cleo's hand. "Whatever it is, we can beard the lion together."

Aunt Daisy was beaming as she retrieved a line of fish from the trunk. "What do you think, Lieutenant? Dinner tonight?"

Bayard caught Cleo's eye and winked.

Aunt Daisy's gaze flicked from one to the other, dropping to their linked hands and back up to their somber faces. Her own smile vanished. "I don't imagine you're here to greet me because you missed me."

"No, ma'am," Bayard said. "Patrols along the border are hearing rumors. It might mean stepping up our timeline."

"Right. Fun's over." She handed Cleo the fish. "Take these to the kitchen."

Cleo wrinkled her nose as she accepted the line, but she didn't budge. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Can it wait?" Aunt Daisy tried to brush Cleo off as she headed for the hotel, her earlier good humor replaced by a forbidding politeness.

It was only what Cleo expected. It was only what she deserved, but it stung just the same. She felt herself start to step back, to give way under her godmother's cold formality. To let herself be frozen out, the disgraced, unwanted relation she'd been when she arrived bedraggled and bereft back in March on the doorstep at 28 Nobels Gate. But she wasn't that woman. Not anymore. And she wouldn't let her godmother treat her as if she was.

"No, Aunt Daisy." She straightened her shoulders and took a breath. "I'm afraid it can't."

Dear Anne,

I've come a long way from the stage fright that plagued me as I stood on the podium to accept the presidency of the Colony Club. Finding the right words for any situation has become second nature over the last thirty years. And yet Cleo has stunned me to silence...

B y the end of Cleo's confession, Daisy didn't trust herself to speak without shouting. Her chest was on fire. Her ears buzzed. The scent of fish and the arctic air swirled in her flared nostrils. Just a few short hours ago, she'd been up to her shins in an icy river, nothing weightier on her mind than finding the best lie and perfecting her backcast. Now she was on the brink of catastrophe. No. Not catastrophe. She refused to concede to failure. There had to be a solution. There always was if one worked at it long enough.

"Where's Mr. Kominski now?" Daisy's voice was rough with the effort of not screaming.

"I told him to stay in his hotel room." Cleo stared at the carpet, her fall of dark hair hiding her face. Her fists pressed under her ribs, shoulders hunched, as if she was about to be sick.

"I suppose he can't get into too much trouble there," Daisy replied grudgingly.

"Don't bet on it," Bayard muttered. "A shame we can't lock him in and throw away the key."

Daisy threw a hard look toward the lieutenant, but it was clear that while he might have known parts of Cleo's story, she hadn't been completely truthful with him either. "First things first. Bayard, I want you to gather Mr. Whitney and the others. We'll meet in the hotel manager's office in an hour."

"Yes, ma'am." He and Cleo exchanged a private look on his way out, which Daisy filed away for deciphering at a quieter moment.

"What are you going to tell them?" Cleo asked.

Daisy found her gaze straying to her goddaughter's bare throat, where the stolen necklace had once rested. Who would have thought such a garish, vulgar trinket would be worth so much or cause this amount of trouble? "Only what I need to and not a jot more."

She had an hour. Time to wash off the smell of fish and change into something more suitable. Sackcloth and ashes, perhaps. Cleo followed doggishly along in Daisy's wake as she headed for her hotel suite, taking up position like a sentry, her features slowly returning to life now the worst was behind her.

Her worst. Daisy's was still to come.

Despite the inevitable uproar that was sure to happen when she explained the situation, Daisy felt a calm descend as she thought through this new tangle. A dangerous one, for certain, but hardly the first time she'd been caught between a rock and a hard place. The last months had solidified her immunity to bouts of panic. As long as she remained clearheaded, there was a chance she could battle her way through this latest complication. It all came down to untangling the competing threads. Finding the right one to pull.

"Is there something else? Some additional disaster you haven't disclosed?" Daisy asked, bending over to unlace her boots, then stripping out of her canvas jacket and thick wool sweater. "Because I learned long ago to make do without a lady's maid."

Cleo was no longer gray with panic. Her eyes glinted, and there was an alertness to her pose that usually meant trouble. "I was thinking maybe we could just send word to Stockholm about Heimmel. If he's anticipating an unarmed convoy of women and children, I'd bet a show of force would be enough to scare him off."

"There's no time. We have a schedule to keep. Especially if the reports of movement along the border are true." Her own brain sifting through options, Daisy folded her outerwear back into her suitcase and headed into the bath, a towel over her arm.

"What if we took another route?" Through the closed door, Cleo continued to shout ideas over the sound of running water. "One the Germans won't be expecting?"

Ignoring Cleo as best she could, Daisy washed, rinsed, and toweled off. Free of the smell of fish, she dressed quickly and with care, making sure every seam was straight, her string of pearls in place. For now, she remained the US minister to Norway. She'd damn well look like it. She checked her wristwatch. Bayard and the others would be waiting for her, speculating on why they'd been called together, exchanging guesses and forming opinions. She had to hurry before the chatter got out of hand.

By now, Cleo was firing on all cylinders. She circled the room, a finger tapping against her lip as she tossed out idea after idea, each one more outlandish than the last. "I've got it. We put Her Royal Highness and the children on one of the buses. With all the other families, who's to notice a few extra?" She shook her head and increased her pace. "No, that won't work. Moving the royal family onto a bus would require moving someone else off and there would be questions." As Daisy headed for the lobby, Cleo followed a deferential step behind and to the left like a general's aide-de-camp. "Or we travel in the royal car and let the crown princess take the Ford. Better still, I take her place in the royal car. No need for us all to swap. I could wear a big hat and a veil. No one would know. What do you think? It would work. I just know it."

Daisy rounded on her with a sharp look and firm hand. "Do you embroider, Cleo?"

"What?" Her eyes widened in confusion at the abrupt change of subject. "I can hem a little. Sew on a button. Nothing fancy."

"A piece of advice, then, from someone with far greater experience; it's always tempting when one is first starting out to go straight for the most complicated stitches. But ofttimes it's the simplest ones that work the best."