Read Online If I Had You by Heather Hiestand - Free Book Online

in today?” Ivan asked Boris Grinberg, his best friend in London.
    Boris, a florid-faced forty-nine-year-old who had left his Jewish faith for atheism, put down the polishing cloth he’d been using on a delicate samovar. “No, none of your bubkes today.” He softened the insult with a smile.
    â€œKeep an eye out. Vera’s birthday is coming up.” Ivan took a battered iron kettle off Boris’s spirit burner and poured water over the tea leaves in Boris’s own silver-plated teapot. Despite his secondhand business, Boris liked modern things.
    â€œThis must be new,” Ivan commented.
    Boris touched the ornate cream jug with a blunt-tipped finger. “Lovely work, isn’t it? A Christmas gift to myself.”
    â€œIf you don’t believe in religion, why do you give yourself holiday gifts?”
    Boris shrugged. “Why not?” He leaned forward and rubbed the space between Ivan’s eyebrows.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Ivan flinched.
    â€œAh, boychick, you came in with a line between your brows. I think you are having some trouble.”
    â€œWith Vera and Sergei.”
    â€œNothing you can’t fix over the samovar.”
    â€œDear samovar,” Ivan said sarcastically. A time-honored tradition had disputes being settled over a cup of tea, using the family samovar as an intermediary. “Not much good, when we couldn’t possibly have a samovar in our flat.”
    â€œThis just came in,” a clerk said, pushing his way through the curtain. “I thought you might want it, Ivan.”
    â€œThank you.” Ivan took the record and read the label. “Bebe, a fox-trot, from Victor Talking Machine. Yes, this is exactly what I want. It’s quite new.”
    â€œMr. Grinberg, a young lady is out front with an expensive brooch she wants to pawn for her employers, so she says.”
    â€œI’ll be out in a bit. Let her stew. If she’s dishonest, she’ll probably leave.” Boris leaned back in his chair.
    The clerk nodded and went back through the curtain.
    Boris stared at the record and put his hand to his heart in dramatic fashion. “A rejected holiday present. Did a swain present this as a gift to his lady love, and now she has spurned him?”
    â€œYou and your fantasies,” Ivan said. He held up the record. “What do you want for it?”
    Boris tilted his head. “For you, my gonif, two shillings.”
    â€œNow who is the thief? This wouldn’t sell for three, new.”
    Boris lifted his hands to the sky. “How would I know this? Very well. One and six, but you are robbing me blind.”
    Ivan fished in his pocket and tossed him the coins. “There, we are both happy now.” He set his new find aside and poured the tea.
    â€œWhat is the problem with your sister and her swain?” Boris chose a lemon slice to squeeze into his tea.
    â€œThey want to kill Georgy Ovolensky when he comes to London.”
    Boris’s fist convulsed, spraying lemon juice all over the table. Ivan snatched up his new record and wiped it carefully.
    Boris pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tidied his hand and the table, then squeezed what was left of the lemon into his cup. “Kill, you say?”
    â€œI’m afraid so.”
    â€œI thought only your sister Catherine was involved in that sort of thing.”
    â€œYes, until our family was murdered. Vera understands hatred all too well.”
    â€œAh. This is the cousin of yours who turned them in.”
    â€œYes.” Ivan dropped a sugar lump into his tea and watched it dissolve.
    â€œI thought Sergei was White Army?”
    â€œYes, but he’s willing to do this for Vera. Besides, Georgy has betrayed his aristocratic past to become a Bolshevik. He wouldn’t be worth protecting from a White perspective any longer.”
    Boris rubbed his chin. “Why don’t you want him dead?”
    Ivan clenched his jaw until his