Radio Girls(109)

“I won’t until you tell me who you are.” He pulled her close with surprising strength and jerked her head back. “I know you, don’t I? I’ve seen your face before.”

“No!” she yelled and jerked away from him and ran down the corridor.

“Stop her! Stop her!”

She could hear feet. She passed faces of people too startled to grab her. Even if they had tried, they would not have held her. No one in this building knew how to run like the girl who had grown up as Mousy Maisie.

She was down the stairs. She was past reception. She was in the street. She ran, and ran, and ran, and didn’t look back. Didn’t think of anything, except reaching Hilda. She made a cursory stop in a café to wash her face and generally make herself presentable and headed on to Lady Astor’s salon, where Hilda, obliged to attend, had arranged for them to meet.

Maisie came in and saw that half of London was in attendance as well. The butler admitted Maisie with a resigned expression. Probably he’d hoped she was the fire brigade.

“Ah, Miss Musgrave!” Lady Astor glided through the throng to clutch Maisie’s hand. “I am so desperately cross about the goings-on at the BBC. Miss Matheson is takin’ it on the chin and you’re holdin’ up your end well, but to not even be made producer on our Week in Westminster when you’ve as good as been it, it’s beyond appallin’. I’ve half a mind to tell the governors to step in, but Miss M says best not to and I expect she’s right. Only she’s always too nice by far, and that’s a fact. What do you reckon, hm?”

Maisie wasn’t sure if she was to weigh in on Hilda’s niceness or whether Lady Astor should use her influence. The thought of how good Hilda was and her taking it on the chin made Maisie’s throat tighten.

Someone called to Lady Astor.

“Must tend these people. Don’t know where our Miss M’s gotten to. Around somewhere, I expect. You go on and find her. We’ll talk later.”

From the reception room that only Lady Astor, Virginian at her core, called a parlor, to the study, to the dining room, no Hilda. Maisie heard laughter from the library, but met only a single man leaving it as she entered.

“Hullo.” He nodded, friendly, because if she was here she must be important.

“Hullo.” She greeted him, for much the same reason.

Maisie lingered in the empty room—it was, after all, a library. A small, stuffy library, but still full of books. She was just perusing the shelves when she heard laughter again and noticed a narrow door in the corner. She pushed through into the billiard room.

Hilda was in there. With Vita. And they were . . .

“Oh!”

Hilda giggled into Vita’s hair.

“Ha! Caught you with your hand in the biscuit tin,” Hilda teased. Vita took her time withdrawing her hand from inside Hilda’s chemise and sighed as Hilda fastened her dress. “I suppose if mice will play where the kittens are. Evening, Miss Musgrave. You see Miss Sackville-West has returned to England.”

“Er, yes. Good evening,” Maisie muttered to the floor, which was inconsiderately refusing to swallow her. She had a long practice of mortification, thanks to Georgina, but this was on quite a different plane. She had never seen two women kiss before, and though it was no different from seeing anyone else kiss, well, a person never wanted to walk in on other people kissing. Especially one’s boss. Maisie tried to leave the room, but her feet had forgotten how to move.

The women were irritatingly unembarrassed and made no attempt to shift away from each other once Hilda was dressed. Vita stood over her and Hilda stayed sitting on the billiard table, legs swinging idly. “Don’t look so horrified, Miss Musgrave. I rather assumed you knew,” she said.

Did Hilda assume Maisie was so much like her now that she knew everything?

“How did you get on?” Hilda wanted to know.

Maisie glanced at Vita but realized Hilda wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t all right for Vita to know.

“I, er, well, I found an awful lot, and took snaps and notes. But there was a lot more. And . . . he caught me.”

“He WHAT?”

“I got away—well, I suppose that’s obvious, but he saw my face. Though I did have makeup on, but nonetheless . . . Well, it doesn’t matter, I hope. We’ve got to develop these photographs. And he’s to have drinks with Simon next week, something about a contract. I was thinking I ought to attend?”

“Goodness,” Hilda marveled. “It was a productive journey.”

“Unfortunately,” Maisie agreed with a sigh.

“You really have a fine girl here, Stoker,” Vita pronounced, caressing Hilda’s neck.

Stoker???

“You have no idea,” Hilda agreed.




Maisie agreed to have lunch with Simon to try to allay suspicions. She had explained that the season of Christmas and New Year’s was a particularly busy time at the BBC and so it was harder to get away.

“Even at night, darling?”

Part of her still tingled and melted when he looked at her. That face, that body. The smile, the laugh, the brilliance. She badly wanted to sleep with him again. Again and again. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She still hoped he had no idea what Grigson really wanted, and that the whole deal was just about the cacao, not the newspaper, but until she was sure, she couldn’t be alone with him anymore.