VOLUME 1, CHAPTER XVIII.STOLEN SWEETS
The following week in London was a blurred dream of "stolen sweets." Edris stayed at her club, but her days belonged to Marcus. They were inseparable—theaters, late-night suppers at the Savoy, and long, quiet hours in his rooms where the Architect's maps were hidden away in favor of his "Carina."
Five days before Christmas, they met at Victoria Station. In the taxi to St. James's Street, Edris pressed a small packet into his hand. "A souvenir, my beloved," she whispered. Inside was a silver matchbox and a card with words that made the hardened Secret Service chief feel like a boy again.
The Yuletide rush was in full swing. They boarded the Continental Express, Edris radiant in a rich fur coat. At Dover, the station-inspector, an old friend of Marcus's, saw them personally to the boat. The crossing was choppy, but Edris was a veteran traveler. By nightfall, they were ensconced in the Calais-Interlaken express, the rhythmic roar of the wheels over the French plains lulling Marcus into the deepest peace he had ever known.
As the train crossed the Swiss frontier, Marcus proposed a name for her. "In Tuscany, they say Carina—little dear one. May I?"
"And I shall call you Seti," she laughed. "A name for a Pharaoh."
They arrived at Interlaken-East, the gateway to the giants—the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Jungfrau. On the platform, a reception committee awaited them: Herr Haller of the Hotel du Lac and the local information chief. But it was the third man who caught Edris's eye—Karl Weiss. Tall, athletic, and military in his bearing, he was the living version of the photograph she had tucked away in Brighton.
"Weiss! What a surprise!" Marcus cried, introducing them.
Weiss clicked his heels, bowing over Edris's hand with a glint in his eye. "I have heard you love our mountains, Miss Temperley. Perhaps I can show you a run or two on the skis?"
"I should like that," Edris replied, her gray eyes dancing.
After a celebratory bottle of champagne at the Hotel du Lac, Marcus and Edris boarded the rack railway. The train began its impossible climb, creeping over viaducts and through tunnels cut into the living rock—masterpieces of Swiss engineering.
By 6:00 PM, they reached the Palace Hotel in Wengen. The familiar luxury of the Regina and the Palace enveloped them. That night, after a long chat with the proprietor, Mr. Burckard, Edris danced until midnight while Marcus watched from the lounge, his heart full.
The next day, Marcus suggested a trip back down to Interlaken. "I have friends to see before Christmas Eve. Come with me, Carina?"
They met Karl Weiss again at the station. After a morning of walking the town, they retreated to a private sitting-room in a hotel near the Central Station. In a moment of festive mischief, Marcus pointed out a bunch of mistletoe hanging from the chandelier. He gestured to Karl, and they maneuvered Edris beneath it.
Marcus kissed her first—a bold, public claim—but then Karl Weiss stepped in, claiming his "right" as well. Edris flushed, laughing and protesting, "Seti, you brute! And Mr. Weiss—how horrid!" Yet her eyes were bright with the thrill of the game.
After lunch at the Hotel du Lac, Marcus had to step across to the railway office to renew his season ticket. "Wait for me in the lounge," he told Edris. "I won't be ten minutes."
But when he returned, the lounge was empty. The concierge informed him that the lady had gone out with Herr Weiss.
Marcus spent the next two hours in a mounting, silent fever, searching the shops and stationers of Interlaken. He found nothing. Finally, as the last train to Wengen was preparing to depart, they appeared at the East Station.
He didn't know that Karl had persuaded Edris to "see the ibex park" on the mountain slope. He didn't know that on the walk back along the edge of the sapphire-blue Lake Brienz, Karl had taken her hand. And he certainly didn't know that the young Swiss had pulled her into his arms and kissed her—not a mistletoe joke this time, but a long, lingering challenge.
"It wasn't fair!" Edris had cried, though she didn't pull away immediately.
On the train ride back up the mountain, Marcus was visibly annoyed. "You shouldn't have gone off, Edris. I was searching everywhere."
"I'm sorry, darling," she said, her voice soft, though Karl's kiss still burned on her lips. "We couldn't find you. He was just being pleasant. You're not... jealous, are you?"
Marcus sighed, the "bumble-bee" buzz of his professional life momentarily forgotten in the face of a much older sting. "No," he lied, as the train pulled into the junction at Zweilütschinen. "I'm not jealous."
But as he looked out at the darkening pines, the Architect wondered if he had invited a wolf into his sanctuary.