Dimitri put down his spoon. “Tell me about your manager in Seattle. Is he as interesting as me? As friendly?”
“I’m not going to stroke your ego,” she said. “You’re too conceited as it is.”
He snorted. “I am confident, not conceited. There’s a difference.”
The way he held himself, with perfect posture and a proud gleam in his eyes despite his filthy clothes, made him ridiculously attractive. She knew he was smart and accomplished. That he had a deep love for music and literature. Most especially, she knew he had no difficulty expressing himself in extravagant language that made her laugh from six thousand miles away. She desperately wanted to know what had caused everything to collapse so badly in Russia, leading to that horrible conviction. Most of all, she wanted to know how he managed to free himself from captivity.
“What happened in Siberia?” she asked softly. “I read about the trial. It said that you refused to follow orders, but it didn’t say what those orders were, and I don’t understand.”
He picked up his spoon and went back to his soup. “Not while I’m eating. It’s a long and tedious story, and this soup is getting cold.”
His knuckles were white, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.She would learn what happened in good time, but for now she needed to get him cleaned up.
When she rose from the table, he immediately shot to his feet and offered his arm to escort her out of the Ferry Building. People looked at them oddly, because women wearing silk gowns tailored in Paris rarely allowed themselves to be escorted by men who looked like vagabonds, but her smile was so wide it hurt. ShelovedDimitri’s courtly manners and didn’t give a fig if people gaped at them. As they walked up Market Street, Dimitri craned his neck to look all around the city, commenting on the grandeur of the buildings with typical exaggeration.
“The architect must have been in a joyous mood when he designed that building,” he said, gesturing to the Palace Hotel with its nine stories, colonnaded balconies, and elegant mansard roof.
“We can stay there if you wish, but the doormen won’t let you cross the threshold looking as you do.”
A nearby barbershop boasted of hot baths in the back of the establishment, though it might not be up to Count Sokolov’s typical standards. She’d always known Dimitri was shamelessly vain. Even while stationed in Siberia, he imported special soap from France and rosehip oil from the Caspian Sea to keep his skin smooth.
Dimitri stood in the doorway of the barbershop, gazing with rapt longing at the shelves laden with bottles of ointments and tins of shaving balm. “I have just stepped into paradise.”
“There will be time to shop after you’re clean,” she said. Dimitri didn’t have a single American dime to his name, so she pressed a few bills into his hand. “Buy yourself a haircut and a bath. I’ll head to the emporium next door and bring back clean clothes.”
Thirty minutes later, she returned to the barbershop with a charcoal-gray suit, a shirt, socks, undergarments, and a pair of new shoes. She sent the clothes to the back of the shop because Dimitri was still in the bath.
Ten minutes later, he finally emerged from behind a paisleycurtain, and she gasped at his transformation. The beard was completely gone. The long hair was gone too, cut short to reveal light brown hair with rich chestnut highlights. His facial features were finely molded, with high cheekbones and a long, aristocratic nose.
“You look like a new man!” she enthused even though the suit she’d bought for him was a little too big. Dimitri was very slim, but he’d tied the exotic red sash around his waist because she’d forgotten to buy a belt, and it made him look even more dashing.
But something was wrong. Instead of looking pleased, he was tense as he strode to her side, leaning in close to speak in a low voice. “I need three dollars.”
She blinked. “What for?”
Dimitri glared at a man standing behind a register. Several large, dark bottles sat on the counter before him.
The barber pushed one bottle across the counter. “This is the oil I recommend. The others are cheaper, but eucalyptus oil is the most effective.”
Dimitri looked back at her. “Please say nothing. Just buy the eucalyptus oil, and let us be on our way.”
It wasn’t the money that concerned her but the fact that Dimitri was coldly furious. Had someone said something unkind to him?
She instinctively wanted to protect him, but he was already drifting toward the door, eager to leave. She gave the clerk a bill and didn’t even wait for her change, just grabbed the bottle and followed Dimitri outside into the bright sun.
“What happened?” she asked, struggling to catch up to his long-legged stride. He pulled her into an alcove behind a newsstand. It was quieter back here, sheltered from the view of the bustling street.
“The barber informed me that I have... I have already forgotten the English word he used, but it is bad. A humiliation.”
Her eyes widened, not understanding what could have upset him so. “Tell it to me in Russian,” she prompted.
He said a short, blunt word, spitting out the harsh syllable like a curse. He repeated it for her twice, getting angrier each time he said it, but she didn’t know that word.
“Describe it for me,” she said.
“The barber says I have little things in my hair.” He held up his fingers, pinched together. “Tiny animals. In my hair.”
She gasped. “Lice?”
