Celestial Bodies

by Laura Leone

  Peter glared at Claude with intense dislike and seized him roughly, twisting one arm behind his back. Claude gasped, and sweat broke out on his face.

  “You’ll never get away with this! Trespassing—”

  “We had an invitation. Check at the gate,” Nick said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “My mother—”

  “Will probably be first in line to make a statement to the police,” Nick said. “Now which way—”

  “Giving my wife to that... that... that gardener!” roared a voice behind them.

  Peter whirled around. “LeCoz!”

  “Damn it!” Nick said.

  He whirled around, too, keeping his hold on Claude. Before he had time to react or assess the situation, LeCoz clumsily launched his body into the air and flew at the three men. Nick saw the crystal vase in LeCoz’s hand only an instant before it crashed down on his skull.

  “Oh, dear,” Felix said.

  Mrs. Bouvier gasped.

  Still unable to spot Nick in the crowd, Diana turned to face her father. “What?” She was suddenly, inexplicably terrified. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

  Felix looked at her with a perturbed expression. “Now try to stay calm,” he instructed her.

  “What is it?” She crossed the room swiftly and looked down at the Gypsy spread on the exquisite antique table at which Felix and Mrs. Bouvier sat. She couldn’t begin to guess at the cause of Mrs. Bouvier’s alarm. Felix was right; the Gypsy spread, with its forty-two cards, was enough to give anyone psychic indigestion. “What’s wrong?” she demanded urgently.

  Felix tapped the card in the middle of the layout.

  “The Nine of Swords! That’s somethin’ just terrible, isn’t it?” Mrs. Bouvier said.

  “Desolation, suffering, misery,” Felix said.

  “Death of someone near,” Diana added, panic welling up inside her. Nick! It meant Nick! She knew it did! “Felix! What can we do?”

  Felix stared at the cards for a moment. “I think,” he said, “that it may be time to interfere with the cosmos.”

  Nick stumbled groggily to his feet, feeling as if his skull had been split open. He was vaguely aware of Peter shouting to him and wrestling with Claude nearby. Something about a gun. There was a lot of screaming and chaos. Everything seemed to be swimming before his eyes, and he had trouble seeing past the black spots.

  He had barely managed to stand all the way upright when a heavy body hit him like a projectile, and he flew backward into a refreshments table. Above the clatter of breaking tables, shattering china, and screaming women, he heard a loud, hostile voice next to his ear. “I’m gonna kill you, you scum bag!”

  Barely conscious, Nick defended himself as best he could, swinging out at his attacker and scrambling around in the mess they had made. He grunted in agony when something sharp struck his shoulder. A moment later, LeCoz jumped off him and kicked him. Nick groped blindly for some way to haul himself back to his feet, fighting the blackness that clouded his vision and his mind.

  “Nick!” Peter screamed. “The gun!”

  Tearing across the lawn, Diana could hear screams and crashes coming from inside the nearer of the two marquees. The musicians inside had stopped playing, and people were spilling out of the tent in a panicked frenzy. Fighting against the crowd, she forced her way into the tent, forgetting about Felix and Mrs. Bouvier behind her, forgetting about everything except the man she loved.

  “Nick!” she screamed, pushing her way past dozens of howling people. “Nick!”

  Once inside, she could see the fight at the far end of the marquee. She ran forward, horrified by the sight. Peter and Claude were struggling furiously. Nick was flat on his back on top of a collapsed table and an appalling mess of broken dishes, spilled punch, and scattered hors d’oeuvres. He was being beaten to a pulp by Maurice LeCoz.

  LeCoz jumped up and delivered a vicious kick to Nick’s ribs. Nick flopped over like a rag doll. LeCoz appeared to be searching for something amidst the debris surrounding them, while Nick tried to lever himself off the ground. He seemed disoriented.

  In one blinding flash of terror Diana heard Peter scream, then saw LeCoz raise a gun and point it at Nick.

  “Nick!” Diana howled like a banshee and launched herself headfirst through the air, covering the remaining yards between herself and LeCoz.

  Her body hit LeCoz’s in a flying tackle. The gun went off and flew out of his hand. The two of them hit the ground. Ignoring a lifetime of Felix’s teachings, Diana picked up the first thing she could lay her hands on—an unopened bottle of champagne—and hit LeCoz over the head with all her might. He collapsed beneath her and lay still.

  “Hold it right there!”

  Diana glanced up. “Felix!” she exclaimed. He had scooped up the gun and was pointing it straight at Claude.

  “You won’t use it,” Claude snarled, his hands still closed around Peter’s throat. Peter kneed him in the groin. Claude screamed and fell down.

  “Well,” said Felix. He looked over at Nick and his face fell.

  Diana looked at Nick, too. He lay still and silent. There was blood on his face. “No!” she screamed. She crawled through shrimp salad and a puddle of punch. “Nick!”

  “Oh, my head,” he moaned.

  “You’re alive!”

  “It looks like the bullet just nicked him,” Felix said, creeping to their side.

  “Oh, what do you know about bullets?” Nick muttered feebly.

  “He sounds pretty normal to me,” Peter opined, moving to Nick’s other side.

  “I think one of my ribs is broken,” Nick said plaintively.

  “It looks like you’ll have a hell of a headache tomorrow, too,” Peter told him.

  “I have an excellent homeopathic remedy that—”

  “God, no!” Nick interrupted Felix. “You can’t do that to me!”

  “Will you all just leave him alone?” Diana snapped. “Can’t you see he’s injured? Are you all right, darling?”

  “And you,” Nick said furiously, his eyes flashing open to glare at her. “I’ll kill you if you ever bodily attack an armed drunkard again. Do you understand me?”

  “So much for tender endearments,” Diana muttered.

  “You got plenty of tender endearments a few hours ago,” Nick reminded her.

  “Really?” said Felix in a surprisingly stern, fatherly tone. His eyes met Nick’s.

  “He’s getting delirious,” Diana said quickly. “Shouldn’t someone be covering Claude and Mr. LeCoz?”

  Peter snatched Nick’s gun out of Felix’s hands, climbed back to his feet, and pointed the weapon at a spot halfway between the two society men’s prone bodies.

  “Peter, how should we—” Diana began, but was interrupted by a woman’s piercing shout.

  “Maurice!”

  They all turned as a strange woman entered the—by now—mostly empty tent.

  Mrs. Bouvier stopped sobbing and wringing her hands long enough to exclaim, “Why, that’s Bernice LeCoz!”

  “Mrs. LeCoz?” Nick croaked, trying to sit up. “Diana, help me.”

  Diana propped him up in her arms, tenderly wiping away the blood on his face with a silk shawl she found lying nearby. Peter nudged LeCoz with his foot, and the man groaned.

  “Maurice, you vile, unnatural monster!” the woman sneered.

  “I thought you said she was afraid of him,” Diana whispered to Nick. He shrugged—then groaned and raised a hand to his throbbing head.

  “Mr. Tremain!” Bernice LeCoz cried.

  “What are you doing here?” Nick asked weakly, squinting up at her.

  “Oh, what has Maurice done to you?” she exclaimed.

  “Actually—”

  “I telephoned your office today and spoke to your secretary. I wanted to let you know I was all right and to thank you for all you had done for me. And she told me that my husband is trying to ruin you for what you did!”

  “You phoned today?” Nick repeated.r />
  “Yes. Your secretary said that you and Mr. Lowery have been looking everywhere for me.”

  “Damn it, Nick,” Peter snapped. “If you would have bothered to check in today—”

  “Why didn’t you check in?” Nick shot back.

  Peter shifted his feet and looked sheepish. “I was on the phone to Jenny all afternoon, once we realized the baby was coming.”

  Mrs. LeCoz walked over to her husband’s prone body and spat on him. “I knew he’d be here tonight,” she told them all, “and I had to come here to expose him in public for the brutal, loathsome creature he is! I couldn’t let him destroy a wonderful man like you, Mr. Tremain.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Nick said.

  “Nine of Swords,” Felix mused. “I just don’t understand it.”

  “Oh, no!” Claude cried from his fetal position on the ground. “A reporter! Mother, please!”

  “Don’t call me Mother, you skunk!” Mrs. Bouvier exclaimed.

  “How did a reporter get in here?” Diana wondered.

  “A society columnist,” Peter said. “This is turning into a three-ring circus. Let’s get out of here.”

  “A reporter?” Mrs. LeCoz repeated. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll also testify at your hearing, Mr. Lowery, and tell them that Mr. Tremain’s ‘violation of ethics’ was really an act of mercy.”

  “I told you I didn’t have any empathy established with that deck,” Felix said to Diana.

  “Well, we did interfere with the cosmos, didn’t we?” she reminded him.

  “Do you two think you could discuss this later?” Nick asked irritably. “We’ve got to get both these guys to a police station, and Peter has to get to the hospital.”

  “So do you,” Diana said, cradling him in her arms.

  He groaned again. “It looks like it’s a toss-up between the hospital and your father’s methods.”

  “Can you stand up?” she asked in concern.

  “Sure,” he said with a shadow of his usual cockiness. He pushed one arm against the floor and raised his head from Diana’s breast.

  Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.

  Chapter Eleven

  TWO OF CUPS

  Minor Arcana

  Meaning: Deep love and friendship; commitment to romance; harmony of the kindred.

  Reversed: Disunity; schism of ideas.

  Nick woke up because someone was growling into his ear and rubbing sandpaper against his forehead. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into a pair of glowing green orbs.

  “Get this beast away from me,” he pleaded, shoving weakly at Ishtar as she continued to purr and wash him.

  “Hold still.” Diana scooted Ishtar gently away from Nick and stroked the cat. “How can you be so insensitive, now that she’s finally taken a liking to you?”

  Nick reached out for Diana’s free hand and tugged gently, until she sat down next to him. That was when he realized they were on a bed and that it was broad daylight. He glanced around and said, “We’re in my room. In the House of Ishtar.”

  “Yes, darling.” Diana pushed his hair off his face, touched the gauze bandage on his forehead, then rested her cool palm against his cheek.

  “We were at Beaux Champs,” he said in confusion.

  “Don’t you remember anything else?”

  He frowned. “A hospital...” He smiled suddenly. “It’s a girl, isn’t it? They named her Nicole.”

  “That’s right. Felix and I took you straight to the hospital after we left Beaux Champs. Peter and Mrs. Bouvier dropped Maurice and Claude off at the police station, then they joined us. After you regained consciousness, the doctor said I could take you home, as long as you stayed in bed for a couple of days.”

  “I’ve got a concussion?”

  “You were also grazed by a bullet, and you’ve got a couple of severe bruises on your torso.” Her eyes traveled over his face with melting tenderness. “Everything’s going to be all right. Since Mrs. Bouvier won’t pay a penny for bail and Claude has no money of his own, he’s out of our hair. Peter says there’s a very strong case against him.” She frowned and added, “As long as Felix and I keep our mouths shut.”

  “What about our license and LeCoz’s lawsuit?” Nick asked.

  “Mrs. LeCoz and Mrs. Bouvier are going to back you up at the hearing next week. Peter told me he thinks this will all blow over.”

  Nick closed his eyes again as relief washed over him. “So Mrs. LeCoz stopped being afraid of that slime she married.”

  “I think she’s still afraid of him. But after the way you stuck your neck out to help her, she couldn’t turn her back on you.” She added softly, “You have that effect on women.”

  He opened his eyes again and met her gaze with yearning. “You’re the only woman I really want to have that effect on, Diana. Do I?”

  She nodded. “I’ve put our misunderstandings behind me.”

  He rolled slowly toward her, slid his other hand across her thighs, and rested it against her flat belly. “I love you.”

  Their eyes held for a long moment. Then she leaned down and met his lips in a long, gentle kiss. “I guess you really are my destiny,” she murmured.

  He made an exasperated sound. “Diana, you can’t run your life by those cards. I’m here because I love you, not because the celestial bodies sent me.”

  “You’re here,” she corrected him, “because you can’t walk yet.”

  “And after I can walk,” he said argumentatively, “I’m staying because I love you, not because—”

  “You’re staying?” she interrupted.

  “Sure. Married people usually live in the same house. Hadn’t you noticed?”

  She narrowed her eyes, and once again Nick noticed the resemblance between Diana and the cat sitting at her side. “Are we going to be married people?”

  He nodded solemnly. “I saw the way Felix looked at me when he realized who The Lovers referred to. And I noticed he was willing to point a gun at someone when he felt the situation called for it.”

  “Oh, Nick.” She smiled with him at the astonishing memory before asking seriously, “Are you sure about this?”

  He tugged gently on her arm, pulling her closer. With one foot he shoved Ishtar off the bed. The cat hissed indignantly and trotted out the door. Nick grinned at Diana’s expression. “I’m sure,” he said. “Don’t you want to marry me?”

  “You’re still going to eat meat and drink beer and carry a gun?” she asked critically.

  “Yes,” he said with certainty. “But I guarantee that I’ll only chase skirts when you’re inside of them.” With surprising strength for a wounded hero, he pulled her down to lie against his chest. “Are you still going to salute the sun and the moon every morning, feed me vegetarian glop, and listen to your father’s mumbo jumbo?”

  “Yes.”

  He grinned slowly. “Well, as long as we both know what we’re getting into.”

  Diana sank into his embrace, eagerly meeting the tender exploration of his kiss. “I love you,” she whispered long moments later, pressing soft, hot kisses against his bruised ribs.

  “Just remember that the next time I order a burger,” he muttered. “Ow!”

  “Sorry, did I hurt you?” she asked, pulling away.

  He pulled her back toward him. “It’s okay. I’ll live with it.”

  “You’re hurt,” she said breathlessly. “We shouldn’t—”

  “This is the best therapy I can think of,” he assured her, slipping his hand under her blouse. “Oh, you feel so good...” He paused for a moment and glanced at the open door. “Where is everyone?”

  Diana slid the sheets down, exposing most of his naked body. “Mrs. Bouvier is giving her statement to the police. Felix is at the hospital with Peter and Jenny. He’s explaining their baby’s birth chart to them.”

  Nick smiled and made a pleased sound in his throat. “Then we’ve got some time alone.” He glanced down at his body, then looked at her
with sparkling eyes. “Did you undress me?”

  “Yes. But it wasn’t nearly as much fun as when you’re fully conscious,” she confided. As he pressed her back into the pillows she whispered, “There’s something you should know. Not that I’m trying to rub it in or anything...”

  “Mmm, yes, rub it right there. That’s it. Oh, Diana...”

  “Don’t you want to know?”

  “What?” Nick asked, his lips hot against her breast.

  “Jora called this morning and told Felix to cast our charts before we set a wedding date.”

  Nick went still as a rock. “What?” He glanced up at Diana. She smirked at him. He narrowed his eyes. “How did she know we were getting married?”

  “You’re a bright lad. What do you think?”

  He stared at her for another moment before saying, “No, Diana.”

  She nodded. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

  “She probably just realized, the way any normal person would, that I was in love with you when she saw us yesterday.”

  “Sure.”

  “And we are not basing our wedding date on—”

  “We’ll discuss it later, darling.”

  “Diana, you...” He paused. “That means Felix knows we’re getting married?” She nodded. “You mean he doesn’t mind that you’re marrying a meat-eating, beer-drinking, gun-toting—”

  “He’s always liked you, you know that. And he’s always said you were our destiny. Besides, he was very moved by the way you risked your life for us last night.” She added with a promising look, “So was I.”

  As Diana rose from the bed to close and lock the door, Nick said, “I didn’t really risk my life for you, honey, even though I would—”

  “But you did! I thought I’d die when LeCoz pointed that gun at you!” She started unbuttoning her blouse.

  “No, I’m sure I would have...” He lost his train of thought as she slid her blouse off her shoulders and began to unfasten her jeans.