LoveMakers

by Gould, Judith

  She nodded. 'I'll try and keep that in mind.' She smiled wanly.

  'Anything else bothering you?'

  'Many things. For one, I own a good chunk of real estate which is worthless should the bottom of this country's economy drop out any further.'

  'The economy will pick back up, trust me.' He paused. 'Do you have any idea just how many depressions and recessions we've gone through in this country?'

  She shook her head. 'No.'

  'Well, listen to this, and then I'm sure you'll feel better,' he said. 'In 1869 we had what the financial community likes to call 'Black Friday.' It resulted from investors trying to corner the gold market.'

  She gave a low, mirthless laugh. That was hitting just a little too close to home,

  'In 1893,' he continued, 'we had another similar financial panic which resulted in a four-year depression. Then the same thing happened all over again in 1907. We've recovered each time, darling. Rest assured, the United States will pick itself up by its bootstraps and pull itself out of this Depression just like it has from all the others, or my name isn't Lawrence Hochstetter.'

  'All right, you've convinced me. As long as there's enough money around for our guests to afford to stay at our hotels, I'll try not to worry too much.'

  'That's the spirit.'

  'Now, what about running all these hotels and tourist courts? Larry, they're scattered all over! I'm running myself ragged trying to keep up, and now we have the Shelburne, too. It's time we set up an umbrella company. As I've found out, I can't keep managing a growing empire this size all by myself. I'm spreading myself much too thin.'

  'This umbrella company, whatever you choose to call it - ' Larry interjected.

  ' - Hale Hotels,' she said promptly.

  He laughed. 'We've been married seven days, and you still insist upon using Hale instead of Hochstetter. They warned me about liberated women.'

  'It's only because Zaccheus and I had the vision to start the tourist court, which began all this. I owe it to his memory, Larry. And the children are Hales. This will give them something to grow up into. A chance to be somebody.'

  'I know that,' he said gently, 'and I'm secure enough to accept it.'

  Then Elizabeth-Anne's voice grew more businesslike. 'I can head up Hale Hotels. Directly under me, I'll have to have two or three good executives - vice presidents, I suppose - whom I can trust. Each will be responsible for running a certain number of the hotels and tourist courts, and they'll be answerable only to me. The individual managers of the hostelries, in turn, are answerable directly to the executives, unless, of course, I give a specific order and thereby supersede theirs. The rest of the staff of each individual hotel or tourist court is answerable to the managers. But any executive order, and especially an order from me, can supersede the manager's. You get the general idea?'

  Larry nodded his assent. Tired though she was, the gears of Elizabeth-Anne's mind were clicking everything into place. 'In other words,' she concluded, 'we set up a chain of command, with me sitting at the top of the pyramid.'

  He grinned. 'Just like Cleopatra, my sweet.'

  She smiled. 'Now don't sweet talk me!' She poised a finger against her lips. 'I suppose it would be a good idea if we gave each executive a specific territory,' she said. 'He'll handle everything within that particular territory, and nothing else. Say one gets New York. Another has Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the other has Baltimore and Washington. That'll cut down on a lot of running back and forth. Maybe he should even be based in his area instead of here in New York.'

  'That's a good idea,' he said admiringly. 'You catch on fast.'

  Elizabeth-Anne's face grew pinched. 'But how do I know I can trust anyone else to wield so much power?'

  'If you intend to keep expanding, you'll have to delegate authority and hope you can trust the people you hire. In fact, you'll have to even if you don't expand any further and just decide to keep managing the hotels and motels you own now.'

  She nodded. 'And I don't think I'll have to worry about finding good executives. Not if I offer a decent salary and a good bonus to whoever drums up the most business. Nobody thrives on keen competition like an executive. And in these times, it's an employer's market. There are thousands of terrific executives out there, some of them out of work, and others looking for better jobs. That's what we'll do,' Elizabeth-Anne said with finality. 'But we have to make sure the executives we hire are very good. I only want the cream of the crop.' She paused. 'How long do you think it will be before we can set up the Hale Hotels umbrella corporation?'

  'No more than a few days. A week at the most.'

  She smiled. She was already beginning to feel a little less nervous, and her doubts were under control. But her physical weariness wasn't. As she and Larry continued to talk, her eyelids started to droop. She almost fell asleep sitting up when a knock came on the closed door. Startled, her eyes flew open. 'Come in,' she called out. She turned to Larry. 'Who can that be?'

  He stubbed out his cigarette and got to his feet just as the door opened. Two girls, one blonde and one brunette, stood in the doorway. From their dress, Elizabeth-Anne saw they were obviously prostitutes.

  She stared at them in disbelief. What had come of this hotel, she wondered, to let girls wander in off the streets? And why hadn't the hotel detectives intercepted them? The next thing you knew, they would be working the lounges or sitting in the lobby drumming up business. This was one thing she would have to put a stop to.

  But before she could open her mouth, Larry was striding across the room toward them. She watched in amazement as he took out his wallet and counted out five crisp one- hundred-dollar bills for each of them. They smiled at him, tucked the money into their bosoms, and blew him a kiss before turning and leaving.

  'What was all that about?' Elizabeth-Anne asked. Then suddenly it dawned on her. For the first time since they had met, she felt she could murder Larry. 'You didn't,' she hissed at him in a shocked whisper.

  He looked at her, his face cool and expressionless. 'I did,' he admitted lighting another cigarette. 'You didn't really expect me to leave anything to chance, did you?'

  'Oh, Larry! It makes everything so . . . so cheap.'

  'Why? Because when Spencer walked out, the girls had been arranged for? Perhaps it was ruthless, but sometimes the end justifies the means. It was a gamble, but it paid off, didn't it? While Shelburne was trying to get hold of Spencer so desperately, he never even suspected that he was right upstairs.' He grinned.

  'I'm so ashamed,' Elizabeth-Anne whispered. Despite the warmth of the room she hugged herself with her arms and shivered. 'You lured him into a sexual trap just so Shelburne couldn't find him.' She shook her head miserably. 'And I thought he simply couldn't reach Spencer.'

  'Elizabeth-Anne, it worked. You must remember that. Because of this, a lot of people turned out happy. Spencer had a wonderful opportunity to release his tension without his wife ever finding out about it. The girls got paid twice, once by him and once by me. And you got the hotel for a song.'

  Elizabeth-Anne shut her eyes. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her victory had been sour enough before finding this out. Now it had curdled completely.

  Wearily, she pushed herself to her feet. They might as well go home now. Just remaining in the hotel left the taste of bile in her mouth.

  It had been a day of surprises. Thank God the surprises were over.

  But when they got back to the Madison Squire, the desk clerk handed her a cable. She tore it open, then realized that the surprises had just begun.

  She stared down at the message and had to read it and reread it several times before it sank in:

  MAMMA PLEASE DO NOT BE ANGRY STOP

  HAVE MARRIED AND AM VERY HAPPY AND VERY MUCH IN LOVE STOP I AM NOW THE PR1NCIPESSA DI FONTANESI STOP I WILL WRITE IN DETAIL SOON STOP PLEASE DO NOT BLAME ROBYN STOP I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH AND HOPE YOU GIVE US YOUR BLESSINGS STOP MUCH LOVE CHARLOTTE-ANNE AND LUIGI DI FONTANESI

  8


  Three thousand, five hundred miles across the Atlantic in the dark, mountainous Alps, the train's iron wheels protested with a long, ear-splitting screech as it braked to a halt. The express was one carriage longer than usual; coupled to its rear was the luxurious, royal blue private coach emblazoned with the coat of arms of the di Fontanesis. The carriage's interior was like a compact, luxurious house, with a parlor, bedroom, small kitchenette, bath, and quarters for the private steward.

  In the small bedroom paneled in rich, Carpathian burled elm, Charlotte-Anne was awakened more by the sudden stillness than by the drawn-out screech itself. She opened her eyes. She could hear voices barking sharply outside on the platform. She sat up. Then, careful not to awaken Luigi, she got out of bed and slipped into the rose colored robe Luigi had bought her in Paris. She tied the sash around her waist and went over to the window, parted the heavily fringed, thick brocade curtains, and looked out.

  She had to shield her eyes. The platform, the cluster of buildings, and the train were bathed by blinding floodlights which gave everything a startling surreal quality.

  The train had stopped at the Italian border.

  She slid down the window and leaned out. The mountain air felt thin and chilly. Everywhere she looked she could see uniformed officials and border guards wearing glossy high riding boots, peaked, visored caps, and flared breeches. The uniforms looked very official, and somehow very intimidating.

  She heard the soft bang of a door. Then she saw Aldo, the white-jacketed private steward of the di Fontanesis' coach, hop down to the platform. He stopped to talk to some officials directly under her window and she repeatedly caught the words 'Prince di Fontanesi, Principessa di Fontanesi' amid his rapid-lire burst of Italian. She saw him offering them his, Luigi's, and her own passports, but the officials shook their heads and didn't even bother to check them. Then one of them happened to look up. The moment he saw her, he touched his visor with his fingertips, murmured 'Scusi,' and moved on to the next car.

  She frowned thoughtfully to herself. When the Ile de France had docked in Le Havre, her and Luigi's faces had been carefully scrutinized and compared with their passport photos. And again, when the train crossed the Swiss border, they had been required to go through rigorous border formalities. The ever-efficient Swiss had even given the private carriage a thorough search. What they intended to find, she had no idea. The fact that the coach belonged to the Di Fontanesis, or that Luigi was a prince, hadn't seemed to matter in the least.

  But to the Italians it obviously mattered a great deal. They didn't bother to glance at the passports. No officials walked through the coach. It was as though she and Luigi enjoyed diplomatic immunity. It was the first time she was made truly aware of the awesome power the di Fontanesis wielded in their own country. She was not yet used to the courtesies accorded to the nobility and she found it peculiarly unsettling.

  She was about to push up the window when a commotion further down the platform caught her attention. A young man had jumped off one of the carriages in the front of the train and had broken into a run. The border guards did not bother to chase him. It was unnecessary as other guards all around the platform easily encircled him. He sensed that he was trapped, stopped running, and raised his arms above his head.

  With a shock, Charlotte-Anne watched as one of the guards slipped the revolver out of his gleaming holster. The guard stretched out his arm, aimed, and fired a single shot.

  The crack of the gunshot reverberated like thunder. The young man jerked as the bullet slammed into his back, and the force of the shot threw him forward. She winced as he fell heavily to the concrete. He landed on his face and lay without moving.

  Two guards ambled over to him. One of them had his hands on his hips the other was replacing the revolver in his holster. Without warning, they gave the man a sharp kick and flipped him over on his back. The young man slowly raised his head. His face was screwed up in pain. The guard raised his boot, and with all the force he could muster, slammed it down on the prone man's face.

  Charlotte-Anne heard the agonized scream. She could almost feel the crunching of her own facial bones and felt the gore rise in her throat.

  She ducked her head back inside and slammed the window shut. For a moment she leaned back against it and took a series of deep breaths. After a moment the nausea began to subside.

  She heard a movement in the passage outside the bedroom. Crossing over to the door, she opened it and saw Aldo, the steward, returning to his quarters.

  Aldo gave a little bow. 'Yes, Principessa?'

  She glanced behind her. Incredibly, Luigi had slept through the gunshot and the screams. She closed the door so the sound of their voices wouldn't awaken him. 'Aldo,' she whispered in a trembling voice, 'they just shot a man

  Aldo nodded, his features carefully composed. For a moment, she imagined a flash of hatred in his dark eyes, but when she looked closely, it was gone. Or it had never been there in the first place. 'I saw, Principessa,' Aldo said in his heavily accented English. 'It was probably an anarchista.'

  'But . . . but there was no need to shoot him. He had surrendered.'

  The steward shrugged. 'The leader of every country has many enemies. Il Duce has his fair share also.'

  'But . . . couldn't they have just arrested him? Did they have to shoot him in the back?'

  Also looked down at the floor. 'This is Italy, Principessa.

  The laws are different here from in America.'

  'But-'

  'Try to forget it, Principessa,' he advised softly. 'Pretend that it never happened.'

  She stared at him. 'But it did. I can't just stand by - '

  'If there is nothing else . . . ' Aldo gave another little bow and went on to his quarters. She watched him leave, then slowly returned to the bedroom. She glanced at Luigi, who was sleeping soundly on his side.

  She slipped out of her robe and crawled back into bed. The mattress shifted and Luigi stirred and turned over on his other side, facing her. His eyes opened and he squinted sleepily at her. 'You are awake.'

  'Yes.' She nodded. 'We're at the border.' She took a deep breath. 'Luigi - '

  He yawned. 'Hmmmm?'

  'They just shot a man.'

  'Who did?'

  'The border guards.'

  'Do not worry about it,' he said with a yawn. 'No one would dare to shoot you.'

  She looked at him with shock. 'That's not what worries me. They shot him in the back. An unarmed man. It was terrible - '

  His voice was a soft murmur. 'Do not concern yourself with such things. It was official business. Do not involve yourself.' He coiled an arm around her. 'Tomorrow is a long day. Try to get some sleep. You will need it.'

  She stared at him, but his eyes were already closed. Then she heard his soft snores. He was last asleep again.

  Even long after the train had begun to speed into the darkness again, sleep eluded her. Finally she slipped out of bed, put her robe back on, and walked to the plush parlor at the front of the carriage. For a long time she sat on a tufted velvet armchair by the window. The Italian Alps were majestic and deceptively peaceful in the morning light. The sky seemed clear. The landscape was somehow sharper, more dappled with light than any she had ever seen before.

  Italy.

  She was in Italy now, yet another country where she had never set foot. The country which was her home.

  She shuddered as the real significance of her marriage hit her for the first time. She was not just any woman any more. She was a princess, a member of one of the most powerful families in all Italy. She was an important part of a culture which was entirely new to her. This was now her home, a land ruled by fascism. She had read about Mussolini in the papers back in New York, but he hadn't made much of an impression on her. Italy had always seemed so far away. She had never thought Il Duce or fascism would ever really affect her. But now it did, and she realized it was a situation that disturbed her deeply. She had witnessed a man being killed, or at least seriously wounded, tr
eated sadistically. This was a horror of fascism she hadn't known about. Yet for a di Fontanesi, life was coddled. Something as routine as a passport check had been waived.

  What was it Aldo had said?

  'This is Italy. The laws are different here.'

  She wondered if she could adjust to this new climate. What kind of laws condoned outright cruelty and murder? What kind of country would be her new home, anyway? She knew fascism well enough now for it to be repugnant to her. Could she live under its iron fist?

  Many dark shadows and doubts flitted batlike through her mind. She was filled with dread. She couldn't help wondering how her mother had taken the news of her marriage. Surely she'd long since received the cable, sent two days earlier, from Le Havre.

  She smiled to herself grimly. Knowing her mother, she'd probably be furious, but there was nothing she could do. Charlotte-Anne was, after all, the Principessa di Fontanesi, and her mother would simply have to adjust to that fact. She might have been born a Hale, but she was a Hale no longer.

  But much as her mother's reaction concerned her, and the scene at the border horrified her, neither was truly the cause of her anxiety now. Rather, she was thinking of the night before.

  Aldo had turned down the lace-edged sheets, which Luigi informed her had been embroidered by the nuns of the order of Our Lady of Peace. After she and Luigi had had a nightcap of champagne, they had made love. She had felt strange, making love on sheets embroidered by nuns who had taken vows of silence.

  Then, just before they'd gone to sleep, Luigi had told her the thing that now filled her with such dread. She shuddered again even now, her heart jumping with icy fear.