“I didn’t mean I wanted you to turn me into some kind of socialite! I was thinking more along the lines of a career!”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know! Something!” I stood up and snatched a towel. “I mean, why don’t you just dye my hair blond and stick me in Greenwich with Geoff’s wife?”
“What the devil? Who said anything about bloody Greenwich?”
I stepped out of the tub and wrapped the towel around me. “But that’s what would happen, right? Pretty soon I’d be out in the ’burbs, having babies and doing tennis lunches at the club with the other hedgie wives. Gossip and… and handbags. This is exactly, exactly what I’ve been afraid of all along!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Kate.” He dropped his head back against the rim of the tub and glared at the ceiling. “We’re talking about a few months here. And you haven’t the faintest interest in handbags.”
“Yes, I do. I like handbags. A little. That’s the problem. It would be too easy to just… be that girl. Get all shallow and complacent.”
“You’re being absurd. You’d never do that. You’re not like those women. You’re a completely different animal. It’s why I love you.”
“Then why try to turn me into one of them?”
He stood up, letting the water drip magnificently from his body for a moment before dragging a towel off the rack and draping it around his midsection. An athlete’s body, an active man’s body, flat smooth muscles flexing effortlessly under his glowing skin, making it hard to concentrate on quarrelling with him. “For the last time,” he said through his teeth, stepping out of the tub, “I’m not doing anything of the kind. It’s nothing to do with you becoming a damned socialite. It’s about finding out who’s going to ruin our lives and stopping him before he has the chance.”
“Who wants to ruin our lives? Why?”
“I don’t know! That’s what I’m trying to find out! If you’ll let me!” He grabbed a hand towel and rubbed his hair furiously with it.
I stared at him. “You really are paranoid.”
He turned to face me. “Yes, I am,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m wild with worry for you. You’ve no idea. Keeping you safe is the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thought in my head as I go to sleep.”
“Well, stop wasting your time. I’m fine. You should be more worried about yourself. You’re more of a target than I am.”
“That may be true, but you’re the one…” He stopped.
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
“Damn it.” He turned from me and struck his fist on the counter. “I wish I knew more. I’ve been racking my brains, trying to remember…”
“Remember what?”
“Details, clues, Kate. I can’t explain. I only know someone wishes us ill. Someone’s going to have a go at us. At you. It may be the chap harassing Hollander. Or something to do with this mess with the banks. I don’t know, damn it all. I never found out.” His head bowed, overburdened; his hands gripped the pale marble edge of the counter. “But it’s there, Kate. It’s coming. I need you to believe that.”
He was so obviously distressed. I felt my anger melt into compassion. “Look,” I said, stepping near him, “stop thinking you can control everything in life. You can’t. I could get run over by a bus tomorrow. So could you. But the odds are pretty narrow on that, so why spoil the time we have, worrying about all the things that could go wrong?”
He stared at our mingled reflections in the mirror. “Kate, won’t you please try this with me? I give you my word, it’s only for a short while. You don’t have to join all these ruddy clubs and committees and things. I’ll take care of all the donations and arrangements; you’ll just come along with me and amuse yourself.”
“Arm candy.”
“Well, you can’t help being beautiful,” he coaxed, turning around. “I know you don’t enjoy these things, but I’ll be with you. You like going out with me, don’t you?”
“Except for all the women trying to seduce you away from me, yes.”
He laughed and reached for me. “The only woman I’ve eyes for,” he said, next to my ear, sensing my imminent capitulation, “the only woman with even the faintest power to seduce me, is your own lovely self. I shall be fighting my way through your hordes of admirers, trying to reach your side.”
“Cue the crickets chirping.”
“We shall pose for photographs,” he said, moving one hand to untuck my towel, “and drink rivers of champagne. Then we’ll pick your reward from the auction…”
“Nice try, Ashford, but no dice.”
My towel dropped to the floor.
“… and make shallow brilliant conversation with a few select guests…”
“And if one of these super-skinny social types gets catty with me?”
“Get catty back,” he advised, swinging me up into his arms and carrying me out of the bathroom.
“I was kind of hoping you’d, like, ruin her husband or something.”
“Oh, that goes without saying.” He tossed me onto the bed and crawled after me like a hungry golden panther.
“Rrrrr.” I looped my arms about his neck. “So kiss me already.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he growled back.
“THERE’S JUST ONE THING,” Julian said, some time later, just as sleep began to drift over me in my warm cocoon of white sheets and male skin.
“What’s that?” I said drowsily, skimming my fingers over the long ragged scar on his right arm.
“I’m afraid, my darling”—he kissed the tip of my nose—“you’ll be obliged to go shopping.”
Amiens
By five o’clock that afternoon, the rain had paused and a genuine beam of sunlight struggled out between the clouds. I smiled at it, feeling unexpectedly lighthearted, and drew the straw market basket more firmly into my elbow. I’d gone shopping, scouring the scantily shelved shops of Amiens to gather together a simple picnic: bread and cheese and what looked to be a pretty decent pâté, with wine for him and Perrier water—Perrier, God bless them!—for me. Yes, a picnic. Julian loved picnics.
So distracted was I, cheerful face upturned to the mottled sky, that Geoffrey Warwick’s outstretched hand seemed to emerge from thin air when it grasped my upper arm and brought my momentum to a staggered halt.
“Oww!” I exclaimed, trying to pull away. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He replied quietly. “I might very well ask the same thing of you.”
“Lieutenant Warwick.” I encircled his wrist with my fingers and removed it. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, I should warn you: I’m not like the shrinking violets you’re used to. I can run a mile in six minutes, and I know a self-defense move that would lay you flat on your back in less time than it would take me to scream rape.” That last part was technically a bluff; I’d learned the maneuver in theory during freshman orientation, but I’d never tried it out on a real live six-foot attacker.
“Do you really think,” he said, voice still low, “do you really imagine you can insert yourself into his life like this? Brazen, unprincipled woman. Have you any idea of the pain you’re causing?”
“If you mean Arthur Hamilton,” I said, “I believe I do. Of course I do. And I’m sorry for that, very sorry, more than you can possibly know. But you’ve no idea, do you, what really lies between them, between Julian and Florence…”
He started, a sharp backward motion of his head. “What do you know of Miss Hamilton?”
“I know everything. And it’s not what you think. Julian doesn’t…”
He lifted his right hand in a reflexive motion, as if warding away a blow. His face had grown pale under the shadow of his cap. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about that. It’s not my concern. My concern is for my friends, one of them walking headlong into his own ruin…”
“Ruin!”
“And the other utterly broken, refusing to think the worst of a man upon whose fide
lity he stakes his faith in humanity itself…”
“Ruin Julian! You think I’m trying to ruin him? I’m here to save him, you jackass, and from you most of all! Ruin him. For God’s sake.” I nearly spat the last words; I wanted to strike him. My hand twitched with violence, until I had to fist it behind my back.
He flinched. “Who the devil are you?”
“You don’t deserve to know that, Geoffrey Warwick.”
“I demand to know it.”
“By what right?”
His eyes narrowed into severity. “No one,” he said coldly, “no one is more devoted to Captain Ashford’s well-being than I am.”
I shook my head and opened my mouth to speak, and at that moment the light shifted around a passing cloud, catching the man’s eyes from under the brim of his dun-colored cap. Brown, a light speckled brown, nearly hazel and bristling with sincerity. What had Julian told me about him? Not all that much. The son of a City stockbroker, worlds away socially from Julian’s ancient family. They’d struck up a friendship at Eton, gone on to Cambridge together. A great deal must lie behind that bare history, of course: Julian bravely extending his hand across the great chasm of class and adolescent social pressure dividing them, Geoff probably fiercely loyal as a result. A new world for the City boy, full of careless unstable aristocrats like the Hamiltons, shades of Brideshead in there somewhere. And here I came, out of the blue, disturbing the balance. Clearly not in the Florence Hamilton mold, clearly not an aristocrat, clearly not worthy of Julian in Geoffrey’s eyes. I thought about the Greenwich estate, the trophy wife, the relentless ambition. Geoff was a striver, a gold digger in his way; perhaps his instinct to protect Julian from me contained more than a little self-hatred.
Perhaps the key to saving Julian lay right here, before me.
“Look,” I said, softening my voice, “let’s talk a moment. I mean, I think we both have Julian’s best interests at heart here…”
“I doubt that extremely.”
“You really are stubborn, aren’t you?” I said. I set down the basket, which was getting heavy, and crossed my arms. “Look, whether you believe it or not, I love Julian Ashford. Not for his money or his position, God knows, but for himself. For all his wonderful qualities, all those reasons I’m sure you appreciate, too. Wait.” I held up my hand. “Just hear me out, please. You’re aware I know a lot about your past; well, as it happens, I know certain things about the future too. Things that will happen to us, all of us, that will cause harm to Julian, whom we both love. And my whole purpose here is to save him from that. So…”
“What rot!” he burst out, tugging off his hat to run his hand over his hair. “What bloody vicious nonsense. Some sort of Gypsy witch, are you?”
“Now, you see, I’m more enlightened than you are,” I struggled for composure, “so I’m not actually offended by that.”
“What I understand,” Geoff said, replacing his hat, calming his voice, “is that you believe yourself to be saving Captain Ashford from me. From me, of all people, when I’d defend him with my last breath. I ought to kick you to the gutter, where you belong…”
“He’d never forgive you.”
His eyes drilled into mine. “Women like you…”
“Okay, enough. There’s only so much of this I can take, even for his sake. So fine. Let’s agree not to like each other; I don’t see any way out of that. But can we please, please set that aside, and put Julian’s interests first?”
“Captain Ashford’s best interests lie in your immediate withdrawal from his life.”
“No!” I pointed my finger at his chest. “Julian’s interests lie in your hands. Because you’re the one who’s going to betray him. You.”
He started backward, agape, his hard leather shoes slipping against the still-damp paving stones.
“Yes, I’ve got your attention now, haven’t I? This ridiculous hatred you bear me, Geoffrey Warwick, this bigoted jealousy of yours, will mean Julian’s death and your own. So you’d better get over it, before you ruin us all.” I picked up the basket and settled it back into my elbow and gave him a last hard look. “Just let him be happy, for God’s sake.”
I turned around and marched back down the street, toward rue des Augustins.
21.
Blue. A blue line. Sharp, vivid, unequivocal. Here I am, Mommy!
The wand dropped from my shaking fingers. I stared at it, there on the bathroom floor, an earthquake compressed into white plastic.
“Darling,” Julian called from the bedroom, “are you almost ready? The car’s waiting.”
“Um, yeah,” I called back. “Just putting on my lipstick.” I leaned down and grabbed the damning evidence and shook it back and forth. As if that would change the result. Make it less… blue.
“Can I help?” he asked, his voice coming nearer.
“No! Just finishing up. Hold on.” I grabbed a tissue and wrapped it around the wand and stuck it in the back of my drawer.
I checked my face in the mirror. The hairdresser had departed ten minutes ago, leaving my hair pinned atop my head in a pert cascade. I’d done my makeup myself, as always: a bit heavier than I liked, but I’d seen the results from my first effort in the Sunday Pulse section of the Post, and quickly grasped that if the camera added ten pounds of fat, it also took away the equivalent amount of makeup. I’d looked like a college student. And not in a good way.
“Darling,” Julian prodded, right on the other side of the door.
I turned at once and yanked it open. “Sorry. Too much, do you think?”
“Yes. But you look stunning anyway.” He wasn’t much of a makeup man, Julian.
“Sorry,” I repeated. “Have to look the part.”
“What do you think?” He lifted both hands. “Diamonds or rubies?”
“You pick.”
He held each one carefully up to my neck. “Rubies,” he decided.
“Nothing says notice me like a fortune in sparkly red jewels,” I sighed, turning around for him to fasten them around my neck.
“When we return home tonight,” he said, his fingers cool and dexterous against my nape, “I want you to wear these, and nothing else.”
It had taken Julian a day of pleading and seduction and completely bogus threats to get me to wear any of the jewelry he’d had brought down from the safe in Connecticut; in the end, he’d called in Michelle and Samantha one weekend as reinforcements. Traitors. He’d won them over in no time, with his damned relentless charisma and his private planes and his funding of a shopping spree to end all shopping sprees. They’d transformed into his willing accomplices, sneaking things past me to the sales staff, coming home with armloads of shoes in my size, making me try on gown after gown. Their eyes had glazed over with perpetual glee, as if every pleasure center in their respective brains were being pummeled by an outsized hammer.
I turned around. His face was so close I could smell his freshly brushed teeth. “Mmm, minty,” I said, without thinking, and leaned forward to kiss him.
“Stop that,” he murmured, bringing his hands up to the back of my neck. “We haven’t time,” and his mouth curved lingeringly around mine. “Seductress,” he said at last, pulling away. “Now I’ve ruined your lipstick.”
I rubbed the evidence from his lips with my fingers. “It’s your fault, walking in here with that face of yours. How’s my dress?’
“Like it should be ripped from your body.”
“So you like it?” I twirled. The pearl-gray layers floated around me, draping my figure with ridiculous suggestiveness. I had to admit, these couture designers knew what they were doing.
“I despise it. Every man in the building is going to be thinking the same thing I am.” He looked downward and frowned.
“It’s called a push-up bra, Julian,” I said helpfully.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered.
“Well, this was all your idea, remember? I’m just following orders.”
“Revenge is more like it. Very well, then.” He
held out his arm. “Shall we, Mrs. Ashford?”
“Why, thank you, Captain Ashford.” I took his arm and snagged my bejeweled clutch from atop the chest of drawers. “If I may say so,” I added, allowing myself to be led from the room, “you look pretty delectable yourself.”
“Just the same old tuxedo,” he said.
“But you wear it so well.”
We made it to the bottom of the stairs, where Eric, my bulky new bodyguard, stood waiting for us like a two-legged Doberman pinscher. Julian let my arm slip away until he was holding my fingers. “Christ, Kate,” he exclaimed, “you’re like ice!”
“Nerves.”
Julian wrapped his hand around mine and gave Eric a nod, signaling him to lead on through the front door and down the steps to the black sedan perched by the curb.
It was like I had two brains: one was flirting happily with Julian, as if everything were perfectly normal, and the other one was busy calculating just how far along I must be. I’d waited an extra week or so, hoping against hope, before taking the test, and even then I’d still been bizarrely surprised at the sight of the blue line. I mean, I couldn’t be pregnant, for God’s sake. We weren’t trying to get pregnant. It was just one single stupid month. Other couples tried for years for a baby. And for us? Boom? Just like that? Knocked up? No way. Not possible.
I felt sweat break out, sudden and damning, all over my body. And was that nausea? Please not. Please, just nervous nausea, not pregnant nausea.
“Are you all right?” Julian asked suddenly, looking at my face.
“Just nervous.” I laughed. “I can’t seem to get used to this stuff.”
“It should be easier tonight, love. Even you’ve been looking forward to this one.” The car eased around the corner of Fifth Avenue and onto the Sixty-sixth Street park transept, heading for Lincoln Center.
“I know. I should feel lucky. And you, the opera lover! Right up your alley.”
“It’s not a proper opera on opening night anymore,” he said. “A bit of Traviata, a bit of Manon. Final scene of Capriccio. It’s become an event now.”
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