“But—“
“Don’t worry, Sid. I don’t want anything from him. Not a dime. All I want is Jocelyn. In exchange for that, I want him to keep away from her. Those are the terms of my settlement.” Distance entered her voice. There was no one to fight her battles for her. She had to do it all alone. The independence was frightening and exhilarating at the same time. “If you don’t want to handle this, I’ll get someone who will.”
“Calm down, Johanna, calm down.” She could almost see the man mopping his bald head. He always seemed to sweat profusely when he was agitated. “I’ll be there and we’ll talk.”
We can talk all you want, she thought. It won’t change anything. “Bring the papers.”
“I’ll bring the papers,” he promised. “Sheila will call you with my flight number and the arrangements once she makes them.”
Johanna thought of talking to Sid’s humorless secretary. Something else to live for. “Fine.” She straightened her shoulders. There. It was out in the open now. And there was no turning back. Relief made her feel almost giddy. “I’ll see you then. ‘Bye.” She hung up, then turned to see her sister giving her the high sign.
Johanna had no sooner placed the receiver back in the cradle than the phone started to ring. And ring. And ring. There seemed to be no end to the incoming calls. Each time she answered, there was another member of the press asking her for a statement about Harry’s arrest that morning.
They wanted to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. They wanted to photograph her and Jocelyn. They wanted to interview her at the jail. They wanted to dissect her mind, examine everything beneath a microscope for the eleven o’clock news back home. Johanna felt as if she was under siege.
When the phone rang for the twentieth time, Mary held up her hand. “I’ll get this one.” There was fire in her eyes as she jerked the receiver up from the cradle. “Look, you scumsucking lowlife—oh, hello.”
If Johanna didn’t know any better, she would have said that her sister was embarrassed. But then, Mary was never embarrassed. She was one of the lucky ones who sailed right through life without a backward glance and no regrets. Ever.
Mary put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Tommy. He wants to know if he can come over and be of any help. He saw the article.”
“The world saw the article,” Johanna muttered, weary.
She knew she was being weak. She shouldn’t accept or ask for help from him. There wouldn’t be any in a few days when she left for the States, destination still unknown. But she couldn’t deny herself seeing Tommy one more time. She crossed over to the telephone and held out her hand. Mary gave her the receiver.
“Hello, Tommy?”
“I just saw the paper. How are you holding up?”
She smiled ruefully as she wound the cord around her finger and then let it go again. “This must have been what it was like to be a fortress about to be stormed by the Vikings.”
“That bad?” It wasn’t pity in his voice. It was compassion and it fortified her. And made her warm.
“That bad.”
“I’ll be right over.” There was no arguing with his tone of voice. It was firm.
Still, she wanted to spare him. It wouldn’t be long before the reporters set up camp in the lobby, or at least outside the hotel. She had seen it happen many times before. Nothing like a scandal to bring the vultures out. “Do you think you should?”
“It’s my Ivanhoe training, remember? I can’t turn my back on a lady in distress. Besides, I’ve got broad shoulders. Maybe you’ll find yourself wanting to lean on them for a while.”
She closed her eyes, suddenly bone weary. “Oh God, yes.”
“I’ll saddle up the white charger and be right over. Hang in there, Johanna.”
His words were like a physical touch. She drew comfort from them. “I will. ‘Bye. And thanks.”
“None necessary. You know that.”
“Yes, I know.”
She felt a little uncertain about having Tommy come over to the hotel because of Jocelyn. Her daughter might be sensitive to having another man over, a man her mother was seeing, while her father was languishing in prison—no matter how much he might deserve it. But her worries were groundless. Jocelyn turned to Tommy like an old friend coming to the aid of the cause as soon as he walked through the door.
“Tommy.” She rushed up to him. “They’ve got my dad. Can you help us?”
Easily, Tommy slung an arm around the small shoulders. “I’m here to give you and your Mum some moral support.”
“Will that help?” the girl asked.
“I don’t know.” He looked at Johanna. “Will it?”
She offered him a warm, grateful smile. “It certainly wouldn’t hurt.” Her words were blocked out by an insistent knock on the door. She drew in a sharp breath, bracing herself for another onslaught of reporters, local and foreign.
“It’s as if they smell blood and are in a feeding frenzy,” she moaned.
“Let me.” Tommy said calmly, his hand on the doorknob.
“You don’t want to be dragged into this,” Johanna warned.
The look on his face said that she couldn’t talk him out of it. “What are friends for?”
What indeed, she thought. And whatever else happened between them, however this ended—and it would end soon, she knew in her heart—she’d have this to cherish. That he was her friend first and foremost.
“Give the man his lead,” Mary counseled. She placed her hands on Johanna’s shoulders and forced her to sit down on the sofa.
Tommy cracked the door open and instantly the commotion in the hallway roared into the room like the waters of a flash flood. Reporters with cameramen at their sides waved microphones at Tommy, clamoring to see Johanna and get her side of the story.
“Mrs. Whitney only knows what she reads in the newspapers.” Tommy shouldered the door closed again.
The knocking continued, turning into urgent pounding when there was no further answer.
The hotel had had to beef up its security and was not very happy about having Harold Whitney’s wife and daughter staying with them. The rooms reserved for the production company members returning from the shoot in Italy were suddenly cancelled and the manager himself came up to see her later that day to politely suggest that perhaps she would like to seek other, more secluded accommodations.
Johanna wanted to lash out at him. The obsequious little man had melted all over them when they had first arrived.
She saw Tommy grin and her nerves abated. “Why don’t you go downstairs and have some of your hotel tea to soothe those jangled nerves of yours?” She stepped back as he hesitantly opened the door, then watched, pleased, as the manager fought his way out of the suite.
Mary, her luggage packed, hung back. “Come to the States with me,” Mary urged.
Johanna shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve got to see our lawyer and tie up a few loose ends first.”
Mary nodded, understanding. But she didn’t have to like it. “I still hate leaving you in the middle of all this.”
Johanna hugged her sister. “You might not be able to leave. Those vultures might not let you get out,” she said with a sad laugh.
Mary hiked her shoulder bag higher on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. Over half those people out there are men. I can manage.” Her eyes softened as she looked at Johanna. “Take care of yourself, Jo.”
They hugged one more time and then Mary swept out, luggage in hand. She was followed down the hall by several eager reporters who had staked out the area. A secondhand story was better than none.
Tommy patted the place next to him on the sofa. “You’re leaving?”
Feeling awkward for the first time, Johanna nodded as she sat down.
“When?”
Deliberately she avoided his eyes. She looked over toward Jocelyn, who was sitting curled up on a love seat, trying to read. “A couple of days.”
“That soon.”
“Sc
hool starts in a little more than a week.” Johanna knotted her hands in her lap. It all sounded so lame to her ear, but he seemed to understand.
He wouldn’t dwell on her departure. They had both known that there would be an end when they had started. He hooked his thumbs into the front pocket of his jeans. “Well, at the moment, it seems that you need somewhere to stay.”
Johanna swallowed. Suddenly, she needed more than that. “Arlene offered—“
“They’ll look there first,” he guessed knowingly.
He was right. “But I don’t have any—“
“Options?”
Again, she nodded, this time turning to look at him.
Tommy took her hand in both of his and just held it. “You and Jocelyn can stay with me. It’ll be crowded, but they won’t look there.”
“They’ll follow us,” she pointed out, forgetting to refuse the offer.
He grinned. “If we look like us.”
He was massaging her hand between his own. Her body warmed. She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation. “Meaning?”
“Why don’t you call the hotel manager up here again? I think I have an idea that he might like.”
She couldn’t get him to elaborate any further. Playing along and eminently curious, Johanna did as he suggested. The short, stout man came within fifteen minutes. He didn’t look pleased about the summons or the ongoing situation, but he had always been nothing short of polite to his guests and a lifelong habit was hard to break.
“Mrs. Whitney and her daughter would like to check out as soon as possible,” Tommy told the man as soon as he walked into the suite.
The hotel manager offered the first genuine smile in over twenty-four hours. “Yes, of course.”
“But they can’t just walk out without being followed and harassed.”
His small, alert eyes swept over Johanna. “I quite understand your dilemma, Mrs. Whitney, but I do have one of my own. The hotel cannot brook being overrun by reporters in this manner. We—“
Tommy cut him short. “We know all that. We need a bellhop sent up who is approximately my height and two chambermaids who would be around Mrs. Whitney and Miss Whitney’s height and coloring.”
Alistair Homsby drew his dark brows together. “Decoys?”
Tommy grinned, shoving his hands into his back pockets. “Exactly.”
Jocelyn clapped her hands together, displaying the first excitement Johanna had seen since she brought the newspaper to her. “Like spies.”
Tommy nodded. “Like spies, Jocelyn.” He turned to Hornsby. “They go out first, drawing off the reporters, and then we leave, wearing their clothes.”
“And the luggage—?” Montaigne asked.
“Can be sent for,” Johanna answered, getting into the spirit of the thing. It almost seemed like fun, if that was possible. “Do we have your help, Mr. Hornsby?”
“Gladly,” he answered. The sooner he was rid of these entertainers and their three-ring circus, the happier he was going to be.
He left quickly to make arrangements.
Chapter Twenty-five
“I feel terrible about putting you out, Tommy. Really, we can check into another hotel.” Johanna looked around the small, cosy living room. After the unnerving siege by the press, it felt like a haven to her. But she didn’t want to be any trouble.
Quietly, Tommy put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around to face him. The small gesture told her everything. That she was safe here for as long as she wanted to stay. “You said you were only staying in London another few days, didn’t you?”
She nodded. His voice was soft, tinged with a touch of melancholy. The feeling matched her own. She wanted to distance herself from him in order to better accept the permanent separation she knew was ahead for them. But at the same time, she wanted to hug him to her, to savor the last few hours she had left, to absorb everything about them and him.
“Well, then it’s really being selfish of me, not generous, don’t you see? I want to be with you as much as possible until you go.” He glanced over to the kitchen where Jocelyn sat, talking to Stewart. “And my father could use the company.
She followed him as he crossed to a linen closet and removed a sheet and extra pillow. “I still feel guilty about turning you out of your own bedroom.”
Tommy deposited the pillow on the sofa. “I’ve slept in a lot worse places than a sofa, Johanna.”
“Oh?” She perched on the arm of the sofa, watching him as he went about preparing it to serve as his bed. “Tell me about them.”
“Nothing very interesting. That was in my roving days.” With a snap of his wrist, he sent the sheet billowing out. It whispered down to the sofa, covering it.
“Which were?” She wanted to devour every shred of information about him, more so since she knew that he would be gone out of her life soon. She wanted to be able to look back and remember.
“Right after I finished school. I traveled through Europe. I wanted to see the world to make up my mind about where I really belonged.”
“And did you make up your mind?” It sounded so simple, so easy when he said it. Think and it’ll come to you. But it wasn’t that simple, was it? Where did she belong? She had no idea anymore.
“Yes. I belong here, doing what I’m doing. I feel at peace with that.”
“You’re lucky to have found your niche.” There was a trace of yearning in her voice. Would she ever find her niche again? She didn’t know. She wanted to believe she would, but she thought she had found it once and that had turned out to be a lie.
He stopped smoothing the sheet and framed her face with his hands. He wanted to kiss her then, kiss away the fear in her eyes, but he didn’t. Her daughter was in the very next room and he knew that made Johanna uncomfortable. “You’ll find your niche, Johanna. You’re too strong a woman not to.”
She nodded and forced a smile to her lips. She wished with all her heart that her niche might be here, with him, but she knew better. Without knowing how and why, she knew that she didn’t belong here. There was something waiting for her out there. She could feel it. Good or bad, she had to go and find it.
And leave behind part of her heart.
Johanna rose and linked her hand with his. “It’s too late to go to bed,” she said. “The sun’s almost ready to come up.”
“Care to go for a walk?”
“I’d love it. Just give me a minute to check on Jocelyn.”
Stewart had shown Jocelyn to Tommy’s room while they had been talking. Johanna found her daughter already asleep in the double bed. After tucking the blanket around Jocelyn, Johanna found she couldn’t resist running her hand along the intricately carved wood.
She turned to Tommy. “You do beautiful work,” she whispered.
He looked down at Jocelyn’s sleeping face. “So do you, Johanna.”
She grinned at him. “C’mon, you promised me a walk.”
Silently, they slipped out of the small apartment.
The neighborhood was sleeping as the first rays of the sun were just tickling the sky, sending out shards of rose and purple hues as forerunners to the morning. She looked down at the cobblestones beneath her feet, the sleepy streets, the charming, almost quaint rows of houses. Later the streets would be alive with vendors, with people buying and selling, making noise, going on with their lives. Right now, it was still asleep.
“It looks like a movie set,” she murmured. “Not a bit like New York.” Again she was compelled to make a comparison. New York had been the place she had felt really at home. It was the last place that had truly spoken to her.
Despite the ever-present noise, the endless hurry, there had been peace there. A peace she had long since lost.
“The city that never sleeps.” Tommy recalled hearing that once.
“Yes, that’s what they call it. There always seems to be noise around, it’s never quiet at night, never still.”
He was silent for a moment, studying her. “Is that where you�
�re going?”
She turned the thought over in her mind. Suddenly, it was as if there had never been any doubt. She watched a lone car make its way up the street and then turn a corner. “Yes.”
Tommy held her hand a little tighter. “What will you do?”
They crossed the street. “Get back to painting, I think. That’s what I wanted to do before I married Harry. Be a starving artist.” She pressed her lips together. They passed a greengrocer and she peered into the silent, dark store, seeing other things in the shadows. Seeing the future. “The idea of starving with a child, though, doesn’t sound that appealing.”
“You’re entitled to child support, aren’t you?”
Johanna looked up and saw his reflection in the store window. Their eyes met. “I don’t want anything from Harry,” she said vehemently. She turned and began to walk again.
A stray dog knocked down a garbage can and she jumped closer to Tommy. He gripped her hand tighter. “Easy, luv,” he said soothingly. “It’s not taking anything from Harry, and it’s for Jocelyn, not yourself. He owes it to her, you know. And to you.”
It was the logical thing, of course, but she wanted to divorce herself from everything that had to do with Harry. “No doubt of that. He owes her a lot of things. But if I had his word that he’d never contact her again, I’d gladly give up the money.”
“You hate him that much?” She didn’t look like a woman who could hate. Feel yes, desire, yes, but not hate.
“No, I don’t hate him.” She looked down at the cobblestones. In the growing light, they took on different hues of gray. “I did, for a little while, but that’s gone. I feel sorry for him if anything. But that doesn’t change my feelings about his influence. I’m afraid that Jocelyn is very impressionable right now and she might follow in his footsteps. I don’t want anything happening to her. She’s all I have.”
“No, you have you, Johanna, and a lot of people who care about you.”
Sapphire and Shadow (A Woman's Life) Page 19