Because Karl-Heinz was everything a woman could possibly want. Sleekly handsome, charismatic, holder of one of the world's oldest titles, and possessed of that aura of casual confidence which is the by-product of great wealth and power. He also looked younger than his forty years, and was thoughtful, amusing, and strong as the proverbial rock.
Heaven help me! she quailed inwardly. Why can't he have stayed at Mortimer's with Becky and Dina? Why did he have to insist upon coming along with me?
She was not aware of the traffic lights, or the clusters of lunchtime shoppers, or even the perilous fleets of speeding vehicles. The only thing of which she was conscious was Karl-Heinz's disturbing proximity.
Which explained why, at Seventy-third Street, she stepped off the curb without looking.
"Watch it!" Karl-Heinz yelled.
Grabbing her arm, he yanked her back to safety just as a taxi, horn blaring, went barreling past her.
"My God!" he gasped. "You were nearly run over! Zandra, you really must look where you are going!"
She raised her face and gave a jerky little nod. "Yes," she said hoarsely, obviously shaken by the close call.
"You are all right?" he asked, solicitously holding her by both arms and looking deep into her eyes. His touch was so electric, and his distress—instantly followed by immeasurable relief—so genuine, that she felt herself drowning in the depths of his eyes.
And it was then that she understood the true extent of what was happening.
There are men who are boy toys, men who are providers, still others who are protectors, and one in many millions who is the sum of them all. And he was one of the latter—she knew that in an unsettling flash of absolute, crystalline clarity.
His blue eyes, the color of gas flames, burned with a fierce intensity, and the wind lifted his thinning hair, which, Zandra noted with appreciation, he didn't try to comb over his receding hairline. Though handsome, slender, and perfectly groomed, he was no youthful Apollo, which was precisely the point. It was his very maturity which appealed. She'd had her share of vain young Adonises in her past.
The problem was pedigree.
Centuries of inbreeding had related her family and his. In the long- ago past, the adverse effects of genetics had been pretty much of a mystery, and the only requirements for noble marriages and propagation had been to forge political alliances, broaden sovereign powers, fortify and raise social positions, and multiply lands and immense fortunes. Among the ruling classes, marital matches had always boiled down to keeping power in the family.
Naturally, the by-product of all this inbreeding—hereditary disorders such as hemophilia, dementia, and birth defects, to name but a few—had cursed all the great ruling families of Europe.
In the last decade of the Second Millennium, though, the inherent problems of marrying one's kin were common knowledge. She had absolutely no desire to play procreative roulette. The very notion was unsavory, and fraught with potential disaster.
I'm not about to play with lives. Every child deserves a fighting chance.
The traffic lights changed, but she and Karl-Heinz remained immobile, an obstacle for the pedestrians surging in both directions. Despite the jostlings and occasional curses, neither of them moved.
He was still holding onto her arms. "We can cross now—safely," he said with a gentle smile.
Then he let go of her.
She nearly gasped, so unprepared was she for the sudden deprivation of his touch.
It was time to will herself to move. She knew that. Yet still she continued to stare at him, and despite January's freeze, a wave of incapacitating heat hit her like an accusation. She could feel the beads of moisture breaking out on her forehead. Leaving a glistening, telltale sheen, no doubt.
What is it with me? she wondered. Why am I staring at him so long? And how much more of a spectacle can I make of myself?
With a supreme effort, she managed to tear her eyes from his. Then, before her resolve could weaken, she got her feet working and mobilized herself, fleeing across the street—
—as if escape from one's emotions were that easy.
Karl-Heinz caught up with her and matched her brisk clacking stride. He hoped her need for silence was the result of introspection rather than a symptom of anger.
His breath sighed noisily. Whichever the reason, he wasn't exactly left with many choices. Two, to be exact. He could either drop behind and let her go on alone, or keep up, contenting himself with sliding furtive, inquisitive glances in her direction.
He chose the latter—not through arrogant confidence, but because her mere presence, however moody, put a shine on his day. His perseverance was rewarded by treasured little glimpses.
A burst of radiant sunshine lighting her head and illuminating her haze of billowing orange hair like that of some glorious pre-Raphaelite—a Rossetti maiden sprang to mind.
A gust of wind causing a streamer of corkscrew curls to flutter across her face, and the casual, automatic way she flicked them aside with her fingers—a simple reflex—somehow seemed special and appealed mightily; made him feel the overwhelming need to possess this astounding creature of thoroughbred lineage, devil-may-care elegance, and innate, unstudied sophistication. Most of all, he wished it were he who could reach out and gently, intimately, stroke aside the hair which the wind kept blowing in front of her face.
Why was it, he wondered, that she, of all women, should be the one to make him realize what he'd missed out on during decades of cutting a swath through life as a playboy? Good God, but she even made the prospect of domestication seem a pleasure to look forward to, rather than the tedious duty he'd always believed it to be!
Even so, the merciless disregard she showed him, dismissing his presence as if he didn't exist, lancinated his heart. He felt the sting of rejection as he hurried, in enforced, unnatural silence, alongside her. They might as well have been strangers, coincidental pedestrians sharing the same sidewalk, her proximity a mockery.
Finally, after they'd gone an entire block without speaking, he could take it no more. He had to shatter the invisible barrier separating them. If he didn't, he thought he would go mad.
His hand sought hers and, holding it tightly lest she escape, he stopped walking. She turned to him with huge reluctance.
"For God's sake, Zandra! What is the matter?"
She would not look at him. "What should be the matter?" she murmured, shrugging. Then she pried her hand loose and turned away, studiously perusing the hardware in the dusty window of a locksmith.
Standing beside her, Karl-Heinz thrust his hands into the pockets of his cashmere overcoat and studied her while she, as if with utter fascination, leaned into the flyblown glass and pretended to study the assortment of locks, doorknobs, window gates, and keys. They might have been a display of new spring dresses for all the attention she gave them.
He drew a deep breath. "Zandra," he pleaded. "Why won't you speak to me? Or is it too difficult to tell me what's wrong?"
"Wrong? What should be wrong?"
"I don't know," he said. "Why don't you tell me?"
"Maybe there's nothing to tell."
And abandoning her examination of the hardware, she hurried on, staring purposefully straight ahead. Her face closed. Making it clear the discussion was over.
On they rushed, her silence enforcing his, until they reached the faux- Renaissance palazzo where she worked, and high above which he lived.
Zandra felt a curious mixture of relief and heartache. Relief because she could finally flee Karl-Heinz's unsettling presence; heartache because, much as she longed for it, things could never—must never!—progress naturally between them as a man and a woman.
The awkward, oppressive sense of silence continued as they stood, buffeted by gusts of wind, under the flapping dove gray awning in front of the entrance. Neither of them seemed to know what to say. Zandra glanced longingly, almost edgily, toward the doorman and the giant etched-glass portals through which she'd make her escape.
But ingrained manners and protocol required that she bid Karl-Heinz farewell. And that meant looking him in the face.
She raised her eyes slowly.
Damn. She should have known. Those intense blue eyes of his were altogether too mesmeric, and conveyed entire unspoken words—desire, love, loyalty, need—all evident for her to see. She could feel her resolve weakening, her knees trembling and threatening to buckle. A lump rose in her throat.
You don't mess around with Mother Nature.
The silence grew. And grew.
It was Karl-Heinz who finally broke it. "I'm going to be in town for the next three or four weeks," he said.
She glanced desperately at the heroically scaled doors.
He took her hand in his. "I know you have to get back to work," he said. "But don't be a stranger. Okay?"
Zandra's nod was ambiguous, its two meanings cancelling each other: the first that his words registered, the second that she agreed. It was all a matter of interpretation.
But she knew she had to say something. They couldn't just part in silence.
She thought: He reaches too deep inside me. For both our sakes, I have to keep my distance. Somehow I must make certain we'll never see each other again.
Aloud, she said, "I'll be in touch."
The fiction was convenient and harmless; a necessary white lie. But her smile would have left Troy up ship's creek.
"See you," she added.
And she was like quicksilver. Here one moment and gone the next.
Chapter 29
Lila Pons owned an apartment in River House, arguably the single snootiest and most exclusive address in New York, if not the entire world.
She'd moved in during the summer of 1954, thirteen years after the FDR Drive had been built, and until then, the sedate dowager of a building had fronted directly on the East River, where it had even boasted its own yacht mooring. That, like so many other things, had changed as time had passed, but River House itself had not.
Built on the heels of the 1929 Crash, it had symbolized optimism and confidence in both the city and the country's economy, and from the beginning, had been home to many of the city's—and indeed the world's— richest, most prominent, and most socially acceptable residents. It still was, and being accepted by the co-op board was something akin to passing the scrutiny of the CIA, the Stalinist-era KGB, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, MI5, the Morgan Bank, and the Social Register.
To the casual observer, the towering brick and stone edifice gave off an aura of pre-war stability and solidity, and looked as if it had always been there and would remain there forever.
Like some legendary memorial. Or a monument to its most famous and reclusive resident, Lila Pons.
Before reaching East Fifty-second Street, Kenzie ducked into a doorway on First Avenue, untied her Reeboks, stuffed them into her shoulder bag, and wiggled her feet into her best shoes.
She checked her watch. She still had six minutes to go. Good. Time enough to reach the building right on the button.
River House was the very last building at the cobbled end of East Fifty-second Street. Its U-shaped facade had a canvas awning, and on the ground level, wall-mounted stone faces stared at each other across the recessed entrance, the mouths of which, in warmer weather, streamed water into scallop-shell basins, and which now gaped dryly, like idiots. The doorman was outside, enjoying what weather he could in the deep, lengthening shadows of the afternoon. He wore the requisite uniform and peaked cap and looked as though he'd been there since the creation.
"May I help you, ma'am?" His reedy voice was extremely polite.
"Yes. I have an appointment to see Ms. Pons."
She could have sworn his face—eyes, mouth, even nose and ears— went totally blank. "There's no one here by that name, I'm afraid."
Kenzie wasn't deterred. She said, "I'm from Burghley's, the auction house, and Ms. Pons called us to appraise her art. Here's my card." She unbuckled her bag and passed him one.
He took it and held it mere inches from his eyes. It was European style, larger than the standard American size, and thick as fiberboard:
BURGHLEY'S
FOUNDED 1719
721 Madison Avenue MacKenzie Turner
New York, New York 10021 Expert-in-Charge
Old Master Paintings and Drawings
(212) JL5-5000 (212) JL5-5121
He scratched the engraved letters with a thumbnail, sighed, and said, "If you'll wait here, ma'am, I'll be with you shortly."
Kenzie smiled. "Thank you."
She watched him shuffle inside to use the house phone and took the opportunity to look around at the too-tall buildings lining this short narrow block. Glancing out over the FDR Drive, she saw a tug nosing a barge upstream against the swift current of the East River. Then, turning in the opposite direction, she had to squint and hold up a hand to shield her eyes from the grit-filled blast of wind shooting through the vertical canyon from across the Hudson in New Jersey.
Hearing the doorman's discreet cough, Kenzie faced him with a smile. He looked sincerely apologetic. "I've spoken to the housekeeper, ma'am," he said with gravity as he handed Kenzie back her card. "She asked me to tell you that Miss P. is currently in Japan."
"Japan!" Kenzie frowned. "That's rather peculiar, isn't it? I mean, if she's overseas, why should she have called us?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said ever-so-politely, something in his manner conveying that they were both merely the victims of some higher power's whim. "I am only conveying what I was told."
Kenzie hesitated before shrugging philosophically. "Well, it's not your fault." She took several backward steps and raised a hand to sketch a friendly wave. "Thanks all the same."
He seemed grateful that she didn't pry any further. "Anytime, ma'am," he said, doffing his cap.
She started retracing her way back toward First Avenue when something ... a sudden premonition, perhaps? A kind of sixth sense? ...caused her to slow down and glance up at the building's blank windows. Abruptly she stopped walking.
Was it her imagination?
Or had her eye caught—what?
She wouldn't swear to it in a court of law. Nor even to herself. But by some keen intuition she had glimpsed—was it an hallucination? just wishful thinking on her account?—a curtain behind a closed fifth-floor window twitching furtively aside, and a ghostly face materializing before darting, swift as quicksilver, back into the shadows?
Kenzie, a shiver rippling up her spine, stood rooted to the spot, unable to keep herself from staring up at that window. It was dark and mysterious; the curtains still. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred.
Chiding herself for letting her imagination run amok, she walked reluctantly on, but not without giving that casement window one last upward glance over her shoulder.
It was just another blank window among countless multitudes, she told herself. So what if a curtain had moved? It could have been anyone's apartment; God alone knew how many tenants occupied a building of that size.
Fleetingly, she wondered whether this errand had been someone's idea of a bad joke.
Or had Lila Pons really wanted her collection appraised ... but then changed her mind at the very last minute?
Perhaps time would tell. And then again, perhaps it would not.
Either way, Kenzie knew she would not easily forget this particular wild-goose chase.
The very idea of calling upon one of the greatest screen legends of all time—especially one who had become a mysterious aged recluse living behind locked doors—only made this errand, in vain though it might have been, that much more fascinating.
Under her breath, Kenzie said softly, "I vant to be alone."
God, she thought in self-disgust. How unoriginal can I get?
"Tell whoever it is that I'm in ... Japan!"
Now, that was original, all right!
Especially when you wished upon a star.
And the most nebulous star, at that ...
Chapter 30
The instant Dina Goldsmith hit home, she let Julio know that she was not—repeat, not!—under any circumstances to be disturbed. With that decree, she repaired to her silk-walled boudoir, secure in the knowledge that she could spin her web in absolute privacy.
There, presided over by Sargent's elegant Countess of Essex and no less than two languid Boldini beauties, Dina slipped off her crocodile pumps and made herself comfortable on the plump-cushioned, Louis XV duchesse brisee, once the property of none other than that most celebrated connoisseur of French eighteenth-century furniture, Mrs. Charles (Jayne) Wrightsman. The very same Mrs. Wrightsman whose bequest of a series of Versailles-like rooms formed the nucleus of one of the Metropolitan Museum's major collections, the Wrightsman Rooms.
Humming softly to herself, Dina lifted the brass telephone off the table beside her and placed it on her lap.
There. Now she was all set.
But before getting on the horn, she permitted herself a moment's reflection.
The pair of full-length Boldinis, time-frozen survivors of an extinct, pre-war species, drew her eye. Tilting her head slightly, she perused them as fondly as she had on a thousand other such occasions.
Whenever her self-assurance faltered, she had only to come in here to draw strength from them, so powerful were their auras of complacent confidence, of leisured tranquility. She often wondered what kind of alchemy empowered them to reach out to her from within the gilded frames, what sort of magical osmosis took place that enabled them to give her self-esteem the necessary, vicarious boost.
Dina's thoughts turned to the task—the intrigue she and Becky V had so carefully and brilliantly devised.
Mentally reviewing each step of the process, she allowed herself the pleasure of self-congratulatory excitement.
Three months. Three long months. That was how long it had been since the party at the Met, when the idea of a match between Zandra and Karl-Heinz had first struck her. But it had remained exactly that, a mere idea. It had taken Becky V to help crystallize it into a tangible reality.
Too Damn Rich Page 30