Until You

by Sandra Marton

  "Was she a problem student, Miss Foster?"

  The headmistress smiled pityingly. "All our girls," she said, making it sound like gels, "are behaviorally challenged, Mr. O'Neil."

  He nodded and concentrated on keeping his expression neutral.

  "Do you recall in what particular way Miranda was, ah, behaviorally challenged?"

  Miss Foster pursed her lips. "It would be simpler to tell you in what ways she was not." She reached across her desk, opened the file, and pulled out the top page. "By the time she came to us, she had been expelled from three other boarding schools for everything from being intoxicated to inappropriate sexual behavior."

  "Inappropriate sexual... Could you be more specific, Miss Foster?"

  Agnes Foster fixed him with a cold eye. "I see no reason to, Mr. O'Neil. I think the term speaks for itself."

  It probably did. And it didn't really matter if the phrase meant Miranda had been caught behind a dorm with a local lad or if she'd been found in bed with the entire football team from a neighboring boys' school. He didn't need the information.

  Not officially.

  Conor frowned and shifted in the uncomfortable chair.

  "I understand she ran away from here," he said. "Is that right?"

  "Indeed. It was a terrible scandal, for us and for her poor mother."

  "Who did she run off with, Miss Foster? Do you recall?"

  "Distinctly. Count Edouard de Lasserre, the cousin of Miranda's roommate, Amalie." The headmistress's nostrils flared delicately. "To think that members of such a fine old French family should have been compromised by that girl... oh, it still makes my hackles rise!"

  "It was Miranda's doing, then?"

  "Of course it was! Amalie was beside herself, and her parents were furious. They removed her from our school at once and she returned to France. As for the Count—I must say, I felt pity for him."

  "You don't hold him responsible for what happened?"

  "I do not. Miranda was a corrupting influence, even at her tender age. She lured him into the situation. I am sorry, Mr. O'Neil, but I must be blunt. The Count de Lasserre should have been wiser but he had every man's appetites and weaknesses and Miranda played upon them."

  Conor looked up from the file. Agnes Foster's wrinkled cheeks were flushed. She wasn't sorry, she was simply delivering the gospel she lived by. He thought of telling her that men who let their gonads lead them around were no longer considered helpless creatures—but then he thought of the portrait of Miranda, and his embarrassing reaction to it, and changed his mind. Besides, arguing with this old battleaxe would get him nowhere.

  "How did her mother and stepfather react to the elopement, Miss Foster?"

  "How would you expect them to react, sir? They were beside themselves with worry. Why, Mrs. Winthrop chartered a plane and flew right to Paris."

  "And?"

  "And, that's all I know. I explained to Mrs. Winthrop, before she left, that we could not possibly re-admit her daughter. She asked me to recommend another school and I did, a very fine academy in Chilton known to have excellent results with difficult students."

  Conor frowned and thought back on his talk with Eva Winthrop. "She wasn't going to take Miranda home to live, then?"

  "No, certainly not."

  He nodded. Perhaps he'd misunderstood Eva. "So, you recommended a school, and...?"

  Miss Foster's bony shoulders rose and fell in an expressive shrug. "The girl never put in an appearance."

  "You've no idea what happened to her?"

  "None."

  Conor pushed back his chair. "Well, Miss Foster, thank you for your time."

  "It's just a pity, really. Miranda was really quite bright." The headmistress stabbed her index finger against the records file. "Just look at these grades."

  He looked at the neatly printed course names and the letters after them. A in math. A in science. In French. In philosophy.

  "Philosophy?"

  "Certainly." Miss Foster smiled. "We are great believers in the benefits of a well-rounded, classical education."

  Conor hoped his smile was at least the equal of hers. "As in Plato?"

  "We teach all the greats, sir. Plato. Kant..."

  "Santayana?"

  "By all means."

  Conor nodded. That was it, then. The girl had sent the note, just to get under Eva's skin. He'd stake his reputation on it. He'd fly back to D.C., tell Thurston to phone his pal, Winthrop, make sounds of reassurance to him and his wife, and consider the matter closed.

  He sighed, pushed back his chair, got to his feet and told himself he was happy to be done with the mess.

  "Thank you very much for your time, Miss Foster."

  "I hope I've been helpful, Mr. O'Neil." The headmistress rose, too, and came around the desk towards him. "Please be assured that, unlike Miranda Beckman, most of our girls profit by their experience here and—"

  Her hip brushed the file folder. It fell to the hardwood floor. Papers spilled in all directions, along with a small black and white photo.

  Conor bent down, retrieved the papers and the folder and put them on Agnes Foster's desk. But he held on to the photograph, his eyes riveted to the grainy image.

  It was a picture of Miranda.

  She was seated in the grass, her back against a tree, her legs tucked gracefully beneath her. There was a book in her lap—he couldn't read the title but it seemed to be a slim volume—and from the startled look on her face, he knew the photographer must have surprised her. Her dark hair was wind-tossed; she had one hand raised as if to brush it back from her eyes. The other hand lay curled in her lap, clutching something white. A handkerchief, he thought, or a tissue. And she was smiling. Really smiling. Not mysteriously but happily, as if all of life's most wonderful secrets were about to become hers.

  "...have to clean out these files!"

  Conor pulled his gaze from the photo. Agnes Foster was glaring at it as if it were a personal insult.

  "Sorry, Miss Foster. What did you say?"

  "I said, I can see that I'm going to have to go through these old files and sort them out."

  "When was this snapshot taken, do you know?"

  The headmistress took the picture from him. "Well," she said, "in the early spring, I should think. That's a dogwood tree. Do you see how it's starting to bloom?"

  He did, now that the woman had pointed it out. He saw, too, that what he'd taken for a tissue or a handkerchief in Miranda's hand was, in fact, a creamy dogwood blossom.

  "That's the sort of girl she was," Miss Foster said coldly. "Sitting on the grass when she knew it was forbidden, thoughtlessly plucking blossoms from the tree. I assure you, she would have been reprimanded for that."

  "This was taken just before she ran away with the Count de Lasserre, then."

  "Yes. In fact, I suspect he must have taken it." The headmistress's mouth tightened. "It was found in Miranda's closet, along with a few other things."

  "Such as?"

  "I don't recall, exactly. Some candy, I think, and a trashy book. Things she surely knew were forbidden. We pride ourselves on teaching self-discipline, Mr. O'Neil." Agnes Foster's nostrils flared. "Not that it did Miranda any good."

  "Oh, I can see that," Conor said evenly. "A girl who'd walk on the grass, sneak chocolate into the dormitory..."

  "They may seem minor infractions to you, sir, but our girls come to us with problems. They need a stern hand to guide them and I assure you, we attempted to offer that to Miranda. But it was too late. She was set in her ways, just as her mother and stepfather had warned us. She was self-centered. Selfish. A liar and a cheat." The headmistress's mouth twisted. "And promiscuous, to boot. I'm sorry to speak ill of a former student but I see no point in lying."

  Conor took the photo from the woman's bony hand. "I'd like to keep this, if I may."

  She looked as if he'd just suggested absconding with the school's funds.

  "That's out of the question, I'm afraid. The photo is school property. I can
not hand it over to just anyone."

  Lord, give me strength, Conor thought, but he gritted his teeth, drew himself to his full six feet two inches, and even managed a smile.

  "But I'm not 'anyone,' Miss Foster, I'm..." What? What ID had he shown the old broad? "I'm in charge of dealing with this matter," he said briskly. "And I'll be more than happy to give you an official receipt."

  Agnes Foster beamed. "In that case, the photo is yours."

  * * *

  He stopped at the first rest area on the highway, bought himself coffee, then took out his cell phone, called Harry Thurston and told him what he'd learned.

  "So, you think the girl sent Mama the note?" Thurston said.

  Conor undid his collar and loosened his tie.

  "Yeah, that's my best guess."

  "Why? Is she planning on blackmailing her?"

  "Maybe." An eighteen-wheeler roared past. "Or maybe she just wants to shake her up. I'm not sure. Either way, it looks like it's all in the family."

  "Yes, well, thanks for doing the leg work, my boy. You come on in, write it up and I'll hand your report to the Committee and that'll be the end of it."

  Those were the words Conor had been waiting for. So why was he taking a deep breath, turning his back to the noise of the traffic and running the tip of his tongue over his dry lips?

  "Listen, Harry, I've been thinking about what you said. Hoyt Winthrop's a personal friend of yours, right? It would be really bad news if it turns out that I'd overlooked something, especially after I put all this time into the preliminaries."

  All this time? He 'd been at this, what, a grand total of forty-eight hours?

  "Such devotion and loyalty," Thurston said with a wry chuckle. "What's the bottom line?"

  "I think somebody should check out Miranda Beckman."

  "That seems logical."

  "And this de Lasserre character, too."

  "Meaning?"

  Conor took another deep breath. "Meaning, a couple of days in Paris and I'll be able to nail the lid on this thing."

  "You? Go to Paris?"

  "Check my passport, Harry," Conor said drily. "I've been there before."

  Thurston laughed. "Oh, you are a clever one, O'Neil. You didn't want to touch this with a ten-foot pole but now that it means a couple days strolling the Champs Elysees, you figure, why not?"

  Conor laughed, too. "You know me. 'Ask not what your country can do for you...' "

  "Well, why not? Go to France, parlay fransay with Miranda Winthrop..."

  "Beckman."

  "Beckman, Winthrop, whatever. Sacrifice yourself on an altar of mademoiselles, fromages and vin rouge, and we'll put this one to bed."

  Conor laughed again. Then he ended the call, took the picture of Miranda Beckman from his pocket and looked at it. After a long minute, he got back into his rental car and pulled out onto the road.

  * * *

  He flew Air France, business class, and though he was usually good at catching a long nap on a flight, he couldn't manage it this time.

  He asked the hostess for a couple of magazines and she obliged with a Time he'd already read, a Forbes that didn't interest him, and a copy of something French.

  Miranda was right inside the cover, smiling that cool, Mona Lisa smile.

  It was an ad for perfume, maybe, or jewelry. He had no idea which and it didn't matter. He just thought that only a photographic trick could make a woman look so innocent and so sexy at the same time. And when his body reacted, the blood pooling hot in his loins in a way that had become increasingly familiar over the past few days, he finally admitted the truth to himself.

  He wasn't going to Paris to close out the Winthrop file. He was going because he needed to take a cold, in-person look at Miranda Beckman and put an end to whatever in hell was going on inside his head and in other, far more primitive parts of his anatomy.

  Boys got hard-ons from pictures, not men. And he had left boyhood behind a long time ago.

  Chapter 4

  Paris, two days later

  The thin, bright light of the early January morning spilled over the glass pyramid that was the entrance to the Louvre.

  Conor had seen the pyramid before, when he'd been assigned to the Embassy as a "cultural liaison," meaning he'd spent his time trying to look inconspicuous instead of slipping across the Iraqi border on moonless nights or meeting with armed rebels on mountaintops in places that were impossible to find on an ordinary map.

  A smile tilted at the corner of his lips as he headed towards the pyramid over the centuries-old stones of the courtyard. Looking inconspicuous was going to be a tough order this morning, considering that there was a fashion show being held here today.

  Ted Hamlin, an old friend at the embassy who'd snagged him an admission ticket, had known better than to ask why Conor needed it, but that hadn't kept him from damn near laughing his head off.

  "You? At a fashion show?" Hamlin had rocked back in his chair. "Oh pal, are you gonna be in trouble. Unless you develop a lisp real fast or figure out a way to double for Rod Stewart, you're gonna stand out like a hound dog at a chihuahua convention."

  Conor had given Hamlin a cool smile. "I just love that country-boy humor of yours," he'd said, pocketing the ticket and walking off, but he suspected Ted was right.

  Once he reached the entrance to the showing, which was being held inside the Cour Carree, he was sure of it.

  The guy manning the gate looked at Conor's pass and then at him. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. Conor returned the favor. How else would you look at somebody with fuschia hair who was wearing a ripped Mickey Mouse T-shirt, jeans that could easily turn a man into a castrato, and combat boots? Six silver studs climbed the lobe of one ear and three tiny gold hoops dangled from the other. Assorted goodies pierced everything from the guy's eyebrows to his lips but the piece de resistance was a diamond-studded safety pin that was clipped straight through his nostrils.

  Conor realized he'd been staring.

  "Americain?" the ticket-taker asked, his safety-pin quivering with disdain.

  Conor smiled. Clearly, his grey tweed jacket, charcoal trousers, white button-down shirt and maroon tie didn't pass muster.

  "Yes," he said pleasantly. "And you? Martian?"

  "Very funny," the guy snapped, in perfect English. "The seats with the ribbons around them are reserved for important guests. The others are available to people like you—if you're lucky enough to find one that's not in use."

  Conor grinned. "Thank you so much," he said, and made his way inside.

  It was like stepping into organized chaos. Hot lights glittered, heavy-metal music blasted, and a wave of perfume strong enough to choke an ox filled the air. Chairs, most of them filled with women dressed in what Conor supposed was the height of fashion, were lined up in tight rows from where he stood to the front of the room, where they were bisected by a catwalk that extended out from a stage draped in scarlet silk.

  Ted Hamlin had been right about the men. There weren't many of them but Conor certainly couldn't have fit into their ranks. One, who seemed to be taking all this very seriously, was dressed in pink shorts, thigh-high boots and a torn purple T-shirt. Another, who just had to be a drag queen in full regalia, sat on an aisle, and to his—or her—left, an aging but still famous rocker sat between two stunning women whose outfits were no match for his.

  "No pictures, no pictures," the rock star was saying loudly, even though there wasn't a camera pointed anywhere near him.

  Conor sighed. A fox would have an easier job blending into a hen house than he had of blending in here. Not that he had intentions of even trying. He just had to figure a way to slip backstage so he could find Miranda Beckman, talk to her, try to make some sense out of what was going on—for the Committee, of course, because a night's sleep had made him realize that whatever else he'd believed had brought him here was nonsense.

  One look and the Beckman babe would turn into what he already knew she was, a spoiled brat who'd never quite g
rown up, a gorgeous piece with the morals of a slut—and then he could stop thinking about her, stop imagining those sad eyes and that secretive smile...

  "Monsieur?"

  A hand tugged sharply at his sleeve. Conor looked down. A tiny woman with a fox-like face was giving him the same sort of look he'd already gotten at the door.

  "What are you doing here?" she demanded in swift Parisian French.

  Conor fumbled in his pocket. "I have a pass," he said, in French almost as swift as hers. "I assure you—"

  "Merde!" Her fingers bit into his wrist. "Do not show me your card here, you fool. Do you want everyone to know who you are?"

  "Madame?"

  "Oh, mon dieu, I am so weary of dealing with stupid people. It is bad enough you stand out like a sore thumb dressed in that stupid outfit. Must you also wave your identification card around and announce to the world that you are Security?"

  John O'Neil had not raised a stupid son. "Certainly not," Conor said, with just the right amount of chagrin.

  "We need coverage backstage. That is where you should be."

  "Of course."

  The woman's eyes narrowed. "You are Security, yes?"

  Conor rolled his eyes. "Look," he said, reaching into his pocket again, "let me show you my—"

  "No, no, don't do that!" The woman jerked her head towards the stage. "Go on," she hissed, "get to work. Remember, no one gets into the dressing room without a special pass. I don't care if it's the pope himself, you understand? You will protect Monsieur Diderot's designs with your life!"

  Conor did his best not to click his heels and salute.

  "Oui, madame," he said.

  A moment later, he'd vaulted onto the stage, parted the curtains and stepped into another world.

  If it was chaos out front, it was a madhouse back here. There was no other word to describe it, he thought, staring around him in bemusement. The noise. The clouds of hair spray. The smoke from what had to be a zillion unfiltered Gauloises.