Sins

by Gould, Judith

  She pulled her free hand out from under the covers and reached out as if to stroke him. She kept her fingers a bare fraction of an inch above him. Affectionately her extended index finger followed the noble shape of his forehead, down along the bridge of his nose, almost but not quite brushing across his lips. She let her hand linger there, loving the soft feel of the warm whispers of his breath.

  'Sleep well, my love,' she whispered softly, 'sleep well.'

  That she was awake and he was cocooned in the soothing blanket of his sleep didn't seem to matter. She was content just to know that he was there beside her. That he would always be there. She enjoyed just being able to look at him. Even asleep, he seemed powerful. He slept on his side, his body relaxed.

  She twisted slowly around in the bed, afraid that any sudden move might awaken him. She smiled to herself in the pale blue light as she reflected on their night of lovemaking. He had been so strong and demanding. His thrusts had been powerful as he stroked deep and hard within her. Moaning, she had felt herself heat up, and clasped him tightly, responding to his every move. She had experienced one exquisite orgasm after another. Then he had fallen asleep with his head buried between her breasts. Now she felt complete. She was going to be the Duchess of Farquaharshire.

  She glanced at the alarm clock. It ticked softly on the nightstand in rhythm with his breathing. The faint green numbers glowed softly. It was a little past six.

  They had been up almost all night, and still she couldn't go to sleep. In half an hour she would have to get up. But she didn't feel at all tired. She felt. . .yes—satiated. Rejuvenated. Awakened.

  Gently she played the fingertips of her right hand across the finger on her left. Once again the massive yellow Somerset Sun was heavy on her finger, this time for good. In six hours they would be at City Hall and together climb the wide, sweeping steps to the marriage bureau. Nigel was hers. Hers alone. She felt better now than she had at any other time in her life.

  She reached up to the nightstand and felt for the piece of paper that lay in front of the alarm clock. She wanted to touch it, to make certain it was still there. It was. Nigel had given it to her last night in the Cafe Carlyle. He had flown to New York to beg once again for her hand in marriage and to present her with the Somerset Sun. And this time, she hadn't refused him. Once she'd let him slip the big ring onto her finger, he had reached into his wallet and pushed the certified check drawn on his account at Morgan Guaranty Trust across the tablecloth toward her. She had stared down at it. It was made out to Hélène Junot for eleven million dollars. She didn't have to be told what it was for. To pay the bank loan and save HJII from the vultures.

  She had pushed the light blue check back toward him. 'No, Nigel,' she said firmly. 'This has got to stay out of it. You have your businesses and I have mine. They have nothing to do with our love.'

  He put his hand firmly over hers. The check was in the middle of the table, caught in a tug-of-war under her fingertips. He shook his head. 'Our empires have everything to do with our love, darling,' he said softly. 'Don't you see? We're builders, you and I. We're both power-seekers. You in your way, I in mine. That's what brought us together in the first place. That's what's kept us together all this time. We share more than just love. We share ambitions and dreams. Besides,' he added quickly, 'consider it a loan. You may repay it at your convenience.'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' she said.

  'I'm not, don't you be.' He leaned back in his chair and studied her levelly. There was a proud, determined pout to her lips. He knew that she needed help. He had also known that she would refuse it. But just this once, he couldn't give in. There was too much at stake and she had too much pride.

  Much too much for her own damn good. He would have to make her see reason.

  He chose his words carefully now and spoke hurriedly. 'Hélène, if I'm to be your husband, you must trust me enough to let me help you. Don't always try so hard to be so bloody independent. There are times each of us needs a little help.'

  'This isn't why I agreed to marry you.'

  'I know that,' he said gently. 'It's the reason why you kept on saying no'

  She nodded. Silently she looked down at the check, then over into his eyes.

  'Go on, take it,' he said. Then he grinned. 'You accepted a three-million-dollar diamond without qualms. What's wrong with a check for eleven million?'

  'It's not the same,' she said with stubborn dignity. 'You know that.'

  He reached across the table, clasped both his hands around hers, and pressed them. 'Darling, I love you,' he said softly. 'And I know how important HJII is to you. Too important for you to let it go down the drain because of foolish pride.' He looked steadily into her eyes. 'Take it,' he commanded her gently.

  And she had taken it, promising to repay him with interest. And he had laughed. 'Marriage is a partnership,' he said, 'or didn't you know that?'

  'I know that,' she said in a trembling voice.

  He smiled. 'Just don't ever forget who'll wear the pants in this family. You'll have your business, but I intend to take care of you. I'm very old- fashioned. Is that clear?'

  Suddenly her knees felt weak. She was glad that she was sitting down. Her voice dropped to a whisper. 'I. . .I'll be sure to Remember that.'

  2

  Robert Rowen got to the Staten Island ferry terminal about fifteen minutes early. He located the men's room but didn't go inside yet. Instead, he decided to kill time by walking around the terminal. He despised public rest rooms.

  A foghorn cried out mournfully as a Staten Island ferry pulled up in the foggy semidarkness, its windows ghostly rows of yellow light. A moment later it thumped against the terminal, sending a tremor through it. As he watched, a mass of passengers hurried off. He shivered and dug his hands into his pockets. It was too cold for a trench coat, even with the heavy knit sweater and jacket underneath. Everyone else was well-bundled for winter. And he felt silly having to wear the red carnation in his buttonhole. It drew too much attention to him. This meeting had all the ingredients of a disagreeable thriller.

  As eight o'clock came around, he knew it was time he went into the men's room. Once inside, he glanced around suspiciously. It was deserted. There was no one at the urinals, and all the cubicles were empty.

  For a few minutes he waited impatiently for the whisperer to make contact. Then he felt foolish just standing there. He went and pretended to use the urinal. He glanced at his watch. Already it was five after eight.

  A few more minutes passed. Then he heard the door behind him opening and banging shut. He held his breath as he sneaked a glance backward. A man in a business suit had come in. Rowen turned his face away as the man approached the urinal beside his and set his briefcase down on the floor. Zip! The faint but unmistakable sound of a zipper sounded loud and obscene. Then he heard the splash of urine.

  He glanced toward the man out of the corners of his eyes. Already the man was preparing to leave. Again Rowen averted his head; the man was turning around. Then he heard his footsteps. A moment later, the door opened and banged shut. He was alone again.

  He wondered now if the voice on the phone had just been playing some kind of sick joke on him. Thinking about it now, he saw how foolish he had been to fall for it. A million dollars! No one in his right mind gave away a million dollars. Not for any reason. Least of all not for ten million dollars' worth of shares in a publishing company. That was an extra ten percent on top of the market price. Whoever wanted them would have a chance to bid on them anyway. Yes, it was high time he screwed his head on right and saw reason. He'd simply forget all this nonsense and go to the office early and get caught up on some backlog. What a fool he had been! A million dollars!

  As he turned to leave, something caught his eye. The man had forgotten his briefcase. It was still sitting beside the urinal. He'd have to run after him and tell him. No, he'd catch up with him with the briefcase. That was better.

  Quickly he went to collect it. Suddenly he felt his skin start
ing to crawl. An engraved brass nameplate was screwed into the top of the case. The name was his.

  Robert Rowen.

  Slowly he bent down to pick it up. Was it for real? Maybe he was going crazy and imagining it? Once he had the handle in his hand, he knew it was no mirage. And it was heavy. A lot of money was heavy. But then, so was paper. Or lead. Or any of a dozen things.

  He took the briefcase with him into one of the booths and locked the door. Then he sat down on the stained toilet seat and placed the briefcase on his lap. He stared at it in silent fascination.

  'You're being a sucker,' a miserable little voice warned him. 'You're falling for the joke.'

  But he couldn't help himself. He found himself fiddling with the catches. With a loud snap, they sprang open. His heart started to hammer against his ribs. Slowly he lifted the lid.

  He sucked in his breath. Neat bundles of twenty-dollar bills were stacked inside, each bundle held together by inch-wide strips of white paper stamped by the bank. Each package was stamped '$10,000.' There were fifty such bundles.

  He examined a few of the bills and shook his head. He couldn't believe it! They weren't phony. It was really money, all right.

  It was no joke.

  3

  'Double-crossing bitches!' Hubert de Léger's face was white with rage, but the purple splotches on his cheeks that came from burst blood vessels stood out clearly. For a moment he glared at the telephone in his hand. Then he raised it up above his head and brought it crashing down. It let out a painfully weak ring as it hit the corner of his ormolu desk and then bounced to the floor, the expectant crash muffled by the lush, sculptured pile of the Edward Fields carpet. He kicked the offending instrument out of his way as he stomped to the door. Flinging it open, he rushed out of the book-lined library. His chest was heaving and his breaths were coming in short gasps. He didn't bother to take the suede-lined elevator; the stairs were quicker. He went running down them two at a time. Once in the foyer, he stopped and looked around wildly. The town house was quiet. There wasn't a sound to be heard.

  'Eduard!' he roared.

  A moment later his imperturbable butler opened the double doors from within the living room. 'Oui, Monsieur le Comte?' he said calmly.

  Hubert glared at him darkly. 'My car! Have it brought around immediately!'

  'Oui, Monsieur le Comte.' The butler turned and started to leave.

  'And hurry for once, you slothful, ass-dragging. . .' Fuming, Hubert broke off as he struggled in vain to find the expressive noun he was looking for. More frustrated than ever, he made a contemptuous gesture. His voice was now a high-pitched screech. 'Move it!'

  'Of course, Monsieur le Comte,' the butler said with toneless dignity. His face remained an impassive mask. He was long since used to Hubert's tirades and suffered them in silence. But this was the worst one yet. Vaguely he wondered what had happened to trigger it, but then he swallowed his curiosity. It was none of a good butler's business. He withdrew with implacable calm and left Hubert to pace the foyer impatiently.

  When the Mercedes finally rolled up in front of the brownstone, Hubert immediately rushed outside, not even bothering to throw on a coat. He didn't wait for the chauffeur to help him. He jumped right in and slammed the door shut. 'The Pierre!' he screamed.

  With a burst of speed, the Mercedes surged smoothly off across East Sixty-eighth Street.

  A drink. Feeling somewhat better already, now that he had come to some sort of decisive and positive step, he leaned forward, yanked the door of the bar cabinet open, and reached inside. He grabbed a bottle of Armagnac by the neck and fished it out from its shelf. For a moment he turned the bottle in his hands, feeling the smoothness of the glass. He licked his lips. They felt suddenly dry and cracked. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was.

  Quickly, without wasting another second, he wrestled with the cork. Then he heard the satisfyingly familiar plop and the faint hiss of escaped air. He smiled and lifted the bottle to his lips, drawing on it hungrily, his lips sucking noisily like a starving baby at its mother's breast.

  He took a deep breath as the heat of the alcohol burned down his throat and then rushed soothingly throughout his body, bringing a pleasing numbness to his limbs. He sank back in the seat, his hand clutching the bottle by the neck as if someone might snatch it away from him. Clumsily he rested his left elbow on the padded armrest and stared blankly out the side window, his hand at his mouth. Without realizing it, he began gnawing on his fingernails.

  She had done it! he thought miserably. Somehow, against all odds and right under his very nose, she had managed to marry herself off quietly—to one of the frigging richest men in the world, no less—and repay the bank loan! How? How how how how how was that at all possible? How, without his knowing it? Had it all been settled when she'd stopped in England in the Lear jet on her way to New York a week ago? When he'd found out where she'd interrupted the flight, he hadn't attached any significance to it. He had been sure, so damned sure, that he and the others held all the cards. But now? Now it was clear that she'd kept something hidden up her sleeve. But why hadn't his detectives been on their toes? That's what he was paying them so handsomely for. And above all, how had Nigel Somerset managed to leave England and sneak into New York without his even knowing it? Somerset was supposed to be watched night and day.

  Hubert's coal-black eyes flashed. All along, his detectives had assured him that Nigel Somerset was still at Fallsworth. Well, he wasn't. That much even he knew. And what a fool he'd made of himself! Just six and a half hours earlier, he'd made the five-hundred-thousand-dollar drop to Rowen. A half-million dollars! And for nothing!

  He started to shake anew with fury, just thinking of the telephone calls. Until he'd been on the phone, he hadn't even had an inkling of what was up. Nobody had bothered to inform him about anything. And that Rowen! He took a savage swig of Armagnac. Driblets of the liquid ran down his chin from the corners of his mouth. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. That Rowen was a son of a bitch!

  He could feel a fiery hatred burning within him. Rowen was enough to make him sick. But he'd get him! He'd ruin him! Somehow, somewhere, he'd see to it that his banking career came to an end.

  Up until he'd talked to Rowen this afternoon, it had seemed that everything was well under control. He had just called him to have him verify that the briefcase indeed contained a half-million. Not that he'd suspected anything had gone wrong. After all, he himself had watched Rowen from a distance as he'd come out of the men's room carrying the briefcase. He didn't really know what it was that made him call. Instinct, perhaps. Just to make sure. To add a bit more pressure.

  'Robert Rowen speaking,' the man's deep, familiar voice had said over the wire after the secretary had made the connection.

  'Is everything in order?' Hubert had used his whisper, the same whisper he'd used first on Gore, and now on Rowen. 'Did you count the money?'

  Rowen's voice was very clear and casual. 'I beg your pardon?'

  A sudden foreboding constricted Hubert's heart. 'The money!' he hissed sharply. 'Did you count it?'

  'Who is this? What money are you talking about?' Rowen's voice was properly indignant.

  Hubert stared at the receiver. It suddenly dawned on him that something had gone wrong. It wasn't as if Rowen didn't recognize his voice. It was something else.

  'You know very well what money!' Hubert hissed harshly. 'The money in the briefcase you picked up in the men's room!'

  'I'm sorry, sir,' Rowen had replied politely. 'I believe you must have the wrong extension.'

  'Listen, you creep!' Hubert spit out venomously. 'I warned you about what would happen if you tried to double-cross us!'

  'I beg your pardon?' Rowen's voice was noncommittal.

  'I'll ruin you!' Hubert was screaming now; the last vestiges of the whisper were gone.

  'I'm sorry, sir,' Rowen said calmly. 'It is obvious that you have the wrong extension. I see absolutely no reason for continuing this conversation. Good
day.'

  Hubert stared incredulously at his telephone receiver. Rowen had hung up on him. Hung up! His mind was flying. What could have gone wrong?

  He could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead as his fingers quickly dialed Hélène's office. While he waited, he jumped to his feet and stared out the window behind him. The curtains were drawn aside and there was a good view of his back garden. The trees and shrubbery were bare and skeletal, the ground around the flagstones frozen. He listened as the phone at the other end began to ring. It was picked up halfway through the third ring.

  'Good afternoon, Miss Junot's office.' The Sphinx's unmistakable voice was brisk and businesslike.

  'This is the Comte de Léger. Is she in?'

  'I'm sorry, sir. Miss Junot won't be back until two weeks from this coming Friday.'

  'Two weeks. .. What! B-but I don't understand,' Hubert stuttered. He turned away from the window and sank back down into his chair. He reached for a handkerchief and mopped his forehead furiously. 'There must be some mistake. There was a meeting scheduled for late this afternoon!'

  'I was told to cancel it, sir. I just tried calling you, but your line was busy.'

  For a moment Hubert was silent as he tried to compose himself. Then he found his voice. 'Where is she?' he asked softly.

  He thought he could detect a gleeful laugh in her voice. 'Actually, Miss Junot is no longer Miss Junot, sir. At twelve o'clock noon she officially became the Duchess of Farquharshire.'

  Hubert could feel the blood draining from his head. It wasn't possible! He closed his eyes. His library was suddenly reeling around him like the world from a merry-go-round. 'And the bank loan?' he whispered.

  'Which bank loan are you referring to, sir?'

  'The one for ten million dollars!' he snapped irritably.

  'I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know anything about that.'

  'Bitch!' Hubert slammed down the receiver. Didn't anybody know anything? He stared at the telephone. He'd make one last call. Much as he despised Edmond Junot, he, at least, might be able to shed some light on this mystery.