“What have you heard about them?” she asked.
“I know they died in Paris.”
“In the line of duty. Uncle Hugh says it was a classified mission and refuses to talk about it, so we never do.” She stopped circling and turned to face him. “I seem to be thinking about it a lot these days.”
“Why?”
“Because it happened on the fifteenth of July. Twenty years ago tomorrow.”
He moved toward her, his face still hidden in shadow. “Who reared you, then? Your uncle?”
She smiled. “‘Reared’is a bit of an exaggeration. Uncle Hugh gave us a home, and then he pretty much turned us loose to grow up as we pleased. Jordan’s done quite well for himself, I think. Gone to university and all. But then, Jordie’s the smart one in the family.”
Richard moved closer—so close she thought she could see his eyes glittering above her in the darkness. “And which one are you?”
“I suppose…I suppose I’m the wild one.”
“The wild one,” he murmured. “Yes, I think I can tell….”
He touched her face. With that one brief contact, he left her skin tingling. She was suddenly aware of her pounding heart, her quickening breath. Why am I letting this happen? she wondered. I thought I’d sworn off romance. But now this man I scarcely know is dragging me back into the game—a game at which I’ve proved myself a miserable failure. It’s stupid, it’s impulsive. It’s insanity itself.
And it’s leaving me quite hungry for more….
His lips grazed hers; it was the lightest of kisses, but it was heady with the taste of champagne. At once she craved another kiss, a longer kiss. For a moment, they stared at each other, both hovering on the edge of temptation.
Beryl surrendered first. She swayed toward him, against him. His arms went around her, trapping her in their embrace. Eagerly she met his lips, met his kiss with one just as fierce.
“The wild one,” he whispered. “Yes, definitely the wild one.”
“Demanding, too…”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“…and very difficult.”
“I hadn’t noticed….”
They kissed again, and by the ragged sound of his breathing, she knew that he, too, was a helpless victim of desire. Suddenly a devilish impulse seized her.
She pulled away. Coyly she asked, “Now will you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he asked, plainly confused.
“Whom you really work for?”
He paused. “Sakaroff and Wolf, Inc.,” he said. “Security consultants.”
“Wrong answer,” she said. Then, laughing wickedly, she turned and scampered out of the maze.
Paris
At 8:45, as was her habit, Marie St. Pierre patted on her bee pollen face cream, ran a brush through her stiff gray hair, and then slipped under the covers of her bed. She flicked on the TV remote control and awaited her favorite program of the week—“Dynasty.” Though the voices were obviously dubbed and the settings garishly American, the stories were close to her heart. Love and power. Pain and retribution. Yes, Marie knew all about love and pain. It was the retribution part she hadn’t quite mastered. Every time the anger bubbled up inside her and those old fantasies of revenge began to play out in her mind, she had only to consider the consequences of such action, and all thoughts of vengeance died. No, she loved Philippe too much. And they had come so far together! From finance minister to prime minister would be such a short, short climb….
She suddenly focused on the TV as a brief news item flashed on the screen—the London economic summit. Would Philippe’s face appear? No, just a pan of the conference table, a five-second view of two dozen men in suits and ties. No Philippe. She sat back in disappointment and wondered, for the hundredth time, if she should have accompanied her husband to London. She hated to fly, and he’d warned her the trip would be tiresome. Better to stay home, he’d told her; she would hate London.
Still, it might have been nice to go away with him for a few days. Just the two of them in a hotel room. A change of scenery, a new bed. It might have been the spark their marriage so terribly needed—
A thought suddenly crossed her mind. A thought so painful that it twisted her heart in knots. Here I am. And there is Philippe, alone in London….
Or was he alone?
She sat trembling for a moment, considering the possibilities. The images. At last she could resist the impulse no longer. She reached for the telephone and dialed Nina Sutherland’s Paris apartment.
The phone rang and rang. She hung up and dialed again. Still it rang unanswered. She stared at the receiver. So Nina has gone to London, too, she thought. And there they would be together, in his hotel room. While I wait at home in Paris.
She rose from the bed. “Dynasty” had just come on the TV; she ignored it. Instead she got dressed. Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions, she thought. Perhaps Nina is really home and refuses to answer her telephone.
She would drive past Nina’s apartment in Neuilly. Check the windows to see if her lights were on inside.
And if they were not?
No, she wouldn’t think about that, not yet.
Fully dressed now, she hurried downstairs, picked up her purse and keys in the darkened living room, and opened the front door. Just as she felt the night air against her face, her ears were blasted by a deafening roar.
The explosion threw her off her feet, flinging her forward down the front steps. Only her outstretched arms beneath her prevented her head from slamming against the concrete. She was vaguely aware of glass raining down around her and then of the soft crackle of flames. Slowly she managed to roll over onto her back. There she lay, staring upward at the fingers of fire shooting through her bedroom window.
It was meant for her, she thought. The bomb was meant for her.
As fire sirens wailed closer, she lay on her back in the broken glass and thought, Is this what it’s come to, my love?
And she watched her bedroom burn above her.
Two
Buckinghamshire, England
The Eiffel Tower was melting. Jordan stood beside the buffet table and watched the water drip, drip from the ice sculpture into the silver platter of oysters below it. So much for Bastille Day, he thought wearily. Another night, another party. And this one’s about run its course.
“You have had more than enough oysters for one night, Reggie,” said a peevish voice. “Or have you forgotten your gout?”
“Haven’t had an attack in months.”
“Only because I’ve been watching your diet,” said Helena.
“Then tonight, dear,” said Reggie, plucking up another oyster, “would you mind looking the other way?” He lifted the shell to his mouth and tipped the oyster. Nirvana was written on his face as the slippery glob slid into his throat.
Helena shuddered. “It’s disgusting, eating a live animal.” She glanced at Jordan, noting his quietly bemused look. “Don’t you agree?”
Jordan gave a diplomatic shrug. “A matter of upbringing, I suppose. In some cultures, they eat termites. Or quivering fish. I’ve even heard of monkeys, their heads shaved, immobilized—”
“Oh, please,” groaned Helena.
Jordan quickly escaped before the marital spat could escalate. It was not a healthy place to be, caught between a feuding husband and wife. Lady Helena, he suspected, normally held the upper hand; money usually did.
He wandered over to join Finance Minister Philippe St. Pierre and found himself trapped in a lecture on world economics. The summit was a failure, Philippe declared. The Americans want trade concessions but refuse to learn fiscal responsibility. And on and on and on. It was almost a relief when bugle-beaded Nina Sutherland swept into the conversation, trailing her peacock son, Anthony.
“It’s not as if Americans are the only ones who have to clean up their act,” snorted Nina. “We’re none of us doing very well these days, even the French. Or don’t you agree, Philippe?”
Philippe flus
hed under her direct gaze. “We are all of us having difficulties, Nina—”
“Some of us more than others.”
“It is a worldwide recession. One must be patient.”
Nina’s jaw shot up. “And what if one cannot afford to wait?” She drained her glass and set it down sharply. “What then, Philippe, darling?”
Conversation suddenly ceased. Jordan noticed that Helena was watching them amusedly, that Philippe was clutching his glass in a white-knuckled fist. What the blazes was going on here? he wondered. Some private feud? Bizarre tensions were weaving through the gathering tonight. Perhaps it’s all that free-flowing champagne. Certainly Reggie had had too much. Their portly houseguest had wandered from the oyster tray to the champagne table. With an unsteady hand, he picked up yet another glass and raised it to his lips. No one was acting quite right tonight. Not even Beryl.
Certainly not Beryl.
He spied his sister as she reentered the ballroom. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittering with some unearthly fire. Close on her heels was the American, looking just as flushed and more than a little bothered. Ah, thought Jordan with a smile. A bit of hanky-panky in the garden, was it? Well, good for her. Poor Beryl could use some fresh romance in her life, anything to make her forget that chronically unfaithful surgeon.
Beryl whisked up a glass of champagne from a passing servant and headed Jordan’s way. “Having fun?” she asked him.
“Not as much as you, I suspect.” He glanced across at Richard Wolf, who’d just been waylaid by some American businessman. “So,” he whispered, “did you wring a confession out of him?”
“Not a thing.” She smiled over her champagne glass. “Extremely tight-lipped.”
“Really?”
“But I’ll have another go at him later. After I let him cool his heels for a while.”
Lord, how beautiful his baby sister could be when she was happy, thought Jordan. Which, it seemed, wasn’t very often lately. Too much passion in that heart of hers; it made her far more vulnerable than she’d ever admit. For a year now she’d been lying doggo, had dropped out entirely from the old mating game. She’d even given up her charity work at St. Luke’s—a job she’d dearly loved. It was too painful, always running into her ex-lover on the hospital grounds.
But tonight the old sparkle was back in her eyes and he was glad to see it. He noticed how it flared even more brightly as Richard Wolf glanced her way. All those flirtatious looks passing back and forth! He could almost feel the crackle of electricity flying between them.
“…a well-deserved honor, of course, but a bit late, don’t you think, Jordan?”
Jordan glanced in puzzlement at Reggie Vane’s flushed face. The man had been drinking entirely too much. “Excuse me,” he said, “I’m afraid I wasn’t following.”
“The Queen’s medal for Leo Sinclair. You remember Leo, don’t you? Wonderful chap. Killed a year and a half ago. Or was it two years?” He gave his head a little shake, as though to clear it. “Anyway, they’re just getting ’round to giving the widow his medal. I think that’s inexcusable.”
“Not everyone who was killed in the Gulf got a medal,” Nina Sutherland cut in.
“But Leo was Intelligence,” said Reggie. “He deserved some sort of honor, considering how he…died.”
“Perhaps it was just an oversight,” said Jordan. “Papers getting mislaid, that sort of thing. MI6 does try to honor its dead, and Leo sort of fell through the cracks.”
“The way Mum and Dad did,” said Beryl. “They died in the line of duty. And they never got a medal.”
“Line of duty?” said Reggie. “Not exactly.” He lifted the champagne glass unsteadily to his lips. Suddenly he paused, aware that the others were staring at him. The silence stretched on, broken only by the clatter of an oyster shell on someone’s plate.
“What do you mean by ‘not exactly’?” asked Beryl.
Reggie cleared his throat. “Surely…Hugh must have told you….” He looked around and his face blanched. “Oh, no,” he murmured, “I’ve put my foot in it this time.”
“Told us what, Reggie?” Jordan persisted.
“But it was public knowledge,” said Reggie. “It was in all the Paris newspapers….”
“Reggie,” Jordan said slowly. Deliberately. “Our understanding was that my mother and father were shot in Paris. That it was murder. Is that not true?”
“Well, of course there was a murder involved—”
“A murder?” Jordan cut in. “As in singular?”
Reggie glanced around, befuddled. “I’m not the only one here who knows about it. You were all in Paris when it happened!”
For a few heartbeats, no one said a thing. Then Helena added, quietly, “It was a very long time ago, Jordan. Twenty years. It hardly makes a difference now.”
“It makes a difference to us,” Jordan insisted. “What happened in Paris?”
Helena sighed. “I told Hugh he should’ve been honest with you, instead of trying to bury it.”
“Bury what?” asked Beryl.
Helena’s mouth drew tight.
It was Nina who finally spoke the truth. Brazen Nina, who had never bothered with subtleties. She said flatly, “The police said it was a murder. Followed by a suicide.”
Beryl stared at Nina. Saw the other woman’s gaze meet hers without flinching. “No,” she whispered.
Gently Helena touched her shoulder. “You were just a child, Beryl. Both of you were. And Hugh didn’t think it was appropriate—”
Beryl said again, “No,” and pulled away from Helena’s outstretched hand. Suddenly she whirled and fled in a rustle of blue silk across the ballroom.
“Thank you. All of you,” said Jordan coldly. “For your most refreshing candor.” Then he, too, turned and headed across the room in pursuit of his sister.
He caught up with her on the staircase. “Beryl?”
“It’s not true,” she said. “I don’t believe it!”
“Of course it’s not true.”
She halted on the stairs and looked down at him. “Then why are they all saying it?”
“Ugly rumors. What else can it be?”
“Where’s Uncle Hugh?”
Jordan shook his head. “He’s not in the ballroom.”
Beryl looked up toward the second floor. “Come on, Jordie,” she said, her voice tight with determination. “We’re going to set this thing straight.”
Together they climbed the stairs.
Uncle Hugh was in his study; through the closed door, they could hear him speaking in urgent tones. Without knocking, they pushed inside and confronted him.
“Uncle Hugh?” said Beryl.
Hugh cut her off with a sharp motion for silence. He turned his back and said into the telephone, “It is definite, Claude? Not a gas leak or anything like that?”
“Uncle Hugh!”
Stubbornly he kept his back turned to her. “Yes, yes,” he said into the phone, “I’ll tell Philippe at once. God, this is horrid timing, but you’re right, he has no choice. He’ll have to fly back tonight.” Looking stunned, Hugh hung up and stared at the telephone.
“Did you tell us the truth?” asked Beryl. “About Mum and Dad?”
Hugh turned and frowned at her in bewilderment. “What? What are you talking about?”
“You told us they were killed in the line of duty,” said Beryl. “You never said anything about a suicide.”
“Who told you that?” he snapped.
“Nina Sutherland. But Reggie and Helena knew about it, too. In fact, the whole world seems to know! Everyone except us.”
“Blast that Sutherland woman!” roared Hugh. “She had no right.”
Beryl and Jordan stared at him in shock. Softly Beryl said, “It is a lie. Isn’t it?”
Abruptly Hugh started for the door. “We’ll discuss it later,” he said. “I have to take care of this business—”
“Uncle Hugh!” cried Beryl. “Is it a lie?”
Hugh stop
ped. Slowly he turned and looked at her. “I never believed it,” he said. “Not for a second did I think Bernard would ever hurt her….”
“What are you saying?” asked Jordan. “That it was Dad who killed her?”
Their uncle’s silence was the only answer they needed. For a moment, Hugh lingered in the doorway. Quietly he said, “Please, Jordan. We’ll talk about it later. After everyone leaves. Now I really must see to this phone call.” He turned and left the room.
Beryl and Jordan looked at each other. They each saw, in the other’s eyes, the same shock of comprehension.
“Dear God, Jordie,” said Beryl. “It must be true.”
From across the ballroom, Richard saw Beryl’s hasty exit and then, seconds later, the equally rapid departure of a grim-faced Jordan. What the hell was going on? he wondered. He started to follow them out of the room, then spotted Helena, shaking her head as she moved toward him.
“It’s a disaster,” she muttered. “Too much bloody champagne flowing tonight.”
“What happened?”
“They just heard the truth. About Bernard and Madeline.”
“Who told them?”
“Nina. But it was Reggie’s fault, really. He’s so drunk he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
Richard looked at the doorway through which Jordan had just vanished. “I should talk to them, tell them the whole story.”
“I think that’s their uncle’s responsibility. Don’t you? He’s the one who kept it from them all these years. Let him do the explaining.”
After a pause, Richard nodded. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Maybe I’ll just go and strangle Nina Sutherland instead.”
“Strangle my husband while you’re at it. You have my permission.”
Richard turned and spotted Hugh Tavistock reentering the ballroom. “Now what?” he muttered as the man hurried toward them.
“Where’s Philippe?” snapped Hugh.
In Their Footsteps / Thief of Hearts Page 3