Sweet Revenge

by Nora Roberts

  Just now, with the late afternoon breeze on her face and the smell of the sea and the flowers surrounding her, she wanted someone to hold on to.

  Turning, she went back inside. She might not have had someone, but she had something. Revenge.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Business wasn’t on the agenda this morning. Adrianne wanted to bake in the tropical sun, snorkel along the reef in the diamond-pure waters. She wanted to sleep under a palm tree and do as little thinking as possible.

  It was Christmas Eve. Some of the guests had already returned home—Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, New York, London. Most remained at El Grande to celebrate the holidays with piña coladas instead of hot rum punch, with palm trees rather than pines.

  Adrianne never spent the holidays in New York. She couldn’t bear the sight of snow or the view through the windows at Macy’s or Saks. Christmas was an event in New York, one that had thrilled her as a child.

  She could still remember her first sight of the elegant Victorian dolls twirling and spinning in Lord & Taylor’s window display while the bitter wind had blown through her fur-collared coat and the smell of hot chestnuts had drifted around her. In New York there would be bells ringing on every corner, music piped into every store. Carrier would be wrapped in its bright bow. Along Fifth Avenue the sea of people would be so thick that you could get caught in the current and be swept along for blocks.

  Exhilarating. There was no other place in the world that was more exhilarating than New York at Christmas. And for Adrianne, there was no place more depressing.

  Christmas had been forbidden in Jaquir, even public celebrations for the tourists and Western workers. There could be no ornaments, no carols, not even a branch of pine. No little glass balls with snow dancing inside. The law forbade it.

  There were memories of Christmas, some happy, some sad. She knew they had to be faced, but not in New York, where she had decorated her last tree, trying desperately to involve her mother in the festivities. It was in New York that she had wrapped her last bright packages, boxes Phoebe had never opened.

  It was in New York five years before that she had found her mother dead on the bathroom floor in the predawn hours of Christmas morning. That last Christmas, where she and Phoebe and Celeste had sat together, drinking eggnog and listening to carols on the stereo. And her mother had gone to bed early.

  Where Phoebe had gotten the scotch or the bright blue pills Adrianne had never learned. Wherever they had come from, they had done their work.

  So she ran at Christmas, though she knew it was weak. Monte Carlo, Aruba, Maui—wherever the sun was hot. Sometimes she worked when she ran, sometimes she did nothing. On this trip she would do both, and tomorrow morning, when the bells rang for Christmas, she would have completed the job.

  It hadn’t been nerves that had made her decide to spend the day away from the St. Johns’ resort. She’d simply wanted to be alone, anonymous. After two days she’d had enough of cocktail parties and chummy chats by the pool. She chose the beach bordering the El Presidente, not as Princess Adrianne or as Lara O’Conner, but as Adrianne Spring.

  Thirsty, with her legs beginning to ache, she paddled toward the beach. Carrying her mask and flippers, she crossed the sand to the thatched umbrellalike hut that shaded the rest of her gear. Easily, she ignored two men who lay sunning nearby, sipping Dos Equis and hoping for a score.

  “Adrianne.”

  Still rubbing her hair dry, Adrianne turned toward a woman approaching her. Her body was lush and golden, set off by two narrow strings that made Adrianne’s bikini look like a suit of armor. Her hair was dark, cut short and swingy at the chin. For a moment there was only annoyance at being disturbed. Then there was recognition.

  “Duja?” With a laugh Adrianne dropped the towel and opened her arms to her cousin. “It is you.” They exchanged kisses on both cheeks then drew back, one to study the other.

  “This is wonderful.” Duja’s low musical voice brought back memories both sweet and sad. Long, stifling afternoons in the harem, a cool arbor in the garden where two young girls had listened to stories told by an old woman. “How long has it been?”

  “Seven years, eight. What are you doing here?”

  “Pouting, until now. We were in Cancán, and J.T. decided to sail over because he thinks the diving’s best here. I can’t believe I nearly stayed back at the hotel pool. Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll catch up.” She linked her arm through Adrianne’s and started toward the bar. “I read about you all the time, Princess Adrianne attending the opening of the ballet, Princess Adrianne arriving at the Spring Ball. I suppose that you’ve been too busy to come to Houston for a visit.”

  “I couldn’t. While Mama was alive it wasn’t easy to travel. After …” She watched as Duja lit up a slim brown cigarette. “I didn’t think I could bear seeing you, or anyone from Jaquir.”

  “I grieved for you.” Duja touched on the subject of Phoebe’s death as lightly as she touched Adrianne’s hand. “Your mother was always kind to me. I have warm memories. Dos margaritas, por favor” she told the bartender, then glanced at Adrianne. “All right?”

  “Yes, thanks. So much time gone. It doesn’t seem real.”

  She blew out a stream of smoke. “A long way from the harem.”

  Not long enough, Adrianne thought. “Are you happy?”

  “Yes.” Duja crossed long brown legs and flirted automatically with a man across the circular bar. She was thirty, lushly built, and secure in her own power. “I’m liberated.” Laughing, she lifted her glass. “J.T. is a wonderful man, very kind, very American. I have my own credit cards.”

  “Is that all it takes?”

  “It helps. He also loves me, and I love him. I know how frightened I was when my father agreed to give me to him. Everything we’d heard or been taught about Americans.” She sighed and turned on the stool so that she could watch the sunbathers at the edge of the pool. “When I think I could be sitting in the harem, pregnant with my sixth or seventh child and wondering if my husband would be pleased or displeased with me.” She licked salt from the rim of her glass. “Yes, I’m happy. The world’s different from the one we knew as children. American men don’t expect their women to sit quietly in the corner and have baby after baby. I love my son, but I’m also content to have only him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “With his father. Johnny is as much a fanatic about diving as J.T. He’s also very much the American. Baseball, pizza, arcade games. Sometimes I look back and wonder what my life would have been like if oil hadn’t brought J.T. to Jaquir… and me to J.T.” She shrugged it off as she blew out fragrant smoke that reminded Adrianne of afternoons in the harem and the sound of drums. “But I don’t look back often.”

  “I’m happy for you. When we were children I used to look up to you. You were always so poised and well-behaved, so beautiful. I thought it was because you were a few years older and that I’d be like you when I caught up.”

  “Things were more difficult for you. You wanted to please your father, but your loyalties were always with your mother. I realize now how miserable she must have been when the king took a second wife.”

  “It was the beginning of the end for her.” The bitterness came through. She sipped to wash it away. “Do you ever go back?”

  “I go once a year to see my mother. I sneak her movies for her VCR and red silk underwear. It hasn’t changed,” she said, answering Adrianne’s unspoken question. “When I go back, I’m a proper, obedient daughter, with my hair bound and my face veiled. I wear my abaaya and sit in the harem drinking green tea. Strange, while I’m there it doesn’t feel odd, it feels right.”

  “How?”

  “It’s hard to explain. When I go to Jaquir, when I put on the veil, I begin to think like a woman of Jaquir, feel like a woman of Jaquir. What seems right, even natural in America becomes totally foreign. When I leave, the veil comes off and so do all
those feelings, along with the restrictions.”

  “I don’t understand that. It’s like being two people.”

  “Aren’t we? The way we were raised and the way we live. Have you never been back?”

  “No. But I am considering it.”

  “We won’t go this year. J.T. is uneasy about the trouble in the Persian Gulf. Jaquir has been successful in avoiding a confrontation, but it can’t last.”

  “Abdu knows how to pick his fights, and his friends.”

  Duja lifted a brow. Even after all these years she would never have called the king by his first name. “J.T. said the same just a little while ago.” Unsure of her ground, Duja skirted the edge. “You know your father has divorced Risa? She was barren.”

  “I heard.” She felt a faint tug of pity for her father’s latest wife.

  “He’s taken another, only a few months ago.”

  “So soon?” Adrianne drank again, more deeply. “I didn’t _ know. Leiha gave him seven healthy children.”

  “Five of which were girls.” Duja shrugged again. It seemed Adrianne was cool enough discussing her half siblings. “The two oldest have already been married.”

  “Yes, I know. I get news.”

  “The king bartered wisely with each, sending one to Iran and one to Iraq. The next is only fourteen. It’s said she’ll go to Egypt or perhaps Saudi Arabia.”

  “He shows more affection to his horses than his daughters.”

  “In Jaquir, horses are of more use.” Duja signaled for another round.

  From his window five flights up, Philip had an excellent view of the pool, the gardens, and the sea. He’d been watching Adrianne since she’d come out of the water. With his field glasses he’d been able to see the drops of water glistening as they clung to her skin.

  He could only speculate about the woman she was with. Not a contact; of that he was all but sure. There had been too much surprise, then pleasure on Adrianne’s face when they’d met.

  An old friend or perhaps a relative. Adrianne hadn’t come to the beach to meet her. Unless Philip missed his guess, she’d come to be alone, as she had once or twice before when he’d followed her from the El Grande.

  He thought it a pity he’d had to miss the festivities there over the last couple of days. But it had been wiser all around to keep a low profile.

  He blew out a lazy stream of smoke and waited for Spencer to come on the line.

  “Spencer here.”

  “Hello, Captain.”

  “All right, Chamberlain, what the devil’s going on?”

  “You got the report I gave to the contact in New York?”

  “And a fat lot it tells me.”

  “These things take time.” He studied the way Adrianne’s damp hair fell down her back. “Often more than we’d like.”

  “I don’t need any bloody philosophy, I need information.”

  “Of course.” Lifting his binoculars, Philip focused on Adrianne’s face. She was laughing. There was nothing cool or aloof about the way her lips curved now. With reluctance he shifted the glasses to her companion. A relative, he decided now. Slightly older, very Americanized. He caught the glint of the diamond circle on her finger. And married.

  “Well.” The impatience in Spencer’s voice was as clear as the sound of him sucking on his pipe.

  “There isn’t much to add to my earlier report.” For his own pleasure, he tilted the glasses back to Adrianne. She had the most incredible skin—like the color of gold in an old painting. It was foolish, but for now Philip was going to take a few steps to save it for her. “If our man was in New York, he slipped out again. The only lead I scrounged up pointed to Paris. You might want to put your men there on alert.” Sorry old fellow, he added silently, but I need to buy some time.

  “Why Paris?”

  “The Countess Tegari. She’s spending the holidays there with her daughter. The old dear plucked a few prized pieces from the Duchess of Windsor collection. If I were still in the business, I’d find them very appealing.”

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  “At the moment.”

  “Where the hell are you and when will you be back?”

  “I’m taking the holidays off, Stuart. Expect me in the new year. My best to your family,” he said over the first bluster of protest. “Happy Christmas.”

  Yes, she did have incredible skin, Philip thought again. Everywhere a man was lucky enough to see it.

  Because Adrianne could find no gracious way to refuse her cousin’s invitation for dinner aboard the yacht, she pushed up her plans. Part of her looked forward to the evening, to the chance to sit back and observe, to see if the mix of culture and tradition could indeed work. It would also be an iron-clad alibi, if indeed an alibi were ever required.

  Adrianne used her rooms at the El Presidente to change. It was a small precaution, but one she had decided worthwhile, liming was everything now. A glance at her watch assured her that the St. Johns would be busy in the Fiesta Boom, entertaining the press with early cocktails. That would give her over an hour before Lauren would be expected back in the Presidential Suite to change for the gala Christmas Eve dinner party.

  Adrianne would put in a late appearance, after her dinner with her cousin. If Lauren chose to wear her rubies that night, it should make an interesting diversion.

  It was a short drive north, and the evening was balmy with sunset still an hour or two away. When Adrianne pulled up in the El Grande’s parking lot, she was wearing oversize sunglasses and a floppy hat as well as a long-sleeved, concealing muumuu. She would be taken, as she intended, for an American tourist of dubious taste.

  Swinging the straw bag over her shoulder, she walked in the main entrance. Looking neither right nor left, she strode to the elevators. Once inside, she stopped the car between floors, stripped off the muumuu, and stuffed it and the hat and glasses into the bag. All of these were pushed into a laundry bag she’d folded and pushed down the bodice of the maid’s uniform she wore.

  It took less than thirty seconds before the car was gliding smoothly again toward the top floor. She wore a wig, black flecked with gray and bundled under a hairnet. She’d added a long thin scar down her cheek. If she was seen, and anyone asked questions, they would remember a middle-aged maid with a scar.

  Linens were kept in a storage closet at the end of each hallway. She could have picked the lock with a hairpin if it had been necessary. Instead, she slipped a tool out of the cinch she wore around her thigh. Adrianne tossed the laundry bag into an empty cart, then took an armful of towels. She was backing the cart out of the closet when she heard the elevator sound.

  With her head lowered she began to push the cart slowly up the hallway.

  “Buenos tardes” she murmured as a couple passed her, smelling of chlorine and suntan oil. She’d shared breakfast with them only that morning. They didn’t bother to answer the greeting, but continued to argue over where to go skiing the following week.

  At the door to the Presidential Suite, Adrianne knocked, then called out in broken English. “Housekeeping. Fresh towels.” She waited, counting carefully to ten.

  Using the same tool, Adrianne dealt with the lock. It was pitiful, she thought, how much faith the average person put in a key. Perhaps one day, after she’d retired, she’d write a series of articles on the subject. For now she pulled the maid’s cart inside, blocking the door with it.

  If something went wrong, the obstacle would give her a few precious moments.

  Sumptuous, she thought as she gazed around the suite. The St. Johns had spared no expense for comfort. They had chosen peach and cream tones offset by glossy black, with deep carpets and a sprawling sofa. The flowers were fresh, showing Adrianne that the maid had already tidied, though Lauren’s clothes were tossed over chairs and tables.

  Adrianne preferred the bright orange and gold furnishing of the El Presidente. Someone should tell Charlie that people come to the island not only to relax, but to feel as though they were ro
ughing it a bit.

  She’d learned enough about the new hotel from the blueprints and her two-day stay. Lunch with Lauren at the Russian Tea Room had added the few missing details. Adrianne had picked up the tab, figuring it was the least she could do.

  As a precaution, she took a quick tour of the rooms. The bath was identical to her own, as her information had promised. A heap of damp towels on the floor, and the lingering scent of Norell told her that Lauren had bathed before meeting the press.

  Assured she was alone, she moved unerringly to the closet in the dressing room. The safe, that extra amenity Charlie provided in all of his hotels, was there.

  Rather than a combination, it worked with a key the guest was to keep in a purse or pocket. Not only was there no alarm, but a child with determination and a screwdriver could open it in less than half an hour. Adrianne lifted her skirt up and unsnapped a key from a small pocket. It was the key from the safe in her own room one floor down.

  It slid in, but didn’t turn. After choosing a file, she began to make adjustments. It took patience. She could file off only a fraction at a time, replace the key, and try it again. Crouched like a catcher behind home plate, she worked second by second, minute by minute. Now and then she heard a door close or the