Claim the Crown

by Carla Neggers

  “It’s raw out there.”

  He grunted. Ashley was struck by the darkness of his narrow eyes. At first they had seemed black, but now, as she looked more closely at them, she saw they were a deep, deep nearly black blue.

  Like David’s.

  His tone gruffly polite, he asked, “Did you enjoy your tour of Jude’s Paradise?”

  She called on years of work in communications and in a prestigious volunteer organization to produce what she hoped was an infectious smile. “Immensely. Does it have anything to do with your reasons for inviting me here?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been subjected to so many mysteries in one day,” she said, cheerful and blunt. She hoped he’d get the point. “I’m beginning to feel as though I’m having to pass a battery of tests before you’ll take the plunge and tell me what you want with me.”

  He straightened his thin shoulders; the suit was baggy on him, she noticed. “That might be true.”

  She would have argued with him, but he moved away from her, talking to Lillian, and she gave up in frustration. Had he noticed a resemblance between Judith Land and the woman on the cover of You? Had he recognized the tiara and the choker? Did he even care he might have grandchildren?

  Grandchildren. That made him her grandfather?

  “Spare me,” she muttered, and told herself again that she couldn’t jump to any conclusions without all the evidence in. She had to keep an open mind.

  All at once she became aware of Jeremy standing at her side. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course,” she snapped. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Just asking.”

  “Well, don’t ask.”

  He gave her a cool look and said in a low voice, “I’ll remember that next time I feel a jolt of genuine concern for you.”

  She sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” He smiled. “I’d rather have you jump down my throat than pretend to be happy when you’re seething inside. Makes for a more honest relationship.”

  “And a more volatile one.”

  The handsome man in black tie joined them and introduced himself as Andrew Balaton. They exchanged comments on the weather and the beauty of the island scenery, and then Balaton said pleasantly, “My daughter, Sarah, has confided to me her behavior this past week. I understand she went to Amherst to see your brother.” He said Amherst, pronouncing the silent h. “I had invited him to join me in New York for dinner, as perhaps you know, and had intended to apologize to him for my daughter’s behavior. I was required to be here this evening, and so I was forced to cancel our engagement. However, now I see I can apologize to you on her behalf.”

  Ashley smiled, marveling at his precise, formal manner. “That’s not necessary, Mr. Balaton.”

  “It’s my understanding she’s returning to Houston. She’s my daughter, Miss Wakefield. I feel responsible.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Ashley said smoothly.

  Balaton grimaced, as if she had uttered a self-evident but nevertheless unpleasant truth. “My daughter has a stressful career. She is ambitious and clever, but occasionally it becomes necessary for her to...crack. It relieves the stress.”

  “I see.”

  “You understand.”

  No, she didn’t, but she let it slide. “Tell me, Mr. Balaton, do you believe the jewels I wore in the You photographs belong to your family?”

  He laughed. “No, of course not.”

  “Then your daughter made a mistake?”

  “A terrible one, yes.”

  “Well, I suppose we all make mistakes. Do you have any idea why Mr. Crockett has lured me up here? He seems to be a man of many mysteries.”

  Again Balaton laughed, and his warm brown eyes crinkled at the corners, the only hint of his age. “Yes, that’s our Crockett. I’m afraid, however, he hasn’t shared his strategy with me, but I can only say that I am delighted to have your company. It’s a pleasure, Miss Wakefield.”

  That, she knew, was supposed to change the subject, but she’d always been a tenacious sort. “Do you suppose he recognized the Balaton jewels, too?”

  The Hungarian’s face froze for an instant, but he recovered quickly and smiled. “That would be impossible, Miss Wakefield. As I have explained to my daughter many, many times, the Balaton jewels are a myth.”

  “But your wife wore the diamond-and-pearl tiara and choker the night you announced your engagement in Vienna.”

  He grew rigid. “A diamond-and-pearl tiara and choker. There are so many, you understand. Please, if you’ll excuse me?”

  Her smile sparkled. “Of course.”

  When he’d walked off, clearly displeased with her, Jeremy touched her elbow. “Go easy.”

  “That was going easy,” she muttered. “Arrogant son of a bitch. I’d like to start knocking some heads together around here and get some answers. How stupid do they think I am?”

  “If they’re smart, they won’t think you’re stupid at all.” Jeremy turned to the cherry table behind them and poured her a glass of white wine from a simple crystal decanter. “They’re all playing each other for answers. My guess is they’ve been nursing their own ideas and suspicions, and now they’re trying to find out if they’re right without having to commit themselves—or maybe expose themselves. I think Crockett’s gotten you and Balaton and Lillian Parker here together to see what would happen.”

  “He’s an old crank.”

  “But I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

  She scoffed. “All we need now are Mac and Barky.”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’re lurking outside in the shadows.”

  “Spooks that they are.”

  Jeremy gave her a look of surprise. “You’re going to survive this, aren’t you?”

  She grinned. “Damn right.”

  Even, she thought, if she turned out to be the biological daughter of a legendary film actress and a Hungarian count-turned-corporate executive. The hell with them all, she thought with sudden vehemence. She was Barky’s kid.

  She noticed Lillian Parker standing alone in the far corner of the big room, next to a spinet piano that looked unused. She was a woman who had interviewed heads of state, fanatical terrorists, generals and half the intellectual heavyweights of the twentieth century. She was tough minded and incisive, but tonight, Ashley thought, the hard-edged demeanor was all a facade. Deep down, Lillian Parker was unnerved and very shaken.

  “Push has come to shove,” Ashley said as she sipped some of her wine.

  “Ashley, for God’s sake, don’t do anything crazy.”

  Jeremy sounded serious, but she shrugged off his concern. “Why change now?”

  Ashley breezed across the room to Lillian Parker. She was asking Roger to fetch her something stiff to drink, and when Roger dashed off to comply, Ashley sidled up to the famous newswoman. “Maine air agrees with you, Lillian,” she said cheerfully. “You look terrific.”

  Lillian laughed. Years of television work made it sound less forced than Ashley suspected it was. “Cosmetics can hide anything. And how are you? Besides stunning. Crockett said the You piece didn’t do you justice. You have a taste for the right clothes for you, Ashley.”

  “I’ve got four years of mistakes hanging in my closet. A fashion consultant once told me I should try to get people to focus on my eyes, that they’re my best feature.”

  “They are.” Lillian’s voice was hollow. Roger appeared with a Scotch, and she gulped it eagerly.

  “At first,” Ashley went on casually, “I didn’t notice how similar they are to Judith Land’s eyes because everything else about her portrait struck me so much. She was startlingly beautiful, wasn’t she?”

  Lillian made no reply, but stared at the amber liquid in her glass.

  “Anyway, it took me a while to see how much her eyes are like mine. They are similar, don’t you think, Lillian?”

  Still staring into her Scotch, as if she were trying to spot a
fruit fly that had just flown into it, Lillian said, “She had her mother’s eyes.”

  “I see. And David has her father’s eyes. Crockett’s eyes.”

  Lillian drank some of her Scotch, then resumed staring into it. “Johnny, Crockett’s father, had those same piercing black-blue eyes—except his were bloodshot half the time. He’s in the history books. Look him up sometime.”

  “I intend to.” Ashley sipped her wine, amazed that her hands weren’t even shaking. “Was Judith Land my mother?”

  But Lillian Parker’s hands were shaking, and she finally had to set down her drink. She still wouldn’t meet Ashley’s eye. “Oh, please—I don’t know. I...”

  “You do know. Or at least you can make a good guess.”

  “Get out of this, Ashley.” She turned then, her eyes intense, clear, remarkably direct. “For the love of God, Ashley, go home.”

  “You’re afraid. Why?”

  “Because I’m a coward,” she said suddenly, her voice a vicious, tortured whisper. “I was a coward thirty years ago, and I’m a coward now—a pawn. Someone to be manipulated.” She snatched up her glass, but her hands were shaking too violently, and she had to put it back down. “There’s nothing you can do to change what happened. And what good are answers to questions that never should have been asked? You’ll only get hurt. Go home.”

  Ashley shook her head just once. “I have to know who I am.”

  There were tears in Lillian’s eyes when she smiled. “Ashley, you’ve never not known who you are. Judith would have liked that.”

  “Talk to me, Lillian. Please—”

  But Roger Shellingworth interrupted, announcing dinner. They gathered in the dining room, where the table was set simply, yet exquisitely, in white Wedgwood and Waterford. Ashley was instructed to sit next to Jeremy, their backs to the windows, facing the portrait of Judith Land. She suspected that was another part of J. Land Crockett’s devious little plan.

  Ashley caught Jeremy staring at the painting, as if mesmerized by the beauty and vivacity of the actress. And then she saw the certainty in his eyes, as he glanced down at her and smiled. So, she thought, he knows. Was he pitying her again? Striking up another black mark against Bartholomew Wakefield? Jewel thief, traitor, torturer, KGB agent, child stealer. Nice fellow, Barky was.

  She shook out her napkin onto her lap, and dinner commenced with a surprising but delicious apple-and-onion soup.

  A horrified gasp from the end of the table whipped Ashley around in her chair.

  Andrew Balaton was already rising to his feet. His face was gray, his manicured hands trembling. Ashley thought he was having a heart attack.

  To his left, Lillian Parker didn’t move. She sat rigid, her face gone white.

  Balaton clutched in his hand a tiny gold crown. “My God,” he cried, his voice strangled, his eyes wild. “Orült szerzetes!”

  Ashley froze. Beside her, Jeremy gripped his spoon, his jaw tightening.

  “Is this some hideous joke?” Balaton screamed, accusing everyone. “Who’s responsible for this?”

  No one answered.

  At the end of the table, J. Land Crockett settled back in his cushioned chair and folded his hands in his lap, looking more curious than concerned. Ashley wouldn’t have put it past him to have planted the crown, whatever it was. Obviously it had a terrible meaning to the dispossessed Hungarian count.

  Then, kicking back his chair, Balaton ran from the room.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “I’ll see to him,” Lillian said hoarsely.

  When she’d gone, Crockett snorted. “Wonder what that was all about? Hate it when he starts muttering in Hungarian. Either of you speak it?”

  They said no, neither Ashley nor Jeremy admitting they’d already had orült szerzetes translated for them. The mad monk. Bartholomew Wakefield.

  He was there, Ashley thought. There on Badger Rock Island.

  And Andrew Balaton didn’t like it.

  28

  Neither Andrew Balaton nor Lillian Parker returned to dinner, but Crockett blithely continued without them, and courses proceeded through a herbed salad, oatmeal-sage rolls, a light lobster casserole and, for dessert, almond torte. In order to figure out just what he knew and suspected, Ashley had determined to let the old man in the ill-fitting ancient suit take the conversational lead.

  But J. Land Crockett said nothing. He merely ate and occasionally studied her, rudely staring, with his black-blue eyes. By her second piece of torte—fresh air and skullduggery built up an appetite, she reflected— she’d realized he was playing the same game with her.

  She decided this particular game was the important one to win. Digging into her torte, she said, “Ms. Parker indicated to me that Jude’s Paradise might be the reason you invited me to Maine—or Down East, I should say. It’s a beautiful place, quite a bird sanctuary. By the way, have you been introduced to Jeremy Carruthers, legal counsel for the New England Oceanographic Institute?”

  Crockett didn’t so much as glance at Jeremy. “When I asked you up here, Miss Wakefield, I assumed you could circumvent the bureaucracy.”

  “Please call me Ashley. And I’m afraid I don’t work that way, Mr. Crockett. What was it about the You piece that prompted you to contact me?”

  He grunted, appraising her. “Your attitude. Do you enjoy publicity, Ashley?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you permit yourself to be interviewed by that magazine?”

  She smiled. “I had my reasons.”

  “It’s caused you nothing but trouble, hasn’t it?”

  “Today was hardly trouble, Mr. Crockett.” Heavens, she thought, but I can be slick when I want to be. “But surely you didn’t invite me here to lecture me on how to deal with the press. That’s my business, you know.”

  “And none of mine? You can be snippy, Ashley Wakefield. I could send you away empty-handed and make this entire trip a waste of your precious time.”

  Snippy, Ashley thought. How easily he trivialized her anger.

  Jeremy, she noticed, didn’t spring to her defense.

  “Do you think this institute of yours could use an island like Jude’s Paradise?” Crockett demanded to know.

  Swallowing a piece of torte, Ashley laid down her fork and adopted her trustee demeanor. “I’m sure we’d be interested in discussing it with you.”

  “Nothing we say tonight could be considered binding or in any way the opinion of the entire board,” Jeremy put in, playing his part.

  Crockett ignored him. “I’d want the name to remain the same and the ecology or whatever you want to call it to be undisturbed. No one but me needs to know it’s a memorial to my wife and daughter. That’s the way they’d want it, and it’s the way I want it. Interested?”

  “Of course,” Ashley said, “but, Mr. Crockett, I don’t think you’re being entirely frank with me.”

  “So? Where does it say I have to be frank?”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t say anywhere, but it would make me happier.”

  He snorted. “I’m not here to make you happy.”

  Bastard. Under the table, Jeremy brushed her knee, and she could read his mind: go easy. Why didn’t she just up and ask the old buzzard if he thought he was her grandfather? If he hated her because she and David were all he had left of his daughter and they weren’t at all what he wanted, well, then, so be it.

  Did he think Barky was her father? Did he think the man who had raised her and David, who had lived for thirty years the hard frugal life of a farmer, had seduced his daughter? Gotten her to run off with him, give him her jewels, her children?

  But the trust.

  Judith’s last, desperate attempt to free herself from a madman? Had she found out he had betrayed them on the border? That he was KGB? That he was a thief and a traitor?

  No.

  And she had contacted her father, fled to the Texas ranch where she’d grown up and, with the jewels and the Liechtenstein trust as her only consolatio
n for failure, made her bid for freedom. And she had died.

  No, no, no, no.

  It was a terrible, awful, dreadful scenario, and it wasn’t true.

  Ashley lost her appetite for interrogation, and for almond torte.

  Abruptly, she rose, reeling dizzily. Jeremy was beside her instantly. He grabbed her elbow, steadying her. “Ashley?”

  “I’m ill. Please—excuse me.”

  And she fled.

  * * *

  After he’d extricated himself from after dinner brandy with J. Land Crockett, Jeremy headed upstairs to the dark quiet hall and rapped on Ashley’s door. He waited impatiently, but no answer came. He tried the knob: locked. “Ashley, it’s me, Jeremy.”

  She was in there—she had to be—but she didn’t answer. All day she’d been avoiding him, shutting him out. Instead of inviting him along, she’d gone off alone with Lillian Parker to Jude’s Paradise. He’d spent the afternoon walking around Badger Rock Island, looking for signs of Mac or Bartholomew Wakefield—any clues as to who was right and who was dangerous and who was crazy. He’d found nothing but rocks and trees and the sea, and he’d tasted the rancidness of fear as he remembered last night, with Mac...and, especially, before, with Ashley. He didn’t want to lose her.

  He rattled the knob again. “Open the damn door.”

  She wouldn’t.

  He couldn’t blame her. He was a reminder of everything she didn’t want to acknowledge. Even tonight, he’d seen the strong family resemblance among the Crocketts: father, daughter, granddaughter, grandson. And he knew Ashley had seen it, too. But she’d said nothing to him. Instead, she’d avoided his eye.

  “Ashley, dammit…please.”

  But she didn’t come to the door, and at last he left, defeated and exhausted. Since their rooms were adjoining, he should be able to hear her if she tried to leave, but he wasn’t worried. They were on an island, and even Ashley Wakefield wasn’t crazy enough to risk a takeoff in the dark.

  Nevertheless, he’d be listening, just in case.