Matters of the Heart

by Danielle Steel

  She worried about him, but she knew that medically he was in good hands. He spent months at a time on his boat, and the rest of the time he lived in London, or went back to Boston for treatment at Harvard. But there was relatively little they could do to help him. The disease was slowly devouring him, but for now, he could still get around, although it was a challenge for him. It was easier for him being on the boat, with the crew around him all the time.

  They had married when Hope was twenty-one years old, when she graduated from Brown. He had already been a surgeon and professor at Harvard by then, and was thirty-seven years old. They had met when Paul came to Brown to teach for a semester, during a sabbatical he had taken from Harvard. It was Hope’s junior year at Brown. Paul had fallen in love with her the first time he laid eyes on her, and their affair had been passionate and intense, until they married a year later right after graduation. And even in the two years since their divorce, she had never loved any other man. Paul Forrest was an impossible act to follow, and she was still deeply attached to him, whether they were married or not. He had been able to divorce her, but not to make her fall out of love with him. She just accepted it as a fact of their life. And even though his illness had changed him, she still saw the same brilliant man and mind within the broken body.

  The loss of his profession had nearly destroyed him, and in many ways he was greatly diminished, but not in the eyes of his ex-wife. To her, his tremor and shuffling gait didn’t change the man he was.

  Hope spent the night quietly in her hotel room, reading O’Neill’s book, trying not to think about Paul, and the life they had once shared. It was a door neither of them dared open anymore, there were too many ghosts behind it, and they were better off keeping their exchanges about the present, rather than the past. But her eyes lit up when she saw him the next day. She was waiting in the lobby for him, and saw Paul shuffle his feet slowly as he moved toward her with a cane, but he was still tall and handsome, stood erect, and despite the tremor, his eyes were bright and he looked well. She still thought he was the nicest man in the world, and although his illness had aged him, he was a fine-looking man.

  He looked equally happy to see her, and gave her a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You look terrific,” he said, smiling at her. She was wearing black slacks, high heels, and a bright red coat, with her black hair pulled back in a bun. Her dark violet eyes looked huge and full of life as she took him in. To her practiced eye, he looked no worse than he had in a while, maybe even slightly better. The experimental medication he was on seemed to be helping, although he was still somewhat unsteady as she took his arm and they walked into the dining room. She could feel his whole body shake. The Parkinson’s was so cruel.

  The maître d’ gave them a good table, and they chatted easily as they caught up with each other and decided what to eat. It was always so comfortable for her with him. They were so familiar with each other, knew each other so perfectly. She had known and loved him since she was nineteen, and it seemed strange to her at times to no longer be married to him. But he had been intransigent about it—he refused to have her saddled with a sick old man. She was sixteen years younger, which had made no difference to either of them, until he got sick, and then it had mattered to him. He had opted out of her life, although they still loved each other, and always had a good time when they were together. Within minutes he had her laughing about something, and she told him all about her recent shows, trips, and work. She hadn’t seen him in six months, although they talked on the phone fairly regularly. Even though they were no longer married, she couldn’t imagine a life without him in it.

  “I looked up your subject on his publisher’s website last night,” Paul told her as his hands shook while he tried to eat. Inevitably, he had a hard time feeding himself, but was determined to do it, and she made no comment at whatever he spilled, nor reached over to help him. It took every ounce of dignity he could muster to go out to restaurants, but she was proud of him that he still did. Everything about his illness had been an agony for him, the career he had lost that had meant everything to him, and on which his self-esteem had rested, the marriage that had ultimately been a casualty to it, because he refused to drag her down with him. The only real pleasure he had now was sailing, while slowly he deteriorated. Even Hope knew that he was only a shadow of the man he had once been, although out of pride, if nothing else, he tried to hide it. At sixty, he should have been vital and alive, still in the bloom of his life and career. Instead, he was in the winter of his life, alone now, just as she was, although she was so much younger. Paul was slipping ever so slowly out of life, and it always upset her deeply when she saw it. He put a good front on it, but the reality was brutal, especially for him.

  “O’Neill is a very interesting man,” Paul went on, looking intrigued. “He seems to have been born in the States, of a noble Irish family, and he returned to reclaim his ancestral estate. There was a photo of it on the Internet too, it’s quite a place. It’s beautiful, in a fallen-down ancient way. There are some lovely old houses like that in Ireland. I’ve noticed that a lot of the furniture from those places comes up for auction at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. They look like French antiques and in many cases are. In any event, he lives in an enormous house, and he’s an Irish aristocrat, which I’d never realized before. He went to some ordinary American university, but he has a doctorate from Oxford, and he was decorated by the British, after he won the National Book Award in the States, for fiction. He’s actually Sir Finn O’Neill,” he reminded her, which jogged a memory for her.

  “I’d forgotten that,” she admitted. Paul was always a source of endless knowledge for her. And then she looked sheepish. “I forgot to call him Sir Finn when he called me. He didn’t seem to care though.”

  “He sounds like a wild character,” Paul said, giving up on eating. Some days were harder than others, and there was only so much embarrassment he could tolerate in public. “He’s been involved with a number of very well known women, heiresses, princesses, actresses, models. He’s a bit of a playboy, but he certainly has talent. It should be an interesting shoot. He sounds like a loose cannon with some fairly outrageous behavior, but at least he won’t be boring. He’ll probably try to seduce you,” Paul said with a sad smile. He had relinquished all claim to her, except in friendship, long since, and never asked about her love life. He didn’t want to know. And she spared him the agony of telling him that she was still in love with him. There were a number of subjects they never touched on, both past and present. In the circumstances, what they shared, over the occasional lunch or dinner, or on the phone, was the best they could do. And this last bond between them was what they clung to.

  “He’s not going to seduce me,” Hope reassured him. “I’m probably twice the age of what he goes out with, if he’s as wild as you say.” She didn’t look interested or worried. He was a subject, not a date, in her mind anyway.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Paul said wisely.

  “I’ll hit him with a tripod if he tries anything,” she said firmly, and they both laughed. “Besides, I have an assistant working with me tomorrow. Maybe he’ll like her. And he’s sick, that should help.”

  They chatted amiably after lunch, and dawdled over dessert. Paul made two attempts to drink the tea he’d ordered and couldn’t, and Hope didn’t dare offer to hold the cup for him, although she wished she could. And after lunch, she walked him out of the hotel and waited while the doorman got him a taxi to take him back to his apartment.

  “Are you coming back to New York one of these days?” she asked him hopefully. He had an apartment at the Hotel Carlyle, which he rarely used. And he avoided Boston entirely now, except for medical treatments. Going back to visit his old colleagues was too depressing for him. They were all still at the height of their careers, and his had been over for ten years, far too soon.

  “I’m going to stay in the Caribbean for the winter. And then probably come back here.” He liked the anonymity of London, the fact
that no one knew him. There was no one to feel sorry for him here, and it was painful for him to see the sympathy in Hope’s eyes. It was one of the reasons why he hadn’t stayed married to her. He didn’t want to be an object of pity. He preferred being alone to being a burden to someone he loved. And in making that decision, he had deprived them both. But there had been no swaying him once he made up his mind. Hope had tried to no avail, and finally accepted that he had a right to choose how he wanted to live out his final years, and whatever the reasons, it wasn’t with her.

  “Let me know how the interview with O’Neill goes,” Paul said, as the doorman hailed him a cab. He looked down at her with a smile then, and he pulled the small familiar figure into his arms, and as she hugged him, he closed his eyes. “Take care of yourself, Hope,” he said with a lump in his throat, and she nodded. Sometimes he felt guilty for letting her go, but he had firmly believed it was the right thing for her, and he still did. He had no right to ruin her life, in order to serve his.

  “I will, you too,” she said, as she kissed his cheek and helped him into the cab. It pulled away from the curb in front of Claridge’s a moment later, and she stood and waved in the cold, as they drove off. It always made her sad to see him, but he was the only family she had left. She realized as she walked back into the hotel that she had forgotten to wish him a Merry Christmas, but she was glad she had. It would only have brought back memories for both of them, which would have been much, much too hard.

  She went up to her room and changed into flat shoes, and a heavier coat. And a few minutes later, she left the hotel quietly and went for a long, solitary walk.

  Chapter 3

  Fiona Casey, the assistant her agent had hired for her, showed up at Hope’s hotel room at nine o’clock the next morning. She was a bright, funny, redheaded girl, who was totally in awe of Hope. She was a graduate photography student at the Royal Academy of Arts, and supported herself by doing freelance work. She was equally impressed that they would be shooting Finn O’Neill, and stumbled all over herself, carrying Hope’s equipment out to a rental van. They were due at Finn O’Neill’s house at ten o’clock. Hope hadn’t heard from him again, so she assumed he was healthy enough to do the shoot.

  The driver the hotel had provided for her with the van drove them the short distance to an elegant mews house at a fashionable address. The house was tiny, as they all were on the narrow backstreet, and as soon as she struck the brass knocker on the door, a maid in a uniform appeared and let them in. She led them into a doll-sized living room near the front door, which was crammed with weathered antique English furniture. The bookcase was overflowing, and there were stacks of books on the floor, and glancing at them, Hope could see that many of the books were old, either leatherbound, or on closer inspection, first editions. This was clearly a man who loved books. The couches were comfortable, covered in leather, and very old, and there was a fire burning brightly in the grate, which seemed to be the only heat source in the room. It was cold, except when one stood close to the fire. And in close proximity to the sitting room was a dining room painted dark green, and a small kitchen beyond. Each of the rooms was very small, but had lots of charm.

  They sat there for nearly half an hour, waiting for Finn, as both Fiona and Hope got up to stand near the fire, chatting quietly in whispers. The house was so minute that it seemed awkward to speak too loudly, for fear that someone would overhear them. And then, just as Hope began wondering where he was, a tall man with a mane of dark hair and electric blue eyes burst into the room. The house seemed ridiculously small for a man his size, as though if he stretched his arms he could touch the walls and span the room. It seemed an absurd place for him, particularly after she had looked up his ancestral home in Ireland on the Internet after Paul mentioned it to her.

  “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” Finn said in an ordinary American accent. She didn’t know why, but after all she’d read about O’Neill and his ties to Ireland, she almost expected him to have a brogue, except that they had spoken on the phone the night before, and he had sounded like any other educated New Yorker, although he looked more European. Whatever his ancestry, he was in fact as American as Hope. And his cold sounded a lot better. He coughed a few times, but no longer sounded as though he were dying. In fact, he looked surprisingly healthy and full of life. And he had a smile that melted Fiona on the spot, as he had the maid offer her a cup of coffee while he invited Hope to join him upstairs. He apologized to Fiona for disappearing with Hope, but he wanted to get to know his photographer a little better.

  She followed him up a narrow winding staircase, and found herself in a cozy but larger living room, filled with books, antiques, objects, mementos, old leather couches, and comfortable chairs, and there was a blazing fire in the fireplace. It was the kind of room where you wanted to tuck yourself in and stay for days. Every object was fascinating and intriguing. Some were from his travels, and others looked as though he had treasured them for years. The room was full of personality and warmth, and despite his large frame and long limbs, it somehow seemed the perfect place for him. He let himself down into the embrace of an overstuffed old couch, and stretched out his long legs toward the fire with a broad grin at Hope. She saw that he was wearing well-worn, very elegant black leather riding boots.

  “I hope I wasn’t rude to your assistant,” he said apologetically. “I just thought it might be nice to get acquainted, before we get to work. I’m always self-conscious about being photographed. As a writer, I’m used to observing everyone else, not to having others watch me. I don’t like being in the limelight.” He said it with a boyish, slightly lopsided smile that immediately won her heart. He had an immense amount of charm.

  “I feel exactly the same way. I don’t like being photographed either. I like being at the shooting end myself.” She was already thinking about where she could photograph him best. She almost preferred him right where he was, stretching out comfortably in front of the fire, his head slightly thrown back so she could see his face. “Are you feeling better?” He appeared so healthy and vital that it was hard to believe he’d ever been sick. He still sounded a little hoarse, but he was full of energy, and his blue eyes danced when he laughed. He reminded her of the fairy tales of her youth, and looked like the perfect handsome prince, or the hero in a book, although most of the subjects of his work were fairly dark.

  “I’m fine now,” he said blithely, and then coughed a little. “This house is so small, I always feel somewhat foolish in it, but it’s so comfortable and easy, I could never give it up. I’ve had it for years. I’ve written some of my best books here.” And then he turned to point to his desk behind them. It was a wonderful old partner’s desk, which he said had been on a ship. It dominated the far corner of the room, where his computer sat on it, looking strangely out of place. “Thank you for coming over,” he said kindly. He seemed truly grateful, as the maid walked in, carrying a silver tray with two cups of tea. “I know it was a crazy thing to ask you to do, on Christmas week. But they needed the shot, and I’m finishing a book next week, and due to start another right after, so I’ll be back in Dublin working. Meeting you in London now made more sense.”

  “It was fine actually,” Hope said easily, helping herself to one of the cups of tea. Finn took the other one, and the maid instantly disappeared back down the stairs. “I had nothing else to do,” she said, as he examined her carefully. She was younger than he had expected, and better looking. He was startled by how tiny and delicate she was, and the strength of her violet eyes.

  “You’re a good sport to come over here right before Christmas,” he commented, as she looked at the light and shadows on his face. He was going to be easy to photograph. Everything about him was expressive, and he was a strikingly handsome man.

  “London is fun this time of year,” Hope said with a smile as she set down her cup of tea on the regimental drum he used as a coffee table. A stack of beautiful old alligator suitcases sat to one side of the fireplace. Everywhe
re she looked there was something to admire. “I usually ignore the holiday, so it was fun to come over here. The assignment was a nice surprise and came at a good time. What about you? Will you be spending Christmas in Ireland or here?” She liked getting to know her subjects before she started work, and O’Neill was easy and relaxed. He didn’t seem like a difficult person, and he was open and accessible as he smiled at her over his cup of tea. He was extremely charming and appealing.

  “No, I’m going to stay here and go back afterward,” he answered. “My son is flying over the day after Christmas. He goes to MIT, he’s a bright kid. He’s a computer whiz. His mother died when he was seven, and he grew up with me. I really miss him now that he’s in college in the States. It’s more fun for him here in London than in Dublin. And then he’s going skiing with friends. We’re very close,” Finn said proudly, and then looked at her intently. He was curious about her. “Do you have kids?”

  “No.” She shook her head quietly. “I don’t.” He was surprised. She looked as though she would. She didn’t look like one of those career women who had decided not to have children. She seemed more motherly and there was a noticeably gentle softness about her. She was soft-spoken and seemed nurturing and kind.

  “Married?” He glanced at her left hand, and there was no ring.

  “No,” and then she opened up a little. “I was. My husband was a cardiovascular surgeon at Harvard. Heart-lung transplants were his specialty. He retired ten years ago. We’ve been divorced for over two years.”

  “I think retiring destroys people. I’m going to keep writing until they carry me out. I wouldn’t know what else to do with myself. Was retiring hard on him? It must have been. Heart surgeons are always heroes, particularly at Harvard, I imagine.”