After leaving the boutique, Cara followed the owner's directions. In a few steps she had reached the fountain and seated herself at a table.
She ordered lobster salad and settled back to observe the other shoppers and customers. Two plump, well-dressed middle-aged women approached and chose a table near hers. Her lunch arrived, and as she ate, she couldn't help overhearing their conversation. They were talking about parties they'd attended recently, and she noticed that the Princess's name came up several times in their conversation.
"Her daughter Tandy is practically engaged," the brown-haired woman said to her companion.
Cara sat straight up in her chair, startled. This was the first she'd heard of any engagement.
"Yes," said the gray-haired one. "To Alec Martyn. I must say he's quite a catch, although personally I prefer Blake."
The woman with the brown hair leaned toward her friend. "Well, listen to this. You know how these young girls are, just one fellow after another. I heard from Marcia that the Princess hopes to announce Tandy's engagement to Alec at her last gala party at the end of the social season. But guess who Helene Pallister saw Tandy dancing with last night at the new club?" The other woman shook her head. "Blake, that's who! Perhaps there's more to this feud between Blake and Alec than the future of Xanadu."
The two women lowered their voices to a buzz, and Cara didn't hear any more. She tried to tell herself that none of this concerned her, that she didn't really care if Tandy and Alec were to be married. It would be a logical marriage, with Tandy and Alec equal in money and social position. Yet there was more to marriage than logic. Marriage involved caring and trust and a spark that could be fanned into a flame....
She'd lost her appetite, and she pushed the remains of the lobster salad to one side of her plate. Blindly she fumbled in her purse for money and tossed it on the table. She wanted nothing more than to be back in her room at Xanadu, alone with her thoughts.
* * *
Once Cara was in her room her thoughts refused to comfort her. Instead they rattled inside her head like squirrels in a cage. She developed a throbbing headache and lay down on her bed, hoping to take a brief nap in preparation for the ball. She fell asleep for a short while, and when she awoke she found that Ingrid had tiptoed in and left a small supper on her table.
She picked at the food and then ran the water for her bath. This time a bath did nothing to refresh her, and she emerged from the elaborate tub feeling as listless as she had before.
"This is ridiculous," she said to her image in the mirror. "You're going to a ball at Xanadu! Snap out of it!" Her reflection stared back at her and refused to smile.
Slowly she donned the sari and, remembering the instructions, arranged the folds to drape gracefully. She took heart in the fact that the dress did look well on her. But what to do with her hair?
She brushed it until it gleamed like polished ebony, then pinned it this way and that, experimenting. Finally she decided that it looked best floating to her shoulder on the left side and pinned back on the right. She was looking for an attractive comb with which to secure it when a knock sounded on the door.
It was Ingrid. "Cara, something for you. You said you have no diamonds, so I've had Otto bring you jewels from his garden." She held a handful of creamy white camellias.
Cara accepted the flowers and hugged Ingrid with her free arm. "Thank you so much," she said gratefully, her spirits lifting.
"I must get back. Downstairs is a madhouse. The caterers, the florists, all arrive at once. It's like the old times," Ingrid said happily before rushing off.
Warming now to the prospect of the ball, Cara stood before her mirror again and selected a single perfect blossom. She fastened it securely over her right ear, the side where the hair was swept back. The flower revealed only the tip of her earlobe.
A light coat of lipstick, a touch of eye shadow, and she was ready. She wasn't beautiful in the strict sense of the word, Cara thought, but she was striking. With one parting glance in the mirror she flipped the ends of the sari over her head. The effect was unusual and provocative.
Eight o'clock sharp, the Princess had said. Cara noticed as she passed the ormolu clock in the hallway that she was a few minutes late, and the sound of laughter floated up the stone stairway. Carefully she descended the steps, looking among the strangers below for a familiar face. Someone waved, and she recognized Paige Smith. Happy to see her, and assuming that the rugged and handsome man with her was her husband, Cara waved back.
When she was close enough to see the reception line, she caught a glimpse of Tandy. Alec stood at Tandy's elbow, bending closer to catch her words. Before Cara had time to react to the two of them together, she unwittingly found herself in the midst of a group that was entering the ballroom door and headed for the reception line. Cara pasted a bright smile on her face and allowed herself to be swept along.
First she encountered the Princess, who was accompanied by Coco in his jeweled collar sitting on her shoulder. The Princess failed to recognize her before passing her on to Blake, who honored her with a ritual social kiss. He pulled her close to whisper, "Save me a few dances, will you?"
Then her hand was in Alec's, and before she thought of anything to say he was propelling her away from the reception line. Without a word, he swung her out onto the dance floor.
"What's this about?" she asked skeptically. "Aren't you supposed to greet the guests?"
"I've greeted, I've meeted, I've been deleted," he said. "Someone else can make nice to Palm Beach's finest. If they are."
Cara had no reply to this. She let herself be led to the soft strains of the orchestra, which took up almost the whole length of one of the galleries. They danced for several bars before she realized that Alec was looking down at her with a teasing smile. His good mood struck her as off-kilter, considering.
"Have you made up your mind about me yet?" she asked, and then she bit her lip in chagrin. She hadn't meant to sound so cutting.
Alec threw back his head and laughed, causing several nearby couples to give them curious looks. "No, but if you are a groupie, you're the first one who's ever made it to a ball at Xanadu. Quite an accomplishment, I'd say." And he laughed again.
Cara felt herself tensing in anger, but her indignation subsided when Alec pulled her closer. "You look so beautiful tonight, Cara. Can't we call a truce?"
Cara felt the need for a friend in this ballroom full of strangers, and Alec seemed eager to be on good terms. "That's quite a pickup line," she told him.
"Is it working?"
She tried to keep from smiling, but it was a lost cause when he was being so amiable. "All right, Alec. A truce."
Instead of replying, Alec held her even more tightly and whirled her around the floor, twirling so rapidly that they almost ran into another couple.
"Excuse me," said the man as they all stopped to collect themselves after the near collision.
"Ponce!" exclaimed Alec. "I didn't realize you were in town."
"Only for a few weeks." He pulled his dancing partner closer. "Alec, you've met my wife Alix when we were all guests at a Key West benefit for loggerhead sea turtles."
"How well I remember," Alec said. "You donated some fantastic door prizes. Are you still salvaging El Primero de Mayo?"
"And now, another wreck off Cuba," Alix added. She was a striking blonde wearing spectacular jewelry, and after Alec introduced her and took Ponce aside for a private and clearly impassioned conversation, Cara told Alix about seeing Cabrera, the shop off Worth Avenue.
"The shop's a pet project," Alix said. "Ponce and I hope to open a few more around the world so that everyone has a chance to own a copy of jewelry meant for a queen."
"That's a neat idea," Cara told her. "It was brilliant of you to think of it."
"Ponce did. I only followed it through by finding the right people to handle the details," Alix told her with a smile.
It seemed like a long time before the men rejoined them, but Cara had no prob
lem making small talk with Alix about her work on El Primero de Mayo. As Ponce and his wife headed for the bar, Alec again led Cara onto the dance floor.
"What was that about?" Cara asked him. "Your discussion with Ponce, I mean. If you don't mind my asking."
"And if I did?"
Cara grinned. "I'd probably ask anyway."
Alec laughed. "I'm sure you would. Without getting too specific, Ponce and I touched on the problem of Xanadu. He's a key member on the governor's Committee of Historic Trusts."
"You're well connected, aren't you?" she said with admiration.
Alec rolled his eyes. "Who isn't, in this town? For what it's worth, Blake hates Ponce. They fell out years ago over Blake's investment in a wreck salvaged by Ponce's main competitor, Luke Stallingrath."
"Isn't Stallingrath the treasure salvor who went broke?"
"Yeah. Heard he's a peanut vendor along the dock in Key West these days. People can't get enough of his caramel corn."
"Seriously?"
"Let's not talk about that. I'd rather stay in the very pleasant moment."
Cara saw the wisdom in that. After a time she said, "You're an excellent dancer, Alec. Except for almost mowing down the Cabreras."
Alec glanced over his shoulder. "At the moment, I'm trying to escape from the Princess. It doesn't appear that I've succeeded."
Cara saw the Princess bearing down on them. Before they stopped dancing, Alec swore under his breath and began to hum a few lines of a song that Cara recognized.
"'Witchy Woman?' By the Eagles?"
"Honey, that lady is a whole coven of witches on one broomstick."
Cara stifled her laughter before the Princess reached them.
"Ms.—uh—" the Princess said, forgetting Cara's name.
"Demorest," Alec supplied helpfully, glancing at Cara with barely suppressed amusement.
"Ms. Demorest, I expect you to help the guests find their tables. Here is a list of the reserved—"
"Nonsense," Alec said smoothly, taking her in his arms as the orchestra played the first bars of a waltz. "Cara is dancing with me." And he spun her away despite the Princess's indignant protests.
"The only reason she asked me to be here tonight was so that I could help with the seating," Cara informed Alec, who was grinning down at her with a devil-may-care glint in his eye.
"You have the Princess flummoxed. She's not accustomed to the hired help making such a spectacular show on the dance floor."
"Since I am the hired help, I should do as she asked."
"You don't work for her. Let Tandy handle the seating. Tonight you're my guest, and Dolly Finkley can fly back to Oz on her broomstick. And weren't there monkeys involved in that movie?"
"Alec, you're vicious," Cara said, laughter behind her words.
"And you're delicious. As I recall. We might as well have a good time, don't you think?"
Somewhat mollified, Cara relaxed in Alec's arms. Considering that he usually wore beach togs, he'd cleaned up well. Alec looked dashing in a tuxedo and appeared to be surprisingly at ease in it. With his upbringing, he'd no doubt been required to attend cotillions and debutante balls, acquiring considerable savoir faire in the process.
After the waltz came a sexy salsa, and during the following fox trot, Blake cut in on his brother.
"I thought I told you to save some dances for me," Blake complained good-naturedly. Cara smiled at him but remained silent. Alec's groupie accusation had made her self-conscious around Blake. For now, she'd squelch Alec's suspicions by treating Blake with the deference due an employer and remaining personally aloof.
Soon a friend of Blake's cut in, and then a friend of Alec's, and Cara found that she was being passed from partner to partner in dizzying succession. Tandy, ushering people to their tables, threw her a couple of nasty looks, but Cara was too much in demand to care.
When she finally encountered Alec during a lull, he guided her to a table in the gallery where they could look out over the dance floor. Hundreds of candles illuminated the handsomely carved ceiling and crystal chandeliers. Dancers in their colorful gowns and sparkling jewels created a moving mosaic constantly changing in shape and composition.
"This is the way I love to see it," Alec said softly. "'A stately pleasure dome.'" He looked sad, and Cara's heart went out to him.
"It's beautiful," she replied with a wistful look. "I can almost imagine Xanadu as it was when Conn Grandolf hosted magnificent parties."
"Those days," Alec said ruefully, "are gone forever."
A waiter approached with a tray and offered them champagne punch. Carrying their cups, Cara and Alec strolled through the galleries and out the doors to the loggia. Flower-hung arches framed the view of the lighted pool. Couples lingered here and there in the courtyard. Cara saw the Cabreras and the Smiths in earnest conversation, and for a moment, she thought that she and Alec might join them.
Before she could suggest it, a waiter appeared and whisked away their cups. Alec slid an arm around her waist and steered her toward the ballroom. As they approached the doors, Cara hung back when she spotted Blake and Tandy on the dance floor engrossed in conversation. Somehow Tandy must have been relieved of her table duties, or, more likely, guests had stopped arriving. The Princess was nowhere in sight.
Remembering the conversation between the two women at the restaurant earlier, Cara felt a sudden impulse to ask Alec about his romantic interest in Tandy but hesitated. From the first, she hadn't understood the dynamics between Blake, Alec, and Tandy, and this didn't seem like the right time to seek an explanation.
"Let's show them how to dance," Alec said, and Cara again found herself on the dance floor, gliding effortlessly within the circle of Alec's arms.
If Alec was trying to make Tandy jealous, Cara thought, then this was the way to do it. They waltzed around Tandy and Blake in great loops, attracting a circle of admirers who clapped whenever they executed a particularly intricate step. Cara threw all her concentration into following Alec's lead, blocking out the complexities of the situation.
When the dance was over, their audience clapped and began to drift away. "Let's step outside for a breath of air," Alec said.
From somewhere behind them Cara heard Tandy's voice. "Why, Alec! Aren't you going to dance with me?"
Cara whirled to see Tandy advancing. She instinctively took a step in retreat, but Alec's firm hand on her arm refused to let her budge.
"Unfortunately, all my dances are taken," Alec said.
"All?"
"Yes," said Alec. "By the way, you have met Cara," he added pointedly.
Tandy flicked her eyes over Cara, taking in her face, her hair, her sari. "Yes, we've met," she said distantly.
Although Tandy was trying to be intimidating, Cara had to admit that she looked lovely. Her gown was a floating sea-foam green concoction that exactly matched the color of her eyes, and at her ears and throat she wore stunning coral jewelry.
With a withering look at Cara, Tandy placed a hand on Alec's arm before whispering huskily, "See you later." She flounced away, her hips swiveling mightily with every step.
"Don't let Tandy get to you," Alec whispered. "She doesn't get along well with other women. Especially pretty ones."
A few moments ago Cara had been convinced that Alec was trying to make Tandy jealous, but those weren't the words of a man who cared deeply about another woman. She would have liked to expand the topic in that direction, since it appeared that at Xanadu conversation was a kind of bartering: you tell me this and I'll tell you that. But at that moment, her sari began to come untucked at her waist.
"If you'll excuse me," she said to Alec, "I'll be right back." She'd brought a couple of safety pins in preparation for wardrobe malfunction.
"Hey, you're not skipping out because of Tandy, are you?"
She held up the loose end of magenta fabric now detached from her middle. "This needs a quick fix, or I'll unwrap like a burrito."
Alec grinned. "I always did like Mexican fo
od," he said. "While you're rewrapping, I'll grab some more punch."
As Alec shouldered through the crowd in the direction of the punch bowl, Cara headed for the ladies' lounge. Outside the ballroom she found herself trapped amid a crush of people, and when she found that she could move neither forward nor backward, she sighed and braced herself to wait until they had passed.
Ahead of her stood the Princess, attired in a gray satin gown encrusted with seed pearls, a diamond tiara tipped slightly to one side of her carrot-colored coiffure. Coco clung precipitously to her scrawny neck.
"I saw Alec dancing with that adorable dark-haired girl in the sari," said one of the women surrounding her. "Who is she?"
"Nobody, that's who!" said the Princess, her voice ringing out clearly. "Just some clerk who works for Blake. Someone who doesn't belong here. She has no class. Did you see how she's dressed?" The Princess's voice was heavy with disdain.
"Well, she's apparently an invited guest. Alec certainly seems to like her."
"She's obviously not one of us. Which means she'll be gone soon like all the others," retorted the Princess.
"Those bottom feeders that Blake dates, you mean? I don't recall Alec bringing anyone to Xanadu."
"Never mind. If Blake gets his way, soon there will be no Xanadu," the Princess pointed out. "And no Cara what's-her-name to stir up trouble."
Cara felt sudden angry tears well up in her eyes, but she willed herself to stay calm. Her first impulse was to run, to get as far away from that hateful woman as she could. She saw an opening in the crowd and pushed blindly toward it, her eyes smarting from unshed tears.
A tall, elderly man with a halo of curly white hair blocked her way when she reached the foyer.
"Excuse me," she blurted, sidestepping him. She held the folds of her sari at her waist so it wouldn't become unwound.
The man's eyes shone with understanding. "I heard what she said," he began, placing a kindly hand on her shoulder. "Pay no attention."
Cara saw several people staring at her and she knew that she must get away. This white-haired gentleman was sweet, but the ball was over for her.
"Come back into the ballroom and dance with me," he said in a soothing tone.
The Beach Bachelors Boxset (Three Complete Contemporary Romance Novels in One) (The Beach Bachelors Series) Page 42
