The Ring

by Steel, Danielle

  They still walked in the park sometimes, but less often, and when they were together out of his house now, he often found her sad. There were too many other people, too many children and nannies and other couples strolling in the park. She wanted to be alone with him in their own private world. She didn't want to be reminded of a world outside his walls that they did not share.

  Do you want to go back? He had been watching her quietly for a time. She was stretched gracefully on the grass, a pale mauve voile dress draped over her legs, the sun catching the gold in her hair. A mauve silk hat lay cast aside on the grass, and her stockings were the same ivory color as her kid pumps. There was a heavy rope of pearls around her neck, and behind her on the grass were her kid gloves and the mauve silk bag with the ivory clasp that had been made to match her dress.

  Yes, I want to go back. She stood up quickly, with a happy smile. What were you looking at just then? He had been staring at her so intently.

  You.

  Why?

  Because you're so incredibly beautiful. Do you know if I wrote about you I'd be totally at a loss for words.

  Then just say that I'm ugly and stupid and fat She grinned at him and they both laughed.

  Would that please you?

  Immensely. She was teasing and mischievous again.

  Well, at least no one would recognize you if I wrote about you like that.

  Are you really going to write about me?

  He was thoughtful for a long moment as they walked toward the house they both loved. One day I will. But not yet.

  Why?

  Because I'm still too overwhelmed by you to write anything coherent. In fact he smiled down at her from his considerable height "I may never be very coherent again.

  Their afternoons together were sacred, and they were often torn about whether to spend them in bed or sit comfortably in his ivory tower talking about his work. Kassandra was the woman he had waited half a lifetime for. And with Dolff, Kassandra had found what she had always so desperately needed, someone who understood the odd meanderings of her soul, the longings, the fragmented pieces, the rebelliousness against the lonely restrictions of her world. They had come to an understanding. And they both knew that, for the moment, they had no choice.

  Do you want some tea, darling? She tossed her hat and gloves on the desk in the entrance hall and went to her bag for her comb. It was onyx and ivory, inlaid and beautiful, and expensive, like everything else that she owned. She put it back in her bag and turned to Dolff with a smile. Stop grinning at me, silly ' tea?

  Hmmm ' what? Yes. I mean, no. Never mind that, Kassandra. And then he firmly took her hand in his. Come upstairs.

  Planning to show me a new chapter, are you? She smiled her incomparable smile as her eyes danced.

  Of course. I have a whole new book want to discuss with you at length.

  An hour later as he slept peacefully next to her, she looked down at him with tears in her eyes. She slipped carefully from the bed. She always hated to leave him. But it was almost six o'clock. After softly closing the door to the large white marble bathroom, she emerged again ten minutes later, fully dressed, with a look of great longing and sadness about her face. She paused for a moment next to the bed, and as though sensing her standing next to him, he opened his eyes.

  You're going?

  She nodded, and for an instant they shared a look of pain. I love you.

  He understood. So do I. He sat up in bed and held out his arms to her. I'll see you tomorrow, my darling. She smiled, kissed him again, and then blew him another kiss from the doorway before she hurried down the stairs.

  Chapter 2

  The drive from Charlottenburg to Grunewald, only slightly farther from the center of the city, took Kassandra less than half an hour. She could make it in exactly fifteen minutes if she kept her foot on the floor in the little navy blue Ford coupe; she had long since established the quickest route home. Her heart pounded slightly as she glanced at her watch.

  She was later than usual today, but she still had time to change. It annoyed her that she should be so nervous. It seemed absurd to still feel like a fifteen-year-old girl late for curfew.

  The narrow, curved streets of Grunewald came rapidly into view, as the Grunewaldsee lay flat and mirrorlike to her right. There wasn't a ripple on the water, and all she could hear was the birds. The large homes that lined the road sat solidly behind their brick walls and iron gates, concealed by trees and shrouded in their conservative silence, as in bedrooms upstairs maids assisted their ladies to dress. But she still had time, she wasn't too late.

  She pulled the car to a quick halt at the entrance to their driveway and hopped rapidly out of the car, fitting her key into the heavy brass lock in the gate. She swung both sides open and drove the car through. She could have someone come back to close the gate later. She didn't have time now. The gravel crunched noisily beneath the wheels of her car as with a practiced eye she surveyed the house. It had been built in something of a French manner and stretched out endlessly on either side of the main door. There were three sober-looking stories of discreet gray stone, topped by yet another floor with lower ceilings nestled beneath the handsomely designed mansard roof. The upper floor housed the servants. Beneath that was a floor that she noticed now was lit by lights in almost every room. Then there were her own rooms, as well as several guest rooms, and two pretty libraries, one looking out over the garden, the other over the lake. On the floor where her own rooms were shone only one light, and beneath that, on the main floor, everything was ablaze. The dining room, the main salon, the large library, the small smoking room paneled in dark wood and lined with rare books. She wondered for a moment why every single light on the lower floor appeared to be on that night, and then she remembered, and her hand flew to her mouth.

  Oh, my God ' oh, no! Her heart pounded harder, she abandoned her car outside the house. The huge, perfectly manicured lawn was deserted, and even the abundantly stocked flowerbeds seemed to reproach her as she ran up the short flight of steps. How could she have forgotten? What would he say? Clutching her hat and gloves in one hand, her handbag jammed unceremoniously under her arm, she fought the front door with her key. But as she did so, the door opened and she stood staring into the intransigent face of Berthold, their butler, his bald head gleaming in the bright light of the twin chandeliers in the main hall, his white tie and tails impeccable as always, his eyes too cold even to register disapproval. They simply gazed expressionlessly into her own. Behind him a maid in a black uniform and white lace apron and cap hurried across the main hall.

  Good evening, Berthold.

  Madam. The door closed resolutely behind her, almost at the same moment as Berthold clicked his heels.

  Nervously Kassandra glanced into the main salon. Thank God everything was ready. The dinner party for sixteen had been the last thing on her mind. Fortunately she had gone over it in detail with her housekeeper the morning before. Frau Klemmer had everything under control, as always. Nodding to the servants as she went, Kassandra rushed upstairs, wishing she could take the stairs two at a time as she did at Dolff's when they were running up to bed ' to bed ' a glimmer of a smile floated to her eyes as she thought of it, but she had to force him from her mind.

  She paused on the landing, looking down the long gray-carpeted hall. Everything around her was pearl gray, the silk on the walls, the thick carpets, the velvet drapes. There were two handsome Louis XV chests, magnificently inlaid and topped with marble, and every few feet along the walls were antique sconces with pretty flame-shaped lights. And set between them were small Rembrandt etchings, which had been in the family for years. Doors stretched to her right and left, and a glimmer of light shone beneath only one. She stopped for a moment and then ran on, down the hall toward her own room. She had just reached it when she heard a door behind her open, and the dimly lit hallway was suddenly flooded with light.

  Kassandra? The voice behind her was forbidding, but when she turned to face him, the eyes
were not. Tall, lithe, still handsome at fifty-eight, his eyes were an icier blue than hers, his hair a mixture of sand and snow. It was a beautiful face, the kind of face one saw in early Teutonic portraits, and the shoulders were square and broad.

  I'm so sorry ' I couldn't help it ' I got terribly delayed ' For an instant they stood there, their eyes holding. There was much left unsaid.

  I understand. And he did. So much more than she knew, You'll be able to manage? It would be awkward if you were late.

  I won't be. I promise. She eyed him sorrowfully. But her sadness was not for the dinner party she had forgotten, but for the joy they no longer shared.

  He smiled at her from across the vast expanse of distance that seemed to separate their two lives. Hurry. And ' Kassandra ' He paused, and she knew what was coming, as waves of guilt surged upward toward her throat. Have you been upstairs?

  She shook her head. No, not yet. I'll do that before I come down.

  Walmar von Gotthard nodded and softly closed his door. Behind that door lay his private apartment, a large, stark bedroom furnished in German and English antiques in dark woods; a Persian carpet in deep wines and sea blues blanketed the rich wood floors. The walls of his bedroom were wood paneled, as were those of the study that was his private sanctum just beyond. There was also a large dressing room and his own bathroom. Kassandra's apartment was larger still.

  And now, flying through her bedroom door, she tossed her hat onto the pink satin comforter on her bed. Her rooms were as much like her as Walmar's were like him. Everything was soft and smooth, ivory and pink, satin and silk, draped and gentle, and hidden from the world. The curtains were so lavish that they obscured her view of the garden, the room so draped and enclosed that, like her life with Walmar, it hid her from the world beyond. Her dressing room was nearly as large as her bedroom, a solid bank of closets filled with exquisite clothes, an entire wall of custom-made shoes faced by endless rows of pink satin boxes filled with hats. Behind a small French Impressionist painting hid the safe that held her jewels. And beyond the dressing room, a small sitting room with a view of the lake. There was a chaise longue that had been her mother's, and a tiny French lady's desk. There were books she no longer read now, a sketch pad she hadn't touched since March. It was as though she no longer lived here. She only came to life in the arms of Dolff.

  Kicking off the ivory kid pumps and hastily unbuttoning the lavender dress, she pulled open the doors of two closets, mentally reviewing what hung inside. But as she stared into the closets' contents, she had to stop, barely able to catch her breath. What was she doing? What had she done? What kind of mad existence had she let herself in for? What hope did she have of ever having a real life with Dolff? She was Walmar's wife forever. She knew it, always had known it, since she had married him at nineteen. He had been forty-eight then, and the marriage had seemed so right. A close associate of her father's, head of her father's sister bank, it had been a merger as much as a marriage. For people like Kassandra and Walmar, that's what made the most sense. They shared a lifestyle, they knew all the same people. Their families had intermarried once or twice before. Everything about the marriage should have worked. It didn't matter if he was so much older, and it wasn't as if he were elderly or half dead. Walmar had always been a dazzling man, and ten years after their marriage he still was. What's more, he understood her. He understood the frail otherworldiness about her, he knew how carefully she had been cloistered and nurtured during her early life. He would protect her from life's coarser moments.

  So Kassandra had her life cut out for her, from a pattern well worn by tradition and cut by hands more skilled than her own. All she had to do was what was expected of her and Walmar would cherish and protect her, guard and guide her, and continue to maintain the cocoon that had been spun for her at birth. Kassandra von Gotthard had nothing to fear from Walmar; in fact, she had nothing to fear at all, except perhaps herself. And she knew that now, better than she had ever known it before.

  Having torn one tiny hole in the cocoon that protected her, she had fled now, if not in body, then in soul. Yet she still had to come home at night, to play the role, to be who she was meant to be, to be Walmar von Gotthard's wife.

  Frau von Gotthard?

  Kassandra wheeled nervously as she heard the voice behind her in her dressing room. Oh, Anna ' thank you. I don't need any help.

  Fr+nulein Hedwig asked me to tell you Oh, God, it was coming; Kassandra turned away from her, feeling guilt pierce her once again to the core "the children would like to see you before they go to bed.

  I'll come upstairs as soon as I'm dressed. Thank you. The tone of her voice told the young woman in the black lace uniform to go. Kassandra knew all the tones to use to perfection; the right intonations and right words were part of her blood. Never rude, never angry, seldom brusque, she was a lady. This was her world. But as the door closed softly behind the maid, Kassandra sank to a chair in her dressing room with tears brimming in her eyes. She felt helpless, broken, pulled. This was the world of her duties, the existence she had been bred to. And it was precisely what she ran away from each day when she went to meet Dolff.

  Walmar was her family now. Walmar and the children. She had no one to turn to. Her father was dead now. And her mother, gone two years after her father, had she been this lonely too? There was no one to ask, and no one she knew who would have told her the truth.

  From the start she and Walmar had maintained a respectful distance. Walmar had suggested separate bedrooms. There were little evenings in her boudoir, champagne chilled in silver coolers, which eventually led them to bed, though very seldom since the birth of their last child, when Kassandra had been twenty-four. The child had been born by Cesarean section and she had almost died. Walmar was concerned about what another pregnancy could do to her, as was she. The champagne had cooled less and less often after that. And since March there had been no evenings in her boudoir at all. Walmar asked no questions. It had taken little to make herself understood, the mention of several trips to the doctor, a mention of an ache, a pain, a headache; she retired early to her bedroom every night. It was all right, Walmar understood it. But in truth, when Kassandra came back to this house, to his house, to her bedroom, she knew that it wasn't all right at all. What would she do now? Was this what life had promised? Was she to go on Just like this, indefinitely? Probably. Until Dolff tired of the game. Because he would, he'd have to. Kassandra knew it already, even if Dolff did not And then what? Another? And another? Or no one at all? As she stood staring bleakly into her mirror, she wasn't sure anymore. The woman who had been certain in the house in Charlottenburg that afternoon was no longer quite as poised. She knew only that she was a woman who had betrayed her husband and her way of life.

  Taking a deep breath, she stood up and went back to her closet. It didn't matter what she felt now, she had to dress. The least she could do for him was look decent at his dinner. The guests were all fellow bankers and their wives. She was always the youngest at any gathering, but she carried herself well.

  For an instant Kassandra wanted to slam the door to her closet and run upstairs, to be with the children the miracles hidden from her on the third floor. The children playing at the lake at Charlottenburg always reminded her of them, and it always pained her to realize that she knew her own children as little as she knew those tiny laughing strangers at the lake. Fr+nulein Hedwig was their mother now. She always had been and always would be. Kassandra felt like a stranger with the little boy and girl, who both looked so much like Walmar and so little like her' Don't be absurd, Kassandra. You can't take care of her yourself.

  But I want to. She had looked at Walmar sadly the day after Ariana was born. She's mine.

  She's not yours, she's ours. He had smiled at her gently as tears filled her eyes. What do you want to do, stay up all night and change diapers? You'd be exhausted in two days. It's unheard of, it's ' nonsense. For a moment he had looked annoyed. But it wasn't nonsense. It was what she wanted, and she
knew also that it was what she would never be allowed to do.

  The nurse had arrived on die day they left the hospital and whisked the baby Ariana to the third floor. That night, when Kassandra had walked upstairs to see her, she had been admonished by Fr+nulein for disturbing the baby. The infant was to be brought to her, Walmar insisted; there was no reason for Kassandra to go upstairs. But her little girl was brought to her only once in the morning, and when Kassandra appeared in the nursery later, she was always told it was too early or too late, the baby was sleeping, fussing, cranky, unhappy. And Kassandra would be sent away to languish in her room. Wait until the child is older, Walmar told her, then you can play with her anytime you want. But by then it was too late. Kassandra and the child were strangers. The nurse had won. And when the second child came three years later, Kassandra was too sick to put up a fight. Four weeks in the hospital, and another four weeks in bed at home. Four more months of an overwhelming sense of depression. And when it was over, she knew it was a battle she would never win. Her assistance wasn't needed, her help, or her love, or her time. She was a pretty lady who would come to visit, wearing pretty clothes and smelling of wonderful French perfume. She would sneak them cakes and candy, spend fortunes on exotic toys, but what they needed from her she was not allowed to give them, and what she wanted from them in return they had long since bestowed upon the nurse.

  The tears having subsided, Kassandra pulled herself together, took her dress from the closet, and crossed the room to find a pair of black suede shoes. She had nine pairs of them for evening but she chose the ones she had acquired most recently, with pear-shaped openings over the toes, leaving her brightly polished nails visible. Her silk stockings made a whispering sound as she took them from their satin box and changed from the ivory-colored stockings she had worn earlier. She was grateful suddenly that she'd taken the time to bathe at Dolff's. Now as she stood there, sliding carefully into the black dress, it seemed incredible that she existed in Dolff's world at all. The house in Charlottenburg seemed like a distant dream. This was her reality. The world of Walmar von Gotthard. She was irretrievably and undeniably his wife.