At the end of the second week, Daniel decided it was time for them to move back to the city, and reluctantly Isabelle agreed. Their baby was due in six weeks, and a two-hour drive to the hospital didn’t seem prudent to either one of them.
Maxine welcomed them back with open arms and an impromptu party. Ivan was thrilled to see the embroideries Isabelle had worked on since his last visit. Her unexpected pregnancy had thrown advertising for the Princess line into a state of confusion; the dresses she had worked on while in the Poconos helped soothe his frazzled nerves.
Of course, Matty had spread the word about the baby, and Isabelle fielded a score of happy telephone calls from various Bronsons. “Beware,” Cathy Bronson-Bernier warned her over a giggly lunch at Serendipity. “My family believes in the guerrilla-ambush style of baby shower. You won’t be safe between now and your delivery date.”
Isabelle laughed so hard that tears ran down her cheeks as Cathy detailed the bizarre yet touching rituals that surrounded the American baby shower. “I can’t escape this tradition?”
“It’s inevitable,” said Cathy, “and it’ll happen when you least expect it. I was waltzed right out of my office by two women in fake nurses’ uniforms. They put me in a stretch limousine and whisked me off to a beautiful little inn near Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island where everyone I’ve ever known and everyone I’m related to jumped out from behind the potted palms and yelled, ‘Surprise!’”
There was little Isabelle could say in response. The whole thing was so far beyond her experience that it sounded like fantasy. When she went home that evening, she related the story to an amazed Maxine and a very amused Daniel.
The idea of living separately was no longer an option for Isabelle and Bronson. His apartment was spacious but needed considerable work to make it suitable for a family. Tante Elysse had delayed her return to Manhattan until September, and Isabelle hoped that the redecorating would be finished by then. When she told Maxine there would be a suite of rooms for her, Maxine shocked Isabelle by announcing that she was moving in with Ivan as soon as Isabelle was settled back home after delivery.
Love was in the air. Isabelle teased Maxine that the wonderful romance novels she adored had transferred their magic to their lives. Maxine just smiled. The sparkle in her eyes, however, told the tale.
* * *
Despite her best intentions, Juliana found herself growing more obsessed with Isabelle as the days wore on. A small story in French Vogue had awakened the sleeping monster of jealousy, and Juliana felt the nip of its fangs in the soft flesh of her heart. Who but her sister, her blessed-by-the-gods sister, could turn a schoolgirl’s recreation into a successful endeavor? Every young woman in Perreault could wield a needle with equal skill. It was a commonplace art, almost vulgar in its accessibility. Well suited to Isabelle, all things considered.
She ripped the page, complete with a photo of a radiantly pregnant Isabelle, from the magazine and tossed it into the wastebasket beside the desk. Even her dreams of late had been filled with images of the dark-haired princess. She glanced toward the locked desk drawer where she kept Marchand’s reports. She didn’t have to see the photos of Isabelle and Eric again to call to mind each and every nuance of expression and gesture. If only she could remember how many trips abroad Eric had made last year after Bertrand’s death. It seemed as if he’d been away much more than he was at home, traveling to all of the major cities where Malraux International kept an office.
How many other times had her husband and sister been together when a camera had not been present? In Paris after Isabelle left Perreault? In London when she stayed with that Gemma creature? Or New York—over and over and over? All along Juliana had assumed that the child her sister was carrying had been fathered by that American businessman. But in truth that child could belong to anyone. Surely Isabelle had not confined her amorous athletics to two men. The child could be Gianni Vitelli’s or any number of men who had squired Isabelle during the months after Juliana and Eric announced their engagement.
But you know the truth, a voice whispered deep inside her head. The child is Eric’s—Eric’s son—the rightful heir to the throne.
She rose to her feet, her heart thudding painfully. Honore had made an appointment for her to see a specialist at the clinic in Geneva, but that wasn’t for another two weeks. Fourteen days suddenly seemed too long to wait. She fumbled through the leather-bound address book resting next to the desk blotter. Why on earth didn’t she have the phone number of the clinic? It was her business, after all, her future at stake.
Angrily she made her way down the hall to Honore’s office. He never locked the door. He was too much the gentleman to make such a statement about the honor of the inhabitants of the castle.
He wasn’t in his office. A sleek chrome Rolodex sat at right angles to the multiline telephone system he’d had installed a few months earlier. She flipped through the cards, names both familiar and famous leaping out at her as if illuminated by a spotlight. No clinic. She pushed aside the chair and opened the top drawer. A pair of gold pens, a sterling silver letter opener, a magnifying glass in a velvet pouch, an almost-empty pack of Player’s cigarettes and a book of matches with the Malraux International logo embossed at the upper left-hand corner. She tried the three drawers on the right—nothing. Top drawer on the left. The file drawer on the bottom. Hands shaking, she pushed past hanging folders filled with spreadsheet printouts, press clippings on different MI undertakings—
She stopped, bile rising to her throat. She lifted one thick folder from the drawer and opened it. Her legs buckled, and she sank to the chair, its casters skidding against the carpet. There, in a silver frame, was a picture of her sister. Across the bottom of the photo were the words “Love, Love, Love,” penned in a familiar, exuberant hand. Isabelle wore a white evening gown with a wide neckline that bared her shoulders. She was posed in the garden, near the privet hedges Juliana loved so well. The castle’s western turrets were plainly visible behind them. The look in her eyes was challenging, blatantly sexual, oddly cynical. Her dark hair was swept off her face into a tight chignon, and it struck Juliana that she had never seen her sister wear such a severe hairdo.
She peered more closely at the photo. The hedge barely reached Isabelle’s hips. Impossible, she thought. It had been years since the hedges had been that low. Not since their mother—
“My God,” she whispered. “Mama?”
“Good evening, Juliana.”
She jumped at the sound of Honore’s voice in the doorway.
“Juliana,” he repeated. “I am surprised to see you in my office.” He still wore his topcoat and a copy of Paris-Match was tucked beneath his arm.
She said nothing, simply clung to the photograph, her heart pounding madly inside her chest.
“Your mother was a beautiful woman,” he said as he stepped into the room, tossing Paris-Match onto a chair. “That is my favorite photograph of her.”
She struggled to regain her composure. “Wh-why do you have it here? Did Papa give it to you?” Don’t tell me, an inner voice begged. Please don’t tell me the truth. It was only a photograph, after all. A photograph of a woman long dead and buried. Whatever it had once meant to Honore and her mother could be of little importance now.
“My darling child,” he said, closing the door behind him. “How much you have to learn....”
* * *
Maxine settled down in the kitchen with a pot of tea and a stack of romance novels for company. Ivan had flown down to Florida for a trade show. “Come with me, Max,” he’d said. “Some sun. Some sand. Who knows what could happen?” Maxine had been tempted, but with Isabelle’s due date a month away, she had found it impossible to leave. Ivan was understanding, but Maxine knew he looked forward to the day when the baby was born and she would be free to move in with him.
The apartment was quiet except for the city sounds that floated through the open window. Isabelle and Daniel had retired for the night. It made Maxine’s heart a
che with joy that her girl had finally found a man capable of loving her the way she’d always needed to be loved. Daniel was a good man. Strong, powerful, but blessed with a kind heart that made him able to stand up for himself when Isabelle grew too full of herself. Which, even Maxine had to admit, was often.
It felt right, all of it. Maxine’s only regret was that she’d been forced to choose between Juliana and Isabelle. She loved both girls, there had never been any doubt about that, but Isabelle—headstrong, impulsive, loving Isabelle—had always held a special claim upon her heart.
She sighed as she poured herself a cup of bracing tea. Why was it that the simplest things in life proved to be the most difficult? Love should be as direct and powerful a force in life as it was between the pages of the books she enjoyed. What a shame it was that a happy ending could not be guaranteed for all.
She’d dreamed of Juliana two nights ago. Juliana stood in the castle garden, near the privet hedges. She wore a long white gown that had once belonged to her mother, Sonia. There was a child at her ankles and one in her arms. Maxine had an impression of danger, of destiny, and then in a flash Juliana was gone. Maxine had awakened, startled to find herself in her own bed.
Are you happy, child? she wondered now as she listened to the traffic sounds from the street below. Did you make the right choice?
* * *
“I cannot bear this another second,” Isabelle declared over breakfast one morning.
“’Tis almost your time,” said Maxine, buttering a toasted English muffin.
“Just a few more weeks.” Daniel poured them all some orange juice. “You’ll be able to see your feet again soon, princess.”
She looked at them blankly for a moment. “I’m not talking about my pregnancy,” she said, laughing. “I’m talking about my baby shower.” She turned to Daniel. “I implore you, if you have any idea when it will be, please tell me! The suspense is impossible to bear.”
“I’m the last one my family would tell.”
“Look at me,” Isabelle said, moving her hands across her belly. “If they don’t hurry up and surprise me, they will have to hold their party in the hospital.” She looked at Maxine. “Do you know anything, Maxi?”
Maxine shook her head. “And you would be thinkin’ I’d have my invitation by now.”
Isabelle continued to worry the subject to death during breakfast. By the time the plates were loaded into the dishwasher, both Maxine and Daniel were happy to escape to their respective offices.
“Fine,” said Isabelle as the door closed behind them. “Desert me in my hour of need.”
She wandered through the apartment, feeling restless and vaguely annoyed. She was tired of waiting for the baby, tired of being fat, and most especially she was tired of waiting for that bloody baby shower to occur. Each time she went out she half-expected to be whisked away to one of those wonderful parties Daniel’s sister had described. Wishing wells, layettes, silly guess-the-baby’s-sex contests—the more she heard about this American custom, the more she looked forward to it.
She wanted to gather experiences into her arms like a bouquet of flowers. This was her life, the place where she would finally put down roots. She and Daniel didn’t have to be married to provide a solid foundation for their child’s future. Dreams of gold wedding bands and sacred vows had vanished with Eric and Juliana and their travesty of a marriage. What she had with Daniel was all that she wanted. To ask for more would be to tempt fate.
Now and again, when she was very tired and her guard was down, she found her thoughts drifting back toward Perreault and her old fantasies about the way life should be. She imagined returning with Daniel and their beautiful baby, and asking Father Guilbeaux to baptize the infant the way he had baptized Isabelle and her father and her father’s father before him. And she would finally meet Victoria, her beautiful niece who—
Fortunately, this foolish line of thought was broken by the ring of the telephone. Isabelle was delighted when her obstetrician’s service asked if she would mind changing her appointment to this afternoon instead of later this week. Maybe if she got out of the apartment she could take her mind off this baby shower that wasn’t.
She showered, then dressed carefully in a pair of crisp white pants, a black silk T-shirt, and a linen jacket in a beautiful shade of teal blue. High heels were temporarily eliminated from her wardrobe, at least until she regained her old center of gravity. She slipped her feet into a pair of white leather sandals, then grabbed her purse. If her baby shower turned out to be held in her obstetrician’s office, she was not going to be taken entirely by surprise.
The doorman wasn’t on duty, so she stood on the curb, debating whether to walk the six blocks to the doctor’s office or hail a cab. It was a beautiful day, with clear blue skies and lots of sunshine. She knew the walk would do her good, but pregnant princesses attracted more than their fair share of attention, and the ten-minute walk might take closer to an hour. She was about to raise her arm and flag down a taxi when a sleek black limousine rolled to a stop in front of her. An attractive older woman in a pale blue Chanel stepped out, followed by a tall gentleman dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit.
Smiling, the woman stepped forward. “Princess Isabelle?”
Isabelle nodded, hopes rising. It’s inevitable, Cathy Bronson-Bernier had said about baby showers. It’ll happen when you least expect it.
“We’d like you to come with us, if you please.”
“How wonderful!”
The two well-dressed strangers met each other’s eyes. The woman’s smile widened. “I am pleased to find you so agreeable.”
“Of course I’m agreeable,” said Isabelle as they led her to the car. She looked from the woman to the man, then back again. “I had been told to expect a guerrilla-style ambush, but this is actually quite civilized.”
The man started to laugh. “You are certainly not what I expected, if I might say so.”
The woman linked her arm through Isabelle’s. “Come along then, Princess Isabelle. Your chariot awaits.”
“How wonderful,” Isabelle said as she settled comfortably in the backseat of the limousine. “I can hardly wait to see where you are taking me.”
Chapter
Eighteen
Maxine called Daniel at the office a little after four o’clock. “Something’s wrong,” she said, her voice tight. “Isabelle is gone.”
It struck Daniel that there was nothing unusual about a grown woman being out on a beautiful day in late spring, but Maxine sounded so distraught that he packed up his briefcase, told Phyllis to forward his calls, then headed for home.
By the time he reached the apartment, Maxine had worked herself up into a state bordering on panic.
“Calm down, Maxine.” Daniel put his arm around her shoulders and led her into the living room. “I’ll pour you a whiskey, and we’ll talk.”
“The only way to calm me down is for our girl to walk through that door with her arms piled high with packages. ’Tis what I’ve been fearing,” she said, her voice shaking. “Something terrible has happened, Daniel, something terrible.”
He knew all about the Irish and their love of signs and portents. He’d grown up with talk of banshees and leprechauns and things that went bump in the night. He sat down on the sofa next to her. “Now, back up and tell me what’s going on.”
“If I knew, would I be carryin’ on like this?”
Daniel forced a laugh. “I’m not going to answer a loaded question like that, Maxine.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she twisted Ivan’s engagement ring around her finger. “Isabelle’s an impulsive girl, but she’s learned to be thoughtful. Where on earth can she be?”
While Daniel was on his way home from the office, Maxine had called Dr. McCaffree, the obstetrician, and two local hospitals and had come up empty each time. Daniel’s gut knotted tighter as his anxiety level rose.
“Would you be thinkin’ your family had the party for her today?”
> “Not without asking you, Maxine.”
“I wouldn’t be family. In Perreault—”
“This isn’t Perreault. This is America. You’re family as far as we’re concerned.” They both knew Maxine would have been highly offended if she had been excluded from the baby shower. She’d made that fact known in no uncertain terms.
Maxine squeezed his hand. Her affectionate gesture took his anxiety level even higher. “She’s too trusting by half. She doesn’t know how to protect herself in the city.”
Daniel couldn’t dispute that fact. He’d seen the way the little princess met Manhattan with her arms open wide, oblivious to the dangers, both hidden and otherwise. He didn’t want to scare the hell out of Maxine, but it was time to make a few phone calls, starting with the cops.
* * *
“You must tell me,” Isabelle said as a private jet took off from Teterboro, a small airport in New Jersey. “I cannot bear the suspense.”
“Patience, Princess,” said the woman in Chanel. “Soon enough you’ll know your destination.”
As soon as the jet achieved cruising altitude, the woman excused herself to join her companion in another part of the plane. There was a surprising amount of space inside the jet, room enough for the cabin where Isabelle was seated, an office, and a sleeping compartment.
Cushy leather divans lined both sides. A video player was hidden away in a rosewood cabinet that also housed a stereo. All manner of reading material was shelved in a rosewood wall rack at the far end of the cabin, near the door that led to the bedroom.
Isabelle had grown up royal but not fabulously wealthy. She was familiar with the ways of the very rich, but still she found this whole thing quite amazing. Wouldn’t you think there were any number of wonderful places in Manhattan in which to hold this baby shower? Or why not the country inn on Long Island that Cathy had mentioned? Daniel’s entire family lived in New York. This simply didn’t make sense.
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