“Tell me you didn’t leave because of what you felt-still feel—for her.”
“That,” he said quietly, “is none of your business.”
“How can you say this thing?” she cried as she swung around. “It was always there between us, this unnatural fixation of yours for that woman. I hate it! I hate her!”
The only way to prevent a screaming fight, he had learned long ago, was to distract her. “And you came all this way to tell me that. Funny, I thought it was me you hated.”
“Never. I never hated you, this I swear.” She gave him a strange look compounded of disappointment, passion, and speculation before she went on. “I came because I wanted to know why you have not announced your engagement to Riva Staulet. I think now I know.”
“Do you? I hope you don’t mean to keep it a secret.”
“You have a rival.”
His lips twitched in a smile as he repeated, “A rival.”
“That is the right word, yes? I mean there is another man, this Dante Romoli. He stands in your way.”
“You always did have an active imagination.”
“Yes,” she agreed without umbrage, keeping her sights on her main interest. “He’s very attractive. And good with children; that’s important in a man.”
Noel was aware of a certain tightness in his chest, but he refused to acknowledge it. “Maybe you should go after him yourself, if you think he’s so great.”
“Maybe I will. It would be a fine revenge, would it not? To take her man as she took mine?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They’ve known each other for years. Whatever is between them, there’s nothing you can do to change it.”
He expected her to flare up again. Instead, she went still, staring at him. Finally she said, “You don’t know what is between them? You don’t know whether they are lovers or only friends, whether they have ever been lovers?”
“I’ve never asked.”
“Because,” she said with narrowed eyes, “you don’t want to know. Maybe you would like it if I did take this Dante from her. Maybe you would be…grateful.”
As she spoke the last word, she moved toward him and reached up to smooth her fingers along the line of his jaw. He caught her wrist and brought it down. “Not that grateful.”
She cursed him, snatching her wrist from his grasp and whirling away. “You are an imbecile! And I was crazy to come, crazy to think you might have recovered your senses, might want me and your children back again!”
“Yes, you were. Though if you would care to give me full custody of Coralie and Pietro, that’s another matter.”
“I’m sure! Never mind. I believe I will stay for a nice long visit. And when it is over, we will see who is crazy.”
“I should point out that I have not invited you, and this is my home.”
“Yours with your stepmother!”
“No, mine alone. She has an interest only in the holdings acquired by and with my father since their marriage. That is Louisiana law.”
“I spit on your laws. What her interest in this house might be, I neither know nor care, but I feel sure she will be interested in hearing how you feel about her.”
Not a muscle moved in Noel’s face as he absorbed the threat. “What makes you think she doesn’t know?”
Constance laughed. “She looks at you with the eyes of a woman who sees a danger instead of a promise of loving, an enemy rather than a lover. She doesn’t know.”
“Tell her,” he said softly, “and she won’t be the only one who sees an enemy.”
The amusement faded from her face. “It may be I’d rather have you as that than as nothing at all.”
Riva changed her linen dress for a caftan of open-weave cream cotton worn over a cream and coral maillot before she went back out to the pool. She wore no shoes. She loved going barefoot and never missed an excuse. She always felt freer that way, more herself.
For Riva, clothes were a deliberate form of disguise. She used them to present the image she wanted, one of cool, aristocratic elegance. Sometimes she was able to feel that she and the image merged, but not often. In the beginning, it had been Cosmo’s taste and direction that had created the façade. However, she had quickly discovered its usefulness and made it her own. If behind it she was still a country girl, always a little intimidated, a little out of her depth, few were privileged to know it.
Dante Romoli was one of the few. He grinned at her when he saw her bare feet and the way she kept to the shady areas on the terrace to avoid the sun-heated bricks. He had changed also, using one of the swimsuits kept ready in the cabana behind the pool’s Roman columns.
He was standing in the shallow end of the pool, which was nearest to the house. Coralie and Pietro were both wading after a big blue ball that he had thrown. The indifference of the two children was gone, replaced by wary pleasure.
Riva lowered herself onto the edge of the pool. She stripped off her caftan, then dangled her feet in the water. She was ready to play if Noel’s son and daughter looked inclined to accept her, but did not intend to force the issue. As for the exertion of swimming, it just wasn’t in her at the moment. Early-morning laps were her favored form of exercise, but she was no sun worshiper. A deep rich tan might be a sign of affluence in some parts of the country, but in Louisiana it showed either youthful carelessness or idiocy. Not only was sunbathing in the muggy heat torture, it was downright dangerous. Moreover, in that part of the country skin the color and softness of a magnolia petal had never quite gone out of style.
Erin’s college friends were playing a game of water tag. Since Erin was “out,” she swam toward Riva, then stood up in the shallow water and waded to take a seat beside her aunt. As she dragged her long hair over one shoulder to squeeze the water from it, she nodded at the two children. “I can’t believe Noel’s wife is here. I thought she despised him.”
“I suppose he has some sort of visiting rights.”
“She has her nerve, coming without so much as a postcard.”
Riva lifted a shoulder. “That’s the aristocracy for you.”
“The kids are cute, though kind of quiet. What’s she like?”
“I forgot you’ve never met her. She’s nice enough.”
Erin lifted a brow, her gaze sparkling. “Do I detect a lack of warmth there?”
“I hardly know her, really,” Riva protested. “I’ve only seen her a few times myself, once here just after the marriage and maybe twice in Paris.”
“I never understood what happened to cause them to divorce. There they were living in France and having children, and the next thing I knew she was carving metal with a blowtorch for jewelry in some garret and Noel was single again.”
“Hardly a garret,” Riva said with a crooked smile. “In fact, it was a garden apartment that just happened to be located down the street from the old haunt of the Duchess of Windsor. Other than that, you know as much as I do. If you want more, you’ll have to ask Noel.”
“No, thank you! I like my head, I’ll have you know.”
“I don’t blame you.” Noel was not the most approachable of men on many subjects; on personal matters he was impossible. He had always been that way.
They were silent a few minutes, watching Dante with the children. He had discovered that they swam like dolphins and moved with them into deeper water. Coralie was clinging to his back with her arms around his neck while Pietro stood on Dante’s bent knees and leaned back, holding his hands for support. Dante turned slowly like a lopsided and wobbly human merry-go-round so that the water swirled around the three of them. The children, shouting shrilly in glee, were to all appearances doing their best to drown him.
Erin nodded her head at Dante. “He should have kids of his own.”
“It generally takes a mother.”
“I know that, smarty!”
“I was wondering if your education had been that neglected.” Riva gave the girl a droll look.
“Sure you were. Don’t try to change the subjec
t. What about you?”
“I’m too old.”
“No, you aren’t. A lot of women have babies after forty. You just have to be careful.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Riva said.
“It’s no use, Erin!” Dante called. “Your aunt is being discreet. No talk of marriage, much less babies, for at least six more months.”
Riva frowned. She should have remembered how well voices carried over the water. “I never said that.”
“Didn’t you?” he asked, all innocence. “I could have sworn you did.”
Dante’s black gaze gleamed with something like a promise, but an instant later Coralie managed to get a stranglehold on his neck, diverting his attention once more. Regardless, Riva could feel Erin’s gaze on her own face. She could imagine what the girl was thinking, what she was wondering. Riva had known for a long time that everyone suspected her of having an affair with Dante. Everyone, including Noel. This affair was supposedly of ancient standing, so ancient it had a quasi-respectability. The truth was complicated, and known only to her and Dante. It suited them to keep it that way.
A wolf whistle, low and reverent, echoed over the water. It came from one of the college men in the pool. His gaze was trained on the back gallery, and he stopped swimming so suddenly that he sank and came up sputtering.
Stepping from the evening shadows gathering under the gallery, moving across the terrace, was a woman. She moved without haste, in superb unconcern for the fact that she was within an inch, or two at the most, of being naked. Her swimsuit consisted of three small triangles of sea-blue silk threaded with silver that were held in place by tiny, braided silver ropes. From her shoulder hung three panels of silver cloth so light they wafted around her with her every movement. Her dark hair hung in a thick, shining braid over one shoulder, and her voluptuous body was evenly, richly tan.
For an instant, Riva wished she had not been so sensible about the sun. Then rising to her feet, she made Constance welcome.
The woman greeted her children’s cries with a wave, acknowledged Erin’s friends with a nod, then removed her panels of silver cloth and let them fall to the bricks. Lifting herself on her toes, she dived into the pool. She swam to the end and back, ignoring the young college men who moved out of her way as if they weren’t there. Constance approached Dante and came to a halt in front of him, treading water.
“It was kind of you to look after Pietro and Coralie,” she said, her voice husky. “I did not thank you adequately before and would like to do so now. I am in your debt.”
There was admiration in Dante’s face as he looked at her, but behind it was wariness. “By no means,” he said. “It’s my pleasure.”
“It’s unlike them to warm to strangers so quickly. You must be a most unusual man.”
“I just offered them a chance to scream and yell and commit mayhem, since transatlantic flights give me that urge.”
Constance smiled as if uncertain whether to believe him. “Do they?”
“Every time.” Dante fended off an attack from young Pietro by swinging him up and onto his shoulder, then tipping him into the water.
The Sicilian woman turned her head away from the splash, then moved around Dante to where the water was shallow enough so that she could settle onto her feet. Her eyes narrowed in appraisal, she said, “You have a most interesting face, like an old coin.”
Dante grimaced. “I know. Mine is what’s called a noble nose.”
“Distinctive rather, I would say, and faces happen to be a hobby of mine.”
“At least it serves its purpose.”
Riva, watching the pair in the water with the children cavorting around them, recognized Dante’s evasive tactics. Privately she thought that if Constance meant to interest him, as it seemed she did, she would do better to use less blatant means. In spite of his free-wheeling life-style, Dante was the most conservative of men.
There was a scraping sound from the terrace. Noel had come outside and was taking a chair. He had removed his tie and opened his shirt collar and was rolling the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. A maid, following him, placed a tall and frosted glass garnished with a sprig of mint on the table before him. He spoke a soft word of thanks, then picked up the glass and drank, his gaze on his former wife in the water. His expression was carefully blank.
Riva picked up her caftan and pulled it on over her head, then got to her feet and walked to where Noel sat. He rose to pull out a chair for her, and she dropped into it.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked.
She shook her head. He resumed his seat and reached for his glass to take another swallow. She watched the smooth glide of his brown throat as it worked. Finally she said, “Will Constance and the children be with us long?”
“A month or two.”
“How very…nice for you.”
He gave her a straight look. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“It doesn’t matter. This is your house.”
“You run it.”
That much was true. “With a great deal of help. Your guests are no problem.”
“I never thought they would be. You’re always prepared, aren’t you?”
There was a trace of irony in his words, as if he resented her efficiency. Since it was unlikely he would give her any satisfaction if questioned about it, she ignored it. “Your father taught me to be.”
“Of course. You were well trained, the chatelaine of Bonne Vie.”
“A competent hostess, I hope.”
“Oh, I’ll give you that.”
She felt a sudden revulsion for the barren politeness of their words. It was a form of warfare. It might be better to have everything out in the open so that, like the children in the pool, they could scream and yell and commit mayhem. Then again, there were some things best covered by reticence.
“Now that you mention it,” she said, rising to her feet, “perhaps I should go and see about dinner.”
Noel did not speak as she walked away. But he watched her go, watched until the pale color of her caftan was only a dim glimmer in the hall.
“Papa! Papa, did you see me swim?”
It was Pietro, calling out as he clambered from the pool. He ran toward Noel, leaving wet footprints on the terrace with every step. A smile curved the lines in Noel’s lean face, and he felt his heart swell inside him as he reached to catch the small, damp body of his son and swing him into his lap. He had been afraid Pietro had grown away from him in the time they had been apart. Both children looked a great deal better for their water play; the boredom and fatigue that had made them so listless had been banished.
“Yes, indeed, I saw you,” Noel answered, his voice warm and deep. “You did fine.”
“I remembered what you said. I remembered everything you showed me when you lived with us.”
“I see that, and I’m proud of you.”
“I wish you’d come home. I miss you, Papa.”
Coralie, following her brother more slowly, came to lean against her father’s shoulder. She dragged free her hair that was plastered with water to her neck and tucked it behind her ear with a curiously adult air. Still, her voice was thin and childish as she asked, “Can’t you come back home with us, to Paris?”
Noel put his arm around his daughter, gently smoothing her fine-boned, sun-warmed shoulder, while at the same time holding Pietro closer and brushing the boy’s fine, tangled curls with his lips. “I miss you, too, both of you, more than I can say, but I can’t go with you.”
“Why?” Coralie demanded.
Noel’s gaze above his son’s head strayed once more to the hall of the great house where Riva had disappeared. “I belong here.”
“What about us?”
“I wish you could belong here, too.”
“So do I,” Pietro said, then squirmed in Noel’s arms. “Don’t, Papa, you’re squeezing too tight!”
“Sorry,” Noel said softly. “I’m sorry.”
FOUR
EDISON G
ALLANT WAITED INSIDE THE LIMOUSINE for the hotel doorman to open the car door. The man was hired to play the servant; let him do it. Besides, Edison enjoyed watching through the long car’s dark glass as the tourists gawked and particularly relished the moment when he stepped out onto the sidewalk and they began to mutter his name out of the sides of their mouths. Limos were a part of the big-shot image, even if they were hired. People expected it, and he meant to give them what they expected. Anne considered the big car an affectation, but he didn’t see her refusing to ride in it with him.
It was Anne who had chosen the hotel down in the French Quarter. He would have preferred the Sheraton or the Marriott on Canal, away from the congestion of the narrow streets, but she had gone on and on about the Royal Orleans and its ambience and the fact that there had been a hotel on the spot for more than a hundred and fifty years. He had finally agreed to stay there just to shut her up. She was nuts about anything old.
The place wasn’t old, really, just made to look that way, with rows of arched windows and wrought-iron gas lamps. The service was good, and he was willing to admit the address had a certain style. It was just a step to eating places like K-Paul’s, Brennan’s, and Antoine’s; no need to call the limo, so you saved that cost. But there was no getting away from the row of tourist buggies across the street, with their moth-eaten mules picturesque as all get-out in straw hats with their ears sticking through. Those he could have done without. He wasn’t thrilled by the smell of mule shit.
While the doorman in fancy livery handed his wife out of the limo, Edison gave the chauffeur his instructions for the next morning. Then he followed Anne through the heavy brass-and-glass doors being held open for them. Inside, they mounted the marble steps to the long, chandelier-hung lobby where they waded through the luggage of conventioneers checking in, then turned toward the elevators.
They had the elevator car to themselves, a small miracle. As it began to rise, Anne turned her head to look at him. “You were quiet driving back. Is something wrong?”
It was a trick of his wife’s, waiting until they were alone but not quite private to spring questions on him. She knew it annoyed him; sometimes he thought that was why she did it. She also knew he would give her an answer without what she liked to call his vulgarisms in case someone overheard. The damned image required it. Most of the time.
Crimes of Passion Page 109
