Jeanie knelt before her sister, looking intently into the dark, sorrowful eyes. “Once, not so very long ago,” she said slowly, “you sent me after the man I love. I went, scared stiff-and-spitless that he might send me away. But I had to do it. I took your word for it that it was worth the chance. Why don’t you do the same, Sharon?”
“I would! Oh, Jeanie, believe me, I would if I knew where to start looking! But don’t forget, this is a big world, and he could be anywhere.”
Jeanie sighed and nodded. “I’m going to find something good to eat, something incredibly sweet and sticky and calorie-rich. I know, I know,” she said as Sharon followed her. “I’m going to look like a whale before this baby is born!”
Sharon said, “I’m going to look like one soon, too, and I’m not even pregnant. Why is it, when you were pining for Max, you wouldn’t eat? Now that I’m pining for Marc, all I want is chocolate.”
Jeanie pulled a tub of Oreo ice cream from the freezer, set it on the table and stuck two spoons in it. “The brain,” she said, “thinks chocolate is a substitute for sex.”
“The brain,” Sharon commented sadly, “is out of its mind.”
“And so are you, if you go on pining, instead of taking some kind of action.”
“Sure. But … what action?”
“That, sister-dear, is something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.”
“Jeanie! Max! Wake up!” Max flung open the door with a robe dragged half on. Jeanie followed him, crowding past him. “Sharon, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing! Nothing! But … will you take the kids with you when you leave in the morning? It’s spring break, and I’ve already talked to Zinnie. She said they can stay with her and Harry.”
Jeanie said, “Sure, but … where are you going?”
“I’m going to Montreal.”
Jeanie breathed a sigh of relief. “Marc! You’ve heard from him.” She laughed happily and said, “When did he call? What did he say? Where has he been?”
“He didn’t call. But I woke up knowing where he is!” She didn’t tell her sister that Grandma Margaret had told her in a dream. She knew Max thought the whole thing about their Gypsy ancestor was a crock.
“What?” Max shook his head. “How could you—”
Jeanie interrupted, eyes full of light. “Never mind. She knows.”
“Yes.” Sharon’s conviction shone in her face. “Where would you go if you were hurt, if you’d gone everywhere else in the world and not found peace?”
“Here, of course,” her sister said with full understanding. “I wouldn’t even try every other place in the world. I’d come home to you.”
“That’s what Marc has done. I’m sure of it. He’s gone home. He must have. But even if he hasn’t, his family will know where he is. I’m going to them. I’ll make them tell me where he is, and then I’m going to bring him home!”
Behind her, Jason rubbed sleep out of his eyes and said, “Yeah! Go for it, Mom!”
Jeanie repeated the phrase as she hugged her sister. “Damn right! Go for it, Mom …”
Max gave a long-suffering sigh. “But there is absolutely nowhere you can go at three o’clock in the morning except to bed. Does anybody mind?”
Sharon laughed and shooed her son toward his room. “You guys go ahead. I have to pack a bag.” Then, biting her lip, she looked at the others with consternation. “I wondered why Zinnie had such a hard time understanding me at first. I guess I woke her up. Oh, my goodness, I hope she’ll forgive me!”
“What she wouldn’t forgive,” Max said, laughing, “is not being made a part of this expedition of yours. I’m sure she was thrilled to get a call in the middle of the night if it would further the course of true love. Now, good night, dear sister-in-law. Please. Good night!”
A filthy scum of used snow lay at the side of the street. Naked trees cast lacy shadows on the sidewalk, and floating clouds interspersed with blue patches of sky reflected in puddles where slush and ice had melted temporarily. Sharon stood and watched the taxi drive off, and then she was alone except for a mailman far down the long block, heading her way. She gazed at the tall, wrought-iron gates set into the gray stone walls surrounding the ancient, massive house.
It was a forbidding place, this St.-Clair family home, even though one side of the gates stood open and the drive was neatly plowed, even dry in spots, with wisps of steam arising, as if the fitful spring sun had been enough to warm it. She had no idea who actually lived there, if it was Marc’s grandparents, or his parents, or perhaps all of them. She had thought about making an appointment with one of his brothers or his sister at the law offices, but this was a personal, not a business matter, and a personal approach was the right one. And surely whomever she found within that stone pile of a house would know where Marc was. The question, however, was would they tell her?
A uniformed maid answered the door, and Sharon blinked with surprise. Nobody she knew had a uniformed maid! This was going to be harder than she’d anticipated. In rusty French, she asked to speak to “Madame,” hoping that was a logical request. What if no one lived there but Marc’s grandfather?
To her relief, the maid stepped back and said, “This way, please. You are expected.” Sharon thought she must have been mistaken. It was a long time since she’d spoken or heard French. Except, she thought with a stab of pain, the love words Marc had whispered to her in the endless nights they’d shared.
The maid took her coat and gloves, placed them in a huge armoire, and then led the way across an entry hall that was almost as big as Sharon’s entire main floor. It had an elegant, sweeping staircase leading up to a gallery, and it was this way the maid took her. The stairs were marble with a deep red runner held in place with solid brass rods. As she followed the woman down a corridor leading off the gallery, Sharon felt as if she had entered a museum. Dark wainscoting seemed to eat up the light cast by bulbs recessed into an extraordinarily high ceiling. Suddenly, a sense of unreality came over her. She was completely out of her element. If this house was indicative of Marc’s background, it pointed out only too sharply the differences between them. He was exotic South Pacific shells; she was sand dollars from the Lantzville beach. She didn’t belong here any more than she’d have belonged at Buckingham Palace.
When the maid knocked briefly and swung open a set of nine-feet-tall double doors, the black-dressed woman actually curtsied, for heaven’s sake! Then, stepping aside for Sharon to enter, she announced that the nurse was there and backed out, shutting the enormous doors, leaving Sharon on the inside.
On the far side of the room, an elderly, diminutive woman dressed in a red track suit sat erect on a hassock, toasting marshmallows on a very long fork over a blazing fire. Her hair was piled high in elaborate lavender curls and twists, and she peered with interest at Sharon.
A quick, infectious smile broke across her face as she bade her guest to come in and sit down, and offered her a marshmallow by holding out the fork with an already golden brown morsel on the end. The color of it reminded Sharon of Marc’s eyes, and she had to blink to keep tears from forming in her own.
“Bonjour,” she said, sitting on the edge of the chair the woman indicated and shaking her head at the offer of the marshmallow. The woman shrugged in a manner that was so familiar and so dear, Sharon was again forced to blink back tears. Quickly, she introduced herself and explained that she was there under false pretenses. She wasn’t the expected nurse but a personal friend of Jean-Marc’s, and she dearly hoped that someone could tell her where to find him.
“Ah …” said the elderly woman. “You are, perhaps, a lady-love of my grandson?” She had spoken in English, faintly accented.
“Yes, but not ‘a’ lady-love. I am the only one,” she corrected Marc’s grandmother gently. Black-penciled eyebrows rose, one higher than the other. “So? You seem sure of this.”
“Yes. I am sure of it.”
“How is it, then, that you do not know where Jean-Marc is?”
“We had a misunderstanding.”
The woman licked her fingers and placed another marshmallow on the fork. “A lovers’ quarrel?” she asked gleefully, leaning forward to poke her marshmallow close to the coals, only taking her bright eyes off Sharon for an instant. “Lovers’ quarrels are wonderful! Tell me all about yours.”
It was a command that Sharon ignored. “Wonderful?” she asked. “What is so wonderful about them?”
“Why … making up, of course.” Her eyes twinkled as she cocked her head to one side as if waiting for Sharon to say something, and when she did not, turned her attention once again to her cooking task.
“Enough for me,” she said, eating the last marshmallow. “I shall order coffee now, and cakes.”
“But … the nurse?”
“Pah! She can come back tomorrow. Today, I wish to speak with you, to hear your story. Begin.”
“Madame, please, I really must not waste time. Yours or mine. Can you tell me where Marc-er, Jean-Marc-is? I truly need to see him. To talk to him.”
The woman nodded. “Ah, yes. But does my grandson want to see you?”
Sharon was unable to control the tears that flooded up in response to the question. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I only know I have to try. Madame, please help me.”
Leaning forward, the old woman patted her hands and said, “Of course I will. Only … first you must tell me all about it.”
To her surprise, over coffee and cakes, it was easy for Sharon to explain in full detail not only the story of her time with Marc, but of her marriage and the insecurities she’d been left with. And when she was finished, Madame St.-Clair nodded slowly. “Yes. I can see how you might have been confused and frightened for just a small while and run away. It is a shame my grandson did not wait to speak with you. But that is his way. When he is ’urt, he goes to hide.”
“Then you understand? Where is he hiding, Madame?”
“Where?” The question was accompanied by widening eyes, lifted brows, and hands spread palms-up in a helpless gesture. “Where? I do not know! How would I know? I’m just an old lady. No one tells me anything.”
“Oh! But…” Sharon couldn’t hide her dismay. “I see. Thank you.” She got to her feet. “Forgive me for taking up your time, Madame.”
“Oh, sit down, sit down, child. I did not say I couldn’t find out where he is. I will ask his father. My son Reginald always knows where Jean-Marc is. They are close.” She crossed her fingers. “Like this, no?” She reached for a large, black rotary-dial telephone.
Sharon sat on the edge of her chair watching the play of expression and emotion cross the old woman’s face as she spoke in rapid French. Finally, with a sigh, and a moue of sadness, Madame hung up.
“My son … he says Jean-Marc does not want to see you, and that I am not to tell you where he is.”
Again, Sharon stood. Holding her hand out, she said in a taut voice that just hovered on the edge of a wobble, “Thank you, Madame St.-Clair, for trying. Good-bye.”
“What? No. You must not say good-bye, my dear child. Come, we will take a drive together, you and I. You tell me you have not been to my city for many years. I cannot let you go without showing you around.” Again, she reached for the telephone, and this time Sharon understood that she was ordering her car brought around. Argument was useless. Whatever she said was overridden and pooh-poohed. There was time, Madame assured her, for everything, and all would work out for the best. With a floor-length mink draped over her red track suit, and her feet stuffed into fleece-lined boots, Marc’s grandmother hurried her guest out to the chauffeur-driven car. Sharon, she ordered, was not to worry but to enjoy.
Sharon could not. Dutifully, she nodded and listened to the information spouting forth. This building was new, that one had been renovated, and see where they had torn down all those ugly old tenements and put in condominiums? All very lovely, yes? But what of the poor souls who now had nowhere to live?
“And this building is very special to our family. We own it. Come, we will alight. You must see something in here.” As soon as the car had stopped, she hopped out, not waiting for her uniformed driver to attend her, and dragged Sharon with her. A doorman bowed low and swung wide massive glass doors with gold lettering Sharon didn’t have an opportunity to read, and then ushered them to an elevator on which he used a key and bowed again.
The doors whispered closed with expensive ease, enclosing them in carpeted, mirrored luxury. Though the ride was smooth and carried them high, it was soon over, and the doors opened again just as silently as they had closed.
“Where—” Are we, Sharon had been about to ask, staring around the beautifully appointed penthouse apartment.
A dainty hand closed over her mouth, and a snapping dark eye winked at her. “Hush,” Madame whispered. “I said I would not tell. I did not say I would not show. The rest, child, is up to you.”
With that, she slipped back into the elevator. From a room somewhere within the apartment, a tape played loudly. A golden oldie: “King of the Road.” On shaking legs, Sharon followed the sound.
Marc lay on a wide leather couch, one long leg slung over the back, the other resting full length, his bare foot on the arm of the sofa. He was clean-shaven, his face craggy and worn looking, his eyes closed. With one hand he beat out the rhythm of the song on his bare abdomen just over the waistband of his jeans. His hair, she noted, was still too long.
The carpet underfoot was so thick, she could have walked across the room in army boots and he wouldn’t have heard her, but she went quietly anyway, switched off the CD player, and stood there as his eyes popped open.
“All right, King of the Road,” she said. “You seem to have come to rest.”
Slowly, he swung his feet to the floor and sat up, never removing his gaze from her face. “I said I didn’t want to see you,” he told her. “Didn’t you get the message?”
“I got it,” she admitted. “But I didn’t come all this way to hear that.”
“So what did you come all this way for?”
His slight slip in pronunciation told her more than anything that he wasn’t as calm and unmoved as he pretended to be. She stepped toward him. As if to ward her off, or to gain the advantage of height, he got to his feet. She didn’t stop until she was but inches from him. Tilting her head back, she looked at his stony face.
She widened her eyes in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. It was futile. “You don’t sound very forgiving,” she whispered, and blinked involuntarily, sending a curtain of shimmering drops down her face.
“Don’t … please!” The words were dragged from him. He lifted a hand as if to touch her, and then let it fall, clenching his fists at his sides. A muscle in his shoulder jumped spasmodically. His face was deathly white.
“I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.” With the back of her hand, she dried her face. “I can understand your anger, Marc. Or do I have to call you Jean-Marc now? I can understand it, truly, and I know I deserve it. I knew you better than to believe those old rumors. Only when it all happened, I didn’t know you, and I believed them because of what was happening to me. So when I saw your name and realized that you weren’t just Marc Duval, that you were that other man, the one I’d read about and thought such terrible things about, I was shocked and frightened and disillusioned. But only for a while, Marc! When I realized how wrong I’d been, I called you, but you didn’t answer. It took me another hour to get home. By then, you were gone.”
He nodded. “I had to leave. I’ve known it all along, Sharon. That’s why I never asked you to marry me, because I knew it wouldn’t work.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?” She lifted her gaze and her hand toward an ornately carved crucifix on one wail. “We never discussed it, I know. Are you a religious man?” she asked, a slow ache growing bigger and more bitter inside her. Had Ellis reached out of the past to destroy her present and her future? She had tried to make her marriage work! She had worked so hard at it, take
n so much! Was she to be punished now because of things that had been no fault of hers? “Is it because I’m divorced?”
“No!” he said hoarsely. “Oh, Lord no, love! But Sharon, listen to me.” He touched her then, his big hands closing over her shoulders, warm even through her coat. Over her collar, his thumbs stroked the sides of her neck. “I know how it would be, and I couldn’t stand it. Each time we had an argument, each time I forgot myself and raised my voice, you’d be frightened, you’d remember the past and Ellis. And you’d think about the rumors about me, the taint on my character, and wonder. It would kill me to see doubt or fear in your eyes, Sharon. Please, it’s better this way.” With a gentle shove he set her back from him and let his hands fall to his sides again. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Just go.”
She touched his bare chest with the tips of her fingers. “Marc, I can’t go. Not without you. Please come home. Don’t be mad at me any longer.”
As if against his will, his hands flattened hers on his chest. His eyes burned into hers. “I’m not angry, Sharon. But I can’t come back. It wouldn’t work for us. Don’t you see that?”
“No, dammit, I don’t see that!” She snatched her hands free and wheeled away from him, turning at the other side of the room to face him, her dark eyes flaring with fury, fury he had never seen in her before. It startled him even as it fascinated him.
“I don’t see that at all! But fine, if you don’t want to go back, I can come here! I can live anywhere, Marc, as long as you’re there, too, and I won’t live without you!” She strode back to where he stood and continued speaking, her voice getting louder and louder as she jabbed his chest with a finger to make her points.
“Do you have any idea the agony I’ve been through this past month, not knowing where you were? Not knowing if you were alive or dead?” This time, he got two fingers in the solar plexus. “I advertised in all the papers, asking you to tell me, just tell me if you were alive! I didn’t even ask you to see me or call me. A note would have done! I’ve got a long-distance bill big enough to choke an ox from calling your colleagues in Toronto, but they wouldn’t tell me anything! They claimed to know nothing, but that was a lie, wasn’t it? Just another damned lie that men will tell for another man in order to hold off a woman who wants to find him. I hate the way men protect each other from the consequences of their own actions! You even told your father to say you didn’t want to see me! How do you justify that, Marc, making your own father, a judge, for heaven’s sake, lie for you!”
Moonlight Man Page 14
