Dark Garden

by Jennifer Fulton

  Oxana gasped with delight over this fiction. “Are you engaged?”

  “Alas, there are obstacles.”

  “Obstacles? Surely not…a wife?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  The ample bosom heaved. “I’m very relieved. But if there is no other woman, what is the obstacle?”

  With a tragic sigh, Vienna confessed, “The past divides us.”

  Clearly a woman of the romantic persuasion, Oxana squeaked a dismayed, “No.” She clasped Vienna’s hand, her fingers milking it like a goat udder. “You must not let anything stand in your way. If you’re meant to be together, don’t let your true love slip through your fingers.”

  Vienna freed her hand gently and managed to keep a straight face. The people closest to her knew she was lesbian, but as the Blake heiress, she’d learned a long time ago that she was media fodder, so she tried to stay out of the headlines. She’d been deflecting questions about her single status for years, using the childhood sweetheart story as her cover. Until now, the irony hadn’t struck her.

  “By the way, I have a name for you, Oxana,” she said, changing the subject. “My makeup artist…he’s a genius. It’s probably of no interest. You always look striking, but…”

  “No, no. I love new ideas.”

  Vienna extracted Pimento’s business card from her purse. “He has a wonderful feel for the woman beneath the face. If you ever want to try someone different, you might like him.”

  As Oxana slid the card into her evening bag, Vienna glanced around, seeking an escape route. Stefan had drifted into conversation with a couple a few yards away. They were speaking in French. She was about to excuse herself and join them when Buffy’s arm hooked hers.

  “May I steal you for a moment?” After complimenting Oxana on her gown, she steered Vienna into a quiet corner. “My dear, you won’t believe this. Look toward the piano.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  As soon as she’d spoken, Vienna knew the answer. Near the wall, next to one of the planters, was the very last person she’d expected to see here. Vienna knew she was blushing. She couldn’t help herself. Her pulse had careened out of control. Somehow Mason managed to make black tie look wanton. Her dinner jacket was cut longer than the norm. Her white dress shirt was tucked into black pants worn with a cummerbund that seemed carelessly pleated, as though thrown on in haste after a back-room assignation. The black bowtie around her wing collar was not quite centered and she’d opened the button at her throat. She had one thumb hooked loosely in her waistband, the other hand cupped a rocks glass. As usual, her hair looked like someone’s fingers had just tangled in it. She was staring past the pianist, out the windows, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else on earth than Manhattan.

  “What’s she doing here?” Vienna asked in dismay.

  “Her brother was supposed to come with Tory Delacorte and her parents,” Buffy said. “Dreadful business. But I’ve always said private airplanes are a menace.”

  Vienna conjured up an image of Tory in her Winsor days, with her flat-ironed blond mane, heiress-chic fashions, and limitless devotion to her appearance. She wondered what Lynden Cavender could possibly have seen in her. Money, obviously. Everyone knew he was trawling for a wife with deep pockets. Vienna forced her gaze elsewhere. Her nipples had visibly hardened beneath the thin fabric of her gown. She felt like swatting them back where they belonged.

  “Whatever was I supposed to say?” Buffy lamented. “I could hardly refuse when she phoned. And now I’m one short, since she came alone.”

  Vienna considered making an early departure so that she didn’t have to confront Mason over their broken date and the two weeks that had passed without so much as a phone call. So much for I can’t wait…I have to have you. But the Morgan de Rochesters were old family friends and she didn’t want to insult Buffy.

  “If you’re concerned about a scene, don’t be. I’ll simply avoid her.”

  “That shouldn’t be difficult,” Buffy said with dry humor. “She doesn’t exactly work the room.”

  They were silenced by a tap on the microphone. The emcee welcomed the guests and introduced Kahlil Pederson, a diamond buyer from De Beers who was going to judge the jewelry award. He summoned the candidates to the dais and the pianist struck up a medley of tunes like “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

  Vienna could feel Mason’s eyes on her as she slipped into the line next to Oxana. Her skin prickled and heat blasted between her legs. She could feel herself opening like a wet bloom. Memory took her prisoner once more, tormenting her with certain undeniable facts. She hadn’t just consented to sex with Mason that morning in the great hall, she’d initiated it. And that kiss on the hillside. In the two weeks since, she’d hardly been able to think of anything else. But the more time that went by without hearing from Mason, the more confused she felt.

  At first, she’d invented various explanations for being stood up. Then she concluded that Mason had backed off, needing to get some distance to think through the sudden change between them. Vienna had felt that way herself, so she’d left the ball in Mason’s court instead of phoning her. But maybe she’d sent the wrong signal. Was this some kind of test—was Mason waiting for her to make the next move? Or had she decided to put their personal relationship on hold until she could see how the business situation played out? If so, a phone call would have been in order.

  Vienna had no idea where she stood, but she didn’t want to blow the delicate truce they seemed to have forged, so she’d instructed her chief attorney, Darryl Kent, to play a waiting game with the negotiations. There hadn’t been a word from the Cavender people and Vienna couldn’t keep things on hold forever. Her family expected results. But she could no longer treat Mason as her enemy. Too much had passed between them and, as an extra complication, she still desperately wanted the woman whose head her family expected to see on a platter.

  She forced a smile as her turn approached for the mandatory photographs. Each diamond-dripping woman offered the usual hand-on-hip pose while they all waited for the judge to make his decision. The photographer took extra pictures of Vienna, making her even more self-conscious. The whole time, as she angled her head and positioned her hands, she was aware of Mason’s scathing regard.

  Third and second prize were announced and then Vienna’s name was called and Stefan materialized to escort her up to receive her prize. Telling herself it was worth behaving like a giddy nitwit to net a contribution to a worthwhile cause, she burbled something inane about the blight of child exploitation.

  The De Beers front man heaped congratulations on her, then asked, “Would you care to tell us about your beautiful necklace?”

  “It was a birthday gift from my late father, Norris Blake. I miss him very much, and I’m wearing it in his honor tonight.”

  A ripple of empathetic applause ensued.

  The buyer remarked on Norris’s reputation as a lion of industry and a patron of the arts sorely missed, then reverently asserted, “I recognize the necklace.”

  “You do?”

  “May I?” Kahlil Pederson whipped out his loupe. Vienna lifted the glittering center stone and after examining it for several seconds, the buyer referred to his BlackBerry, then confirmed, “Indeed, it appears the Cavender Diamonds have resurfaced.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Audible gasps rippled through the gathering as those in the know registered the ramifications and darted uneasy glances toward Mason. A film of perspiration made Vienna’s dress cling. She felt nauseous. Apparently mistaking the horrified tenterhooks of his audience for delighted thrall, Pederson embarked on a potted history of the stone.

  “As many of you know, the diamond necklace you see tonight was made famous by Nancy Cavender, who had it created by Cartier. She was a glittering figure in her time, a true icon. The necklace was, of course, her signature look at all the big events and she was wearing it the night she was tragically killed.”

  An elderly woman a fe
w feet away murmured, “Decapitated, you know. They found the necklace hanging in a tree.”

  Vienna felt close to fainting. She stepped back and leaned against one of the pillars decorating the dais. It was made of cardboard and wobbled more than her legs did. In her worst nightmare the necklace was Nazi loot. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that its grim past was one her family had a role in.

  “The necklace came from a huge diamond discovered in South Africa in 1867.” Pederson’s narrative was in full swing. “Mr. Isaac Asscher of Amsterdam cleaved the rough into two pieces from which he cut the Aphrodite, a round now owned by Sheikh Ahmed Fitaihi, and the magnificent flawless pear you see before you, which Mr. Hugo Cavender purchased for his bride. As the story goes, Mr. Cavender wanted the larger round, but had to settle for a mere thirty-six carats, plus, of course, several hundred carats of smaller stones eventually used to create the necklace.”

  A tinkle of laughter greeted this final comment.

  “Are you saying that diamond is Le Fantôme de l’Amour?” Mason’s question ricocheted across the room like a stray bullet. She stared accusingly at Vienna.

  “Yes, that’s the name originally given to the pear. The Ghost of Love,” the buyer translated from the French. “But the spelling was doubtless too much for our esteemed friends in the press and when Nancy Cavender allowed it to go on display, the necklace simply became known as the Cavender Diamonds.”

  “How did the Blakes get hold of it?” Mason asked bluntly.

  The buyer looked nonplussed. “Unfortunately, we cannot disclose details of client transactions, so I really can’t say, Ms. er…”

  “Cavender.”

  Every head in the room swiveled. Buffy, anticipating trouble, rushed to the fore. “What a fascinating story. Don’t we all adore the idea of a diamond with a past, especially one that connects two of the most prominent families among us.”

  The guests clapped and craned to see Vienna’s reaction. Buffy signaled the pianist and he began to play softly. She thanked Pederson, reminded everyone about the Whitney benefit in two weeks’ time, and steered Mason away. Vienna decided to make her apologies and leave the party early, but before she could excuse herself, the De Beers representative cornered her.

  “Ms. Blake, I was just speaking with our North American vice president. He wonders if your family would be willing to allow us to exhibit the necklace.”

  Agitated, Vienna glanced toward the door again. Her father had never said a word about the necklace once belonging to their neighbors. Vienna was surprised by that, she would have expected him to gloat.

  “I don’t see any problem with that,” she told Pederson quickly, wanting to make her getaway before any more awkward questions from Mason. “Assuming we can agree on security arrangements.”

  “And with the authentic Le Fantôme, of course, rather than the replica.”

  “The replica?” Vienna kept her tone very even, screening her confusion.

  “Don’t worry.” Pederson adopted a conspiratorial air. “Naturally I didn’t want to mention it. We encourage all our clients to keep their important diamonds secured and wear replicas.” He studied his BlackBerry again and announced with a triumphant smile, “I thought so. The CZ is one of our own custom stones. Made to order for your father, in fact.”

  “My father?” Vienna felt like a simpleton, echoing every pronouncement. It had never occurred to her that the center stone in her ostentatious necklace was not the real thing. And since Marjorie had been bothering her to sell it, offended that she never wore the costly gift, it seemed she had no idea either.

  “Yes, I gather the previous copy was damaged in the car accident.” Pederson ran a finger across his throat. “Ghastly neck injuries.”

  Embarrassed to be asking questions to which she should probably know the answers, Vienna said, “There was another fake?”

  “Yes, the one provided when we first auctioned Le Fantôme in the nineteenth century.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I have bad news,” Vienna said without expression. “As far as I know, we don’t own Le Fantôme.”

  “Are you saying it’s been sold?” Pederson looked dismayed.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Oh, good God. It’s missing?”

  “I have no idea. Don’t you keep records of stones like this?”

  “If they pass through our hands or are sold through the usual channels, we can trace the provenance.” He lifted his BlackBerry to his ear. “Let me make a call, Ms. Blake.”

  Vienna accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and sipped it as she tried to eavesdrop. The Blakes were methodical about their record-keeping. She could easily find out much the household had spent on butter a hundred years ago and which mantua maker had created the party dresses for the Famous Four. If a priceless diamond was locked away in a bank box in Boston, her father would have mentioned it in his will. And there would be a receipt.

  Pederson turned back toward her wearing a frown. “Our records date back to the 1869 auction when Mr. Truman Blake sold Le Fantôme. He would have been your…”

  “Great-great grandfather,” Vienna said in bewilderment. “I don’t understand. I thought you said the Cavenders bought the stone.”

  “Yes, Hugo Cavender purchased it at the auction.”

  “From Truman?” Nothing in this tale made any sense at all.

  The buyer consulted his BlackBerry. “According to the provenance, Mr. Blake was the first owner of both the round Aphrodite and Le Fantôme. It was actually he who named the stones. Quite the Victorian romantic, it would seem.”

  Ghost of Love. It was hard to imagine a Blake male so giddy with passion he would throw a fortune away on a couple of huge diamonds, let alone bestow a name that would forever brand him a soppy sentimentalist. But Vienna had read the letters between Truman and Estelle. He was obviously infatuated and seemed to expect that he and Estelle would be married. He must have bought the diamonds in anticipation, then auctioned them when Estelle became engaged to Hugo.

  “Le Fantôme remained in the possession of the Cavender family until it was sold privately to your father in 1985. Our records include the valuation made at the time for insurance purposes.”

  Vienna tried to comprehend what she was hearing. Her father had bought the necklace when she was just a little girl, then held on to it for years, waiting for her to grow up? Even more astonishing was the fact that Henry Cavender had sold it to him—turning over a prized heirloom to the Blakes. It was unbelievable.

  “Well, Mr. Pederson, I regret to say, I can only assume my father decided not to leave his capital tied up in Le Fantôme. He must have resold the stone but retained the necklace to give to me.”

  The theory had something going for it. Vienna could imagine her father impressing everyone with his extravagant gift, then selling the single pear to reimburse himself for the cost of the whole necklace. She recalled the startled envy of her aunts and their speculation over the price he must have paid for the gems. Millions. Such was his devotion to his only child. She laughed inwardly. Norris must have been very pleased with himself to create all that buzz over a gift that ended up costing him next to nothing.

  Pederson’s expression was politely skeptical. “May I ask a great favor?” he inquired. “If you have any family papers, would you mind checking them just in case there’s a record of your father selling Le Fantôme? It would be marvelous if we could trace the new owner and arrange to borrow the genuine stone.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Vienna promised, taking the business card he offered.

  They shook hands and she wandered toward the windows, her mind sifting through memory and fact. Truman Blake was the ancestor who had declared war on the Cavenders. In his shoes, Vienna would have done the same thing. His father, Benedict, was murdered in cold blood, and knowing justice would never be done in the courts, Truman had set out to avenge the crime. He’d devoted himself to severing the business ties that bound the two families and
to bringing down the Cavenders.

  Back then, the Cavender name was more powerful than the Blakes’, and even now, despite their declining fortunes, the mystique remained. Wealth, glamour, and tragedy were a heady combination, and the Cavenders had always served up gratifying doses of each. Their women were gorgeous and their men were dangerous. There was even a movie based on the most public tragedy that had plagued the dynasty, the sordid tale of Alexander Cavender’s failed presidential bid and his wife’s dreadful accident. The story could have been written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like Daisy Buchanan, the shallow beauty in The Great Gatsby, Nancy Cavender was a pampered socialite who seemed to have little interest in being a mother or even a supportive wife. How her car had ended up on the railway tracks, with her unconscious at the wheel conveniently waiting to be hit by a train, was a mystery.

  Most men didn’t want their infidelities, or those of their wives, to be common knowledge, and men running for president had even more reason to shrink from scrutiny. But Nancy hadn’t concerned herself with her husband’s political ambitions. Heiress to a fortune, reckless and beautiful, she appeared to live under the spell of her own charm, certain of her invulnerability. If there was a line not to be crossed, she only noticed after the fact and if there were consequences. For Nancy, there seldom were. Until that night.

  Intense speculation had swirled around the accident at the time, but the Cavenders had so much influence that they controlled both the police investigation and the newspaper coverage. The story was hushed up, only to find new life when Alexander Cavender blew his brains out four years later. His suicide would normally have been big news, but as if he was trying to fly beneath the radar, he’d picked his moment. In the same year that Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, a dead Cavender would only make the inside section and the society pages.

  The Blakes considered Alexander’s demise an almighty coup and believed the rumor that had circulated ever since, that the police had finally assembled enough evidence to arrest him for Nancy’s murder. Rather than have his family’s name dragged through the mud, he’d ended the matter like a gentleman. The story might have died down, but Hollywood moviemakers, always adept at picking the low-hanging fruit, had decided to capitalize on public fascination with the Cavender name. But instead of making a cheesy starlet vehicle, they produced a dark meditation on the American Dream, posing disturbing questions about ambition and greed, and inviting the audience to weigh moral ambiguities.