by Janet Dailey
But Luz thought of Audra. Did she love her mother? Or was it duty and obligation that forged the link? Was there any real closeness? Rob and Trisha were all she had. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing them. They had to care about her as much as she did about them. She didn’t want them resenting her the way she sometimes resented Audra. What an awful irony that would be.
“Are you coming to bed?” Emma paused halfway to the door of her own room.
“Yes.” Alone. She’d sleep alone, the way she always had.
Awakening slowly, Luz rolled onto her back and lay there for several seconds, waiting for the dull pressure to begin pounding in her head, but it didn’t come. The only dullness she felt came from sleep, not the aftereffects of alcohol. She stretched, arms reaching, back arching, legs moving beneath the bedcovers, then relaxed and let her eyes come open to look about the drape-darkened room. For another moment, she lay motionless, then swung her legs off the edge of the bed, the sheets rustling, and reached for the silk robe lying at the foot of the bed.
Sunlight was trying to force its way through the thick folds of the drapes, its brightness glimmering about the edges. Luz slipped into the robe, the silk material gliding across her skin, and she crossed from the bed to the window. The plush carpet was soft beneath the bare soles of her feet. She located the draw pulls and opened the drapes, letting the sunlight pour into the room.
Below, the Place de la Concorde was swarming with traffic, creating a muffled hum of noise. As she gazed at the octagonal square, once skirted by a moat fed by the river Seine, Luz tied the inside strings of her robe at the waistline, then reached for the outer silk cords to secure the front. It was over by the statue to the provincial capital of Brest that Louis XVI had been beheaded. Later the guillotine stood near the gates of the Tuileries, where it served its bloody three-year reign, severing the heads of some thirteen hundred victims.
Looking at the classical proportions of the square, so symmetrically balanced, it was difficult for Luz to imagine the terror the square had known. Built as the Place Louis XV to proclaim his glory, it was fittingly renamed the Place de la Concorde, consecrated to concord between men, and the venerable Luxor Obelisk had been erected in the center where the statue of Louis XV had stood. Luz wondered when she would again find concord, an internal calm, in her life.
There was a knock on the connecting door to the other rooms of the suite. “Room service!”
Recognizing Trisha’s voice, Luz smiled. “Come in.” With a final pull to tighten the knot of the cord belt, she turned toward the door as it opened. Her robe-clad daughter wheeled through a serving table, draped in a white linen tablecloth and laden with a coffee service, juice, and a basket of croissants. There was a miniature assortment of jams and marmalades and a small vase of fresh flowers.
“I heard you stirring about and thought you might like some coffee,” Trisha said as she pushed the wheeled table over by a painted fauteuil chair of the Louis XV period.
“I would.” Luz moved to the table and poured the steaming coffee from the silver pot into a cup. As it cooled, she sipped her orange juice.
“How do you feel?” Trisha helped herself to one of the croissants.
“I don’t have a hangover, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she replied dryly, combing fingers through one side of her sleeptousled hair to push it away from her face. As Trisha moved to sit cross-legged on the bed and nibble at the flaky croissant, Luz picked up the coffee cup and saucer and carried it to the damask chair.
“What happened to Raul last night? He left to check on you and never came back.”
A fine tension rippled through Luz as she studied the deep brown color of the coffee, so close to the shade of Raul’s hair. “He came back to the hotel with me. After that, I don’t know where he went.”
“Well, he never showed up back at the restaurant. We waited almost an hour before we decided he wasn’t coming back.” She picked at the crumbs that had fallen onto her lap. “Last night you seemed to get along with him better. Have you finally started liking him?”
She glanced sharply at her daughter, wondering if Trisha had realized that she had been competing with her last night for Raul. But the question seemed to be as casual as it sounded. “I don’t dislike him,” she said and sipped at the hot coffee, hoping Trisha never learned of her jealousy.
“Well, you’ve gotta admit he’s all male,” Trisha declared, a smile crooking her mouth and dimpling a cheek. It was apparent that even while mocking the attraction she felt she was enjoying it.
“That he is,” she agreed. She knew it too well. “But I still don’t think he’s suitable for you. And that’s a mother’s prerogative,” she stated to check the protest forming on her daughter’s lips. “I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself over him. It hurts too much. I should know.”
A small silence followed. Luz was conscious of Trisha studying her. She sipped at the coffee, giving her attention to the cup and saucer instead of to the girl on the bed. “You were referring to Drew when you said that, weren’t you?” Trisha said quietly. “I know you must still miss him.”
The statement prompted Luz to attempt to analyze her present feelings toward her ex-husband. The bitterness and pain of the divorce were still too fresh for that to be true. “I’m not sure. Mostly I miss not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I always knew what I was going to do, what was going to happen, what to expect. Now I don’t know what it’s going to be like. It’s scary sometimes,” she admitted.
“If things didn’t work out for him with Claudia, would you and Dad go back together?”
Luz breathed in deeply, then exhaled in a heavy sigh. “That’s a loaded question,” she hedged. She doubted if any direct reply was possible. Maybe two months ago it might have been, but now, it didn’t seem likely. “There’s a lot of pride and hurt feelings involved—and he’s married.”
“I know Dad loves you and always will. He’s told me that. Don’t you still love him?” Trisha frowned.
Although she understood exactly the dream her daughter was cherishing, she didn’t believe it would ever come true. So much was destroyed that she wasn’t sure how much love she had left for Drew. “You’ve always been the practical one, Trisha. You surely don’t believe that Drew and I could pick up where we left off if something happened between him and Claudia.”
“No, I guess not.” She absently pulled off a piece from the croissant.
Luz watched her, afraid that she had somehow failed Trisha, that she hadn’t been all a mother should be to a daughter—perhaps she was too much like her own mother. Or like last night, when she’d actually treated Trisha as a rival.
“I know we’ve had our differences in the past, Trisha,” she began hesitantly. “And I haven’t always understood. But I do love you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” An impatience seemed to push Trisha off the bed, her pajama-clad legs uncurling and carrying her to the serving table, where she brushed the pastry crumbs from her hand onto a plate. “Sometimes I just wish you’d let me grow up. You let me make my own decisions about some things, but I have to make my own mistakes, too, Luz.”
“Like Raul, I suppose.” A certain hardness entered her voice.
“If Raul is a mistake, then yes,” she asserted, then made a determined attempt to throw off the grimness. “It’s after nine already. Rob should be arriving from the airport anytime now.
I’d better get dressed.” She moved away toward the connecting door.
“Thanks for the morning coffee.”
“Sure.”
It wasn’t a very satisfactory conclusion to their conversation. Luz rested the cup in its saucer, wondering why she could never say the right thing to her daughter. She could talk to Rob, but with Trisha she always came away with the feeling she had failed to make herself clear.
Outside her mother’s door, Trisha paused. No matter what Luz said, she was convinced her mother objected to Raul solely because he was older. It
wasn’t fair. Luz was letting her bitterness and resentment over Drew’s marriage to a younger woman color her opinion. All that business about a mother’s prerogative was simple jealousy of any relationship between a younger woman and an older man. In a way, Trisha felt sorry for her, but that didn’t alter her determination to pursue Raul.
The lock clicked and the main door to the suite opened. Rob walked into the sitting room, followed by the porter with his luggage. Trisha noticed his drawn, irritable look as he swung impatiently toward her.
“Which room is mine?” he demanded.
“That one.” She pointed to a door. “And hello to you, too, brother dear.”
“Sorry. Hello.” Immediately after the perfunctory greeting, he glanced at the porter and motioned to the door she had indicated. “Put the bags in there.” Rob turned away from him and ran a hand over his hair, then wearily rubbed the back of his neck.
“Heavy night?” Trisha guessed.
His head came up slightly, his hand stopping its motion. There was an instant of sharpness in his expression, then he crooked his mouth in a rueful grin. “You could say that.”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You had a farewell fling with Lady Cyn last night and sampled more of her sinful delights.”
Rob looked at her askance. “What do you mean by that?”
“Come on, Rob,” Trisha mocked. “You were with her, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. So what?” he challenged.
“So I doubt that you sat around and held hands if half of what I heard about her is true. I’ll bet she even taught you a few new things,” she teased.
“A few,” he admitted with a faintly secretive air.
“Is she as kinky as they claim?” Trisha asked.
Hesitating, Rob glanced at her. “She’s not into whips and chains if that’s what you mean. And I didn’t find anything particularly kinky in her methods of getting turned on.” He sounded defensive.
“Rob, you aren’t serious about her, are you?” She frowned warily.
“Hardly,” he scoffed. “She showed me how to have a good time and turned me on to some new ways. We got a little high together and had a little fun. That’s it.” He closed the discussion. “Where’s Luz? Is she up yet?”
“Yeah. She’s in her room having breakfast.” She indicated the door behind her.
“I’d better let her know I’m here.”
Trisha watched him walk by, then finally headed for her own room to shower.
The waters of the Seine reflected the colors of the buildings and trees that stood on its banks, and the sightseeing boats, the bateaux mouches, that traveled its wandering course. Luz strolled along the cobbled quay, Trisha keeping pace with her while Rob ranged ahead of them. After a delicious and filling lunch at a restaurant next to the quay, a leisurely walk back to the hotel suited her perfectly.
Her gaze wandered from the river to inspect the massive stone blocks that rose from the water level to form a solid retaining wall for the river’s banks. A line of trees and shrubbery softened the imposing dimensions of the wall and provided a parklike atmosphere along the water’s edge. Here and there ivy crawled across the stone to cloak the huge blocks in green. Great iron rings adorned the wall, remnants of another age when the Seine had been a river of commerce.
“What time is it?” Rob stopped and waited for them to catch up with him, his body taut with impatience.
“Almost two.” Luz glanced at her wristwatch.
“Don’t you think we should be heading back to the hotel?” he questioned as they approached a set of steps leading to the street level, some thirty feet above.
“We have plenty of time,” Luz assured him, climbing the steps at a leisurely pace. “Raul won’t be there until three, so there’s no need to hurry. The hotel isn’t more than fifteen or twenty minutes from here.”
“Did you have a chance to study the information he left? I only had time to glance at it before you two dragged me off to have lunch,” he complained.
“Yes, I read it over.” On the street level, the stone-walled bank was lined with more trees, leaning toward the river below while spreading their leafy shade over the row of bookstalls.
“What did you think of it?” Rob wanted to know.
“I thought it was all very interesting.” She preferred to put this discussion off until later, although she knew she couldn’t postpone it for long. But at least when the time came, she had her priorities all set, and personal reservations were not going to dictate her decision.
Trisha lingered at one of the stalls to look over the books and magazines. “Look at this,” she said, and Luz paused to glance at the comic book she was holding, a French version of Bugs Bunny. After returning it and assuring the seller she didn’t wish to purchase it, Trisha moved on to the next stall, browsing over the titles as she went.
“We aren’t going to stop at every one of these, are we?” Rob protested.
“Why not?” she gently chided him for being so impatient. “They’re all so quaint and picturesque.”
“You’ve had a whole week in Paris. Why couldn’t you have looked through this junk before? Why today? I don’t see why we came out at all,” he grumbled. “We could have had lunch at the hotel. I didn’t think that restaurant was all that great. The menu was in French. I couldn’t even read it.”
“The restaurant was French. We are in Paris,” Luz reminded him.
“My brother, the world traveler,” Trisha mocked.
“I don’t care.” There was a mutinous set to his expression as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “And I still don’t see why we had to come out.”.
“Rob, you arrived at the hotel at nine in the morning. Our meeting with Raul isn’t until three this afternoon. Surely you didn’t expect us to spend five hours sitting around the hotel,” Luz reasoned.
“Your mistake was in not suggesting that we go by the polo field in the Bois de Boulogne. Rob would have been in favor of that,” Trisha said.
“If we’d stayed at the hotel, I could have studied the information he gave you. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it’s important to me. I don’t care what you do, but I’m going back to the hotel.” He walked off without waiting to hear their response.
“He’s such a jerk when he gets in these moods.” Trisha stared at her brother’s retreating figure, irritated by his juvenile behavior.
“It is important to him,” Luz offered in his defense. “Rob has a lot he wants to prove.”
“Don’t we all,” Trisha murmured.
Surprised by the comment, Luz eyed her curiously. She had never considered the possibility that there was something Trisha felt she had to prove.
Promptly at three o’clock, the doorbell to the suite rang. “I’ll get it.” Trisha sprang quickly to her feet and crossed to the door that opened to the hotel corridor.
Luz remained seated in the painted and gilded chair, her legs crossed, front-buttoning chemise opening to show a slice of knee and thigh. In an attempt at a pose of controlled calm, she rested one hand on the back of the other.
Opening the door wide to admit him, Trisha greeted Raul with a warm “Hello.”
Luz’s eyes rushed to him when he walked into the suite. Tall and lean, he moved with a rider’s easy grace. His fine, yet thick hair lay smoothly against his well-shaped head, its dark color accenting the blackness of brow and lashes and the piercing blue of his eyes. The broad and angular features of his deeply tanned face wore an impassive expression as he responded to Trisha’s greeting.
An instant later, Luz observed the glance he directed toward her and wished she had taken the time to put her hair up in a French twist instead of simply tying it back with a black scarf. The more sophisticated style would have provided an added poise, which, judging from the erratic beat of her pulse, she needed. Then Rob came between them.
“It’s good to see you again, Raul.” He extended a hand toward him, then pulled it back. “I forgot about your wrist. Trisha
told me you had injured it. How is it?”
In a testing motion, Raul flexed the fingers of his right hand. The white tape bound around his wrist for support was clearly visible below the cuff of his jacket. “It’s improving.”
After shutting the door, Trisha moved to stand at his side. “What happened to you last night? We waited and waited at the restaurant, but you never came back.”
The female interest, so apparent in the way Trisha looked at him, reminded Luz of her earlier resolve. She was not going to compete with her daughter for any man. Their relationship was too precious to her to risk damaging it because of some purely physical attraction. No man was going to come between them. Luz intended to do all she could to discourage Trisha’s attachment to Raul, but not because she was jealous and wanted him for herself. Regardless, she still believed the difference in age and experience was too great. If she could keep Trisha from being hurt, she was going to try.
Lowering her gaze, she listened to the faintly accented timbre of Raul’s voice as he responded to Trisha’s question. “After seeing your mother safely back here, I saw no point in returning to the restaurant, so I went to my hotel. I regret if I caused you undue concern.”
“Well, you did,” she informed him pertly.
“Then you have my apologies,” he said and turned to face Luz once more.
“Come sit down,” she invited politely, motioning to the Louis XV couch that matched her chair. “I don’t believe I properly thanked you for seeing me to the hotel last evening.”
“It is not necessary.” He crossed to the gracefully curved sofa, supported by the period’s distinctive cabriole legs, and sat down. Trisha joined him, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa.
Luz took him at his word, glad to drop the whole thing. “May I offer you some coffee?” She glanced at the gray-haired woman lingering in the background. “Emma, would you pour?”
“Of course,” she replied and walked over to the inlaid bureau where a tray with cups and silver coffeepot waited in readiness. “Do you take cream or sugar, Mr. Buchanan?”
