He was not, however, hosting it alone. He was doing it in concert with Sallie O’Rourke. Between them, she and Jamie created an evening of wit and entertainment, of music and laughter and attention to each guest and also to one another. They rarely spoke and barely looked at each other, and yet Pamela sensed they were in accord on who might need to be gently extricated from one grouping and moved to another, who needed their glass refilled, and who most assuredly did not. In the few times they passed one another they would pause, chat briefly and Sallie would inevitably touch Jamie on his arm or shoulder as she leaned in to whisper in his ear. Each time she did it, Pamela felt a white-hot jet of jealousy shoot through her. It was ridiculous and while it was not the first time she had been jealous of a woman in Jamie’s life, this time it felt different. This was a woman who fit Jamie perfectly, in looks, comportment, intelligence, ambition and wit.
The lovely Italian astronomer had rejoined her and he deftly talked to her of everything from the stars to his grandchildren and her own children. She appreciated his efforts to distract her but she found she was only half listening to his conversation as her eyes followed Jamie around the room.
“In Italy we have a saying—Sei la luce dei miei occi— it means, ‘you are the light in my eyes.’ I think if you look closely you will see that light in Jamie’s eyes and perhaps also in your own. And now, lovely Pamela, I will take my leave of you. The hour is growing late and I am an old man. I am off to my bed and my books.” He bent over and kissed her hand and gave her a small salute in parting. She sighed, envying him. Bed and a good book sounded perfectly lovely to her right now.
Jamie was bringing Sallie over. She had wanted to meet her for a long time and yet, tonight, she did not want to speak to her at all.
“Pamela, I’d like to introduce you to a very old friend of mine—Sallie O’Rourke. Sallie, this is Pamela Riordan, also a very old friend of mine.”
“Pamela and I spoke on the phone many times during your Russian holiday,” Sallie said.
“We did, indeed,” Pamela said, extending her hand to the woman and smiling.
Instead, Sallie hugged her and Pamela felt both the delicacy of her bones and the force of her character in the simple embrace. Her scent was light and reminded Pamela of a teahouse she had once visited where they had washed the tables and the floors with a fragrant oolong each morning.
“I feel I know you already. If you are in Paris for a few days we should have tea together.”
“I’d like that,” Pamela said politely, quite certain that she would rather pull her own fingernails out with a pair of pliers. Under any other circumstances she thought she would like the woman a great deal, but tonight jealousy precluded any friendly warmth.
“Well, tell Jamie to call me if you’d like to have a visit. You’ll forgive me but I need to check in with the kitchen staff. Jamie, can you attend to the finance minister? He’s had too much to drink and has been making passes at the interior minister’s wife.”
“Of course,” Jamie said. He turned then to Pamela taking in the flush in her skin and correctly interpreting it. He treated her to a rather stern glare. “You stay put, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She watched as Sallie walked away, one long elegant leg flashing out of the slit in her dress. Men turned as she passed, all of them looking rather like sheep with their tongues hanging out. ‘That, Pamela, is completely uncharitable,’ she said sternly to herself. She knew her every thought right now was filtered through the green-eyed monster of envy.
She wasn’t a fool, she didn’t think the man was celibate. She had thought, naïvely it now appeared, that since their night in Maine, he would not have been with another woman. She felt dreadfully unsophisticated, for she understood there was a separate world in which Jamie lived, and it was not the one where he belonged to her. It was one in which she did not truly know the man who moved with such ease through a throng of politicians and poets and world-class raconteurs. She had long found this side of him intimidating.
She situated herself in the shadow of a potted palm once again and watched, and took another flute of wine each time the server offered her one. Good lad that he was, he came by often.
The palm, despite its largesse, couldn’t protect her from the more predatory males and one in particular became intent on pressing his case—which seemed to consist of whisking her off to St. Tropez this very night to spend two weeks of carnal delight on his yacht, an experience, he assured her, that was not to be missed. He was, he claimed, a prince of a minor Arab principality.
It might be true. His clothes were most definitely made on Savile Row and he had a gloss about him that only came with great wealth. He ran a finger down her cheek. “Such skin, like an orchid, but flushed so prettily. I wonder do you blush all over when your blood is hot?”
“Yes, I do,” she said tartly. “As for your kind offer I will have to say no. I’m flattered, but I have to get home to my children tomorrow.”
“Oh, children? How many do you have?”
“Six,” she replied, straight-faced, “all of them girls.”
“My apologies,” he said, “I did not realize you were a mother.” He then beat a hasty retreat to the opposite side of the room.
A woman with an immaculate blonde chignon who rather reminded her of an older Catherine Deneuve walked over to her. “That was an Arab prince you just turned down. He really does have a yacht anchored off St. Tropez. They say he is very good to the women he woos. They never leave the yacht empty-handed—jewelry, by the bagful I’ve heard, and money enough sometimes to buy a very nice apartment in the city of your choice. He looked very taken with you; he might have kept you in comfort and luxury for several months.”
“I have children at home. I somehow doubt he’d want them on his yacht for two hours, much less two weeks.”
“Not, I am thinking, six girls though.”
She laughed. “No just two—a boy and a girl. Probably still enough to frighten him.”
“You turned him away and yet you do not seem offended by his attentions.”
“No,” Pamela said. “He seemed a little lonely. I can understand that.”
“Oh, lovely girl, men are always lonely. They believe a face like yours can still that ache in their heart, and also,” she laughed, “other parts. Truthfully I think most of them want some sort of cross between their mother and a sex goddess.”
“And what about lonely women?” Pamela asked, feeling the buzzy hum of the wine throughout her body. She really ought to have stopped at least three glasses ago and yet, when the obliging boy came by, she plucked another glass off the tray.
“We women are born lonely and meant to stay so. It is how the world works. Men seek their solace in us, and we sometimes find it for a fleeting time in the children they give us. Then once the children are grown and gone, we are lonely again. It is best to come to terms with that. It is just how life is.”
“It doesn’t seem fair,” Pamela said, “that they should find solace in us and we none in them.” This was patently not true in her own life and had she not been in the grip of jealousy she would not have said it. Both Jamie and Casey had offered her solace in a variety of ways, but she wasn’t inclined to have a just and fair memory at present.
The woman laughed again and toying with the triple strand of black pearls at her neck, she said, “You make them pay for the solace they find, sweet girl, that way when you are old and the men are gone, you will still have the comforts of life.”
Jamie returned to her side in time to hear the woman’s last statement.
“Excuse us,” he said, the very picture of the cordial host and yet she could feel the tension in the hand that held her elbow as he led her away.
“Of course,” the woman said, and inclined her head a little, an amused smile playing about her mouth.
“Who was she?” Pamela asked, looking back over her shoulder at the extremely soignée woman who was watching them go.
“Paris’ mo
st famous madam, therefore the world’s most famous madam,” Jamie said, still hustling her unceremoniously from the room. “If you’d stayed another minute she would have recruited you.”
“Really? You think she would have recruited me? Hmm. That’s rather flattering.”
Jamie sighed and said, “Women.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, for they had left the ballroom and were in a long and quiet corridor with several closed doors lining its gleaming marquetry length.
“Out of there, away from lechery and debauchery.”
“Is that the couple in the corner who looked like they could be twins?”
Jamie gave her a rather stern glance. “Are you drunk, Pamela?”
“A little,” she admitted. “The wine seemed awfully strong. Mind you, I could run for the head of the Temperance League these days and get voted in on abstemiousness alone.”
“You are drunk,” he said. “You always use big words when you’re tipsy. And while I’m running down your laundry list of sins here, I might add that dress is positively indecent.”
“Is it? I thought it was rather lovely,” she said, attempting to give him a flirtatious look but failing due to rather numb eyebrows.
He laughed. “It is lovely, but sweetheart, I can see the dimples at the top of your arse.”
“Can you really? Admittedly it feels a bit airy.”
“Airy, is it?”
“Jamie are you laughing at me?”
“Maybe a little. You’re a very charming drunk.”
“Am I? Casey always said I lost all inhibition,” she hiccoughed, “and that he’d keep me in drink permanently were it left to him.” She flushed, realizing what she had just said. “Sorry, apparently I am also indiscreet when in my cups.”
“No apology necessary. You’re lovely when you’re indiscreet.”
“Jamie, I believe I am drunk.”
“The possibility had occurred to me, Pamela,” he said. He opened one of the many doors then and guided her into a softly-lit room. It was a small space, intimate, a gentleman’s study or a library. The walls were painted a deep burgundy and gold leaf molding stood out bright and rich against the background of reds and deep greens and dark polished wood. There were candles burning on the window ledges as well as the low light of a banker’s lamp on the large desk which sat beneath the shelves that housed rows and rows of gilt-edged books.
Jamie stood beside the large marble hearth, away and apart from her. She wondered if she was about to receive a lecture.
“So this is your party?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said easily. “Please sit down, Pamela. You seem a little unsteady.”
“I’m fine standing,” she said, feeling a twinge of annoyance.
Jamie raised one gull-winged brow at her. “Oh, I see, it’s to be that sort of conversation, is it?”
“I don’t know, do I? You’re the one who dragged me in here.”
“Because, as usual, you managed to attract some of the least savory people in the room. The biggest playboy in Europe and a woman who runs the most successful brothel in the world.”
“I apologize for my lack of social élan,” she said, voice as haughty as she could summon up on a raft of wine.
“There is no social situation to which you are not equal, Pamela, and you know it. So why don’t you say what you really want to say?” His voice was chilly, but she noted how he put one hand to the mantelpiece as though to steady himself.
“What is tonight’s purpose?” she asked, afraid she knew the answer.
He shook his head. “I had hoped not to talk to you about this, until I was certain, but as you’ve asked, here it is—I am considering making a life here in Paris, at least part of the time. I am merely making connections and testing the waters.”
It was the answer she had not wanted to hear. “Oh,” she said, and sat down, clutching her elbows tightly to her stomach. It felt like she’d been hit, hard and without warning. “How part time, exactly?”
“Six to eight months of the year. Possibly more when Kolya is of an age to attend school.”
“When were you going to tell me? Or were you?”
He looked down, his hand tightening around the glass he had carried out of the ballroom. “I did not expect you tonight, Pamela, and am not quite ready to have this conversation.”
“Is she part of it—Sallie?” She felt as if all the blood in her body had flowed out through the bottoms of her feet.
“And if she is?”
“Aren’t you a little busy already? What with a wife in Russia and a—”
“And a what, Pamela? Please finish your sentence.”
“And a nothing in Ireland,” she finished, half-sick with misery and shock.
“That’s by your choice. For the record, you could never be ‘nothing’ to me. I’m insulted that you would even say it.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just jealous and I know how ridiculous that is.”
“No, not ridiculous at all. I’m jealous as well, only I’m jealous of—” he halted, but she knew what it was he had been about to say.
“It’s all right, Jamie, you can say it. You’re jealous of a ghost.”
The light of the fire lay on his hair and lashes and touched flame to the emerald on his left hand. The hand on the mantelpiece was white with pressure.
“Pamela, what is it you want to say? Spit it out and save your spleen as you once so succinctly recommended to me.”
“I just…I…well it’s clear that you and Sallie—who is lovely and no fault to her, it’s clear that you and she…” she trailed off, uncertain if she should continue. But it was far too late for caution.
“Do you really think, Pamela,” he said, and the amusement had been wiped from his voice entirely, “that after Maine, I could just move on as though nothing had changed?” His eyes, those beautiful light-spilling eyes had gone dark.
“I don’t know, could you?”
“Could you?” he responded.
“I asked first,” she said aware that she was rapidly descending into adolescent retorts.
“Pamela, I think perhaps it would be best if we stopped this conversation here and now. It can only do damage to us both if we continue.”
He turned, his profile stark against the gilt spines of the books on the shelves behind him. He smiled at her, but it was a pained expression. She had gone too far to stop, and so had he.
“You know full well I haven’t so much as touched another man, Jamie.”
“Not even Noah Murray?” he asked, a hectic light suddenly flaring bright in his eyes.
“Noah? What on earth would make you ask that?”
“It’s my understanding,” he said, with a deadly calm that did not bode well for the direction of this conversation, “that he gave you a rather large sum of money. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of man to do something of that nature without extracting his pound of flesh.”
“Damn Patrick! You and he are like a couple of gossiping old pensioners. Can I even sneeze without him telling you?”
“What the man does tell me, he tells me out of concern for your reckless disregard for your own well-being. Is it true, did you take money from him?”
“No—well, yes, in a way I suppose. He gave me a check long ago, to cover my mortgage should I need it.”
“If you needed money, you should have come to me.”
“I didn’t use it,” she said, knowing it sounded feeble.
“But you accepted it. What else has he given you? And what has he asked for in return?”
“What are you implying, Jamie?”
“Implying,” he said heatedly, “I’m not implying, I’m flat out asking.”
“I’m fully aware that you don’t like my association with him.”
“Not like it?” he laughed, “I fucking hate it.”
“Oh,” she said stiffly, “I don’t see why—”
“You don’t see why?” he said furiously. “This is why.” He crossed th
e room in three strides and then took her by her arms and pulled her up on her feet and kissed her hard and thoroughly—thoroughly enough that her knees turned to water and her head was spinning by the time he stopped and let her go.
“Does that explain it to you well enough?” He asked, green eyes still simmering with anger.
“Ah, yes, I think so,” she said, still lightheaded from his explanation. “I’d best sit down before I need smelling salts.” She was only half-joking, for he had taken her by surprise and the kiss had both shocked and aroused her. “For the record, I’ve never slept with him nor did he ask me to.” She thought it best to refrain from mentioning she had offered to sleep with Noah, in return for him killing a man. “Can you say the same?”
“I have most definitely not slept with Noah Murray,” he said, and laughed.
“It’s not funny, Jamie.”
He put one long-fingered hand back on the mantelpiece. “No, I don’t suppose it is. I apologize.”
“Well?”
A candle fluttered, dark and then light, as though a moth had touched it and burning, flown away. It was a moment before he replied. He looked at her with faint reproach.
“No. And just so you know and won’t wonder, I have never slept with her. We have long been friends and knew that sex would damage the relationship, and so we chose the wiser course.”
“While we,” she said, “did not. Do you regret it—that night in Maine?” She felt like the words might choke her.
“Why would you think that, Pamela?”
“Vanya told me what happened that night at your house, after I left.”
“That was indiscreet of him,” Jamie said, face suddenly pale and his pulse visible in the hollow of his throat. “I have Patrick, and you, it appears, have Vanya. He’s a charming boy but imprudent with his tongue.”
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 79
