A Rather Lovely Inheritance (21 page)

“Ah,” he said, and gestured toward a fresh pot that was already brewing, and the peach tarte that he was carving up. I nodded, amused. Jeremy was still being rather penitent, and I knew it wouldn’t last, so I was enjoying it.

But while we ate, we lapsed into total silence. I was sizing him up, and he was probably doing the same; in fact, we had reverted to a childhood habit of each waiting for the other to speak first and break the spell. He usually could hold out longer than me.

The phone rang, ending the impasse.

“ ’Allo, Jeremy!” a male voice shouted into the recording. “
Oi!
Pick up the bloody phone, for Crissake. Are you there, mate?”

Hastily Jeremy picked up the receiver. “Denby,” he said. “Sorry. Yes, yes, I remember. Hang on, will you?” He paused, and looked at me thoughtfully.

“What is it?” I asked. He covered the mouthpiece.

“I made an appointment with a man who used to work in the Dragonetta car factory,” he said. “I’d forgotten all about it. He’s semi-retired, and lives in Monte Carlo now. Remember I told you he specializes in fixing up these cars? He was going to assess its value for us.”

“Perfect!” I cried. “When?”

Jeremy said slowly, “Tomorrow.” He paused. “But perhaps you ought to hire somebody else to do this for you,” he said gently.“Recommended by a different lawyer, you know?”

“Ummm,” I said, as if I was pretending to consider his suggestion. “Look, Jeremy. Just do this one thing for me, okay? Because I don’t know about old cars, and most other lawyers probably don’t. If they hire an expert, they’ll believe anything he says, and they’ll probably get the wrong guy to do it.Who’ll buy it from me and then sell it for a major profit.”

And before he could argue with that, I added, “And don’t tell me that Harold and Severine can do it. I want to inspect the car and the garage, and you were the only one with me who could remember what was and wasn’t there. I just can’t do this with them.”

He must have been feeling guilty about being mean to me and leaving me at the mercy of intruders in the night. But what he said was, “Idiot. It could be worse for you if I stayed on this case now. They’ll think
you’re
being led astray by me as well.”

“Well, I’m stuck with you because I can’t trust anybody else,” I said teasingly. “So take me there one more time? You’ve got Denby lined up to look at it anyhow. I wouldn’t even know what to ask him.”

“It’s clear I can’t turn you loose down there alone.You’re bound to get into trouble. So perhaps we should drive down together, and I could have Denby check a few things on my car,” he said conclusively, as if he’d reached this brilliant decision all by himself. He returned to the guy on the phone.“Sorry, Denby. Had to check my calendar to be sure. No problem. I’ll be there. It’s not an easy place to find—do you want to meet in the village? Are you sure? See you at the villa, then.” He hung up and glanced at me.

“How do you manage to convince me of these lurid scenarios you come up with?” he inquired. “You at the mercy of some lawyer who knows nothing about antique cars, or some unscrupulous mechanic out to take you for a ride. Or Rollo throwing you into the Thames—”

I smiled modestly. “You forget,” I said. “I work in show biz. We make up damsel-in-distress drama every day of the week. Or—who knows? Perhaps it’s because a strange man just broke into the bedroom where I was sleeping, for no apparent reason.”

The telephone rang again. Evidently it wasn’t just my phone calls he’d been avoiding. He didn’t move right away, so his answering machine picked it up, and I heard Severine’s voice ringing out with its rich French accent.

“Zheremy, poor boy,” she said in a soothing and, I might add, intimate tone. “Don’t worry. We are right on top of this and we will win. Please call me so I know you’re okay, yes? Talk to you soon.” She sounded much more warm-blooded than the cool, professional creature at the reading of the will. I didn’t imagine this, because Jeremy blushed and ducked his head.

“I must say she sounds a lot friendlier on your phone,” I said, going for the habitual teasing cousinly tone. But suddenly it wasn’t so easy to pull off. In fact, it didn’t come out teasing at all when I said, “Are you and Severine—?”

“Long time ago,” Jeremy said quickly. “Very, very over.”

“She doesn’t sound so over,” I observed, feeling a queer little ache in the pit of my stomach. But I tried to look worldly and amused.

“That was just her being concerned,” he said. “French girls always sound sexy no matter what they say.”

“I didn’t say she sounded sexy,” I retorted. “I said she sounded a trifle
intime
.”

Jeremy grinned at me, and he, too, reached for his old familiar cousinly teasing tone. But when he spoke, softly, it came out differently, very differently, in a way that made me feel as if we’d been breezing along on a straight track on a roller coaster, then suddenly reached the edge and were about to plunge down a steep drop. I’d gotten a warning feeling in my gut, of either a great thrill or a grave danger ahead—I wasn’t sure which.

“I keep forgetting,” he said in his newer, warmer, and therefore more serious tone, “that you’re French, too.”

For a moment we just looked at each other, but when he spoke again he resumed his old attitude of teasing and slightly reproving, as if I were the one who was flirting with him and he, like a father with a daughter, must be responsible for bringing things back to where they should be.

“Well,” he said, “you might want to pack a few things for the trip. Shall I drop you at Aunt Penelope’s?You’re quite safe now, because the men are there working on the locks.”

“How did you get somebody over there so fast?” I wondered. “Back home it takes ages to get repairmen.”

He grinned. “I haven’t exactly been wasting my time, lo these many years. I do know a few useful people.” We had returned to the guest bedroom so I could get my things, and I began rummaging around in my purse.

“What on earth are you foraging for in there?” he asked.

“My toothbrush,” I said. He waited. “I usually brush after I eat,” I confessed.

He shook his head uncomprehendingly. I paused, because instead of my toothbrush, I’d found the photograph that his mother had given me, and I was in a quandary about when to show it to him. I could wait till tomorrow, I was thinking, but if his mother calls and he finds out that I’ve had this all along and didn’t give it to him, would he get angry? I went back and forth more than once, trying to decide, and he was watching me. I pulled the photo out of my purse.

“What’s that?” he asked curiously.

“Jeremy, listen,” I said gently.“When I got back to London, I didn’t know what had happened to you and I was worried. So I went to see your mother.”

Instantly his face hardened. “That was foolish of you,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said, remembering what my father had advised about being sensitive to how Jeremy would be feeling, “but she told me about your father—which we can talk about more when you want to—and the thing is, she gave me this picture and I think you should have it, if you promise not to do anything temperamental with it like tear it up. Promise me.”

He looked as if he dreaded seeing it. “Is it him?” he said sharply. “I don’t want it.”

“It’s you,” I said, holding it out but not letting go of it.“And him.” I made him swear that he wouldn’t destroy it. He couldn’t resist.Then I released it to him.

Jeremy held out his hand carefully as he took the photo. He bent his head over it and studied it very closely. Nothing in his face betrayed what he was thinking and feeling . . . except for a slight twitch of a muscle near his jaw.

“He wasn’t exactly a hippie, you know,” was the first thing that came out of my mouth. “He had a rock-and-roll band and was anti-war, but when he was called up he went. He came back alive, but ill, and stressed out. He died of pneumonia, but he lived long enough to see you. And dote on you and love you, your mother said.”

Jeremy’s throat moved as if he’d gulped silently. But although his voice was softer than he probably wanted it to be, he said coldly, “Love. Mum and her little secrets . . .”

“The point is, they both loved you, you dope,” I said.

He glanced up, surprised.Then, looking as if something horrid had dawned on him, he said, “You and Mum are chums now, I suppose?”

“Since we both have to put up with you, I guess that makes us comrades,” I retorted.

He muttered under his breath, “Women.You
do
always stick together in the end, don’t you? For that, and other obvious reasons, none of you are to be trusted.”

“Oh, go soak your head,” was the best I could come up with.“But I’ve got dibs on the bathroom.” I was still holding my fold-up toothbrush, which I’d finally found.

“To brush your teeth, of course,” he said. “Fine. I’ll go bring the car round.You can meet me downstairs.”

“Right,” I said. When he was gone I actually sighed in relief. It wasn’t going to be a picnic, dealing with Jeremy’s new edgy, angry tone. Well, I’d done my duty about his father’s picture and I would never mention it again, if that was the way he wanted it. I brushed my teeth.

On the way out, I must confess that I peered into the other rooms. I saw his bedroom from the hall because the door was ajar. It was one of those men’s bedrooms, modern furniture with a simple big bed covered with a blue duvet, a nightstand and modern silver lamp, a TV and sound setup, and a black rug on the floor.

I even, I’m sorry to admit, peered into the other bathroom, which was populated only by man-things. Razors, shaving cream, etc. No sign of a woman there, and all through the apartment no scent of one, either. I tried not to be a female sniffing around, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was glad not to stumble upon perfume, hairpins, lingerie, or other indications of any recent visitors of my sex.

O
UR ROAD TRIP ACTUALLY BEGAN, ODDLY ENOUGH, WITH A TRAIN. And frankly, the less said about a Channel crossing, the better. You go either by ferry or, as we opted, by the “chunnel,” which is an improbable undersea tunnel. Jeremy’s car was loaded onto a train at Folkestone, and then miraculously we all arrived within an hour on the other side of the English Channel at Calais.

After having an early lunch in a village café nearby, we considered motoring down the coast so that we could see a little seaside town I knew about, from which Julius Caesar had supposedly sailed off to trounce Britain in 55 B.C. But the weather became ominous, with dark, threatening clouds and an unfriendly wind whipping up, so we jumped on the main highway and headed south.The traffic was heavy and relentless, and it was so late when we reached Paris that Jeremy telephoned Denby to see if we could put off our appointment until the next day. We could sleep in Paris overnight, then set out in the morning for the drive down to Antibes. Denby agreed readily enough.

The hotels were pretty full, but we managed to find rooms at a neat little private one on the Boulevard St.-Germain, where the lady at the front desk sat, rapt and absorbed, watching American TV dramas. Her husband was a cook, and he served meals in a small, nondescript dining room. We didn’t expect dinner because it was late—but this, after all, was Paris. He suggested a “light” supper—of the most superb
croque-monsieur
I’ve ever eaten, all the more surprising because of the modest surroundings. He was so certain that Jeremy and I were lovers that he looked horrified when we hesitated over his suggested glass of champagne.

“Okay,
bon
,” Jeremy said hastily. When the man left Jeremy said, amused, “He thinks we’re on our honeymoon or something.”

“Don’t worry. His wife will tell him tomorrow that we asked for separate rooms,” I said.

“They’ll think we had a row, then,” he said. Then he paused. “Penny,” he said, looking me straight in the eye, “I just want to say that I appreciate . . . the way you and your folks have stuck by me.” This took me by surprise, but I couldn’t resist a grin.

“Oh, well,” I said nonchalantly, “somebody had to.”

“No, actually, you didn’t,” he said. The champagne arrived and was opened with a nice, lively
pop!
—always a good moment whether you’re celebrating something or not. We clinked our glasses, then ate our supper quietly.

Finally, we went upstairs. Our rooms were right next door to each other. We paused in the hallway, in a moment of awkwardness that betrayed something in both of us. He tried to look normal as he kissed me on the cheek, but it wasn’t a totally cousinly kiss. There was that little moment of heat, and breathlessness, feeling each other’s warmth and scent. I don’t think we even looked at each other as we retreated into our own rooms for the night.

 

When we came downstairs in the morning, I heard familiar theme music from the TV and saw that the lady at the front desk was watching one of Pentathlon Productions’ movies.

“Shh!” I told Jeremy.“I just want to see which one it is.” It turned out to be the story of Calamity Jane. I cringed a little when she started firing off pistols. “Boy, it wasn’t easy finding the right guns for her,” I muttered.

Jeremy was fascinated, and stood there watching with the concierge. But soon his mobile phone was besieging him with urgent calls from his office, which he responded to tersely, sometimes with exasperation. I glanced up at the sky and saw that those pearly gray clouds were still threatening rain.

In fairness to the lush French countryside, the trip started out charmingly enough. A temporary burst of sunshine lulled us into a false sense of security. Outside of Paris, the traffic tapered off, and Jeremy piloted his modern-edition Dragonetta with ease and skill. It was definitely a car made for the open road. I leaned my head against the butter-soft leather upholstery, and I felt like a goddess being whisked through the sky in a chariot, watching the earthly scenery flash past me. Jeremy laughed when I exclaimed at the fluffy sheep and their babies, which dotted the fields just like the puffy clouds dotted the sky overhead.We stopped for lunch at an inn that served everything baked in a small pie—meat, fish, or vegetables—and I got a bit groggy on the local ale, which was more potent than it first seemed.