Heirs Book Two: American Lady (9 page)

“Yes we can,” he insisted, now dragging her
towards the bed.

“Wait! What about Felicity?” Her resistance
was futile as he lifted her easily onto the bed.

He pulled his shirt over his head and
dropped it on the carpet. “I’ve given her the day off. What an
intensely annoying woman she is. She wouldn’t stop rabbiting on
about some missing chauffeur. The only way I could get her to shut
up was to say I’d look into it later.” He unbuckled his belt and
slid off his suit pants and boxers, grinning lasciviously at her.
“Right now, we’re going to make a baby.”

* * *

Duly obedient, Nikki had managed to give
birth to Charley just nine months later. Charley was a replica of
Nikki – from her eye color to her body shape there was very little
evidence of Alex or the Cassidys. Nikki had been relieved to see
there was no suggestion of Jean-Luc either. In the early years
there had been moments when she wondered, like when Charley picked
up speaking French so easily.

But as the memory of that night dimmed and
got stuffed further and further into her subconscious basement,
those uncertainties faded. She hadn’t wondered about Charley’s
paternity for many years. Now Charley had virtually punched her in
the face with a piece of information that curdled her vodka
breakfast – Charley and Maixent were born less than twelve days
apart.

She had deliberately not tracked Leigh
through the news once she’d returned to the States and she had been
so caught up in her own pregnancy and navigating Washington
politics as the new VP’s wife during 1957 that she had no idea when
Maixent was born.

She dropped her head into her hands and
sobbed despairingly for several minutes. She had hoped her
engagement to Lorenzo and the financial prop offered by Paddy would
shore up the crises tumbling into her life like a swarm of Black
Friday shoppers elbowing each other out of the way to be the first
to strip her secrets bare, but it seemed events were still pitching
her towards catastrophe. Could Leigh be positive that Henri was
Maixent’s father? If not, what did that mean for Charley and
Maixent’s relationship?

Gulping down the tears, she blew her nose.
It was imperative she talk with Leigh as soon as possible. If they
had to put an end to the wedding talk it was better to do it before
it leaked to the press.

Sighing heavily, she edged her way to the
bar, pouring herself a large vodka. Lately she was drinking too
much and sleeping too little. When she walked past mirrors she
avoided her reflection.

Moments later, Lorenzo came into the room
and removed the glass from her hand, softly kissing her hair.
“Cara, you look tired. Are you working too hard?” Gently he traced
the bruised circles under her eyes with his thumb.

“Not as hard as you.” Irritated by his
high-handedness Nikki pulled away, grabbing back her drink. She had
promised herself that engagement to Lorenzo would be the panacea to
her problems, but it hadn’t delivered.

Ignoring her crankiness, he eyed her with
concern. “Why don’t you leave the arrangements for the engagement
party to my secretary? Come and take a break with me in Palm Beach
or even in Cannes. The warmth will do you good.”

Initially Lorenzo had been outraged by
Paddy’s demands that they postpone their engagement at his pleasure
and particularly at the implication that only the wily old
patriarch had the ability to arrange an annulment for Lorenzo and
his ex-wife. But Nikki had talked him around and turned his anger
into amusement at the idea of the Cassidys not only giving their
blessing to the union but actually paying for the engagement
party.

“I can’t leave New York at the moment,
Lorenzo. Giancarlo has just dropped off the designs for the
forthcoming winter collection. And I love planning our engagement –
it’s the only thing keeping me sane,” she protested. With access to
Paddy’s carte blanche checkbook she could be as extravagant as she
liked. It was retail therapy in extremis to alleviate the pressure
cooker she had made for herself.

“You look like you’ve been crying, cara. Are
you missing Charley?” Lorenzo sat down on one of Nikki’s detested
chintz sofas and pulled her down with him.

“I don’t understand how she and Prince
Maixent have got so close so quickly after the Valentine Ball,”
Nikki grumbled.

“The magic of love, cara. I could see they
were instantly attracted when I introduced them back in January.
That’s why I made sure they partnered at the ball to give love a
chance to blossom.”

Nikki’s body stiffened at the unexpected
disclosure and she wrestled down the urge to lash out at him for
being the one to introduce Charley to Maixent. She gripped her
glass tightly. Logically she couldn’t blame him for anteing up her
crisis stakes when she’d never trusted him with the truth.

“You’re always complaining that Charley
falls for lame dogs, well not this time. Who could be more eligible
than the Crown Prince of Altobello?”

As if on cue, St John Rhodes-Ross strolled
into the room. “Talking about eligible,” he smirked. “What can I
say?” He spread his hands and laughingly twirled in front of
them.

Nikki’s knuckles were white with the strain
of not throttling Lorenzo. Not only was he making everything sound
rosy so that she had nothing to legitimately complain about, but he
had forgiven St John and included him in his polo team for the
forthcoming season. The team, which now included a cousin of Juan
Larralde’s, were doing so well that since March Lorenzo had been
splitting his time between Rosedale and his new place in Florida
where he was excited about leading his team, The Flying Angels,
through a series of world class polo events.

Nikki would hardly see him for the next
month because after the Piaget World Cup Championship he was
jetting off to Europe in May, first to Barcelona to oversee the
launch of Eurock TV then to Cannes for the Film Festival where he
was meeting his ex-father-in-law, Sir Roddy, to discuss their
forthcoming project. Sir Roddy and his actress daughter, Jennifa
Rhodes-Ross, would be in Cannes because their film
Followed by
Danger
, was in the Festival.

“What I like about Prince Maixent is that
his ego is not bigger than his reputation.” Lorenzo made a snide
dig at his former brother-in-law, making it obvious that he may
have forgiven his mistress’s defection to team St John, but he had
not forgotten it.

“Ah, Prince Maixent. Such a paragon of
virtues. No wonder Charley is smitten,” St John said. Nikki’s face
looked dour. “Whereas you seems as reluctant now as you did when
they got together at the ball,” he said to her.

“I’m sure he’s a very charming man, but I’m
not sure if he’s the right man for my daughter. They’ve barely
spent two weeks together. It’s not enough time to base a decision
for a lifetime on.”

St John quirked a speculative eyebrow at
her. “I hadn’t realized they were so serious about each other.
That’s interesting.”

Nikki bit her lip, furious she had given St
John more fuel for his gossip-seeking. A royal engagement would
make a sensational scoop for that derelict newspaper he worked on.
“Did you need something, St John?” she snapped.

“Well, sorry to interrupt you, but I just
came to let Lorenzo know the ponies are saddled and ready for some
practice before we head out to Potomac.”

As Lorenzo was about to follow St John
outside, Nikki held him back. Apprehensive that she had sparked too
much interest from St John, she knew it was time to swallow some
very bitter medicine and face Leigh so she could ask her
face-to-face about Maixent’s birth. Hoping not to attract more
unwanted attention, she needed an excuse to fly to Europe.
“Lorenzo, I’ve changed my mind, I will come to Cannes with you for
the Festival.” Cannes was only an hour or two away from St
Benezet.

“I’m glad, querida. We’ll leave in three
weeks. It will do you the world of good.”

Hopefully her forthcoming confrontation with
Leigh would prevent a world of hurt for Charley.

The town of Peppermint Vale was a cluster of
jewelry-box buildings set picturesquely at the end of the highway
and cramped into a canyon overshadowed by mountains, rising like
inverted cones with vanilla ice cream oozing over the tops. Under
Tack Kincaid’s development, Peppermint Vale’s seasonal population
was expanding. Replacing the miners were the tourists and skiers,
replacing the mines on the sides of the mountains were
condominiums.

Newt Kincaid pulled his red GMC pickup truck
off the side of the road.

“I get a kick out of this view every time I
see it,” he said to his passenger.

The White Mountains had had some of the best
snowfall in the east this winter and the fir trees were topped with
great dollops of cream. The sky overhead was pale blue. The view
was breathtaking.

“Trouble is it probably won’t be that way
for much longer. The developers are already moving in for the
kill,” continued Newt.

“You’re speaking about your dad,” Declan
reminded him.

“I know. And if he wasn’t I’d never have
known this place existed. Nor would hundreds and possibly thousands
of others once it’s opened to the tourists. But it doesn’t mean I
have to like the thought of how that kind of influx will change a
town this small.”

“Well, make sure your dad puts in a gondola.
The views are going to be one of the biggest draws to this area. I
heard eight inches of snow fell just after Easter.”

“Don’t get too excited. It’s still
‘Oreo-cookie skiing’.”

“You mean white in the middle but brown at
the edges?” Declan laughed. “Doesn’t worry me. That just means soft
snow and plenty of bumps for some hard sliding.” Declan yawned,
stretching his arms as well as the cab would allow. “Thanks for
inviting me out to your dad’s condo. Now that my ortho has given me
the all clear it’s time to climb back onto the Telemarks and test
my nerve on the slopes again. And I need a break from Law
School.”

“You’ve barely been back two minutes,” Newt
protested caustically. “You’re just in a mood to party and you know
that skiing at this time of year is more about the après-ski
socializing and boozy lunches before the run downhill,” Newt said
slyly.

And maybe bumping into Jazz Bradley again,
thought Declan. “I know, but I need to take a couple of weeks to
think about my future. I’m bombing out in all my classes. I just
don’t know if law is for me.”

Declan shook his head miserably. “Everyone
expects me to follow in Dad’s footsteps and enter politics. Rory
even phoned me to ask me to help out with his campaign for the
Senate in ’88 to gain some experience. Apparently Josie was so
bombed out by Torvill and Dean’s perfect scores at Sarajevo that
she agreed to give up training for the next Olympics. Rory plans to
get her pregnant, which will help his chances enormously. He’d like
nothing better than to be president one day to vindicate his
father.”

“Well then the pressure’s going to be on
Rory, not on you,” Newt pointed out, restarting the motor and
cruising into the main street, past the bank, the beauty parlor,
the drugstore and the ski equipment rental store.

The issue of Kincaid & Co’s Peppermint
Vale Ski Resort – eighty acres of residences, hotels, a golf course
for the summer tourists, several new intermediate ski runs to
attract families for winter vacations, and four new ski lifts – was
splitting the town. On one side were those who had caught
development fever and were already counting their profits on
formerly valueless real estate.

Realizing they could never win the battle to
get rid of the resort, the conservationists were putting pressure
on Kincaid to develop the area more in keeping with a ski village
than a California resort. They wanted inns and picturesque
accommodation sites rather than masses of condos littering the
mountainside. Tack had put Newt in charge of negotiating with the
Rime & Reason, one of the best inn-cum-restaurants in the land
of skis, to attract their business to the area.

Expertly Newt maneuvered the truck through
the narrow winding road to one of his father’s condos perched like
a shiny Christmas bauble on the side of the mountain. At this time
of the year the area was deserted by the trendies, but the
dedicated skiers were out in droves.

After they unloaded their gear into the
bedrooms, including two pairs of skis each to take advantage of the
snow conditions, Newt went into the kitchen to check their food
supplies. The fridge held two cartons of Budweiser beer, a
half-drunk bottle of Krug and three pieces of pizza so moldy it was
impossible to tell what flavor it had been. The freezer held two TV
dinners and a half-empty tub of Häagen-dazs rocky road ice cream.
From the bedroom Declan heard the cupboard doors banging as Newt
made a thorough inspection.

“Shit, I forgot that we were the last ones
here. There’s nothing in the place to eat. We’ll have to call into
the supermarket and stock up,” Newt apologized.

When they came out of the local grocery
store with a trolley load of shopping bags, Declan spotted three
people around the red pick up truck. It was a truck that belonged
to Newt’s dad’s company and on both sides it had, in stenciled
white letters, “Kincaid & Co”. The three people who surrounded
the truck were busily painting over the signs and one side now read
Kick-ass & Co and the other read Kickbacks & Co.

“Hey!” Declan and Newt shouted together.
Three faces turned to look in their direction and two bodies
immediately took flight. Newt ran after them. For a startled moment
Declan paused, looking into the limpid green depths of Jazz
Bradley’s eyes. Then she calmly turned around and continued
painting.

Violent anger flooded Declan and he strode
over to the truck and caught her right arm, jerking back the
paintbrush. She flailed wildly and splatters of white paint
snowflaked his dark hair. Her body was a mass of squirming soft
flesh pressed against him as she writhed until he managed to trap
both arms behind her, pulling her shoulders roughly back. This
served to push her breasts into his chest, and he could feel the
warmth of her legs against his. His adrenalin burst abruptly
morphed into violent desire and his erection rose in response.