Rogue (17 page)

“American,” she said matter-of-factly. “Married?” she asked with interest, which he found an odd question.

“No. Why?”

“I don't do married men. I don't even talk to them. I went out with a horrible Frenchman who was married and lied about it. Once burned, forever wise, or something like that. Americans are usually pretty good about that. The French aren't. They always have a wife and a mistress tucked away somewhere, and cheat on both. Do you cheat?” she asked him, as though it were a sport like golf or tennis, and he laughed.

“Not generally. No, actually, I don't think I ever have. I have no reason to, I'm not married, and if I want to sleep with someone else, I end it with the woman I'm with. That seems a lot simpler to me. I don't like drama or complications.”

“Neither do I. That's what I mean about Americans. They're very simple and straightforward. Europeans are far more complicated. They want everything to be difficult. My parents have been trying to get divorced for twelve years. They keep getting back together and splitting up again. It's very confusing for the rest of us. I've never been married myself, and don't want to be. It seems like a terrible mess to me.” She said it very simply, as though talking about the weather or a trip, and he was amused. She was a very funny young woman, very pretty, and what the Brits called “very fey.” She was like some sort of wood nymph or sprite in her sari and her bindi and tattoos. He noticed then that she was wearing an enormous emerald bracelet that got lost among her tattoos, and a huge ruby ring. Whoever she was, she had plenty of jewels.

“I'd have to agree with you about the mess people make. I'm actually very good friends with my ex-wife. We like each other even better than we did when we were married.” For him, it was true, and he was sure Maxine felt the same way about it too.

“Do you have kids?” she inquired, offering him some of her olives. He dropped two in his drink.

“Yes, I do, three. A girl and two boys. Thirteen, twelve, and six.”

“How sweet. I don't want children, but I think people are very brave to have them. It seems rather frightening to me. All that responsibility, they get sick, you have to make sure they're doing well in school, have good manners. It's even harder than training a horse or a dog, and I'm terrible at both. I had a dog once that did its business all over my house. I'm sure I'd be even worse with kids.” He laughed at the picture she painted, as Mick Jagger wandered by and said hello to her, as did several other people. Everyone seemed to know her except Blake, and he couldn't understand why he had never met her before. He spent a lot of time on the London scene.

He told her about the house in Marrakech then, visibly excited about it, and she agreed that it sounded like a fabulous project. She said that she had nearly studied architecture and decided not to, she could never do the math. She said she'd been terrible in school.

A number of his friends came up to him and said hello then, as did quite a few of hers, and the next thing he knew when he turned to look for her, she had disappeared. Blake was frustrated and disappointed. He had liked talking to her. She was eccentric, intelligent, outspoken, and different, and beautiful enough to catch his eye. He asked Mick Jagger about her later, and he laughed at Blake.

“You don't know her?” He seemed surprised. “That's Arabella. She's a viscountess. Her father is supposed to be the richest man in the House of Lords.”

“What does she do?” He assumed she did nothing, but he had gotten the sense from talking to her that she had some kind of job or career.

“She's a painter. She does portraits. She's very good. People pay her a fortune to do their portraits. She also does their horses and dogs. She's completely crazy, but she's actually very nice. She's sort of typically British eccentric. I think she was engaged to some very fancy Frenchman, a marquis or something. I don't know what happened, but she didn't marry him. She went out to India instead, had an affair with some very important Indian chap, and came home, with a hell of a lot of good-looking jewels. I can't believe you don't know her. Maybe she was in India when you were around. She's a lot of fun,” he confirmed.

“Yes, she is,” Blake said, somewhat in awe of what Jagger had said about her. It all fit. “Do you know how I'd find her? I didn't get her number before she left.”

“Sure. Have your secretary call mine tomorrow. I've got her number. So does everyone else. Half of England has had their portrait done by her. You can always use that as an excuse.” Blake wasn't sure he needed one, but it was certainly a possibility. He left the party then, sorry she had left before him, and his secretary got him the number the next morning. It hadn't been difficult at all.

He sat looking at the piece of paper for a minute, and then called her himself. A woman answered, and he recognized the voice of the night before.

“Arabella?” he said, trying to sound confident, and feeling awkward for the first time in a long time. She was more like a whirlwind than a woman, and far more sophisticated than the girls he usually picked up.

“Yes, it is,” she said, in her clipped British way. And then she laughed before she even knew who it was. It was the same tinkling of fairy bells that he had heard the night before. She was magic.

“This is Blake Williams. I met you last night at the party at Kensington Palace, at the bar. You left before I had a chance to say goodbye.”

“You looked busy, so I slipped away. How nice of you to call.” She sounded sincere, and pleased to hear him.

“I actually wanted to say hello more than goodbye. Are you free for lunch?” He cut to the chase, and she laughed again.

“No, I'm not,” she said regretfully. “I'm doing a portrait, and my subject can only come in during lunch. The prime minister, his schedule is awfully tight. What about tomorrow?”

“I'd like that very much,” Blake said, feeling about twelve years old. She was twenty-nine and he felt like a child with her, even at forty-six. “How about Santa Lucia at one?” It had been Princess Di's favorite restaurant for lunch, and everyone else's ever since.

“Perfect. I'll be there,” she promised. “See you then.” And before he knew it, she was off the line. No chitchat, no further conversation. Just the bare bones necessary to make the appointment for lunch. He wondered if she'd show up in the bindi and the sari. All he knew was that he couldn't wait to see her. He hadn't been this excited about anyone in years.

Blake arrived at Santa Lucia promptly at one the next day, and stood at the bar waiting for her. Arabella walked in twenty minutes later, her short red hair sticking up straight, a miniskirt, high-heeled brown suede boots, and an enormous lynx coat. She looked like a character in a movie, and there was no sign of her bindi. She looked more like Milan or Paris, and her eyes were the electrifying blue he remembered. She beamed the moment she saw him, and gave him a warm hug.

“You're so nice to take me to lunch,” she said, as though that had never happened to her before, which was obviously not the case. She was very glamorous, and at the same time very unassuming, and Blake loved that about her. He felt like a puppy at her feet, which was rare for him, as the headwaiter took them to their table, and made as big a fuss over Arabella as he did over Blake.

The conversation flowed with ease over lunch. Blake asked her about her work, and he talked about his experience in the high-tech dot-com world, which she found fascinating. They chatted about art, architecture, sailing, horses, dogs, his kids. They exchanged thoughts about everything imaginable and left the restaurant at four o'clock. He said he'd love to see her work, and she invited him to the studio the next day, after her next session with Tony Blair. She said other than that, she had an easy week, and was of course leaving for the country on Friday. Everyone who was anyone in England went to the country on the weekend, to their homes or someone else's. When they left each other on the street, he could hardly wait to see her again. He was suddenly obsessed with her, and sent her flowers that afternoon, with a clever note. She called the minute they arrived. He had sent orchids and roses, with lily of the valley tucked in. He had used the best florist in London, and had sent everything exotic he could think of, which seemed fitting for her. Blake thought she was the most interesting woman he had ever met, and sexy beyond belief.

He went to her studio late the next morning, just after Tony Blair left, and was totally startled by how Arabella looked. She was a woman of many faces, exotic, glamorous, childlike, a waif, one moment a beauty queen, and the next an elf. She opened the door to her studio wearing paint-splattered skintight jeans, high-top red Converse sneakers, and a white T-shirt, with an enormous ruby bracelet on one arm, and she was wearing the bindi again. Everything about her was a little crazy, but utterly fascinating to him. She showed him several portraits in progress, and some old ones she had done for herself. There were some beautiful horse portraits, and he thought the one of the prime minister extremely good. She was as talented as Mick Jagger had said.

“They're fantastic,” he said to her, “absolutely wonderful, Arabella.” She opened a bottle of champagne, she said to celebrate his first visit to her studio, the first of many, she hoped, as she toasted him. He drank two glasses with her, in spite of his aversion to champagne. He would have drunk poison for her, and then he suggested they go back to his place. He wanted to show her his treasures now too. He had some very important art, and an absolutely spectacular house that he loved and was very proud of. They found a taxi easily, and half an hour later, they were wandering through his house, as she screamed with excitement over the art she saw. He opened another bottle of champagne for her, but he drank vodka this time. He turned on the sound system, showed her the theater he had had built, he showed her everything, and by nine o'clock they were in his enormous bed, making mad, passionate love to each other. He had never had an experience like that with any woman, even on drugs, which he had experimented with lightly at one point, and never liked. Arabella herself was like a drug to him, and he felt as though he had gone to the moon and back, as they lay in his enormous bathtub together later, and she slid on top of him, and began riding him again. He moaned in exquisite agony as he came in her, for the fourth time that night, and he heard the magical sound of her laughter, as the impossible wood sprite he had discovered at Kensington Palace drove him to the edge of sanity and back. He didn't know what this was with her, love or madness, but whatever it was, he never wanted it to end.

Chapter 10

The following Friday night, Charles and Maxine managed
another very grown-up dinner at La Grenouille. They both had lobster and an exquisite white truffle risotto that was almost like an aphrodisiac, it was so good. And once again, Maxine had enjoyed the meal, even more this time. She liked their intelligent, adult conversations, and he didn't seem quite as serious as he had before. He had a sense of humor after all, although he kept it in check. Nothing about Charles ever seemed out of control. He said he preferred everything in his life planned and in good order, moderate, predictable. It was the kind of life Maxine had always wanted, which had been impossible with Blake. And it wasn't totally feasible for her either, with three children and the unpredictable elements in their lives, and the kind of practice she had, where the unexpected happened regularly. But their personalities were a good fit. He was far closer to what she wanted than Blake had been, and she told herself that if Charles was less spontaneous, that was reassuring in some ways too. She knew what to expect of him. And he was a nice person, which appealed to her too.

They were in the cab on the way home, after their second dinner date at La Grenouille. He had promised Le Cirque next time, and maybe after that Daniel or Café Boulud, all his favorite haunts, which he wanted to share with her, when her cell phone rang, and she assumed it was one of the kids, looking for her. She was off call to Thelma Washington that weekend. Instead, it was her service trying to locate her for Dr. Washington, which Maxine knew meant it was something serious with one of her regular patients. That was the only time Thelma called her on weekends. Otherwise, she handled everything herself, except the situations she knew Maxine would want to be told about and participate in. Thelma's voice came on the line after the service put her through.

“Hi. What's up?” Maxine said quickly, and Charles thought it was one of her kids. He hoped it wasn't an emergency. They had had such a pleasant evening, he didn't want anything distressing to intrude. Maxine was listening carefully, frowning, with her eyes closed, and it didn't look good to him. “How many units of blood have you given her?” There was silence again as Maxine listened to the answer. “Can you get a cardiothoracic guy in right away? Try Jones … Shit … okay … I'll be right in.” She turned to Charles with a worried look. “I'm sorry. I hate to do this to you. One of my patients just came in, code blue. Can I hijack the cab to Columbia Presbyterian? I don't have time to go home and change. I can drop you off on the way.” Her mind was full of what Thelma had said to her. It was a fifteen-year-old girl she had been seeing for only a few months. She had attempted suicide, and was hovering near death. Maxine wanted to be there, to make whatever decisions she could. Charles looked instantly sobered, and said of course she could take the cab.

“Why don't I go with you? I can hang around and lend moral support if nothing else.” He could only guess how hard those cases were, and Maxine made a career of them. He couldn't imagine dealing with that every day, but he admired her for it. And medically, it was far more interesting than what he did, much more stressful, and more important in a way.

“I might be there all night. At least I hope I will.” The only reason she wouldn't be was if the patient died, which was a strong possibility right now.

“No problem. If I get tired of waiting I'll go home. Hell, I'm a physician too, this isn't news to me.” She smiled. She liked having that in common with him. It was a strong bond to share medical careers. They gave the driver the hospital's address uptown, and sped north as Maxine explained the situation to Charles. The girl had cut herself, slashed her wrists, and stabbed herself in the heart with a kitchen knife. She had done a hell of a job. And by sheer miracle, her mother had found her fast enough to make a difference. The paramedics had been on the scene in minutes. They had given her two units of blood so far, her heart had stopped twice on the way in, and they had gotten it going again. She was hovering near death, but still alive. This was her second attempt.