Susan Johnson (42 page)

“Really, Kit,” said Hazard from the depths of his favorite worn leather chair, the brandy glass he held catching the light. “Valerie will come up to the mark in a matter of time, anyway. You needn’t involve yourself.”

“Is she good-looking?”

Another glance passed between Hazard and Trey.

“Depends on your taste,” Hazard replied neutrally.

“She’s quite splendid,” Blaze said. “You needn’t be discreet for me, dear,” she pointed out to Hazard. “I’m well aware of Valerie’s type. I suppose she propositioned you,” she finished briskly.

Hazard choked on his brandy.

“You see, Kit,” Blaze said, “Valerie should be great fun.”

Arabella’s visit represented simply another small annoyance in dealing with her unconventional marriage to Trey, until Valerie found herself questioned about Thomas several times in the course of the following days, each inquiry accompanied by suggestive snickers. Her father’s death had increased
her incentive to finalize negotiations with the Braddock-Blacks, and now Arabella’s vicious tongue-spreading innuendo hastened her inclination to settle.

She chastised herself briefly for not having more sense but almost instantly shrugged off her twinge of anxiety. Thomas certainly could be paid off to conveniently disappear should the need arise, and in the meantime—a small smile of satisfaction appeared—he certainly was a well-equipped young footman. Glancing at the clock, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to be slightly late to Bruckhill’s dinner that night, and she rang for Thomas.

An hour later her maid was dressing her hair, and she noticed her cheeks were still flushed a rosy hue from Thomas’s sweet vitality. “No rouge tonight,” she said briskly, “and if you pull my hair again, I’ll have you dismissed without a character.” While Valerie was a passionate woman, it never interfered with the practical side of her nature, and as she sat there watching the maid timidly comb each lock of hair into place, she decided she must be sensible about her future. With her father gone, her figure restored, her unwanted child disposed of, wider horizons beckoned. She began visualizing in minute detail her entrance into New York society. White egret feathers, she thought, would be striking in her dark hair, clasped with some of the Braddock-Black special sapphires. And then, of course, a gown in a matching shade of blue … blue always brought out the very best in her eyes. There was no rule against bringing a competent footman along, either.

Valerie insisted on negotiating directly with Trey—no lawyers, no intermediaries—wanting the sadistic pleasure of
seeing
him forced to accede to her demands. Curiously, what stung Valerie most was Trey’s repudiation of his conjugal rights. Men had always been drawn to her beauty, and while Trey’s refusal had initially challenged her, ultimately it had outraged her. The fault was his, of course, in the miscarriage of her plans, and the humiliations were to be paid for with a pound of flesh. The fact that Trey cared for her daughter didn’t temper her vengeance. Without feeling or conscience, she’d dismissed the child from her life at the first sight of her dusky skin.

Trey had been raised in a functional ranch house, despite its large, sprawling size, with light, airy interiors decorated by Liberty of London with the occasional piece of his mother’s favorite antique furniture added. Valerie’s house always struck him as ostentatious … like its owner, he disgruntedly thought as he entered the sitting room.

Valerie was seated on a tufted and fringed brocade-chair with her back to the lustrous daylight, muted by elaborate lace curtains. He had to walk around the clutter of heavy mahogany and overstuffed furniture scattered throughout the room, and skirt a ponderous claw-foot pedestal table with the requisite japonoise vase with peacock feathers. Tiger lilies arranged in a tall silver ewer near Valerie’s chair were brilliant splashes of hot orange, reminding him of Valerie’s predatory nature. Forewarned, he thought, although her pose today was of a demure ingenue in beribboned silk muslin.

She nodded, as did he, and he sat on one of her flamboyant chairs.

The negotiations began in an atmosphere of restrained coolness.

“The season in New York has only begun, so if we could come to some agreement today,” Valerie said as though the entire insanity of events she’d initiated had never transpired, as though Trey weren’t raising another man’s child, as though he were concerned with her concerns, “I’ll not miss too many of the festivities.”

“Your daughter is healthy and well,” Trey said mildly, dressed in unornamented buckskin today as if flaunting his Indian heritage in Valerie’s overdecorated parlor.

“Children don’t interest me.”

“A pity you didn’t think of that earlier,” Trey retorted dryly.

“I’m sure the nursery at the ranch is capable of caring for a child.”

“The nursery is not. Luckily my mother and the nannies are.” He wouldn’t give her the advantage of knowing how much Belle had come to mean to him. With Valerie it would be a further invitation to extortion, a pressure she could push to the limit. He was holding Kit in reserve against such an eventuality.

“If it makes you feel better,” Valerie said, her tone implicitly
denying her statement, “we can consider Belle my liability when we negotiate.”

“Big of you, Valerie. Your generosity of spirit is touching.” He lounged back in the overstuffed chair and stretched his legs out.

Her blue eyes narrowed at his insolence and his insouciant pose, as if these negotiations were of incidental interest to him, and her anger showed for the first time. “You should have acted the husband, Trey, darling.”

“I’m not that good an actor, Valerie, darling,” he replied with the same smooth malevolence that purred in her voice, only his eyebrows rising slightly in derision.

“Unfortunately,” she said with spite and an instant resolve to go for the jugular, “that defect will cost you.”

“Anything remotely having to do with you costs me.” Trey smiled briefly. “I’m inured.”

“Will you be racing after that woman you bought once you have your divorce?” she asked, feigned innocence concealing her resentment that Trey had apparently cared for the woman. He had eschewed female companionship since she’d gone, not only unusual but galling, for a woman like Valerie who had never had a refusal from a man. What did that little farmgirl have that she didn’t have? Valerie had asked herself heatedly on more than one occasion. “There’s talk she’s unmanned you,” Valerie murmured vindictively.

A muscle twitched along Trey’s lean jaw, but his voice, when he responded, was impersonal. “You’re not in the position to verify conjecture, I’d say, and I don’t see it’s anyone’s business what I do after the divorce.” His voice dropped to a murmur, and his pale eyes were implacable. “I might suggest, however, that after the divorce another part of the country might be healthier for you.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Would I threaten a woman? Notice,” he added, lightly fingering the soft fringe on his sleeve, “I didn’t say
lady.
”

“Your reputation might not sustain two deaths in the Stewart family.” There was no fear in her expression, only consideration. “And
you’re
no gentleman.”

“My reputation would be the least of your worries six feet under, Valerie.” The hard line of his mouth was engraved with temper. “And I never said I was.”

“Did you kill Daddy?” She asked it in a casual way, curious rather than distrait.

Seated opposite her, Trey gazed at Valerie for a moment to distinguish whether her expression was as bland as her tone. She could have been asking him if he found the temperature pleasant today, for all the feeling he saw on the porcelain perfection of her features. “I didn’t have to,” he replied. “Your father had 1,353 enemies ahead of me in line. He’s been fucking over a lot of people for a lot of years. Now that we’ve completed the pleasantries,” he said, suavely vitriolic, looking at her from under his dark lashes, “why don’t you name your price and we can get this started.”

A small shrug of muslin-ruffled shoulders, nothing more, and she replied, “I think we should begin by stipulating and defining the general principles of our situation. In matters of actual possession, like this house, in which the contract and deed are both in my name, title is clear.”

“Valerie,” Trey said, bemused, “we have twenty-four company lawyers. If I want to hear someone talk like a lawyer, all I have to do is go to the office … or listen to Daisy, my half-sister, at teatime. Let’s get down to basics”—he quirked one dark eyebrow—“you know … money.”

“I want a mansion on Park Avenue.” Facile adaptation had always been her strongest suit.

“There you go. The Valerie we all know and love. I only hope,” he went on with his familiar impertinence, “that these negotiations aren’t going to require a working knowledge of blueprints and construction bids.”

“I need a carriage and four with liveried grooms,” she declared boldly, as rude as he was flippant. “A staff too.”

“What style of furniture are we contemplating? Nothing too pricey, I hope,” Trey said sarcastically, and then, sitting up suddenly in a single lithe movement, exclaimed exasperatedly, “Good God, Valerie, I don’t care where you’re going to live or how precious a life-style you envision. Quite frankly, at the moment, and if you’re as clever as you seem, you’ll take this as a warning, I don’t care if you live at all. Name a goddamn price.”

She gauged the threat deliberately, as she did everything, and decided to stand firm with the largest sum of money she’d ever contemplated. Offensive tactics were one of her
specialties, and understanding those tactics, she’d begin with an unheard-of sum. Trey would counter with something ridiculously low. She’d come down marginally. He’d go up reluctantly, and eventually they’d settle somewhere in the middle. Taking a small breath, she named the sum.

Trey looked at her for a long, silent moment, his palms resting lightly on his knees, his expression unreadable. “That’s a great deal of money,” he said very quietly. “Am I supposed to beg?”

For a spinning moment her mind raced with the triumph of seeing just that—Trey on his knees before her. But practical motives immediately overcame unbusinesslike revenge, and instead she contemplated, How much should she come down? Should she remind him that she’d be gone from the city? Stand firm?

“Answer,” he said, the words soft. “Do you want me to kiss your shoes for this divorce?” And Kit Braddock began moving center stage, out of the wings.

There was something deadly in the quiet menace of his voice, and Valerie looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since the bargaining had begun. “No,” she said sensibly after seeing the expression on his face.

“That,” he murmured, “was the right answer.” And taking out a blank bank draft from his shirt pocket, he said, “You’ve got it, Valerie, but if you ever approach
anyone
in my family, I’ll kill you. I mean it. In fact, I have a very strong desire to do exactly that right now. Think of the money I’d save.” His pale eyes were so deadly cold, a frisson of fear briefly overset her previous triumph.

Without waiting for her reply, he finished the scrawl of numbers and words and slid the paper across the table toward her. Rising, he stood, the width of his shoulders under the smooth leather, startling from Valerie’s vantage point. “I would have gone much higher,” he said, a small smile creasing his handsome face. The money was secondary to him; he wanted her out of his life, without litigation and public squabbling. “
Bon voyage
, Valerie.”

She had snatched up the check, and her thoughts were plain on her face.

“If you tear that up, you won’t get another.” In his voice
sounded the absolutism of sixteen generations of chiefs; he had reached that point.

Valerie knew unconditional certainty when she heard it. Folding the check, she tucked it in her bodice. “I hope you never find her,” she spat, striking back in her chafing resentment at being bested.

“And I hope New York has the good sense to pull up the drawbridge when they see you coming, honey.”

He walked to the door feeling like a free man for the first time in months. “By the way,” he said, turning back with a vivid smile on his face, “ ‘Tom’ said you’re the most accommodating woman he’s ever known. I told him you would be.”

Trey and Kit sat over brandy that night long after everyone had gone to bed, drinking toasts to Trey’s emancipation. The divorce, Hazard had told them, would be expedited by friendly hands and processed within two weeks.

“To liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Kit declared convivially.

“To divorce,” Trey murmured gently, “and wide open spaces.” He had never had limits before Valerie, and silently he vowed that never again would he.

“There’s wide open spaces in Macao … everything’s wide open there. Twenty-four hours a day. You’d like it … for unchecked pleasure, and after Macao, I’ll take you crocodile hunting in New Guinea.”

“Is it as dangerous as bedding Valerie?” Trey drawled sardonically.

“Actually, no.” Kit grinned. “You’re allowed a gun while croc hunting. With Valerie you’re in the arena bare-assed and”—his eyebrows rose—“she likes to give orders in bed.”

“She tries,” Trey said mildly.

“To amenable women, then,” Kit toasted blithely.

“To divorce.”

“Do I detect a slight bias tonight?” Kit inquired insouciantly, his green eyes sparkling.

“Like walking out of prison permanently affects your good humor.”

But as the evening progressed, Trey’s melancholy increased instead of diminishing.

“Shouldn’t be brooding,” Kit admonished, his smile kindly, “not tonight of all nights.”

Trey shook himself out of the gloom pervading his mind. If Empress had been waiting for him, tonight would have been a joyous occasion. “Everything’s anticlimactic,” he replied so softly that Kit had to strain to hear him. “Have you noticed that anticipation often surpasses acquisition?” He shrugged, lifted his glass, and drained it.

“Hasn’t a woman ever walked out on you before?” Although the question was blunt, Kit’s voice was neutral, his lounging pose placid.