The Scarlet Thread (45 page)

“It beats me,” he said, “how any guy could want to leave you.” The black hair was as long as he'd imagined. He draped it over her, covering each breast, and traced the outline of her navel with a forefinger.

She was too thin, but the lean body was like whipcord. She lay back on the pillows with her arms above her head. He leaned over her, stroking downward. She sighed and raised her pelvis to meet his questing hand.

She was the most exciting woman he had ever met, and he'd been a keen sack man from his early teens. Animal images flitted through the pace and intensity of his lovemaking. Something strong and supple, suddenly, amazingly, under his control. Just to satisfy her made him feel like a giant. She pulled him down and closed her eyes. He wasn't Bruno. He wasn't Steven. But he was good; he seemed to know what she wanted without being told. He had a male identity of his own, and she was surprised at how much she liked it. And needed it. She didn't want to be alone. Too many things waited for her in the silence; she submerged herself in the renewed pleasure he gave her, drowning in the sensation, willing it to go on and on. No Bruno in her dreams tonight, no nightmare about a creeping snake of blood inching down the steps from her father's dead body, threatening to stain her.

He was a sentimental man; he wanted to hold her afterward, to tell her she was wonderful.
I bought him with money first
, Clara thought.
Now he really belongs to me
. And in the sleepy interlude she asked him, “You'll help me, Mike? I need you. I hate to say it, but it's true.…”

He promised, not thinking or caring what she would ask of him. She said, “We make a good partnership. I want you out of that crappy hotel and right here with me.” He didn't argue. He liked the idea.

He moved into the Crillon the next day. When Clara told him to fly down to the south and scout out where Steven Falconi and his family were living, he went without remembering to send his wife a cable. It was Clara who reminded him. The last thing she needed was trouble from that quarter.

O'Halloran checked out the casino. He'd driven up to where he thought the Falconis' villa was, but he didn't want to make himself conspicuous. He called Clara. When did she want him back in Paris?

She noted he hadn't mentioned going home to the States. “Not yet,” she said. “Stay down there, see what you can pick up. I've got things to do here. When you get back, Mike, we'll go out on the town.”

“You know where I want to go,” he said. “I get hard just talking to you.”

She had a low, suggestive laugh. “Just you keep it for me. I'll be moving out of here soon. I'll call you.”

When she hung up, she put him out of her mind. She was going to see the apartment on the Rue Constantine that morning. It would be a test of nerve and resolution to go there and relive the barren hopes of the early days with Steven.

“She's going to be all right, isn't she?” Charlie found Steven waiting for him when he came down from his mother's room. He had rushed up to see Angela as soon as they arrived after Hugh Drummond's funeral.

“She's going to be fine. I've just spoken to Dr. Martineau; he saw her this morning, and he's not worried anymore. So you mustn't worry either.” He put an arm around Charlie's shoulders.

“You were awfully good, Dad; you got everything organized so quickly. But I do wish he hadn't left everything to me. Mum doesn't seem to mind.”

“I'm sure she doesn't. Your grandfather knew she didn't need anything. He did the right thing; he wanted you to have whatever there was. I'd like to talk to you about that a bit later. But there's no hurry. When you finish your exams and leave school, we can have a talk about the future. Now I'll go up and see your mother. Martineau says she can get up at the end of the week.”

“Dad?” Steven paused at the foot of the stairs. “Dad, when is Ralph moving out?”

“I haven't thought about it. Why?” Then, sensing something, he frowned. “Charlie, what are you getting at?”

“I don't like him much,” Charlie said.

Steven came back into the hall. “You don't have to like him,” he said. “What's this all about? He's here because I asked him to look after your mother while I went to the funeral. He's been very helpful; she told me so.”

“He's a bit too helpful, if you ask me,” his son said quietly. “I shouldn't say this, but I don't like the way he hangs around Mum all the time. And I know he doesn't like you.”

It was the last thing Steven wanted to hear. He said roughly, “Don't talk balls, Charlie.” But to his surprise, his son stood his ground.

“It's not balls. I was there at Christmas when things weren't too good with you and Mum. You should've seen his face when you walked through that door!” He paused. “Anyway, I've said it.”

“Yes,” Steven acknowledged, “you sure have.”

“I'm not a fool, Dad,” Charlie said. “I know you're pissed off with me about it, but I don't like him, and I don't trust him either.” He walked away before his father could say anything.

Steven went upstairs to see Angela. Outside the room he paused. He could hear voices. Maxton was in there with her. He hadn't waited long after Charlie had left.

Steven opened the door quickly and went in. Angela quickly sat up in the bed and held out her arms to him. Ralph Maxton was on the other side of the room. It was foolish of him to have expected anything unusual.

“I don't like him, and I don't trust him,” Charlie had said.

Steven sat on the bed and took his wife's hand. He said, “When Angela's able to come down, you must come over for dinner, Ralph.” Was it his imagination that Maxton looked angry? It was such a fleeting impression that he dismissed it. Instantly the man was all charm, making light of the dismissal. He even preempted Steven by saying that he really had a lot of details to work on for the spring opening, and he hoped they wouldn't mind if he slipped away immediately and got on with them. Angela thanked him warmly.

He made light of that too, mocking himself. “My dear lady, all I did was sit around having tea with you and enjoying myself. Now that you're back, Steven, it'll be plain sailing!”

When he had gone, she said, “Darling, weren't you a bit abrupt? You didn't have to get rid of him so quickly. I thought he looked rather hurt.”

“He'll get over it,” he said. “I just wanted you to myself.”

The shutters were open; the concierge had dusted and swept the parquet floors. Clara stood in the middle of the long drawing room. The Beauvais tapestry had been covered. The concierge had apologized for not removing the dust sheets. “It was difficult for me, madame. I didn't know what might happen if I pulled them.”

It was smaller than Clara had remembered; there was a musty smell in spite of the windows flung wide to let in fresh air. What plans she'd made, walking through it all those years ago with Steven! What parties she'd imagined giving when they came over for a visit! They'd been happy in Paris. She was a girl of twenty, newly fledged into womanhood and marriage. Her hope of early pregnancy was disappointed, and she'd fastened on the apartment as a compensation. There was plenty of time, she had insisted; they were going off to Monte Carlo to end their honeymoon. Prophetically, she hadn't wanted to go. She thought of the apartment as a kind of talisman and bought it out of her settlement without letting Steven know. He had never known. By the time they arrived in the States, their marriage was already on course for disaster. The secret Parisian love nest! She laughed aloud in bitterness. No cooing doves had settled there; it was as empty and barren as her life. She lit a cigarette. It needed furnishing; the decorations could wait. She had to move out of the Crillon, leaving no trace of herself. She walked across the floor, her steps echoing on the bare parquet, and on an impulse took a corner of the sheeting that covered the tapestry. It had been brilliantly colored, if she remembered, a typical eighteenth-century pastoral scene with lovers dressed up as shepherdess and gallant. She pulled, and the cover came away. The glowing colors were fresh and beautiful. The lovers dallied, and a whiff of subtle eroticism was in their woven faces and sly eyes. She stood and stared. Not love as she understood it, no visceral torment of desire and jealousy; no passion. They fondled each other in a floral bower, with cupids spying on them from the clouds. A bloodless sensuality, a concept of love that was no more than scented dalliance. Clara reached up and caught the tapestry by the corner. She wrenched with all her strength; the backing tore a little, but the tapestry resisted her. She couldn't pull it down. The lovers went on simpering and eyeing each other, watched by the lascivious siblings of the god of love. She turned and hurried out of the room.

Clara didn't waste time. She toured the shops in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. She ordered Savonnerie carpets, sets of comfortable chairs and sofas, an expensive and elaborate modern bed, and some fine pieces of early French furniture. She sold the tapestry, and the price gave her a morbid satisfaction. It paid for most of the furnishings.

The concierge, smelling a very wealthy patroness, found her a suitable maid and the services of an Algerian cook. The activity kept Clara going; she gave herself no rest until the miracle was accomplished and the apartment ready to walk into. She told herself she had killed the memories of Steven when that hated tapestry was taken down. The gilded mirrors and a fine flower painting made the whole room look different. She could be happy in it. She might even settle in Paris permanently. But the fantasy didn't last long. The reality was O'Halloran phoning from Valbonne to say that there was a gala evening planned for Steven's casino in May. And he'd found out quite a lot about the man who ran the place. A man who might be approachable. Clara told him to come back to Paris. She had canceled his room at the Crillon when she moved out. But she wouldn't ask him to stay at the Rue Constantine. He'd come by appointment and stay the night by invitation. She wanted no misunderstanding. She might delude him when they were between the sheets, but outside the bedroom she paid the bills and called the shots. That way she kept control.

She wondered what he had found out, what kind of man Steven had trusted who Mike thought might not be trustworthy. Not like Steven to make a mistake, she thought. Always so shrewd, so ruthless in detecting a phony. She smiled in hatred. Maybe he had slipped just once. And once might be enough.

It must have been the boy, Ralph Maxton decided. And not so much a boy anymore. At six feet two and growing into a man, he was the mirror image of his father. He'd come out of the lanky stage. He was a very mature eighteen. It was the Italian blood, Maxton judged. Like the women, they grew up fast and faded early. He had never liked Charlie; at first he'd been jealous because his parents doted on him, but increasingly he found that the teenager grated on him. He wasn't the nice middle-class English lad, about to leave public school and begin life in the adult world; he looked like it and talked like it, but Maxton had always wondered how deep you'd have to scratch to find a very different animal. Now he knew. Charlie hated him. Charlie, with an intuition sharper than his years, knew that Maxton was in love with his mother. And he didn't try to hide his hatred. He wasn't rude; he knew that wouldn't have been tolerated. But he conveyed his feelings to Maxton very clearly. And it was he who must have said something to Steven to change Steven's attitude. They might be subtle and deceptive, but the Falconis and their kind couldn't hide their feelings for long. Poker wasn't their game.

The change was almost imperceptible, but not to Maxton. A coolness in Steven's eye, a reserve when they were all together. And a watchfulness that warned Maxton to be very careful when he was with Angela. Careful to hide the little intimacies that had grown between them when they had spent time alone. She didn't see it, of course. She was too open, too straight in her attitude to people. She was generous with her affections, loyal and trusting to the people she loved. And he believed that he was included in that love. As a friend, as a confidant. She didn't see him as he hoped that one day she might. She wasn't ready for that yet. Maxton didn't know when it would happen, but he was certain it would. Falconi would shipwreck himself. He'd almost done so last Christmas. There would be another time.

Maxton worked prodigiously and waited for his young enemy to go back to England. And he kept a little distance between Angela and himself. The need to do so made him hate father and son even more.

They had planned a spectacular fireworks display for the gala. Steven managed his money carefully but spared no expense on this second opening. This was going to be the season that firmly established them on the coast. They wanted to lure the clients back and get them to become regulars; above all, the heavy gamblers were Steven's quarry.

He spent a lot of money on advance publicity and harassed Maxton about a new batch of celebrities. “We need some big-name movie stars.”

It gave Maxton pleasure to debunk that suggestion. “The big movie stars wouldn't be seen dead at a casino gala these days. You're thinking of Monte Carlo in the fifties. The Brandos and that lot are into meditation. But I'll see what I can come up with.”

He consulted Madeleine. They met at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo. She was in high spirits, bubbling over, in fact. The faithful Bernard had been replaced by a younger, richer man.

“He's fabulous,” she confided to Maxton, who wasn't the least bit jealous of this paragon, the more she talked to him. “Persians are so generous—look what he gave me last time.” She held out a smooth arm encircled by a Bulgari bracelet set with emeralds and rubies. He'd given her some bruises too, she admitted, but she was quite philosophical about a few punches as part of foreplay. Provided that the rewards were big enough.