The Secret Heiress (38 page)

“I think so,” Adrian said smoothly, “even if only for a minute.”

“Too bad you didn’t get to spend a lot more time with him,” Nikoletta replied with a nasty undertone.

“Hello, darling,” Sugar Rosebury said, interrupting them. She exchanged air kisses with Nikoletta. “This is some party you’ve arranged.”

“I hope you have fun,” Nikoletta said. “Where are Yves and Angelo? Didn’t you come together?”

“No,” Sugar said. “But you needn’t fear. I spoke to them, and they’re definitely coming. They’re most likely held up in traffic. Have you seen what it’s like down there?”

“Yes,” Nikoletta said. She tinkled laughter. “I’ve been watching with my binoculars.” She led them into the vast living room of her penthouse. “Everybody have a seat, please. We’ll have a little champagne and caviar. Then if you like, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

“Oh, I’d love that,” Sugar exclaimed, looking about at the futuristic decor. “This is so different from your town house.”

“I was getting sick of all that overstuffed English coziness,” Nikoletta said. “Besides, it was never really me.”

“Frans,” Sugar said, seeing him slumped alone in a chair in a far corner of the room. She went to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek, inhaling the reek of bourbon as she did so. “How are you, darling?”

Frans looked up at her with glazed blue eyes. “Fabulous,” he said sarcastically. “Can’t you tell?”

“Well, it’s wonderful to see you out and about,” Sugar said.

He nodded.

Oh, dear,
Sugar thought.
He’s really in bad shape tonight.
She returned to the others, who were taking champagne flutes proffered by a waiter and scooping up caviar on toast points from another. “Frans seems in not very good shape,” Sugar said to Nikoletta. “Do you think he ought—?”

“Oh, just ignore him,” she replied flippantly. “He’s fine. Just sulking as usual.”

After a few minutes of small talk, most of it centered on the living room and its decor, Nikoletta proposed a grand tour. “I’ll take you myself,” she said. “You’ve got to see what I’ve done here.”

They followed her about the apartment’s three enormous floors and its expansive terraces, ooohing and aaaahing at all the appropriate moments. It was a feast to behold, a combination of glass, steel, marble, granite, and onyx—all hard, shiny surfaces, much like Nikoletta herself—but it was softened somewhat by luxuriously soft leathers and silks with a smattering of tropical plants. Orchids bloomed in abundance, and the terraces were magnificently landscaped with trees, shrubs, and flowers, as was the area around the heated pool.

When the tour was over at last, they returned to the living room, where Nikoletta had the waiters ply them with more champagne and beluga caviar.

“Shouldn’t we be getting down to the party?” Adrian inquired.

Nikoletta laughed. “And ruin my grand entrance? No, I want everyone gathered there first. Then you and Honor and Sugar will go ahead and be my, well, my honor guard, so to speak. And Angelo and Yves, if they’ve arrived by then.
Then
Frans will escort me in.”

To the sound of trumpets?
Sugar was tempted to ask, but stifled the urge.

“And those bodyguards outside your door?” Adrian asked, referring to the ex-Secret Service agents with their tiny earphones and lapel microphones. “Aren’t they your honor guard?”

Nikoletta laughed. “Good heavens, no! They’re just my Praetorian guard!”

T
he more Ariadne gazed about the expansive lobby, the more it appeared to her that the number of guests had multiplied exponentially. The noise level of all those voices was like distant surf: white noise that, amazingly enough, rose in that towering space and was somehow magically absorbed, unable to drown out even the performance of Mozart by the first-rate quartet.

She found herself agog. She had been exposed to a lot in the last few weeks, but now she was truly amazed. Humbled. And, yes, thrilled to be part of such an overwhelming spectacle, the likes of which she’d never seen. Never in her life had she been exposed to such luxury and pomp. She was nearly at the point of sensory overload.

She watched streams of new arrivals, each couple’s entrance so flawlessly picture-perfect it must surely have been choreographed in advance, she thought, or they were such old hands at attending formal events that practice had indeed bred perfection. There was a veritable typhoon of tycoons, she thought with a laugh, and they wore their wealth as casually as the hand-tailored tailcoats they so often pretended to loathe. The women, she observed—yet further reflections of their financial and social prowess—were like storybook beings who appeared to float above the marble floors as though unhindered by the earthbound rules of lesser mortals.

Even the platoons of formally attired waiters circulating with champagne- and canapé-laden trays seemed not to walk so much as
glide,
as though they were extras performing in some Fred Astaire movie and might, at any moment, break out into song.

Surely,
Ariadne thought,
this requires some hidden puppet master, some invisible maestro whose every signal of a magical baton ensures seamless continuity. For without him, how would such masterful coordination ever be possible?

Then it occurred to her that the hidden puppet master was none other than her twin sister, Nikoletta. She felt her stomach lurch with the thought.
And I am supposed to impersonate this . . . this superbeing?
She doubted that all the training and exposure in the world could ever prepare her for such a formidable task, for it was obvious that Nikoletta was born to stage extravagances like tonight’s, and Ariadne realized that she wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Despite her awe at the spectacle, judging from the reactions of others at the party, Ariadne fitted right in. In her swirl of floor-length red satin, she didn’t realize that she was creating a sensation to which she was blind. She was a flawless ruby strewn among gems of lesser quality, an effect that was unintended.

Angelo Coveri was the most socially gregarious and savvy among his coconspirators. Despite their sophistication, none of them mixed with all strata of society as well as Angelo, nor did any of the others possess the finely tuned social radar that Angelo had acquired. This evening his radar was on full alert, and he was certainly aware of the sensation that Ariadne, the marchesa, and Matt, the marchese, left in their wake.
She couldn’t be in better hands than mine,
he thought. That was why he had insisted that he escort her, along with Matt as security. Like a seasoned general in command of a familiar battlefield, he strategically escorted them safely through the potentially lethal minefield, cunningly honing in on the least important and least inquisitive of his vast circle of acquaintances. Thus, he expertly steered them clear of likely trouble spots—the most curious, sharp-eyed, and famously loose-tongued chatterboxes. While Adrian, Yves, or Sugar might have handled some situations adroitly, they would doubtless have become involved in conversation with just the sort of people he was avoiding.

Still, everyone who laid eyes on Ariadne and her handsome young escort—the chest of his tuxedo pinned with elaborate military-looking decorations—was dying to know who the beautiful creature and her husband or boyfriend were, and asked where Angelo found them. To avoid complications, he endlessly repeated what they had agreed upon in advance, introducing Ariadne and Matt not by name but merely as “the marchesa . . . a daughter of an old friend of the family’s . . . and her husband, the marchese. . . .”

The sly ruse he invented worked wonders. Ariadne didn’t even have to speak, but merely nodded her head in greeting. He apologized to one and all. “The marchesa and marchese have terrible sore throats. Nothing contagious, I am happy to report. It’s all the flying they’ve done recently, they say. Real globe-trotters, these two.”

Ariadne would touch her neck, look appropriately apologetic, and smile. Matt would smile and nod.
“Scusi,”
he would murmur. As the elaborate social minuet continued, and Angelo Coveri shepherded her around, Ariadne and Matt didn’t once forget his exhortation: to keep on smiling. Which they did, even though Ariadne’s teeth were starting to ache.

Platinum wig aside, Sugar Rosebury’s artistry at makeup had done the rest. Ariadne didn’t resemble Nikoletta in the least, nor would it have occurred to anyone to connect the two. Thus, the mysterious and beautiful marchesa and her marchese convincingly played the part of old family friends of Angelo Coveri’s.

 

While the party downstairs was going splendidly, upstairs in Nikoletta’s penthouse, a minor crisis was threatening to foil her best-laid plans. Frans had been sipping bourbon for hours, and he suddenly decided that Nikoletta had not been paying enough attention to him. This, after he’d ignored her all afternoon and the other guests since they’d arrived. As they finally prepared to go downstairs to join the party, Frans balked.

“Go with
them,
” he cried from the long leather couch where he’d most recently slouched. “You obviously don’t need
me,
Niki.”

Nikoletta couldn’t believe such treachery. Frans had always been difficult to handle, but no one had ever refused her at the last moment like this. Then it occurred to her that someone had: Frans. At the birthday party she’d planned for him in East Hampton. The thought infuriated her.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, come on!” she snapped, forgoing use of the more gentle voice she usually employed with him. “Will you get with it?” She stomped a gold python-covered heel on the marble floor.

When he didn’t move, she became infuriated. Bending over, she grabbed his arm with both of her hands and physically hauled him off the couch. To keep from falling to the floor, Frans scrambled to his feet. When Niki straightened up, there was the ominous but unmistakable sound of ripping threads.

“Shit!”
she cried. “Now look at what you’ve done!”

Shit,
Sugar agreed silently with a sinking feeling as she watched.

“I didn’t do anything,” Frans said recalcitrantly.

Nikoletta ran to the nearest mirror and examined herself by looking over her shoulder. Sugar, too, hurried over to investigate the damage. One look was enough. Sugar shut her eyes and sighed.
We’re screwed,
she thought.

“Can your maid sew it back up, you think?” asked Sugar.

“If it were normal fabric,” Niki said, “but this being snakeskin—”

Talons extended, Nikoletta whirled around and stalked to the couch, where Frans was once again sprawled. “Look what you’ve done. You
fuck
!” she shrieked, slapping his face with her hands.

“Me?” he retorted, shrinking back from her slashing nails. “I didn’t do a damn thing.”

“That’s the trouble with you!” she snapped. “Now I have to go change into something else. Goddamn it!”

She looked on the verge of either tears or murder; it was impossible to tell which, Sugar thought. But knowing Nikoletta as well as she did, murder would be the more obvious choice.

“I bought this dress expressly for tonight!”

“Look, Niki. I’m sorry,” he said in a pitiful voice.

“Sorry? Sorry is supposed to fix this? Sorry doesn’t begin to describe you!”

Sugar, Adrian, and Honor could see that Nikoletta was not going to let him off easily. She was determined to give him a good tongue-lashing before seeing to the dress or changing. They stepped out onto a terrace so as not to listen to the personal battle, complete with Nikoletta’s veritable arsenal of filthy words in several languages. All Sugar could think about was that Ariadne was downstairs in the identical dress, beneath the red satin cape. With both twins wearing the same outfit, making the switch would have proved difficult under the best of circumstances. But now, with Nikoletta having to change into something else . . .

Sugar realized that it was vital for Ariadne, Matt, Angelo, and Yves to be forewarned of this latest development. She went back inside and waited for a break in the continuing harangue that Nikoletta had let loose on Frans. Frans was slow to retort, and she saw her chance. “Excuse me, Niki, darling, but don’t you think one or two of us should go on downstairs and circulate among the guests?” she suggested.

But Nikoletta was in no mood to be accommodating to anyone. “No!” she responded. “Nobody goes anywhere without me.”

“Okay,” Sugar said. Then, quickly thinking, she said, “Oh, I need to use the powder room. I’ll be right back.” Sugar thought she’d have privacy and enough time in the powder room to whip out her cell phone and make some quick calls.

Nikoletta nixed that, too. She grabbed Sugar by the arm and held her tightly. “You’ll have to wait. Come with me. I need you to help me decide what to wear.”

“But—”

“Come on! We’re wasting precious time!”

Sugar could hardly believe her predicament. She saw that Adrian and Honor had come in from the terrace, but it was no use to try to tell Adrian to send a message downstairs. She shot him a glance of helplessness, and he returned it with a puzzled shrug.