By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs (32 page)

"Obviously it was Cindy who broke into
Mergate," he continued, taking a cigarette from a small gold box
that Mavis handed him. "All those stupid things she took, the
photos she smashed, the goofy damage she did—I should have figured
it out." He lit the cigarette, drew deep, exhaled, felt no comfort,
and put it out. "But Cindy didn't go in for high tech. She did not
take the
Pegasus
plans."

"Really," said Mavis, crossing one leg over
the other. "And how do you know that?"

"Quinta let me know that Cindy told her she
hadn't taken them. Which is reasonable. Cindy might have shredded
the
Pegasus
plans, but she'd never have bothered to steal
them."

"But we know they were missing."

"True." In a soft voice he added, "You've
known that longer than I have, haven't you, Mavis?"

"I'm afraid I don't catch your drift."

"Let me spell it out for you, then. You took
the plans on the night before the burglary, when we were working
late together. We'd finished for the day. I came down to pour us
each a drink. While I was gone you slipped the plans into your
attaché. After I came back we made fairly compelling love. You
seemed so into it. Fool that I am, I thought you needed—well,
someone. You were simply trying to keep me distracted, I suppose.
Then the next day you copied the plans, with every intention of
slipping them back into their files after dinner when we came back
here to work. How did you feel when you learned that the place had
been tossed in the meantime? Terrified, or gratified?"

"I didn't feel anything," Mavis answered,
coloring. "Except a profound sense of frustration at your
carelessness."

"Oh, but I did lock the doors. Obviously
Cindy still had a key. It isn't considered careless not to change
the locks when a spouse dies."

Mavis got up from her chair and went over to
a sideboard, where she poured two Scotches into heavy crystal
tumblers. "That's the difference between you and me," she said as
she handed him one of the drinks. "I take nothing for granted."

"No. I'll give you that. But in this case
you also had an incredible stroke of luck. Despite our unexpected
taking of inventory, you were completely off the hook. We couldn't
very well report the theft—that would alarm our contributors—so you
were safe for the foreseeable future as well."

She had walked up to a window overlooking
the ocean, listening rather than seeing. Her back was to him. "Safe
to do what?" she asked in a languid voice.

"To sell the plans to another syndicate, of
course. How much did you get? More than the usual thirty pieces of
silver, I hope."

"You're nuts."

"Ah, no. That was Cindy. But I am a little
slow: it never occurred to me that a woman who has as much money as
you have could still want more."

She turned around, walked up to him, and
threw the remains of her drink in his face. "Until you prove that,"
she said calmly, "I'm going to have to hate you."

"Is that a trick promise?" he asked with a
mournful smile. He stood up and, taking a handkerchief from his
pocket, wiped the drink from his face. "Did you feel any twinge at
all when they had the boat torched?" he murmured. "Or do you have
an artificial heart as well?"

Her hand came up automatically for the slap,
but he intercepted it. "You've already made your point," he
said.

"I know nothing about the arson," she said
angrily.
"Nothing!"

"Well, of course not," he answered. "Your
business with them was done. The rest of it they could handle
themselves."

"The protestors burned that boat!"

"Don't be naive, Mavis. Or rather: don't
pretend to be naive. That stretches even your acting ability. Those
kids have moved on to other amusements; they were nowhere in
sight."

"This is all wild speculation on your part,
completely without proof."

"In your defense, though," he continued, as
if she hadn't spoken, "I will say this: it must have been
temptingly easy. You were right behind us on the water with your
camera; you had access to our data; you knew where the money was
flowing. The network for spying was in place. All that was missing
was the payoff. How much, Mavis?" he repeated. "And what can you
possibly need to spend it on?"

She stared at him with impenetrable coolness
for a long, long time, and then she shrugged and said, "I plan to
follow the sun for a while. New England winters bore me."

"What?" he said with mock surprise. "You're
bypassing the Cup races in Perth?" He let go of her wrist,
resisting the nearness of her as he would a dangerous drug.

"I think so," she said with a carefully
elaborate sigh. "Now that
Pegasus
is out of the picture, the
syndicate looks suddenly so much less interesting."

"Ah, but a near-clone of
Pegasus
will
be popping up in someone else's camp in the next few months. I
don't suppose you'd like to predict whose?"

"I guess we'll find out," she said, getting
the door for him, "when they win the Cup."

"Not when, Mavis.
If.
Whoever they
are, they won't have our sails, our crew, our spar-maker, our clean
conscience," he said, aware that he was not going to extract an
admission from her. She began to close the door on him, but he
threw his arm out to hold it open. He stared at those bottle-green
eyes as he said quietly, "I wouldn't have taken a million dollars
for what you did."

Her smile was as brittle as the look in her
eyes: "Even if it were tax-free?"

"God almighty," he said in a low breath.
"Who bought the plans? Some oligarch?"

She lowered her lashes, then opened her eyes
wide. "I don't know what you're talking about."

But he wasn't done with her yet. "Can you
live with it, Mavis? I truly don't think you can. "

"Again: I guess we'll find out. Good-bye,
Alan."

****

She closed the door on him, then turned and
leaned into it, closing her eyes, listening to the pumping of her
heart. Her artificial heart. The phrase would haunt her, like the
thought of her prosthesis, for the rest of her life. She had
crossed a moral divide, and he had made certain that she would
remember it.

Alan could have turned her in; she knew
that. She also knew that nothing could be proved. Bringing empty
charges against her would create scandal and speculation, and there
was too much at stake for that: hundreds of millions in the
contest, billions in Cup-related investments. And what would be the
point? Alan was right: for all the technology, for all the scheming
and the secrecy, the contest was still a match between men. And
even she believed that the best man with the best crew would win.
That was the magical allure of the Cup: that it could be won and
held only by the best.

Why
had
she done it? It was one thing
to be asked to steal the plans, another altogether to agree to the
offer. It had been a huge risk. She might have been discovered and
humiliated, or worse. Was it the thrill of easy money? She was a
businesswoman, after all, and business people like to make money.
Or was it something in her genes? The America's Cup race was a
tycoon's game, the most elitist sport of all. Had Mavis, like her
lady's-maid grandmother before her, simply wanted to give someone a
good poke in the eye?

Probably. Too bad it had to be Alan. He
wasn't poor, but he was certainly no Vanderbilt. Well, you worked
with what you had, and what Mavis had was Alan. But really, it was
too bad.

****

Twelve hours later Alan was standing outside
Quinta's room in the Newport Hospital, heart pounding like a
schoolboy's, far, far more self-conscious and awkward than on the
day three years earlier when he'd stood outside a similar room
listening to a young woman giving comfort to her paralyzed father.
Neil had stayed home purposely this afternoon, to give Alan his
chance. This was it.

Alan knocked on the door and heard Quinta
say, "Come in." He pulled a rose from the bouquet of yellow flowers
in his hand, then stepped inside. Quinta was lying on the partially
raised bed, her shoulder wrapped tightly, her arm strapped to her
body. Her hair fanned out on the pillow behind her, shining and
straight. Her face, he saw, was still a little pale, but her smile
was and always would be the most welcoming he'd ever seen.

"For you," he said, handing her the rose.
"And if you like that, there's more where it came from." He placed
the bouquet across her lap.

With a bemused expression Quinta accepted
the rose and the back-up bouquet. "Thank you," she said, holding
the flowers to her face. "They're beautiful."

"Not as," he said, and when she looked
puzzled, he changed the subject. "I didn't get the chance to tell
you how wildly irresponsible you were last night," he said, trying
to look severe. "That was pretty stupid."

She grinned. "Dad says you came after me on
a moped," she answered, laughing. "Not even a white horse."

He sat on the bed beside her. "That's the
problem with you: you tend to see me as a knight in shining
armor."

"That's because you are
.
So is
everyone else who rides after the Cup, from Dennis Conner on
down."

"Ah. Well. In that case." He tried not to
look crestfallen, but in fact, he was stung. He was one of a pack,
that was all. She didn't distinguish between them. "Actually, I've
come to you in a far more ... ordinary capacity," he began, hardly
knowing where to begin.

"Really? How ordinary?" she asked, her hazel
eyes looking straight into his.

"Well, ordinarily, I guess, I'd want to
know, I suppose, how you are? Are you ... in pain?" he asked
softly.

She made a dismissive face. "No. Just a
little. I wanted to go home today, only they said I'd lost a lot of
blood. If you can believe them. They're so conservative." She
smelled the flowers again and beamed at him. "These are so
beautiful, really, Alan."

"And,
ordinarily," he said, forging
ahead, "given the circumstances of the last time we saw one
another—I don't mean on the way to the hospital last night; I mean
the time before that—I guess I'd be curious to know whether you've
thought about, ah, that other time. On the porch."

A slow, infinitely attractive color crept
into Quinta's cheeks. She became attentive to the flowers again,
making a business of inhaling their scent. Then: "Yes."

"You have thought about it?"

"Yes."

"What have you thought about it?" He was
feeling very warm himself and wanted desperately to throw the bed
stand through the window, to let in some air.

"That I liked it very much," she said
softly, not looking at him. Then she lifted her eyes to his, and he
saw neither shyness nor seductiveness, but only clear, honest
longing. "That I'd like to do it again," she added.

Her look took his breath away. Never, in all
the women he had known, had he seen a look like that directed at
him: it was so distilled, so essential; it sent his heart
rocketing.

It also panicked him. What right had he to
throw himself at her? To ask her to watch him tilt at windmills?
"Quinta," he said, laying his hand over her captive one. "Oh damn.
Quinta."

"
What
?" she asked in a voice low and
soft with speculation.

"You know I have to leave for Australia in a
little while," he said, veering completely off course. "Our chances
of winning are vastly reduced, but you don't walk away from a dream
just because conditions aren't perfect. If nothing else—and there's
plenty else—we owe all the other syndicates who've rallied around
us with offers of help and spare equipment and sails. Despite all
the bullshit and all the hoopla, it's an ultimate quest, and a
noble one.

"God—I sound like I'm running for office,"
he added apologetically. "Anyway, I'll be over there almost nonstop
until we're eliminated in the trials, or, if we're not, until the
final races in February. Either way, I wonder if you'd give some
thought to ... give some time to ..."

"To?"

"To me. To us. This is so hard for me,
Quinta; I feel so damned unworthy of you. But there is some
chemistry, some passion between us. I know that. What I don't know
is, is there anything more? If there isn't—on your part—then I'll
walk out of your life today and not bother you again. But if there
is ... if there might be ... if you could think about it while I'm
gone—"

She lifted the single rose that she held in
her hand and touched it to his shoulder. "I have thought about it,
Alan ... I've thought about nothing else. I love you."

Her answer astounded him. It was so clear,
so plain, so filled with conviction. "How can you know that?" he
asked perversely.

She shrugged her good shoulder. "I just know
it. I know I love you," she repeated softly.

He stood up abruptly and walked over to the
window. "How can you be so sure?" he demanded, staring at the
street scene below. "You've got to screw up a little, make some bad
choices, so you know what to compare it to. You haven't had the
time to do that." He might have added,
I have
.

He heard her voice behind him, clear and
no-nonsense. "You may not believe this, Alan, but I've managed to
make it all the way around the block. Or maybe you don't want to
believe it," she added, suddenly seized with a new idea. "Maybe
you're looking for someone pure as the driven snow, in which
case—"

"No!" he said fiercely, returning to his
seat on the bed beside her. "I don't want innocence, Quinta. I want
goodness. I don't deserve it, but I hunger for it. And I know it
when I see it. I have absolutely no right to say this: I want you
to marry me."

When she did not answer immediately he
grimaced self-consciously. "What am I doing here? You must touch
the soul of every man you meet," he said, tracing the line of her
face with his hand.