Deadly Valentine (6 page)

Oh, dear Lord. Because it was only too obvious to Annie who was the object of this adoration.

Howard Cahill’s face, too, revealed a man Annie had never glimpsed—or imagined. As she watched in horrified fascination, Cahill’s normal appearance of icy reserve melted, replaced with intense absorption. Annie had always appraised their new neighbor as a man to be reckoned with. A fabulously wealthy shipowner, their host had a reputation as an aggressive, combative businessman, never willing to lose once he joined a battle. But the tentative warmth in his dark eyes as he looked at Laurel revealed a man longing for intimacy.

It was only an instant of time that the tableau held, Laurel and Howard looking at each other without pretense, as if they were alone.

Laurel said softly, “I knew we should meet again. Fate has ordained it.”

Over the chatter of newcomers behind them, Annie heard his gruff reply that was a dramatic beat slow in coming. “Perhaps you’re right. Though I’ve always said a man holds his fate in his own hands.”

“We shall see, shan’t we?” and Laurel swept on up the stairs, in an alluring rustle of satin.

Cahill turned to watch her go.

Annie and Max followed Laurel up the stairway. Annie grabbed Max’s arm and hissed, “That’s the man!”

Max looked at her in surprise. “Sure. You’ve met Howard. Hey, listen to that music.” Max had a passion for slow dancing, although she’d never been altogether sure it was the music that entranced him.

“Listen, Max,” she began, but her protest was lost in Max’s whistle of surprise when they stepped into the immense ballroom. Sydney had taken her and Max on a tour of the Cahill house shortly after the Darlings had moved into their new home. But the ballroom had undergone a magical transformation from an echoing, cavernous, empty room to a brilliant mélange of color, light, movement, and life.

The change was extraordinary. Crimson velvet curtains decorated with lace-edged satin hearts marked alcoves along
the walls. Artfully placed lights illuminated brightly colored ceiling frescoes, vivid scenes of exotic ports: Zanzibar drowsing under a torrid summer sun, Marseilles abustle with shipping, San Francisco wreathed in fog, New York a hundred years ago, a fleet of Roman warships taking on stores at Alexandria. In each fresco stood a couple, not part of the central vigor and movement, but separate, absorbed in each other, lovers soon to be parted, who mirrored, despite differences in time and culture, the passion that seals a man to a woman. The effect of the whole was subtly erotic, implying the urgency of desire, the foolishness of delay, the relentless passage of time, a reckless haste to seize the moment.

The dimly lit ballroom added dramatic intensity to the illuminated frescoes and an air of mystery to the dancers, most of whom were masked. And such marvelous masks! They were definitely not five-and-dime cardboard but creations in papier-mâché especially for the Valentine party. She spotted Mickey and Minnie Mouse, George and Martha Washington, Cleopatra and Antony, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Charles and Di, even Héloïse and Abélard. Guests gathered in excited knots at long tables on either side of the ballroom. Every so often a couple would break free, triumphantly waving their trophies. What fun! Who could she and Max be? But first, she had to make Max understand about Laurel, who had plunged into the milling crowd and was lost to view.

“Howard Cahill,” she hissed. “It’s Howard Cahill.”

“Are you all right, honey? Sure that’s Howard Cahill. You’ve met him a dozen times.”

“Didn’t you see him and Laurel
look
at each other?”

Max touched her cheek. “You aren’t feverish, are you?”

Annie barely restrained herself from stamping her foot. Sometimes Max, even though he was as handsome and delectable as a grown-up Joe Hardy, could be utterly maddening, more obtuse than Chet Morton at his worst.

“The man who helped Laurel get the rental car out of the ditch. It was
Howard.”

Max smiled benignly, craning his neck. “Good old Howard.”
He spotted the bar. “Makes me thirsty, climbing stairs. What would you like? Spritzer?”

If she couldn’t fasten her hands around his throat and throttle him, a spritzer would be second best. Apparently having about as much social antenna as Mike Hammer, Max had missed the interplay when Laurel and Howard met. Of course, that was the point. They hadn’t just met. Howard was the man who had evoked such lyrical excitement in Laurel that morning. An Elaine Raco Chase heroine could scarcely evince more enthusiasm. Annie’s heart sank.

Laurel had neglected to tell Max that she was in love with one of their neighbors. Obviously, Howard would have introduced himself when he gallantly rescued Laurel from the ditch. Just as obviously, there was no need for him to say exactly where he lived. But why hadn’t Laurel made the connection when Sydney came by to urge them all to come to the party? Of course, it would be just like Sydney to introduce herself simply as Sydney with no surname. So Laurel didn’t know the name of her host and hostess until tonight on the pier when Annie obligingly spewed forth information about the residents of the Scarlet King compound.

“Saint John de Britto, my foot! Immerse oneself in a culture, my—” She broke off as the masked figure next to her—a much too chubby Marilyn Monroe—turned toward her inquiringly.

Annie bared her teeth in what she hoped looked like a gracious smile. “Thought I saw an old friend, John Britton,” she babbled. “But no such luck.” She turned determinedly away and glared at the bar. It couldn’t have been any more jammed if it had been the saloon aboard the SS
Karnak
in
Death on the Nile
. She waited impatiently for Max’s return. She had to make Max understand that Laurel was obviously—Oh. Wait a minute. Cool reasoning overtook impulse. How could she tell Max that his mother was flinging herself at a married man? Annie foresaw difficulties.

The band eased from a Cole Porter love song into a Viennese waltz. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher swept by, but Annie would recognize that blue satin dress anywhere. She wondered who Laurel’s partner was. Not Howard,
because he and Sydney,
sans
masks, had just appeared in the ballroom. But body language shouts. Obviously, Laurel’s partner was smitten. Annie raised an eyebrow. Had true love already taken the final count? But no, as the couple clipped past, Laurel blew a kiss in the general direction of Howard.

Sydney, once again, was oblivious to her husband. She scanned the dancers, her face alight with eagerness. Howard’s dark eyes followed Laurel.

But not only Laurel looked toward Howard, Annie realized.

A young man with tousled curly hair and an almost overcivilized face—too long eyelashes, a sensitive mouth, a delicate mustache—watched, too, a young man who would have been handsome if he hadn’t been scowling. He stood a few feet away from the clot around the bar, hands jammed in the pockets of his tuxedo, shoulders hunched.

Howard’s stride slowed when his glance met that of the sour young man. Sydney moved on ahead and was lost among the throng of guests.

Once again, the look in Howard’s eyes surprised Annie. He might be the richest shipowner in America; surely he was also one of the unhappiest. He stretched out his hand, but the young man pivoted on his heel and walked away.

Howard’s hand slowly fell to his side. Then Laurel appeared. Rising on tiptoe, she murmured in Howard’s ear, one beautifully manicured hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

Annie surveyed those nearby. Thank God, the music was loud, the voices louder, and nobody was paying any attention to their host.

Where was Sydney?

It would be pretty awful if Sydney noticed her husband’s deportment with Max’s mother. But what could Annie do? Besides, she wasn’t Laurel’s mother. Which conclusion left her more confused than ever.

Because she felt this urge to
do
something. But when she turned back, Laurel and Howard had disappeared.

Annie felt a beading of sweat on her brow. She’d better
see where Sydney was. Then maybe she could find Laurel and detach her from Howard.

She had already covered a half dozen steps when she heard Max. “Annie, hey Annie, where’re you going? I’ve got your spritzer.”

He caught up with her. Annie accepted the glass, drank half of it in a gulp, then looked up into Max’s surprised face.

She felt on the other side of an abyss from him. He had no idea about Laurel. Annie couldn’t tell him his mother was—No, she couldn’t.

“Let’s go get some masks,” she said brightly and headed for the nearest table.

The mask seekers were just this side of pushing and shoving in their eagerness to make a selection from the tantalizing array.

With one distinct exception—their not-so-charming neighbor, General (retired) Colville Houghton. He leaned on his ebony cane and surveyed the masks and the guests with equal distaste. His wife, Eileen, attired in a formal gown that would have found favor at a DAR banquet—a lace-covered bosom and a skirt with sweeping folds that gave no hint of the body beneath—fingered the cameo at her throat and turned a carefully schooled face toward the dance floor.

Annie didn’t blame Eileen for distancing herself from the old brute, in spirit if not in fact. He looked like the skull at the feast, deeply socketed eyes, prominent cheekbones, downturned mouth, clipped gray mustache.

“Sodom and Gomorrah,” he intoned in a deep, gruff voice.

A full-bodied redhead in a dress that started low and finished high drawled, “Lighten up, Pops,” which sounded odd issuing from the lips of Little Bo Peep.

The general’s face took on an unhealthy hue, his sallow skin flushing purplish red.

Eileen Houghton began to speak in a smooth, social tone. “I do believe I see the McKenzies across the room, Colville. Yes, he’s waving to us. I’ll go fetch them.”

Annie didn’t blame her. She’d get the hell out, too.

The general didn’t move.

Annie and Max stepped past him. At the table, guests jostled one another, eagerly grabbing up masks, trying them on, discarding, trading, amid bursts of laughter and comments, some ribald: “Who’s this?” … “Hey, I always wanted to be a general. Who matches? Mamie or Kay Summersby?” … “You mean Columbus actually had red hair?” … “Listen, everybody, I’ve got Romeo and I’ll trade for Rhett Butler.”

The papier-mâché masks were light enough to wear comfortably. Velvet straps, with Velero strips, extended from the temples of each mask, making it possible to adjust for size when they were fastened.

Annie rejected the Bonnie and Clyde masks. There were, she felt, definite limits to her enthusiasm for crime. Actually, she didn’t care at all for true crime and Bonnie and Clyde had been distinctly unattractive. Just about as charming as Billy the Kid, despite the varied literary efforts to make that teenage killer seem appealing. Apologists might see him as the avenger of his patron’s murder. Annie saw young Billy as a cold-blooded murderer, who had as much empathy for his victims as a stalking gray fox for marsh rabbits.

As the masks were snatched up and passed around, matching pairs were quickly separated. Annie ended up with Marie Antoinette and Max with Lord Byron. Not, Annie decided, the most propitious possibilities.

That’s when the evening began to get complicated.

A trumpet tattoo erupted from the bandstand. Sydney Cahill hurried up the steps as a spotlight centered on her. She turned to look down at the guests, and the trumpet sounded again. Most women would look wan, their color leached out by the sharp brightness of the spotlight. Not Sydney. The diamond-white light merely enhanced her vibrant dark beauty. A faint flush of excitement stained her cheeks becomingly.

“Everyone, it’s time for adventure.” Her voice, deep and soft and eager, held the promise of torrid nights and languid mornings. “So often we don’t know where we can find love. Just for tonight, let’s search for the heartbeat of love.
We are all so afraid to be open, to reveal ourselves, so let’s see what chance can do and what we may discover behind the masks.” She leaned forward and the necklace of rubies and diamonds and emeralds glittered against her softly rounded breasts. “Here’s what we are going to do. I want all the ladies to gather in a circle.” She gestured encouragingly and the matching bracelet on her arm flashed like city lights sliding beneath a midnight flight. “Gentlemen, form a circle around the ladies.” The drummer tapped lightly but steadily. “And now,” Sydney called out, “ladies, send your masks three to the right. Gentlemen, send your masks three to the left, then”—she paused for dramatic emphasis, her voice dropping lower—“then seek out the proper match and discover the partner fate has chosen for you tonight!” The band broke into “Some Enchanted Evening.”

Amid a great deal of laughter and false starts, the newly remasked guests milled about, merrily seeking their partners.

Annie was next to the bandstand, adjusting her new mask as Queen Victoria, when Sydney started down the steps. The tousle-haired young man, a pettish look on his face, stepped forward, his hand outstretched, offering a mask to Sydney.

After an instant’s hesitation, surprise evident in her arching brows, Sydney reached eagerly for the mask with its ice blond hair piled high in a careful coiffure, then looked hopefully at the giver. “Carleton?” she asked tentatively. Annie saw uncertainty in her soulful green eyes. And a hunger for kindness.

“Madame de Pompadour,” the tousle-haired young man enunciated carefully. Too carefully. He held an empty drink glass in one hand. Annie felt sure it wasn’t the first.

Sydney looked from his face to the mask and back again.

“Slut,” he said distinctly. “Perfect for you.”

Sydney’s emerald eyes filled with tears. Her lovely mouth trembled. She said pleadingly, “Carleton, please. Please don’t.”

“One slut deserves another, right?”

“Carleton.” Her voice shook. “I’ll tell Howard.”

“‘Carleton, I’ll tell Howard,’” he mimicked in a high,
drunken voice. “You just go right ahead and do that. Tell the old man. See if I care.” And he turned and stumbled away.

The anguish on Sydney’s face drained away all the anger and disdain Annie had previously harbored against her beautiful hostess. Because there was pain here. Too much pain. To her own amazement, Annie suddenly felt extremely sorry for Sydney Cahill.