Deceptions (35 page)

'Only in England. In France they dress hke English lords.'

'And in Germany?'

'Like Italian dukes.*

Alexandra laughed. 'You mean they're all fakes.'

'Probably,' Stephanie said lightly. She felt daring; everything she did today was turning out well. 'Do you really think Max has changed?' she asked casually.

'Mellowed. Like a pear: sweeter, smoother, maybe softer, but probably just as tough at the core, where it counts. If I didn't know him so well I'd think he was just what I'm looking for.'

•Which is?'

*0h, you know. Somebody who'll build me a castle, but let me be myself inside it. That doesn't mean fiicking around; I don't have any trouble being faithful to one man; in fact, I like it. Men aren't all that different, you know; when you've fucked one, you've fucked them all, with minor and unremarkable differences. I see by your eyebrows you don't agree.'

I have slept with one man in my entire life. 'It might be debatable.'

'I suppose. If you want to spend the time. Anyway, what I want is something to do besides fiick and be beautiful. I just don't know what that might be. So I'm waiting for somebody

to show me a direction without ordering me to take it. Possible, do you think? Probably not. Perfection isn't around every comer.* They had reached the tent. *I see our gallant men beckoning to us. What's Max bidding on?'

•The fruitwood statues.*

•Probably for his new house. Watch his face when he bids; he always looks like he'd murder his opponents if he could.'

As the crowd settled down with murmurs and the rustling of catalogues, the statues were offered. Stephanie unobtrusively watched Max. With each succeeding bid, his eyes grew darker and his high cheekbones sharpened like ridges in his bleak face. He made it a contest of wills, and two or three other bidders fought him until he wrestled them out by paying more than he or anyone else expected. If he had let her bid for him, Stephanie thought, she might have saved him thousands of pounds.

•So you think you could have done better,* he said when the statues were his.

Caught by surprise, she laughed. 'Was I so obvious?'

*You are never obvious, my dear Sabrina. But we both know you could have done better. Next time I will let you bid for me.'

He watched with amusement and approval as she bought the George III side table for less than she thought she would have to pay. And then the Regency breakfront was offered, and Stephanie realized that was the piece she wanted the most. The Raddisons had done some harm to Sabrina -otherwise, why would she have quarreled with them? - and Stephanie did not want to go back in defeat.

The auctioneer began the bidding at two thousand pounds. At twenty-five hundred, Stephanie caught his attention. She repeated her signals of the morning, varying them slightly, more subtle because she was more confident. But she was also more combative and tried to hold herself back firom bidding too high when she did not have to.

•Sold,' said the auctioneer at last. •To Lady Longworth, for three thousand one hundred pounds.'

Applause surrounded her as it had in the morning, and

Max nodded, as if in confirmation. 'Masterful/ he murmured.

I beat them, Stephanie thought with triumph. If they thought they could give Sabrina trouble by limiting the price, I beat them. Wait 'til I tell ... She looked around, bursting with pride, but in that entire throng there was not one person in whom she could confide. I'll call Sabrina tonight; wait until she hears what I did.

But she couldn't do that, either. How could she tell Sabrina, trapped in Evanston to protect Stephanie, about the excitement she was missing? She felt the glow of her triumph fade. She would have to savor it alone.

'My compliments once more, Sabrina,' Max said. 'Perhaps you will give me lessons some day.'

She smiled. Max would enjoy the story of the deception; she wished she could tell him.

Why did she think that? Because there was an air of danger about him; as if he enjoyed taking risks himself and appreciated risk-taking in otiiers. I probably wouldn't have liked that in a man, die thought, any other time but now. When I'm taking risks myself. And discovering how successful I can be.

*I have a new house,' Max was saying. 'On Eaton Square. Eighteenth century, once magnificent, but botched by owners who thought it needed improving.' On the back of his catalogue, he sketched the rooms with bold lines, describing each one. 'In the last three months half a dozen decorators have pranced through the house. One gouged a piece firom an overmantle; another damaged a chandelier; a third suggested replacing the oak banisters with wrought iron. The others were equally asinine. Will you rescue the house and me firom these idiots?'

Stephanie looked at the sketches. A house to decorate. Since the birthday party at Alexandra's, she had been envying Sabrina's luck, longing for her own chance to do the same. Now here it was.

'I have the furniture/ he went on. 'Too much furniture. Too much art. Too many rugs, drapes, lamps. Everything from my old London house and my New York town house. I have a crew of workers. I need someone to tell them what

to do; I need someone to tell me which fiimiture to keep and how to arrange it, which to give away, which to sell. I need you.'

'No.* She shook her head. Tm sorry, but I can't do it.*

'You can. I pay very well.*

'Money has nothing to do with it.' She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. At first she thought she was turning it down to keep her distance fi-om Max, but that wasn't why. The real reason was that she was afraid of failing.

For years she had told herself she would be just as succes^ as Sabrina if she had her kind of life, with the same chances. Now Max offered her a chance, and she felt the fear rising in her throat. She shook her head and pushed the chance away. Let me keep my illusions, she thought.

'This is absurd,' said Max. 'I've seen Alexandra's house and Olivia Chasson's London house. You are the only one I want.*

'But I am the seventh one you ask.*

'Ah, you are insulted. That I can understand. The others were sent by incompetent friends. Forget them; they do not exist.'

She laughed. 'That's not the reason.'

'Then what the devil is the reason?'

'I don't have time,' she said a little wildly. And told the truth. 'All 1 have is about four weeks.'

'And then? You melt? You dissolve? You disintegrate?' She was laughing again. 'If you have other commitments, you will do as much as possible in the time you have. I want you to do it. You will have a free hand and no limit on what you spend.'

Stephanie finally could not resist. Studying his sketches, she pictured the rooms he had described, ideas already filling the spaces between his bold lines. 'All right,' she said, as the auction ended and they began to move out of the tent.

And I won't fail, she vowed silently. Any more than I failed today. Why should I? I can do as well as Sabrina. All I need is a chance.

As for Max, she would see only as much of him as she had to in order to remodel his house. And whenever she felt like

it she could withdraw from the project, turn it over to someone else and never see him again.

'When can you start?' he asked as they said goodbye,

'I already have/ she said.

The next morning Stephanie found a pile of checks on the cheny table, waiting for her signature. They were for expenditures Sabrina had approved before she went to China, and Stephanie memorized each of them so she could handle expenses in the coming month. She felt reckless, spending so much money. Not her money, but still - her signature on thousands of pounds' worth of checks in one morning.

She was on the last check when the telphone rang. In a moment Brian was in the doorway. 'Senor Molena, my lady.'

Stephanie's pen stopped moving. Sabrina had said Antonio would be away until the first week in October - at least another week. She grimaced; she would have to find a way to put him off until Sabrina was back.

*If my lady would like me to make an excuse—' Brian began.

'No,' she said, reaching for the telephone. 'But thank you, Brian.'

'My Sabrina,' Antonio said, his voice dark and intimate. 'I finished my work in Sao Paulo and hurried back to see you. You will forgive my impatience? And this evening we will l^ave dinner.'

'No-'

'You have plans for this evening?'

She hesitated. This was absurd. She was always saying no as if she would be leaving in a few days. But that was no longer true. This was her home now, and she had to deal with it; she had nowhere else to go. 'Dinner will be fine,' she said.

'Eight o'clock, my Sabrina. It has been too long.'

He picked her up in his car and they drove through twisting streets to Fulham Road. While Antonio spoke amusingly of someone he met on the flight from Brazil, Stephanie watched the neighborhood change. Antonio looked at her puzzled

face as they turned right along Brompton Cemeteiy. 'A surprise,' he said, smiling, and parked the car. Following him down a flight of stairs, Stephanie looked at his dark face and hawklike nose. From Sabrina's descriptions she had expected a difficult, demanding man and an elegant dinner. What she seemed to have instead was a pleasant companion and a basement restaurant on a dingy cemetery road.

But inside. La Croisette was all she had imagined, and Antonio a charming host. His eyes gleamed when he saw that she wore the sapphire necklace, and his voice was possessive when he introduced her to Monsieur Martin, who had dared to open his restaurant on unfashionable Ifield Road and, within a few months, had made it one of the most fashionable and expensive in London. Then, ignoring Stephanie, they launched into a serious discussion of the best fish for their dinner.

Stephanie Ustened dreamily; neither of them seemed interested in what she wanted, and she did not care. She was content to settle back iii the spell of the room: soft lights and fine fabrics, ubiquitous waiters holding her chair and helping her slip off the loose satin jacket she wore over a satin sheath, the discreet hum of wealthy men and women who believed that the world existed to give them pleasure. My world, she thought, and when the maitre d' poured her wine she smiled, not because he did it but because he did it well.

Antonio talked of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, of costume balls and dinner parties, of the hospitals and schools being planned for the villages he was building. He was trying to impress her, and succeeding. He would have impressed Sabrina, Stephanie thought. However he had behaved in the past, if he had been like this she might have married him.

'I can't marry him,' Sabrina had said in their long telephone call on Monday. 'Everything would be easier if I could, but it wouldn't work; 1 can't be what he wants. But I'll tell him myself when I get back. Just tell him you need more time; I've kept him waiting so long.'

'Could you write to him?* Stephanie had asked. 'I'm not clever enough to keep him waiting patientiy for four more weeks.*

'I might... yes, why not? TU send the letter to you so you can mail it from there. Til do it today; you should have it the first of next week. If he calls before then, just say you need a few more days. I think he'll accept that and not push you.'

It was too soon for her to have Sabrina's letter, but Antonio seemed content to make casual conversation and look at her; he had not even pushed her to talk. When he did ask about her trip, Stephanie talked lightly and gracefully about Mr Su, the terra-cotta warriors buried in the emperor's tomb at Sian, the houseboats on the River Li and the orchids in the zoo at Canton. Antonio asked about farm workers, and she told him about the little she had seen, not enough to satisfy his curiosity.

'Go yourself,' she suggested. 'You'd have a wonderful time.'

'We will go,* he said. 'It will be wonderful if we go together.*

He signaled to the waiter to bring both of them a cognac, and then he related a long Guarani legend about a search for rare jewels that seemed to have something to do with the search for love. But Stephanie listened only to the deep flow of his voice, relaxed in his easy companionship.

In the close darkness of the car she sighed and rested her head against the seat. 'And your shop?' he asked. 'Everything goes well?'

'Yes,' she murmured. 'Everything goes veiy well.'

'With your newspaper friends, too?'

'What?*

They have not published their story. I left word with friends to send it to me in Brazil, but it was not published. Have they changed their mind?'

'No.' Jolted out of her dreaminess, Stephanie grew cautious, not knowing whether he knew more or less than she did. 'It's been postponed for two months.'

'Ah. Excellent. Then while Olivia still thinks her Meissen stork is genuine, there is time for me to help you.'

'No,' she said quickly, storing away the new information to ^nk about later. Then, because he was being kind and

she did not want to hurt him, she addea, wot lor a lew weeks/

'When you are ready, my Sabrina. But do not wait too long. I am concerned only for your welfare.'

'Thank you,' she said warmly, wondering how Sabrina could dismiss him so casually.

She turned her head to look at the shops and buildings they were passing. None of them were familiar. He was taking her home by a different route, but she could not ask him about it; Sabrina Longworth, at home in London, would know where they were.

She was framing a way to tell him, as soon as they reached Cadogan Square, not to call until he heard from her, when he pulled into a circular driveway and stopped the car in front of a sleek modern building. A uniformed doorman greeted him.

'You can put the car away,' Antonio said.

'Yes, sir,' said the doorman, walking around the car to open Stephanie's door.

She did not move. His apartment. His bed. Why hadn't she realized that was where he was going? Because she hadn't thought of going to bed with him. Because they weren't lovers. Sabrina and Antonio were lovers. Stephanie Andersen had never been to bed with any man but her husband.

'Sabrina,' Antonio said, an edge of impatience in his voice.