Ivy Secrets (6 page)

“Thank you, Mother Teresa,” she said icily. “But Jenny and I are doing just fine.”

“Then don’t you think we should go check on her?”

“Now who’s being overprotective?”

“So sue me,” Dell said and headed out the studio door.

Tess sighed and wondered if Dell was right. Was she smothering Jenny? Should she let her make friends? The responsibility of being a ten-week-a-year, half-assed mother was overwhelming. How was she supposed to make these decisions? And how did Dell know so much?

Dell, she thought. Dell had complained that Jenny was “attached to her hip.” But what the hell did Dell want? There were some things Tess was willing to risk … and some things she was not. And Willie Benson was at the top of the list of nots.

She picked up the casserole, locked the studio, and caught up with Dell on the path. The night was quiet; dusk was setting in. In the distance, music played: the street bands, perhaps, or summer students at Smith with their windows open.

“What was the argument about?” Dell asked.

Tess shrugged. She didn’t want to get into it with Dell right now, until she knew if the postmenopausal witch had once again possessed Dell’s mind, and her mood. “It doesn’t matter.”

They walked in the kitchen door. Tess set the dish on the table and went to the foot of the stairs. “Jenny,” she called.

There was no answer.

Dell started up the stairs. Tess shook her head and followed her.

“I’ll handle this,” Dell said. “I know how to deal with teenage girls.” But this time her tone wasn’t critical: it was strong, supportive. The way Dell usually was.

And the fact was, Dell did know how to handle teenage girls. Tess remembered that without Dell, Charlie’s life would not have turned out as well. Without Dell, Marina might not have survived. But what about Tess? Had Dell made Tess’s
life better … or had she guided her down the wrong road, the road to nowhere?

She watched the woman’s long braid sway as they climbed the stairs and thought about Dell’s influence on her life. Charlie and Marina had thrived. Charlie had money, Charlie had Peter. Marina—God, Marina had everything, including two husbands under her belt and most likely a third on the way. No, Charlie and Marina were not impoverished … they were not lonely. But what about Tess? Tess wondered if she had fallen too easily into Dell’s quiet, predictable lifestyle, where todays passed into yesterdays without challenge, and tomorrow would be no different than today. She wondered if, in her own need to be loved, Tess had become one of Dell’s obedient dolls, someone for Dell to fuss over, someone to mother, shrouded in a disguise of emotional support. Tess fixed her eyes on Dell’s worn heels as they flapped against the insoles of her wooden sandals and wondered how much Dell thought about Tess’s future … and how supportive she would be if she knew that Tess was about to change it.

The door to Jenny’s room was slightly ajar. Dell stepped in.

“She’s not here.”

Tess peered inside. Jenny’s clothes were there; one of Tess’s scrapbooks lay open on the bed; Grover lay on the floor, panting. Everything looked as it should. Except that Jenny was not there.

Then Dell pointed toward the bureau. “What’s that?” she asked.

On the bureau stood the marble base for the Fabergé egg. But the Fabergé egg, like Jenny, was gone.

Six thousand miles away, Marina Marchant turned her head on the pillow and looked out the tall window of her palace bedroom. Dawn washed its pink across the sky like a satin comforter draped over her country, Novokia, a tiny principality tucked against the Russian border, protected by the mountains of Finland. From her bed Marina could see the top of the smokestack from the old factory building as it rose beyond the palace gates—the smokestack that now marked the home of Princess Cosmetics—her venture, her hope for renewing the spirit of Novokia, her sole purpose in life. Her goals, Marina knew, were massive, but the rewards would be great. And if nothing else, they might help her atone for her past indiscretions, and the embarrassment she’d caused her father and her country.

Still, it was going to be difficult: Humanity had not been high on Marina’s list of priorities these past years.

She watched the sky etch its beauty across the deteriorating stone structure now, and thought about the pressures that today would bring. There was only one thing that could prepare her for stress: one thing that she could rely on to relax her, to smooth the edges of her angst.

She reached beside her for the familiar penis: It was there, long and hard, and waiting for her. She gently clutched its firmness in her hand and began to stroke—smoothly, steadily. Slowly, her moistness began to grow. In her mind, Marina heard music. She softly began to smile.

She closed her eyes and felt a touch upon her breast, gently caressing first its fullness, then encircling its stiffening nipple.

Marina moaned. She parted her legs. The tip of the penis explored between them, searching for her sensitivity. She arched her hips and welcomed it. And then, it entered her, lingering a moment in her waiting wetness, her growing heat. She began to move. She felt the firm shaft begin to thrust in and out, in and out, skimming the walls within her, awakening the filaments of bliss. Suddenly it pulled back, then out, then touched the tip of her clitoris with a firm velvet tongue, moving around it, upon it, into it.

From somewhere deep within her, the fever began to rise. And then the hardness plunged back into her, in and out, in and out. Fingertips pinched her nipple, pressing it tightly, tautly. Her wetness began to ooze, her muscles began to constrict. And suddenly there was no time, no space, no sense of earth. Her hips heaved upward, toward the ecstasy. And then she cried out softly, so no one would hear, so no one would know.

Marina fell back against the feather mattress. Her heart pounded gently, her breath came in short puffs, as the throbbing between her legs continued to beat its satisfaction.

Then the tears rolled from her eyes, the hint of hollowness that always followed, the unexpressed concession that Marina made toward loneliness. For no matter how independent, strong, or content Marina tried to convince herself she was, there was always that instant after orgasm when she longed for a man to hold her close, to rub her back, to kiss her hair. But there had been too many men: she had gambled too much and lost the game.

She sighed and reached between her legs, then removed the flesh-colored plastic penis—the gift from her last husband. She reminded herself to put it in her bottom bureau drawer, where the servants would not find it. She wiped her tears, rose from her bed, and headed toward the shower, and another busy day.

    “You are up early, Father,” Marina said as she entered the family dining room and walked to the end of the long table where King Andrei sat, a gray morning coat around him, his white-bearded face fixed on the gold-rimmed cup in front of him. He was a big man, a striking contrast to her diminutive
stature that she’d inherited from her mother. She kissed his cheek.

“There’s trouble,” the king said.

Marina studied the furrows on his brow—the clear indicators of the depth of “trouble.” This morning, although it was only just past dawn, the furrows were deep. She went to the mahogany sideboard and poured coffee from a silver samovar, then buttoned her denim vest against the chill in the room. Despite a warm fire that glowed in the huge stone fireplace, the dampness in the palace never seemed to go away. And now, Marina thought, there was trouble. The heels of her leather boots clicked against the cold floor as she returned to the table.

“What is it, Father? Alexis?” Her sister’s sharp tongue and manipulative mind were a deadly combination that often provoked unrest as she bulldozed her way through life, oblivious to the fallout she left in her wake.

The king almost smiled. Then he shook his head. “No. Alexis is behaving, as far as I know.” He sat back in his tall chair and rubbed his eyes.

Whatever had upset him, Marina knew that this time it wasn’t her. Her days—years—of humiliating him were, hopefully, behind her, behind them. For King Andrei deserved much more than he had received—two volatile daughters and now a hopeless, helpless wife.

Marina sat beside him and sipped from her cup. As she watched the lines of his aging brow deepen, she realized that the day that lay before her now seemed much more necessary, much more significant. She owed it to her father to restore his pride.

“I had a late-night visitor,” the king began. “Nicholas.”

Nicholas Furman was her father’s oldest and most trusted confidant, a bodyguard to various members of the royal family at various times, an allegiant friend. But Marina knew that Nicholas was not prone to making late-night visits to the palace.

The tall doors into the kitchen swung open and the serving girl appeared. She carried a small tray to Marina and curtsied slightly as she said, “Good morning, Princesca.”

Marina took a crystal dish of plain yogurt from the tray, sprinkled on granola, then topped it with strawberries. “Good morning, Julia. This looks lovely. Thank you.”

The young girl curtsied again and left the room. After the doors closed behind her, the king leaned forward.

“It is Viktor,” he said quietly.

“Viktor?”

“Viktor Coe.”

Marina set down her sterling spoon. She suddenly had no appetite. “Nicholas has heard from Viktor?” No one had heard from Viktor Coe for many years, certainly not Marina.

“Nicholas has not heard
from
Viktor. He has heard
about
Viktor.”

“Is he in the mountains?” she asked slowly. There had been talk, of course, that Viktor Coe had joined the band of rebels determined to overthrow the monarchy, determined to ally with the Soviets and turn the tiny country of Novokia into a communist state. But that was a long time ago, and before the group had been able to coalesce, the Soviet bloc had disintegrated.

“Do you have time for a walk on the grounds?” the king asked as he gestured toward the dining room doors.

Marina understood. “Of course, Father.”

They rose and left the room. They walked down the long marble hall, past the gild-framed portraits of ancestors, most of whom had seen conflict, all of whom had persevered … often, unfortunately, at the expense of their country and the welfare of their people. Now, it was King Andrei’s turn—King Andrei, and his heir-to-the-throne, his firstborn daughter, Marina’s turn. Their footsteps echoed in the silence.

It wasn’t until they were outside in the queen’s garden, amid the sweet morning scent of flowering rosebushes, that the king spoke again.

“It seems that Viktor Coe is hell-bent on democracy.”

Marina squeezed her hands into the pockets of her slim-fitting jeans. “First communism, now democracy.”

The king nodded. “Apparently they are not selective. Anything to get rid of the monarchy, anything to get rid of us.”

Marina wiped a drop of dew off a soft yellow petal. Viktor was a dozen years older than she was. He had been her first crush, her first love. But princesses were not supposed to fall in love with their bodyguards. When she’d enrolled at Smith College, Marina had manipulated her father into letting Viktor go with her. “Daddy,” she’d whined, “I
am afraid of being there alone.” Daddy had relented, because Daddy, of course, had no idea how Marina really felt about Viktor. And because neither of them had any idea that Viktor’s attachment to the royal family was for the sole purpose of ultimately trying to gain control of the country himself.

She studied her father’s tired face. Her past behavior, Marina knew, was the cause of many of the furrows that now sculpted his brow. But she had changed. She hoped it wasn’t too late.

“Why does he want to hurt us?” Marina asked her father, knowing her father had no answer. “Can’t he see everything we are doing for our people? Can’t he see we are trying to pull Novokia out of the recession? It is why I opened the factory.” She did not add that the real reason she’d opened it was because she had learned—the hard way—to no longer tempt, or try to alter, her fate.

She paced to another rosebush. “God, Father, does Viktor think we caused the recession? Doesn’t he realize this is a global problem? That everyone, everywhere, has been suffering?” Everyone, she thought, except the select few who continued to revel around the world as though there were no pain, no suffering, no tomorrow. Marina knew those select few well. Until recently, she had called them her friends.

“I suspect Viktor couldn’t care less about our people. His motives are purely selfish. Power is an alluring thing.”

Marina touched the tip of the thorn and wondered, as poets through the ages had wondered, how can so much beauty be so close to so much pain? She thought of her mother, the beautiful queen, who now stared into space knowing nothing and no one, the Alzheimer’s patient unaware even that she was loved. Beauty and pain. Not unlike Marina herself.

“What should we do?” she asked.

“Nicholas feels we need around-the-clock protection. He thinks we should stay close to the palace.”