Malice (45 page)

“I was hoping that too.” The President smiled at him, and asked him what his plans were, and Charles told him. They were leaving for Switzerland that week, for two weeks of skiing.

“How do you feel about France?” the President inquired conversationally, and Charles explained that they were going to Normandy and Brittany, and they had made arrangements to put the kids in school in Paris. “When do you plan to arrive?” He was looking pensive.

“By February or March probably. We're going to stay till school lets out in June. Then travel around England for a month, and come home. I figure we'll be ready by then, and I'd better go back to work one of these days.”

“How about in April?”

“Sir?” Charles didn't quite understand and the President smiled.

“I was asking how you felt about going back to work in April.”

“I'll still be in Paris then,” he said discreetly. He had no intention of coming back to Washington before a year, or even two, and not back to the States till that summer.

“That's not a problem,” the President continued. “The current ambassador to France would like to come home by April to retire. He hasn't been well this year. How would you feel about a post as ambassador to France for two or three years? And then we can talk about the next election. We'll need some good men in four years, Charles. I'd like to see you among them.”

“Ambassador to France?” He looked blank. He couldn't even imagine it, but it sounded like the chance of a lifetime. “May I discuss this with my wife?”

“Of course.”

“I'll call you, sir.”

“Take your time. It's a good post, Charles. I think you'd like it.”

“I think we all would.” Charles was bowled over. And the back door to Washington was open for him whenever he wanted.

He promised to let the President know in a few days. The two men shook hands, and Charles went downstairs looking excited. Grace could see that something had happened upstairs, and she was dying to know what it was. It took them forever to get the kids and the dog back into the car, and finally they did and everyone asked at Once what the President had said to him.

“Not much,” he teased them all and strung it out, as they drove away from the White House. “The usual stuff, you know, so long, have a great trip, don't forget to write.”

“Dad!” Abby complained, and Grace gave him a friendly shove.

“Are you going to tell us?”

“Maybe. What am I bid?”

“I'm going to push you out of the car, if you don't tell us soon!” she threatened.

“You'd better listen to her, Dad,” Matt warned, and the dog started to bark furiously as though she wanted to know too.

“Okay, okay. He said we're the worst-behaved people he's ever met and he doesn't want us back here.” He grinned and they all shouted at him in unison and told him he wasn't funny. “So bad, in fact, that he thinks we should stay in Europe.” In truth it had been hard enough to say goodbye to their friends in Washington after six years, but they were excited about their adventure abroad and Andrew could hardly wait to see his friend in Paris.

Charles was looking at Grace then, with a curious glance. “He offered me the ambassadorship to Paris,” he told her quietly as the kids continued to make a ruckus behind them.

“He did?” She looked stunned. “Now?”

“In April.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I had to ask you, all of you, and he said to let him know. What do you think?” He was looking at her as he drove through Washington, and headed north to Greenwich.

“I think we're the luckiest people alive,” she said, and meant it. They had come out nearly unscathed from the fires of hell, and they were still together. “You know what else I think?” she asked, leaning close to him as she whispered.

“What?”

She said it so the kids wouldn't hear. “I think I'm pregnant.” He looked at her with a grin, and answered back in a whisper just loud enough to be heard despite the din in the backseat.

“I'm going to be eighty-two when this one graduates from college, maybe I should stop counting. I suppose we'll have to name him François.”

“Françoise,” she corrected, and he laughed.

“Twins. Does that mean we're going?” he asked politely.

“Sounds like it, doesn't it?” The kids in the backseat were singing French songs at the top of their lungs and Andy was beaming.

“Do you mind having a baby over there?” he asked her quietly again. It worried him a little.

“Nope,” she grinned. “I can't think of anyplace I'd rather be than Paris.”

“Does that mean yes?”

She nodded. “I think so.”

“He said he'd like me back here in two or three years to talk about the next elections. But I don't know, I'm not sure I'd ever want to go through all this again.”

“Maybe we wouldn't next time. Maybe they wore themselves out.”

“After the stunt that jerk pulled with his photographs, we may end up owning
Thrill
by then,” he smiled ruefully. Goldsmith was going to be busy.

“We could burn it to the ground. What a nice idea.” She smiled evilly.

“I'd love to.” He smiled and leaned over and kissed her. In some ways, listening to their children laugh and sing in the backseat, and looking at her, made it seem as though the nightmare of the past months had never happened.

“Au revoir
, Washington!” the kids shouted as they drove across the Potomac.

Charles looked at the place where so many dreams were born, and so many died, and shrugged his shoulders. “See ya.” Grace moved closer to him, and smiled as she looked out the window.

WATCH FOR THE NEW NOVEL
FROM
DANIELLE STEEL

On Sale in Hardcover
June 27, 2006

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein has a way of managing her thriving family with grace and humor. With twin daughters finishing high school, a son at Dartmouth, and a kindergartener from her second marriage, there seems to be nothing Olympia can't handle … until one sunny day in May, when she opens an invitation for her daughters to attend the most exclusive coming out ball in New York—and chaos erupts all around her. …

From a son's crisis to a daughter's heartbreak, from a case of the chickenpox to a political debate raging in her household, Olympia is on the verge of surrender… until a series of startling choices and changes of heart, family and friends turn a night of calamity into an evening of magic. As old wounds are healed, barriers are shattered and new traditions are born, and a debutante ball becomes a catalyst for change, revelation, acceptance, and love.

Please turn the page for a special advance preview.

COMING OUT

on sale June 27, 2006

Chapter 1

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein
was whizzing around her kitchen on a sunny May morning, in the brownstone she shared with her family on Jane Street in New York, near the old meat-packing district of the West Village. It had long since become a fashionable neighborhood of mostly modern apartment buildings with doormen, and old renovated brownstones. Olympia was fixing lunch for her five-year-old son, Max. The school bus was due to drop him off in a few minutes. He was in kindergarten at Dalton, and Friday was a half day for him. She always took Fridays off to spend them with him. Although Olympia had three older children from her first marriage, Max was Olympia and Harry's only child.

Olympia and Harry had restored the house six years before, when she was pregnant with Max. Before that, they had lived in her Park Avenue apartment, which she had previously shared with her three children after her divorce. And then Harry joined them. She had met Harry Rubinstein a year after her divorce. And now, she and Harry had been married for thirteen years. They had waited eight years to have Max, and his parents and siblings adored him. He was a loving, funny, happy child.

Olympia was a partner in a booming law practice, specializing in civil rights issues and class action lawsuits. Her favorite cases, and what she specialized in, were those that involved discrimination against or some form of abuse of children. She had made a name for herself in her field. She had gone to law school after her divorce, fifteen years before, and married Harry two years later. He had been one of her law professors at Columbia Law School, and was now a judge on the federal court of appeals. He had recently been considered for a seat on the Supreme Court. In the end, they hadn't appointed him, but he'd come close, and she and Harry both hoped that the next time a vacancy came up, he would get it.

She and Harry shared all the same beliefs, values, and passions—even though they came from very different backgrounds. He came from an Orthodox Jewish home, and both his parents had been Holocaust survivors as children. His mother had gone to Dachau from Munich at ten, and lost her entire family. His father had been one of the few survivors of Auschwitz, and they met in Israel later. They had married as teenagers, moved to London, and from there to the States. Both had lost their entire families, and their only son had become the focus of all their energies, dreams, and hopes. They had worked like slaves all their lives to give him an education, his father as a tailor and his mother as a seamstress, working in the sweatshops of the Lower East Side, and eventually on Seventh Avenue in what was later referred to as the garment district. His father had died just after Harry and Olympia married. Harry's greatest regret was that his father hadn't known Max. Harry's mother, Frieda, was a strong, intelligent, loving woman of seventy-six, who thought her son was a genius, and her grandson a prodigy.

Olympia had converted from her staunch Episcopalian background to Judaism when she married Harry. They attended a Reform synagogue, and Olympia said the prayers for Shabbat every Friday night, and lit the candles, which never failed to touch Harry. There was no doubt in Harry's mind, or even his mother's, that Olympia was a fantastic woman, a great mother to all her children, a terrific attorney, and a wonderful wife. Like Olympia, Harry had been married before, but he had no other children. Olympia was turning forty-five in July, and Harry was fifty-three. They were well matched in all ways, though their backgrounds couldn't have been more different. Even physically, they were an interesting and complementary combination. Her hair was blond, her eyes were blue; he was dark, with dark brown eyes; she was tiny; he was a huge teddy bear of a man, with a quick smile and an easygoing disposition. Olympia was shy and serious, though prone to easy laughter, especially when it was provoked by Harry or her children. She was a remarkably dutiful and loving daughter-in-law to Harry's mother, Frieda.

Olympia's background was entirely different from Harry's. The Crawfords were an illustrious and extremely social New York family, whose blue-blooded ancestors had intermarried with Astors and Vanderbilts for generations. Buildings and academic institutions were named after them, and theirs had been one of the largest “cottages” in Newport, Rhode Island, where they spent the summers. The family fortune had dwindled to next to nothing by the time her parents died when she was in college, and she had been forced to sell the “cottage” and surrounding estate to pay their debts and taxes. Her father had never really worked, and as one of her distant relatives had said after he died, “he had a small fortune, he had made it from a large one.” By the time she cleaned up all their debts and sold their property, there was simply no money, just rivers of blue blood and aristocratic connections. She had just enough left to pay for her education, and put a small nest egg away, which later paid for law school.

She married her college sweetheart, Chauncey Bedham Walker IV, six months after she graduated from Vassar, and he from Princeton. He had been charming, handsome, and fun-loving, the captain of the crew team, an expert horseman, played polo, and when they met, Olympia was understandably dazzled by him. Olympia was head over heels in love with him, and didn't give a damn about his family's enormous fortune. She was totally in love with Chauncey, enough so as not to notice that he drank too much, played constantly, had a roving eye, and spent far too much money. He went to work in his family's investment bank, and did anything he wanted, which eventually included going to work as seldom as possible, spending literally no time with her, and having random affairs with a multitude of women. By the time she knew what was happening, she and Chauncey had three children. Charlie came along two years after they were married, and his identical twin sisters, Virginia and Veronica, three years later. When she and Chauncey split up seven years after they married, Charlie was five, the twins two, and Olympia was twenty-nine years old. As soon as they separated, he quit his job at the bank, and went to live in Newport with his grandmother, the doyenne of Newport and Palm Beach society, and devoted himself to playing polo and chasing women.