The Kiss (36 page)

Isabelle called information again, and got Nathalie's number. She had never married, and was a considerable
force in the haute couture. She was basically of equal importance to Louise in a rival house. Isabelle felt as though she were unraveling a great mystery, and she was compelled to find out whatever she could about Louise de Ligne. In the past twelve hours, it had become an obsession with her.

Isabelle waited till a respectable hour and called Nathalie. It was a Saturday, and she answered the phone herself. She was stunned when she realized who it was.

“My God, I haven't talked to you in years … how is your little boy?” Isabelle explained that he had been ill for fourteen years and had become her whole life.

“I had a feeling something like that had happened. Everyone says you've become a recluse. Are you still painting?”

“I don't have time.” They checked up on each other's news for a while. Nathalie's mother had died, her father had remarried, she had lived with a senator for ten years, and he had gone back to his dying wife. She'd never married or had children, and she said she still loved her work. It was as though no time had elapsed since they last saw each other. They had been best friends in school, and then drifted apart when she and Gordon married. Nathalie had detested him, she thought him pompous and arrogant, and was convinced he had married Isabelle for her social connections. She had never trusted him, but she didn't remind Isabelle of it now. It was Isabelle who first mentioned his name.

“I have a terrible thing to ask of you. You don't owe me anything, Nat, I just want to know something, and
I don't know how else to find out.” There was a long silence on the other end, as Nathalie wondered how honest she could be. She had wondered if she would ever get this call, and was not entirely surprised to hear from Isabelle. Although it seemed odd that she would ask now, after all this time.

“What do you want me to do?” Nathalie asked quietly.

“I want to ask you about someone, I won't ever say I asked you. And I'd like you to tell me the truth. What do you know about Louise de Ligne?”

There was a brief sigh at the other end, and Nathalie decided to play it straight initially. “She's very talented, very difficult, very bright, nice looking, though a little older than we are, sometimes very rude. Rather cold. And very ambitious, I think. They say she's the money behind the house where she works. I think her husband bought her a big piece of it, he's about a hundred years old, completely gaga, I assume, and very sick. She'll inherit the money when he dies. He was married before, and his kids hate her guts, from everything I hear. But she's clever enough to cut them out, to the extent she can. She's already bragged that she has. She married him for the money when he was about eighty years old and had a kid to assure her future with him. He's well into his nineties now. He can't last much longer. He's one of the biggest fortunes in France.” It was all interesting information, but not entirely what Isabelle wanted to hear.

“What else do you know?”

“Isabelle, don't look for things that will hurt you. Life is painful enough. Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I want to know. You know something, don't you?”

There was a long silence and another sigh. “It's not exactly a secret. Half of Paris knows.” Isabelle could feel her heart race at the words.

“Is she involved with Gordon?” Isabelle finally asked what she wanted to know, and Nathalie laughed. Isabelle was still so naive after all these years. It was what Nathalie had loved about her in school. There was an innocence to Isabelle that touched one's heart. But she was about to grow up. Maybe it was time.

“She's been his mistress for roughly the last ten or twelve years. They go everywhere together. I'm surprised no one's ever told you before. They go out socially quite openly, and have for years. Everyone knows.”

“I don't know anyone anymore,” Isabelle said, sounding stunned. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am. He buys her jewelry, he bought her a car. I think they have an apartment together somewhere, on the Left Bank. Rue du Bac, I think. They go to the Hotel du Cap in the summer. I ran into them in Saint-Tropez last year.” He had a whole life, a whole world with her, that Isabelle knew nothing about. It was far worse than she had feared. “Is he leaving you?” Nathalie asked practically. “If he is, you should get a hell of a settlement out of him. From what I've heard, he's spent a fortune on her.”

“I can't believe this, Nathalie. How is this possible? Are you sure?”

“Positive. If you don't believe me, call ten people
you used to know, they'll all tell you the same thing. They've been a couple for years.”

“He's not leaving me,” Isabelle said thoughtfully. “I just figured it out yesterday, or I guessed at it, but I didn't think it was anything like this.” At worst, she had imagined a recent indiscretion, or a casual affair, not a whole other life that had gone on for a dozen years while she was home nursing her son.

“He has no reason to leave you yet. She can't go anywhere till her husband dies. When he does, though, my guess is that Gordon will want to nail her down. She's powerful and rich. Who knows though, maybe she's tired of Gordon by now. You never know. Watch out for her, though, she's a real bitch. If she thinks you're a threat to her, she'll go after you. I've seen her do it in the haute couture. She's a real piece of work. She was a little seamstress in some backwater somewhere when she met the old man, and he made her a countess and bought her that fancy job. She's good at it though, I'll give her that. But she's nothing to mess with if she decides you're a threat. She'll wipe you out in the blink of an eye, whatever she has to do. If she wants him, she'll take him right from under your nose.” And in fact, they both knew now, she already had.

“I'm no threat to her,” Isabelle said, sounding pained. She felt like a total fool. And on top of it, he had been cruel to her for years. It had been a rotten thing to do.

“She may not see it that way. I'm sorry, Isabelle.” Nathalie hated being the one to give her the bad news. She had always been fond of her.

It was amazing to think of Gordon allied to another woman to that extent. Isabelle couldn't help wondering if it was her fault because she was so involved with her son. Nathalie had said it had been going on for ten or twelve years. And Gordon had shut her out of his room, and his heart, and his life at precisely the same time. It all made perfect sense.

“You'll be better off without him one day, Isabelle,” Nathalie said honestly. “And for that matter so would she. He's entirely self-serving, and I've always thought he hated women.” Isabelle told her about the accident, but not about Bill, and they promised to call each other again soon. Isabelle was grateful to have heard the truth, however painful it was. After she hung up, Isabelle sat staring into space for a long time, and then she called Bill. She woke him out of a sound sleep, but she couldn't wait to tell him all she'd heard.

She rattled it all off to him while he tried to wake up, and by the time she was finished, he was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed and stunned. It sounded very French. Long-term mistresses for a decade or more were unusual in the States. Most people got divorced. But the countess was waiting for her husband to die to collect the inheritance.

“That's a hell of a story. Are you sure she's right?” It confirmed what he'd suspected, what a bastard Gordon was.

“Nathalie always knows everything. Why didn't anyone ever tell me before?” It was humiliating to realize that everyone in Paris had known. It made her feel like such a fool.

“They probably thought you knew and had decided
not to rock the boat. A lot of people do that, especially in Europe, but they do it here too.” No one had ever told him about Cynthia's affairs either, he just knew.

“They don't do it as much anymore, now that people can get divorced. What do you think I should do?” She had no idea how to use the information she had gleaned.

“What do you want to do?” Bill asked sensibly.

“I don't know. I'd love to just hit him with it the minute he gets home, or call him in Saint-Moritz, but I know that's not smart.” She knew he would come after her like a tiger, if she did.

“I think you should wait and let him have it the next time he goes after you. Do you want to leave him?” She did, but she didn't think she should. The change would still be too hard on Teddy, and there was no guarantee Gordon would give her enough to support the boy. And his girlfriend couldn't get married anyway, so he wouldn't be anxious to divorce Isabelle, or be generous with her if he did. He wouldn't want a scandal, particularly given his prominence and impeccable reputation at the bank. It seemed smarter to just keep quiet and wait, as Bill said. She had a lot to think about, and a lot to decide. “Well, you've got some ammunition now, in any case. Maybe the smartest thing you can do is keep it under your hat until the right time, and then let him have it right between the eyes.”

“If everyone knows anyway, it wouldn't be much of a scandal if we got divorced, would it?”

“Yes, it would. It's one thing to have a mistress on the side, even if it's public knowledge behind closed doors. It's another thing entirely to have an irate wife
blow the roof sky high, talk to the press, make public accusations, hit him up for a lot of money, turning public opinion against him. You look like the Virgin Mary with a sick kid, for chrissake. I've been there in politics before. If one of my candidates had a mess like this, I'd be telling him to run for cover and hide, stay married to you, look respectable as hell, start feeding orphans or adopting blind nuns. But I sure wouldn't tell him to blow his cover, tell all, and get divorced. He'll want this whole mess to disappear as quietly as it can, and that depends on you, my love. The ball, or his balls, if you'll pardon me for saying so, are in your hands. The one thing he won't want is a public scandal, or a divorce. Especially if she's not free yet. He'll want to get out as quietly as possible when she is, and not a moment before. And knowing the personality, I don't think he's going to be apologetic and get nice to you in any case. In the end, he'll always try to blame you. The more he has to hide, the more vicious he'll be. If you confront him, he's going to threaten the hell out of you, and convince you how mean he's going to be, and try to scare you off from blowing the lid off this. Be very careful, sweetheart. If you corner him, he'll rip out your throat. I know his type, and he's not going to back down, or go quietly into the night, he'll kill you first. For whatever reason, this marriage has served a purpose for him, and whatever it is, he doesn't want you messing with that. Maybe she wants you married, for the sake of her respectability. She's not going to want to piss off the old man before he dies. I think there's a lot going on here you don't even know, be very careful, and don't push him too hard.”

It was sound advice, and Isabelle knew he was right, she just didn't know what to do with the information now. But she realized, as she thought about it, there were probably many nights when he didn't sleep at home and was living with the countess in the apartment Nathalie had alluded to. She had only begun to suspect recently how often he slept out, and so had Sophie. She thought back now over trips he took with friends, and vacations he went on “alone,” parties he went to, places he went, and Nathalie was right, it all went back about a dozen years.

“It's certainly interesting, isn't it?” Isabelle said, still sounding shocked. Gordon suddenly seemed like a stranger to her. And Louise de Ligne was so much racier and more sophisticated than she had ever been. Isabelle felt utterly stupid for what had gone on under her nose for all those years.

“I want to give it some more thought. Don't do anything yet,” Bill said pensively. Most of all, he didn't want her to get hurt in any way, and she easily could.

“I won't.”

“Remember, if you corner him, he'll strike. That much I know for sure.” She agreed with him a hundred percent. Gordon could be incredibly vicious if you attacked him about anything. She had discovered that about him years ago.

For the next few days, she and Bill talked about it, but they came to no new conclusions, and when Gordon came home, he looked happy and tan, and was surprisingly friendly to her. He even asked how Teddy was, and she assured him he was fine. She didn't say a word about the Comtesse de Ligne.

The only bit of mischief she caused with him was when she handed over his mail to him. She had removed one piece, since it was addressed to both of them, and ever so casually she mentioned that they had been invited to a wedding by the Comte and Comtesse de Ligne. She said she'd accepted it for them both, and it sounded like fun. She looked entirely innocent, and nothing showed in his eyes as he listened to her. He seemed to have no reaction at all.

“Teddy's doctor says I should get out a bit more, and he's right. I assumed you know them, and since it came to both of us, I thought you wouldn't mind if I go,” she said sweetly with wide eyes.

“Not at all,” he said, looking totally unconcerned, and for a moment she wondered if Nathalie was wrong, and then he turned to her with an odd expression. “They're a bit tedious though, they're both very old. I think you might be bored. If you're going to start going out again, I think you ought to choose something a bit more fun.” He seemed solicitous rather than scared.

“How old can they be with a daughter getting married?” Isabelle asked innocently, and Gordon shrugged.

“I don't think she's a very young girl, she's probably an old maid, and very unattractive. It doesn't sound very amusing to me.”

He was very determined that Isabelle not go, and for the first time in years, when dealing with him, she was amused.

“You're right, that doesn't sound like much fun. Should I write and tell them we can't go after all, or would that be too rude?”

“I'll take care of it. Where is the invitation, by the

“It's on my desk.”

“I'll pick it up on my way out. I'll have my secretary take care of it.”

“Thank you, Gordon. I'll send them a nice gift to apologize.”