The Rich Shall Inherit (62 page)

With a groan of pent-up passion he thrust himself into her. Veronique gasped in pretend pain, and then she wrapped her legs around him, gripping him tighter and tighter, circling him with her arms until their bodies were locked together and all his love and desire burst into her in a dazzling finale of mutual passion.
“Ah!”
he cried.
“Ahhh, Poppy, Poppy, my love!”

Veronique’s hooded eyes flew open in surprise. “Poppy?” she whispered.

Greg stared at her with clouded drugged eyes; at their bodies still locked together; at the red hair, the bright blue eyes, the long-limbed creamy body of his true love, and he smiled. “Poppy,” he said again, stroking back her hair, “Poppy, my love, you are so sweet, so very sweet. You are exactly the way I knew you would be.
You
are my little forest animal.”

Veronique’s brain clicked the events of the past night rapidly into place: the refusal of Madame to see Greg … Simone masquerading as Poppy …. She drew in her breath sharply. And then she smiled.

“Greg,” she said in her warm, husky voice, “let’s talk about our early life; we’ve known each other so long.”

“Don’t you remember?” he said, lying back against the pillows and holding her in his arms. “Riding together through the high pastures at the Rancho Santa Vittoria? How you used to try and beat me at the roundups, seeing who could get the most cattle down through the mesquite? Remember how I used to take you and Angel
to school in Santa Barbara, and how you hated it at first and you used to punch the other kids on the nose? You thought you were so tough, but you were the most feminine little girl I’d ever seen. Even though we used to call you a stick insect! A stick insect,” he repeated, his voice blurred, “oh, God, and just look at you now.”

“Poppy loves you Greg,” she murmured, twisting her body from beneath his. “Look, she’s going to show you just how much she loves you.”

She smiled shyly as Greg closed his eyes, immersed in the pleasures of his body and the images she had placed in his mind.

“They call me
the chameleon
, Greg Konstant,” she whispered. “I get inside your head and then I can be anyone you want.
And now
I am
Poppy.”

Poppy awoke, startled by the knock at the door. She was still huddled on the sofa, and she knew it must be late because the fire had died down and the room had grown chill. The clock on the mantel said four-thirty, and she sat up, pushing back her tumbled hair as she called, “Come in.”

Watkins glanced at her in surprise. Madame was usually on duty until the last guest had gone home, or had disappeared upstairs, and she always checked the night book at four-thirty. She went to bed at five and slept until noon, and her energy was phenomenal. But tonight she looked washed-out and exhausted.

“I’m sorry, madame,” he said, “I didn’t realize you were resting. I’ve brought the night book for you as usual.”

“Thank you, Watkins,” Poppy said tiredly. “Is the house quiet now?

“Yes
, madame, there is just one group left, discussing business in the library, and the kitchen staff are preparing breakfast for them for five o’clock.”

The night book was a record of the night’s activities, which girl with which man, whether she’d had dinner with him, whether he’d stayed the night … and what it would cost him. Poppy flicked through the pages, running her finger down the list of girls’ names and checking their clients. She stopped at Veronique’s name.
“Veronique?”
she gasped.

“She’s with Mr. Konstant, madame, the American gentleman who was so eager to meet you. His friend, Mr. Hammond, is with Villette.”

“Then he’s still here? With Veronique …?”

“That is so, madame.” Watkins eyed her apprehensively. She was
deathly pale and he was afraid she might faint. “Madame, are you ill?” he said sharply. “Can I get you something? Shall I send for the doctor?”

“Just leave me alone, Watkins,” Poppy whispered brokenly.

With a single despairing blow she swept the black night book to the floor, then she leaned forward and rested her cheek against the cool leather top of her desk. Great shudders ran through her body and she wished she could cry, but it seemed that the font of tears had finally dried up. Instead there was just this tearing agony inside her. Greg was upstairs with Veronique … the cleverest of her girls; the chameleon who not only satisfied a man’s body, she satisfied his head. She extracted his deepest dreams and darkest desires so that she could become them. For once Poppy was forced to think of exactly what was happening in that room on the third floor of Numéro Seize:
Greg was making love to Veronique.

Her gaze rested on the black book on the floor. It was a book that damned her as equally as it proclaimed her success. It contained every sinful entry of her career. But surely God had chosen the cruelest way to punish her for her sins.

She walked across to Luchay’s stand. He was sleeping, his bright feathered head tucked under his wing. “Luchay,” she whispered, “I have done every bad thing a woman can do.
You
are the only innocence left in my life, like the true innocence of a child.” She thought for a moment of her own child, happy in Angel’s luxurious, protected world, and she shuddered to think of what she had done.

The beautiful Paris mansion with its hidden secrets seemed to trap her in its cushioned silence and, flinging a fur cape over her shoulders, she ran through the quiet corridors and through the green baize door that led to the kitchens. Ignoring the surprised glances of the staff preparing breakfast, she let herself out through the service door and into the courtyard.

Her footsteps rang eerily in the empty street as she sped down the rue des Arbres toward the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. She hesitated, not knowing which way to turn, staring helplessly up and down the street. A hansom cab pulled up beside her and she climbed in.

The driver peered at her suspiciously. She was rich and well dressed, but she looked a little crazy … probably running away from her husband—or her lover, more likely, at this time of night.

“Drive anywhere,” Poppy whispered. “I just want to think.”

The cabbie shrugged; he’d been right after all.

Poppy huddled in a corner of the cab, staring blank-eyed at the
empty Paris streets, analyzing again and again all the mistakes she had made in her life, thinking agonizedly that
if only
she hadn’t gone to Europe with Angel,
if only
she hadn’t met Felipe,
if only … if only … if only
… she could have been a whole person as Greg’s wife instead of this creature she had become. “Riches!” she reminded herself bitterly. “Remember that’s what you said you wanted … ‘no more love’!”

The silver-gray ribbon of the River Seine unfurled itself alongside the cab and Poppy stared dully at its smooth, unruffled surface. Maybe the river was the only way she could ever escape from her past … away from all the tortured memories of what she was and what she might have been. Away from the reality of who she was now. She thought of how it would feel, of how the cold river would close over her head, leaving only a momentary ripple, and then it would be smooth and serene again, as though nothing had ever happened. It would be so easy, she thought longingly, so temptingly easy … There was no one who needed her, no one who wanted her now …. She gasped with shock as she remembered: Luchay …
and Franco!

She clutched the pearls at her neck agitatedly; how
could
she have forgotten Franco? The man who loved her, the man whose passionate lover she was. She’d forgotten how happy she was when she was with him, and how kind and gentle a man he was. She had forgotten all the
good
things in her life. She must call Franco now and tell him she needed him, that he must come to her right away … only he could make her life seem right again.
Only Franco would understand.

“Take me home, please, driver,” she said urgently. “Numéro Seize, rue des Arbres.”

The cabdriver’s eyebrows rose as he swung around, making for the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. So that was it. Of course, now he recognized her. She was the notorious Madame Poppy!

Greg awoke from a deep sleep, feeling refreshed. He stared, puzzled, at the massive carved wooden canopy and then at the peach silk hangings and satin sheets, and gradually the memory of the previous night came back to him. He’d thought he’d come here with Veronique, but yet he remembered vividly being with Poppy … or was that just a dream? A wonderful, sensual dream when he thought he’d finally found his lost love and that she was his at last. He could even recall his overwhelming feeling of happiness as he’d held her in his arms and their bodies had become one. Surely he must be wrong.

It was only a vivid dream and the woman he’d held in his arms last night was Veronique.

The satin pillow beside him was smooth and uncreased and when he tugged back the curtains he saw that the room was empty. There was a tap on the door and a little uniformed maid came in carrying a tray.

“Bonjour, m’sieur,”
she called. “I was just coming in to wake you. Mademoiselle Veronique told me you were leaving for America today and that the boat train to Cherbourg leaves at nine. She said you must be woken at six. I’ve brought you some breakfast—coffee, toast, croissants, brioches. If you wish anything more, sir, I’m sure we can provide it. Oh, and the valet has been to your hotel, m’sieur, and collected a change of clothes; a fresh suit, a shirt… everything you need. The valet will be in to run your bath shortly, sir.
Bon appétit.”

Greg leaned back against the pillows wonderingly; this place was run like a great hotel. Whatever a man wanted, they could provide, whether it was champagne with your croissants, or a valet to ensure that you needn’t return to your hotel in last night’s evening clothes, or the perfect woman to make your dreams come true. Everything had been thought of to make a man happy, and it worked. For one night in his life, he had been a completely happy man.

He drank his coffee and contemplated what a fool he had been, wandering through Europe every spring, hoping to find Poppy. Too much time had gone by. It was bitterly obvious to him now that if Poppy had wanted to come back to him, she would have done so. Surely she must have known that there was nothing she could have done that would be so terrible he wouldn’t help her. Angel had been right; it had been Poppy’s decision. Poppy’s choice. She had left him for another man and it was time he faced up to that.

Half an hour later, bathed and changed, he stood on the steps of Numéro Seize, rue des Arbres, waiting for the doorman to get him a cab. He saw one approaching; it seemed about to stop but then it went past quickly. Greg thought he caught a glimpse of a woman inside, but he was still lost in his thoughts.

The doorman signaled another cab and he climbed in. “Hotel Lotti, please, driver,” he said, glancing back with a smile. Numéro Seize, rue des Arbres, was a house of dreams and, oddly, it had played an important role in his life. He was going home to Santa Barbara to begin a new life, one without Poppy Mallory. He was going to face the future now, instead of looking back to the past.

*  *  *

Poppy waited until Greg’s cab turned the corner, straining her eyes for a final glimpse of him. He hadn’t changed. She would have recognized him anywhere, the same tall, handsome Greg. He had looked so confident, so distinguished, standing there on the steps of her house … he’d looked like a man in control of his life. But she’d understood that it was too late to rush out and throw her arms around him and beg his forgiveness. Greg didn’t belong to her, or to her world. And Franco did.

She ran to the telephone in her apartment and though she knew it would be difficult and the connection poor, she demanded that the operator put through a call to Italy. It was urgent, she said, holding back a sob, a matter of life and death.

1907, ITALY

The boardroom at Franco’s villa reflected his classical tastes. When his mother had died two years after his father, he had stripped the house of their heavy, gilded suites of furniture, their velvet drapes, and the hundreds of ornaments and knickknacks that were the mementos of their lifetime. When it was completely empty, he had walked through the rooms, seeing them with new eyes. They were his now and he intended them to reflect his choices, his taste, and his love of beauty.

An architect was brought in to remodel the interior; he had broken down some of the interior walls, opening up the rooms into grander proportions. He’d added tall marble columns and built two new wings, and a Palladian facade and entrance hall, and Franco himself had chosen the fine antique wall coverings rescued from ancient houses in France and England. The exterior had been washed a typical Tuscan ocher with white columns and shutters, and he’d bought more land so he could extend his gardens in tiers of terraces fringed with marble balustrades. And then an even higher wall was built, topped with cruel shards of broken glass and pointed iron spears to protect the villa and Franco from his enemies.

Franco had chosen each piece of furniture, each rug, each silver-bracketed lamp and sconce, with the utmost care; his home was an example of restrained, luxurious simplicity, of the kind only money can buy.

After the villa was finished, he had turned his attention to his true love, old master paintings, particularly of the Italian school. Franco never set foot in an art gallery or a sale room. He knew
what he wanted and he simply employed a knowledgeable dealer to track it down and obtain it for him—money was no object. He began at the top with a Botticelli Madonna painted in 1486, which he hung in his bedroom. He placed a pair of antique Florentine silver candle sconces on each side of it, and beneath it a small table draped with a crimson silk cloth, with photographs of his mother and father. There was no photograph of his brother, Stefano. The pictures and the looped rosary and crucifix hanging over his bed—given to him by his mother at his first communion—were the only ornaments in his room. And no one else, other than the maids and his valet, ever saw it. The Botticelli Madonna gave him more pleasure than any woman he’d ever possessed, and she was his alone.