The Rich Shall Inherit (70 page)

“For a woman with no past,” Netta said half admiringly, half despairingly as she looked around the new Montespan, “you’ve created an amazing illusion.”

“And why not?” Poppy demanded proudly. “Why should Rogan be deprived of memories just because his father is dead?”

Netta stared at her worriedly; she was afraid Poppy was beginning to believe her own story. “But you know he’s not dead,” she said quietly. “Besides, I saw Franco just last month in Marseilles.” She hadn’t intended to tell her, but somehow she had to bring her back to reality.

Poppy’s knees turned to jelly; even after all these years just hearing Franco’s name could make her heart thump as wildly as that of a young girl in love. “How did he look?” she whispered.

“Older. His hair is completely gray. He looks thin, tired, worried. He’s surrounded by bodyguards, they say even his house is armor-plated. He’s …” She was going to say he was hated by everyone, but she couldn’t bear to hurt her. “He’s a very frightening man,” she said somberly.

“Why
, Netta?” Poppy asked piteously.
“Why
couldn’t he just have been like any other man?” But she already knew the answer.

Netta had to admit, though, when Rogan came home for the holidays, that right or wrong, Poppy seemed to have worked a miracle. The boy held the watch he had been told had been first his grandfather’s and then his father’s as though it were the Holy Grail. “I’ll treasure it always, Maman,” he said reverently, “thank you for giving it to me.” When she gave him the gold signet ring, he slid it proudly onto the little finger of his left hand, trying to decipher the worn crest, excited to think it had belonged to his English family, and making Poppy nervous when he talked about trying to trace the family tree.

Rogan examined every book in “his father’s collection,” marveling at their antiquity and beauty. “They must be worth a fortune,” he exclaimed, awed. And he pored over the faces in the silver photograph frames, searching for a resemblance to himself—and finding it. “I think I have grandmother’s eyes,” he’d say to Poppy, or “Is my hair like yours or Grandpa’s?”

“You are exactly like your father,” she would tell him firmly, thanking God that he wasn’t.

When Rogan expressed an interest in farming, she bought more acres for him; when he said he was intrigued by astronomy,
she bought him an enormous telescope; when he wanted a boat, a dog, a small painting he’d admired by a new impressionist, she bought him it.

“I’m afraid to say I like anything,” he complained, “because I know you’ll buy it.
You
are too good to me, Maman.”

“Nonsense,” Poppy replied gaily. “I had to spend years without spoiling you and before I know it you’ll be grown up and married. At least let me indulge myself now.”

“I’ll never leave you,” Rogan said seriously, “you’ve been alone too long. I’ll look after you one day, Maman.”

Poppy heeded the sound advice of the financiers and bankers who were her clients and her investments alone made her very wealthy. And with Numéro Seize again showing enormous profits, she knew that at last she was a rich woman. Though not yet as rich as she intended to be. Her secret plots of land were beginning to pay off. She had already sold two, at enormous profit, on the outskirts of Paris where new factories were being built. Of course, she hadn’t sold all the land they’d wanted for their factories—she’d held some back so that when the factories needed to expand, she could ask an even more exorbitant price. Franco had taught her well!

When Rogan brought home his friends during the school holidays, she spent all her time with them at the farm, sending them out fishing, or to help with the haymaking, and feeding them enormous meals. When he was away she had to make do with Netta and Luchay, who now bore four jeweled rings on his tiny legs. “You must share in our happiness and good fortune, Luchay,” she said, and, inspired, she picked up the telephone and called Bulgari in Rome to make a new cage for him. “Gold,” she commanded, “like Scheherazade’s palace. I want it to be
fabulous!
And I don’t care what it costs.” She wanted the best for Luchay, her bringer of luck, even though she had only ever bought a few simple jewels for herself.

“These are the happy years,” she told the parrot as he rubbed his soft little head against her cheek. “And we’ve earned them, haven’t we?”

Jacob Le Fanu’s shrewd nose for an advantageous deal and his influential political contacts had taken him from the tenements of Algiers to a mansion in London’s Belgravia. He had the reputation
of driving a hard bargain, of being a man who never forgot, and of being a womanizer. He was an uneduated, self-made man whose massive fortune had gained him entree into almost every level of society, except the one that counted—the top. He was short, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, and had a smooth Levantine sensuality that women seemed to fall for. Jacob considered himself a lover par excellence, and he prided himself that no woman could resist him for long, especially when she found the diamond bracelet hidden in the flowers he’d sent her, or a pair of ruby earrings among the chocolates. He knew every method there was of getting to a woman’s heart; and he employed them all frequently.

When he was in Paris he patronized Numéro Seize not so much for its girls as for its contacts. Anyone who was anyone could be found there. He used it as his club, a place for private business discussion that he might not want to display publicly in a hotel or office. Numéro Seize was useful, but he also enjoyed the thrill of an afternoon spent with one of the special “society” girls because it made him feel good to see the upper classes—to which he could never belong—reduced to the status of whores.

In Jacob’s view there was only one true lady at Numéro Seize—Poppy. Everyone had told him she was unattainable, but he’d thought he’d known better. He had wooed her with the diamond-bedecked flowers and ruby chocolates, but she’d sent them back with a polite little note saying she never accepted gifts. He’d sent baskets of out-of-season hothouse peaches and strawberries, and she’d thanked him and said she had forwarded them on to the children’s hospital, where she was sure they would be enjoyed; he’d bought her an adorable white poodle puppy that he’d thought would entrance her, but he never knew if it did or not because she told him that, sadly, animals were not allowed at Numéro Seize and as she felt a puppy was something that couldn’t be returned, she had given it to a friend in the country.

Jacob had run out of ideas, but he hadn’t given up the battle. Poppy was a challenge and her evasive tactics only made her even more desirable. He was determined to be the man who cracked that beautiful icy facade.

The chance sighting of her at the Beau-Rivage had been sufficiently intriguing for him to make a few inquiries. His son was a pupil at La Rossant and it was easy to find out that Rogan’s mother was “a widow”; that his father had been English, and that Rogan was a year younger than his own boy.

It was several months before he found himself in Paris again, checking into the Crillon because he always felt the hotel’s discreet sumptuousness counterbalanced his own flamboyance. He ordered a hundred red roses to be sent immediately to Poppy at Numéro Seize, but this time he refrained from enclosing any jewelry. Instead he wrote a note saying that he was happy to be back in Paris and would be delighted if she would dine with him that evening, here at the Crillon or at Maxim’s … anywhere she liked. He felt they had something “to discuss.”

When the red roses arrived, Poppy read the note, and she knew what was coming. She sat at her desk, staring at the beautiful flowers, thinking of what to do. An hour later she sent a messenger to the Crillon with her reply.

When Jacob arrived back from his meeting at the Elysée Palace, her note was waiting and he read it with a pleased smile, though not quite as pleased as it might have been. Poppy would be happy to dine with him, it said, but in one of the private rooms at Numéro Seize, at nine that evening. Jacob had aspired to be the first man ever seen in public with the glamorous, elusive Poppy; he’d wanted to make it clear to all of Paris that Jacob Le Fanu had won where every other man had failed. Still, he thought with a pleased little smile of anticipation, she hadn’t dared refuse him and it wouldn’t be long before everyone knew—he would make sure of that.

Poppy was wearing a dress of soft dove-gray chiffon glinting with crystal beads. It left her creamy shoulders bare, and revealed a generous glimpse of her round breasts, and was almost deliberately tempting. She looked very lovely and Jacob tried to guess how old she was, but found it impossible. Poppy was ageless; she never seemed to grow any older, only more beautiful.

“Mr. Le Fanu,” she said gaily, “how pleasant to see you back in Paris. It’s been a long time since we met … in Geneva, wasn’t it? I hear you have a son at Le Rossant. Why don’t you tell me all about him over dinner?”

Jacob was too clever to let her see how surprised he was that she had even mentioned the night when he’d seen her dining with her son. He’d thought it would be the one subject she would try her best to avoid, until he forced her into it.

“When a man works hard all his life, as I have done,” he replied, “it’s good to know there’s a son to inherit the fruits of his labors. But, of course, I don’t need to tell you that.”

Poppy smiled pleasantly, ringing the bell to summon Watkins.
“I chose tonight’s menu myself,” she told him. “I do hope you’ll enjoy it. If I remember, you have a particular fondness for truffles. I had some especially delivered from the Périgord this afternoon. And Watkins has decanted the Chateau Haut-Brion you always enjoy when you are here. You see, Jacob, Numéro Seize is even better than a grand hotel; we always remember what you like most and we do our best to provide it.”

She kept up her chatter as Watkins served a beef consommé covered with a light pastry, watching as Jacob broke open the crust and breathed the delicious aroma. Fine food was one of his weaknesses and Poppy was baiting her trap with everything she could, luring him into a feeling of security, until she knew exactly what his game was.

She watched Jacob mellow under the influence of the wonderful food and the heady, powerful wine. She ate little, leaning forward instead with her chin propped on her hand, listening with a secret little smile as he told her about his talks at the Elysée Palace; she already knew where Jacob had been that afternoon and why. She, too, had her contacts.

“A little brandy?” she asked. “Or maybe the 1895 port?” Jacob was standing in front of the fire, looking as though he already owned the place, and he set the glass on the mantel and grabbed her hands in his.

“Poppy,” he said thickly, “you know how I feel about you.”

“I’m honored, Jacob,” she replied calmly, “but many men feel like that about me. I’m sure it’s because I’m the only woman not available at Numéro Seize. I’ve heard that some men have even taken bets on how quickly they could seduce Madame Poppy. It’s sort of a game, by now.” She smiled at him. “Sometimes grown men can be very childish.”

“What I feel for you is not childish,” he groaned, pulling her closer. “You are the most desirable woman in the world, Poppy. You are the only woman I want.”

“Please let go of me, Jacob,” she said quietly. “Watkins will be in any minute.”

He let her go reluctantly as the butler appeared with a tray of petit fours and coffee; Watkins had been primed to interrupt them on any pretext every ten minutes or so.

“Of course, I realize that you wouldn’t want certain facts to become public,” Jacob said, picking a strawberry smothered in dark chocolate from the heaped silver tray and biting into it greedily. He wiped his fingers on a napkin. “I’ve decided to take
an apartment in the rue de la Cour. It’s a pleasant street on the Right Bank, and very discreet. And it’s within easy reach of the government offices—as well as Numéro Seize, of course.”

“Then you must be planning on spending a lot more time in Paris,” Poppy said calmly.

“That depends on you, Poppy. The apartment is yours. I bought it for you this afternoon.”

She stared at him silently, seeing his strong-boned face, his broad forehead and dark waving hair, his shiny brown eyes peering intently at her, and his fleshy lips, slightly parted as he licked them in anticipation.

“But I don’t need an apartment, Jacob,” she said at last. “I thought I’d already explained to you that it’s my policy never to accept gifts from any man.”

“But I am not ‘any man,’” he said, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “I am a man who knows more about you than any other. I was surprised to find that you and I had something in common at Le Rossant. Something that could bring us closer together. Of course, I am discretion itself—when I choose to be.”

“Then you were mistaken,” Poppy said coldly. “I never mix business with pleasure. And certainly not with my family. I’m quite sure that Mrs. Le Fanu wouldn’t want to hear about this … this little love nest in the rue de la Cour.”

Jacob roared with laughter, pouring himself another brandy. “You can’t blackmail
me
, Poppy,” he told her, grinning appreciatively. “Just think, if it ever got out that Madame Poppy was threatening to tell her clients’ secrets to their wives, or maybe even to their business rivals, Numéro Seize would be deserted faster than rats from a sinking ship! There wouldn’t be a man left! So you see, you don’t have much choice, my dear, do you? Why not let’s be friends, Poppy? I’m a generous man; I shall look after you very well.”

Jacob raised his beetling black eyebrows inquiringly, but he had the look of a man who already knew the answer, and the satisfied air of a man who had won.

Poppy looked him squarely in the eye. “It’s a generous offer,” she said coldly, “but you are not the first to make it. I have always refused, and I see no reason to change my mind now.” She prayed he wouldn’t hear the wobble of nervousness in her voice, or detect her racing pulse as she went on. “But you see, I too have
friends
in important places—the Elysée Palace, for instance.
I’ve already had a word with these ‘friends’ and explained the delicacy of my problem to them. They were able to assure me, Jacob, that a man of your reputation and honor would never stoop to force a lady to do anything she didn’t want to. But, of course, if he did try”—she shrugged her shoulders eloquently—“then he would no longer be welcome in their circles. You would be finished here in France, Jacob.”