The Stallion (1996) (25 page)

Angelo grinned. “I have some money of my own, as you know. So does Cindy. She’s a major stockholder in Morris Mining. And, well, maybe I’ll pledge my stock in XB Motors.”

“This board has already committed the company to building the 2000,” said Roberta. “Mr. Perino already got us to stick our necks way out. The only reason for reviewing that decision was the problem in securing the body material. If we can get it—”

“Then we’ve got nothing to think about,” Loren interrupted her. He turned and faced Roberta. “You think we should go ahead?”

“Nothing has changed,” she said. “Our newly resigned vice president has committed us.”

“Very well. I’d like the approval of the board to negotiate a contract with Mr. Perino. I accept his resignation.”

Roberta took Angelo aside in the hall outside the board room.

“Someday you’re going to outsmart
yourself,”
she said. “From what I gather, this epoxy resin stuff may be the only part of this project that’s worth anything. How’d you work it with the Japs?”

“Roberta, I swear before God that I didn’t. Mr. Tadashi didn’t hear about the takeover rumor from me. You told me about the New Jersey raider and the possibility of your and Loren’s moving to Paris, but I swear I didn’t mention it to anyone, much less to anyone in Japan.”

She sighed. “Okay. So you say. You’re going to own the best part of the deal.”

“Maybe.”

“Swear to me something else,” she said grimly.

“What?”

“Swear to me the child Betsy is carrying is not yours.”

Angelo nodded. “I swear.”

She settled a cold, steady gaze on him for a long moment. “I don’t believe you,” she muttered.

“You want to ask tough questions and be skeptical about the answers? I have a question for you and Loren. Do you want to swear to me you had nothing to do with the death of Burt Craddock?”

“Who’s Burt Craddock?”

“Thank you. You’ve just answered the question.”

On January 28, Betsy gave birth to a baby boy. Angelo could not fly to London to be with her. That would have said too much to too many people.

She was not alone, though. Max van Ludwige came over from Amsterdam, and Princess Anne Alekhine came up from the south of France.

When Angelo did arrive on February 3, for a meeting with the six British dealers who were selling Stallions, Princess Anne was still there. Betsy had confided to her who the child’s father was. The three of them sat in Betsy’s living room overlooking Regent’s Park, and she talked frankly in the presence of Anne.

“Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t name him Angelo, could I? So he is John, named for your father, Angelo. John Hardeman. I don’t know if you want to tell your father he has another grandson.”

“I’ve already told him. And you know what he did? He put in a call to Jacob Weinstein in Arizona, the man we call Uncle Jake, who manages the Perino family money. He told Uncle Jake to put half a million dollars in a trust fund for this grandson. He told him to invest it so the boy will have a nice nest egg when he’s old enough to need it. Uncle Jake
also manages a trust fund for me, and I had him put half a million of that into the new trust. Little John is a millionaire already, and he’ll be that many times over by the time he’s a young man. Uncle Jake is an investment genius.”

The baby was asleep in a bassinet. The nanny had taken little Sally, who was two years old, for a stroll in the park.

“I’m nursing him,” said Betsy. “I didn’t with the two others, but the doctor convinced me to do it for little John. It’s a little confining. You’ll have to come here for dinner. I can’t go out. Both of you, of course. Say, seven?”

“Yes. I’m meeting my dealers for lunch and some bankers in the afternoon, but seven will be fine.”

Betsy stared fondly at little John. “I told you I’d have your baby someday,” she said.

When Angelo and Princess Anne left Betsy that night after dining with her, they shared a cab. She was staying at the Savoy. When they reached the hotel, Anne suggested he come in for a nightcap.

“I didn’t want to suggest one before, when poor Betsy can’t drink.”

She led him into a small dark bar where they could talk rather than be entertained, and they ordered brandies. Even in the Savoy, where extraordinary people were ordinary, Princess Anne Alekhine drew glances and some stares. She was tall, and at the age of fifty-three still kept a tight and flawless figure. She wore a long mink coat, open and showing her pink cashmere dress and a double strand of pearls around her neck. She was conspicuously an aristocrat. She hadn’t been born one, but she had studied carefully and learned the trade. She successfully cultivated an air of elegance and sophistication.

“I don’t mean to imply anything unkind about your wife, but it really is too bad you and Betsy couldn’t have married. You are a perfectly matched couple.”

Angelo smiled. “In what sense?” he asked.

“You’re both smart. You know what you want and go after it. You’re not afraid to take risks.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten her pregnant,” he said. “Actually,
from my standpoint it was an accident. She wanted it and—”

“She told me.”

“I’m glad there’s someone she confides in. I think she’s lonely. I can’t be with her except on occasion.”

“She has no family,” said Anne, “except the one she’s making for herself. My nephew is a cipher. And that woman he married is beneath contempt.”

“I’m going to be a father again in a couple of months,” said Angelo. “Our fifth. And final. Cindy is thirty-five. It’s time to stop. Though … she gave me a beautiful painting of herself for Christmas. Have you heard of Amanda Finch?”

“She painted Alicia, nude,” said Anne. “I understand she’s a fine artist.”

“She did a painting of Cindy when she was pregnant with our second child,” said Angelo. “Yes, nude. She was twenty-six and heavy with our little Anna. Last year, Amanda painted her again. Amanda is unrelenting in her realism. Cindy looks a year or two older than she was before. Not more. Having children hasn’t hurt her.”

“You love her.”

“Of course.”

“You come from a loving family, which was a model for you. I often wonder what Betsy and I would be if we hadn’t been Hardemans. Number One was a monster. Number Two was a weakling. Number Three is a wretch. Except for me, there was only one child born to each generation. Until now. Betsy has three—only one legitimate, of course. Loren hates her for it.”

“The problem with Loren is, he hates himself.”

Anne raised her snifter and swirled her brandy. She smiled playfully. “Tell me something, Angelo. How many of the Hardeman women have you had?”

“I really can’t talk about that.”

She tipped her head. “Well, obviously you had Betsy. And you had Bobbie, Lady Ayres.”

“Not when she was a Hardeman.”

“Alicia speaks of you with a fondness that is highly suggestive. Also, is it just a coincidence that when you come to London, Roberta comes, too? I’m surprised she’s not here now.”

Angelo tipped his snifter and finished his brandy. “The conversation is getting a little—”

“Too personal? Well, Angelo, I am curious to know what the special attraction is. For Betsy, not being married to you is the tragedy of her life. She tricked you into getting her pregnant because she thought you couldn’t abandon her if she were the mother of your child.” Anne paused and raised her eyebrows. “A lot of wives have thought that way, too.”

“‘Abandon her’ is hardly the right expression,” said Angelo.

“Separate yourself from her. Refuse to see her. Withhold your love. There’s more between the two of you than just sex, isn’t there?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“You’re—what?—twenty years older than she is?”

“Twenty-one.”

Anne gestured to the waiter for two more brandies. “Loren is convinced you’re this baby’s father.”

“I gave my word to Roberta that I’m not.”

“Good for you! The meddling bitch. I bet she asked you.”

“She asked me.”

Anne reached across the little round table and put her index finger lightly on Angelo’s hand. “I know you didn’t have sex with my mother,” she said. “You did with one of Loren’s wives, and my money says you have with all three. And you have with his daughter. Would you like to complete the set, Angelo?”

“Why?”

“I confronted Number One and had it out with him. Maybe someday I’ll confront Number Three. It would be fun to be able to say, ‘Angelo Perino has slept with every living woman in the Hardeman family.’”

“Not a very worthy motive, Princess. I don’t want to play games.”

“All right. A better motive. Besides the Hardeman women, you’ve had quite a track record. There must be some-thing awfully good about you. Why can’t
I
experience it, if all the others have?”

“It would be a betrayal of Betsy, wouldn’t it?”

Anne smiled with real amusement. “Do you think you’re the only man she sleeps with—apart from the psychiatrist?
You’re with her a few times a year. Do you suppose she’s chaste between those times? Angelo … following out
your
logic, either you betray your wife every time you make love to Betsy, or you betray Betsy every time you make love to your wife.”

“Supposing we do this, do you plan to tell her?”

“Of course not.”

“Won’t both of us be thinking about her all the time?”

“Will that make you incapable of doing it?”

In the foyer of her suite, they kissed. She parted her lips, and he pushed his tongue into her mouth. They stood there for half a minute, their tongues working together, before she turned and led him into the living room.

She unclasped her pearls and put them aside on an escritoire, then unzipped her dress and pulled it over her head.

Under her cashmere dress, she wore just one item: a sheer black bodysuit that combined stockings and a basque. Undressing did not diminish the elegant dignity of Princess Anne Alekhine. She picked up a bottle and two snifters from a table by the window and poured two tiny splashes of brandy. When she handed him a snifter, he drew her into his arms and kissed her again.

Though it covered her from her armpits to the tips of her toes, the bodysuit was so sheer he could see all of her. Her legs were long. Her breasts were small. The lines of the bikini she wore when she sunbathed were clearly shown by the boundary between tanned skin and white.

She opened the bedroom door and used a graceful gesture to invite him in.

He undressed, as she watched. She helped him push down his underpants, then took his penis in her hand and gently squeezed it. She knelt and kissed it, just brushing her lips on it and quickly rising to her feet again.

She slipped out of the bodysuit and then, surprisingly, pushed her feet back into her shoes. Through the sheer fabric he’d thought he’d seen that her crotch was shaved, or had perhaps been waxed, and now he saw he had been right.
He ran his fingers over her outer lips. The skin was so smooth that he guessed she had had herself waxed.

“Angelo, I don’t much care for the missionary position. Do you? And I don’t want to hurry, either. You probably know the way I want to do it. Can we?”

He let her lead him. He had never made love exactly this way before. They sat facing each other on the bed, each with legs spread wide apart. She scooted up until their crotches were together, then inserted him. She leaned back and asked him to do the same. When her knees were in his armpits and his were in hers, she reached for his hands. They pulled on each other’s arms, which pressed him more deeply into her. For half an hour they remained that way, slowly moving, twisting their hips. Sometimes they let go of each other’s hands and leaned back, afterwards grabbing hands and pulling again.

The sensations were enduring and exquisite. Their movements were slow and careful and varied. They did not exhaust themselves or sweat. They experimented with movements, slowly and carefully, savoring the strong and varied feelings they could generate. Neither came to an orgasm. Each time he was near, Angelo paused so as not to end the experience.

Her scent was part of the experience. He had smelled her perfume. To that was now added a subtle, musky odor from her body, faint but provocative.

Eventually, Anne slowly raised her legs over his shoulders and brought her feet together behind his head. “Now…,” she whispered calmly. He rammed himself deeper into her and began the thrusts that quickly brought both of them to explosive climaxes.

In the shower a little later, she kissed him and remarked in a throaty voice, “Okay, I understand the fatal attraction. Now, admit it. Every living Hardeman woman…”

Angelo sensed that he could trust her. He nodded.

In March Cindy gave birth to a baby girl they named Mary.

Keijo Shigeto and his wife, Toshiko, arrived in Greenwich
the following week. Their children would come later, when their school year was completed. In the meantime they would live with their grandparents in Tokyo.

Angelo had decided to establish Keijo in Greenwich, where he could help him and where he would be handy for consultation as often as possible. He provided him an office in the Angelo Perino, Incorporated, suite of offices on Third Avenue and accompanied him on the train on his first few commutes.

Cindy had hoped to be able to help Toshiko establish herself in Greenwich, but the move had been planned during the final stages of her pregnancy and had been accomplished within a week of the birth of Mary. Fortunately, she was not needed to help the family find a house. Shizoka took care of that. There was a Japanese real estate agency in Greenwich. Japanese companies bought houses and leased them to their own employees or the employees of other companies during their time in the States. Keijo leased a house on a hillside street in the Cos Cob area of Greenwich, furnished and entirely ready for the family to move in.

It was not where Cindy would have suggested they live. Keijo had a three-mile drive to the railroad station. Toshiko would have to drive two miles or so to the grocery store and the post office. Within two weeks of arriving, the family had acquired two cars: a Buick and a Chrysler. Keijo drove the Buick to the station. Toshiko drove the Chrysler everywhere. They were fascinated with the big American cars. Neither of them drove well, but they drove.