Cottage by the Sea (40 page)

   Blythe wilted against the back of the chair as the reality of Christopher's unwanted presence in her life hit her full force.

   The baby.

   Chris and Ellie's baby.

   Named Janet.

   A new member of the Wyoming Bartons had entered the world. It dawned on her that she, Blythe, would be linked to this new family forever. She was baby Janet's aunt. However far away she tried to remain, ties of blood and a shared history would keep her in bondage to all of them. She wondered suddenly what surprises this child's DNA held encoded in her infant cells.

   Blythe stared blindly out the nearest window. A golden afternoon haze had transformed the rolling fields into a rich emerald hue as they angled toward the blue depths of the English Channel. The shaggy Highland cattle grazed in pastoral contentment on the September grass. How could her surroundings look so peaceful and bucolic when there was such a storm of emotion churning inside these castle walls?

   "Look, Blythe…" Christopher said with a hint of penitence, "I can imagine that my arriving today so unexpectedly has been a shock, but there was no other way. I had to find you."

   "For heaven's sake, why?" Blythe asked faintly.

   "Because… I need your help," he disclosed. "Because you are, in actual point of fact, the only person in the world who
can
help me."

   Blythe roused herself from her paralyzed mental state to look at him in amazement. "I? How could I help you? And why
would
I?"

   "I don't know if you would—or if you will," he amended. "That's why I came all this way," he added with a crooked grin that she suspected he was employing to try to charm her. "I do know you could help me. Save me, in fact."

   "Chris," she said with manufactured coolness as she rose from her chair, "you and I have nothing to do with each other any longer. Our marriage is over. The settlement papers are signed. You've got a new wife… a new baby… a new picture to direct. It's finished between us—business and pleasure—so if you don't mind—"

   "I understand you have a new business partner," Chris interrupted pleasantly. "I asked about all the activity going on around this antique pile, and your landlord's son told me all about the… what is it? Some sort of plant palace you hope to create here?" He laughed. "You do have a weakness for us Brits, don't you, Blythe?"

   "My current venture with Lucas Teague is not at issue here," Blythe said, furious at detecting an all-too-familiar, demeaning attitude on her ex-husband's part. This was a stance, she recalled with mounting irritation, that he had often maintained when it came to anything having to do with her interest in horticulture. Although Christopher Stowe had never deigned to hold a trowel in his uncallused hands, he assumed that only the English could be experts at serious gardening. "What is at issue," she continued icily, "is that I'd like you to leave. Now."

   "But you haven't asked why I've come to see you."

   "I don't care why you've come."

   "Actually… I-I realize that," he said, and suddenly, from the way he drummed his fingers on the arm of the love seat, Blythe knew instinctively that a great deal of turmoil was lurking below Christopher Stowe's suave exterior.

   "Cut the ruffles and flourishes, then, and just tell me," she demanded. "I'm tired, and I want to get back to my cottage."

   "You mean you don't live here?" Chris asked quickly. "With Lucas What's-his-name?"

   "Either tell me what you came here to tell me, or get out," she retorted angrily.

   Chris inhaled deeply and then said, "I need you to sign over the deed to the Scottish forest property."

   "The what?"

   "The land I bought as a tax shelter… years ago," he disclosed testily. "Putting your name on the documents back then was just a formality. A tax dodge. Since it was property held in the UK, it wasn't included in our divorce settlement."

   "How much is it worth?" Blythe asked, arching an eyebrow and thinking of the bills piling up on the desk in Luke's library. Half of the net value of a large stand of trees in the Highlands might be handy in paying for some of their capital outlays—without disturbing any more of her capital.

   "That's beside the point," Christopher retorted. "That land was bought with money from
Sally's Girls."

   "May I remind you: I was the production designer on
Sally's Girls
," Blythe said sweetly.

   "Yes, but—"

   "And now that I'm living in the UK for the foreseeable future," she added, beginning to enjoy this conversation, "why wouldn't I be entitled to half of the profits from any sale of such jointly held property?"

   "Because—may I remind you, dearest—England, thank God—unlike California—has no automatic communityproperty provisions!"

   "But the deed apparently says you and I bought it together and therefore were partners on that deal. Obviously you need me to sign off on the sale," she noted demurely, "or you wouldn't be sitting here."

   "Some bloody stupid ruling of your Internal Revenue Service," he fumed. "Since both our names are on the purchase papers, the IRS requires us both to sign the documents of sale for me to transfer the funds to my Americanbased production company—and the rules are too bloody complicated and take too long to try to get the money transferred to one of my offshore accounts."

   "Ah… but you did try to do that, did you?" Blythe rejoined, her temper flaring at the notion that if there hadn't been governmental red tape, Christopher would have made a land grab of a property they bought together from joint funds, and she would never have been the wiser.

   "Why is it so important that the forest be sold?" she asked, walking over to the tea trolley and pouring herself a cup of the bracing brew in an attempt to keep her cool.

   "I need the money."

   She turned, teacup in hand, to stare at him. "You? Why? I thought the film was fully funded."

   "
In Kenya
is… disastrously over budget," he revealed reluctantly.

   "What happened?" she asked. She was interested, in spite of herself, in the fate of the film she had worked on briefly during preproduction in Hollywood.

   "We've had hideous weather on location… mud, floods… the whole bloody lot! The blasted actors have got dysentery because they didn't follow the health officer's warnings. There was even an attempted political coup! And"—he shook his head with disgust—"the production designer I replaced you with is a freaking idiot! His mistakes have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars."

   "How difficult for you," she deadpanned.

   "I know you're pleased to hear all this," he said grimly,

"but if I don't post a seven-million-dollar personal bond in ten days' time to cover the excess costs, this picture— which I consider, Blythe, to be the culmination of everything I've tried to achieve as a film director—will be shut down.
Finito."

   "But why should you have to provide funds personally?" she asked skeptically.

   "Because I signed a contract with my backers saying I would, to persuade the studio at the last minute to allow us to shoot on location in Africa—instead of faking it in Simi Valley, California!" he said agitatedly. "I never thought it would come to this, believe me! I figured the production schedule was padded enough to finish the film on time. But that's what I signed to get the picture done right—and then everything went wrong. In the last week I've put up everything I own that the banks would lend on, but I'm a million short. Fortunately I quickly found a buyer for the property in Scotland. I just need you to sign."

   "Hot damn!" Blythe chortled. "Who'd ever think a tract of trees in Scotland could appreciate so much in value in eight years?"

   "If I don't come up with the last million, the picture— which, mind you, is two weeks from being finished—will be shut down," he added with increasing impatience. "My colleagues will literally be stranded in Kenya, and Ellie, the baby, and I will be virtually penniless."

   "Goodness… is that all?" she commented dryly.

   "Not to mention that my reputation as a director who can deliver the goods on a high-budget production will be down the plug hole!"

   "And why do you think I'd lift a finger to rescue you?" Blythe asked, taking another sip of tea.

   Christopher smiled obliquely. "Because you know this could be a great film. And because you're an essentially decent person."

   Blythe froze, her teacup halfway to her lips. "Don't be so sure."

   "And I'll repay you half the proceeds you apparently think you've got coming," he added grudgingly. "That is, if I ever dig myself out of this financial snake pit."

   "And you don't think I earned my half of those goddamn Scottish trees?" she demanded, feeling her temples begin to throb.

   "Technically? According to British divorce law? No, if I can prove to the government that I bought it—while in the UK—with my half of the earnings from
Sally's Girls.
My problem is, I don't have the time to prove anything. I just need the money. Now."

   "Not a very politic thing to say, if your intention is to get me to sign," she noted curtly. "
We
bought it—while in the UK—after
we
finished
Sally's Girls
."

   "All right! All right!
You
earned half of that forest. In fact, I know it firsthand, now that I've worked with that sot Patrick Corrigan."

   "Who's Patrick Corrigan?"

   "The useless Irish boozehound who's my production designer."

   "Not good, huh?" she inquired innocently.

   "Will you sign?"

   "I'll have to speak to my lawyer about this first," Blythe replied solemnly, now enjoying herself.

   "Christ, Blythe!" Christopher exploded. "If we get the lawyers involved in this, my picture will go to bloody hell!"

   "Your picture!
Your
picture!" she said, setting down her

teacup so hard, she feared she might have broken it. "You waltz in here, pleading poverty while charting a private jet to fly to Britain and then renting a Rolls-Royce to drive here! Who knows how many reptiles from the tabloids are lurking in the hedges, trying to blow my cover and give you a little publicity blast for your precious movie! And you have the unmitigated gall to ask
me
to do you a favor? A very expensive favor?" she cried, pacing in circles in front of the lowburning fire. "You insult me, you're rude to my host, and you disparage my attempts to get on with my life after you and Ellie trashed it—then you ask me for a million dollars?" She was shouting now. "You are certifiable, Christopher Stowe! Don't you ever think of anything but
yourself and
what
you
want?"

   She hated herself for the tears that were clogging her throat.

   "Blythe… Blythe…
please…
I
am sorry," Christopher sai
d in a rush. His face had turned ashen up to the roots of his darkblond hair. "I've gone about this all wrong. I-I didn't mean to insult you. I've had plenty of time to see what a cad I've been, and to regret so much of what happened. It's just—"

   She looked at her former husband closely. Unbelievably he, too, seemed near tears. Blythe blinked hard several times herself and struggled to regain her composure. Meanwhile it was Christopher's turn to rise from his seat and pace up and down on the carpet. To avoid closer physical contact, Blythe retreated to her upholstered chair and concentrated on staring at her fingers, which were resting in her lap.

   "It's all been too much," he said in a voice choked with emotion. "I thought I could handle all the changes in my life by merely plunging into work. But my judgment has been skewed for months, and nothing seemed to go as planned. Ever since you moved from Bristol Drive, it's been an unmitigated mess. It's too much," he repeated hoarsely, and turned away from her to rest his arm on the mantel. Then his head sank onto his forearm.

   Blythe was so astonished by Christopher's abrupt change of mood and apparently heartfelt words of regret that she couldn't utter a word. Instead she continued to stare at his back. As the silence between them deepened, her eyes drifted above his head to gaze at the seascape painted so long ago by Ennis Trevelyan.

   Ennis had been an extraordinary talent—like Chris. He had always done exactly as he'd pleased in the pursuit of art and pleasure. How similar these two men were, she thought. Briefly she recalled her hypnotic session with Valerie Kent. Had it been only that morning? Ennis Trevelyan had gone off to sea when his brother had cut off his funds. Did he ever paint again? she wondered. Would the prodigiously talented Christopher Stowe's career truly be washed up if she didn't sign the documents she assumed were in the briefcase that rested near the chintz-covered love seat?

   "Look, Chris…" she said haltingly, "I'm not going to sign anything without reading it and having a talk with my lawyer. Why don't you leave the papers and let me have a look at them?"

   Chris turned around and peered at her hopefully. "I promise I'll pay you your half someday, if I possibly can."

   "Yes, you've said that already."

   "I'll put it in writing, if your lawyer insists," he added, making an effort to bestow on her one of his familiar jaunty smiles.

   "I'll tell her that."

   "If I can just get this picture finished," he blurted in a pleading tone that unwittingly revealed the extent of the pressure he was under. Then he let out a nervous laugh and attempted to lighten the atmosphere. "I swear, Blythe, the dailies are bloody marvelous. I might get a second Academy Award for this!"