Overseas (40 page)

“You were magnificent,” he said, next to my ear. “Come along, let’s find our seats.”

We weren’t in the center box—this being Manhattan, there were plenty of men far richer even than Julian—but not far from it. When we ducked inside, though, I found myself wishing we’d waited longer in the shifting power crowd: Geoff Warwick sat in a red velvet chair, arms folded, glancing up at my entrance with his usual contempt. His wife was missing; instead, a young man sat with him, studying the program.

Julian stopped dead. “Geoff,” he said, after an endless second or two, “good evening. Arthur? What brings you here?”

Both men stood up. I took a deep breath. “Geoff. I’m so pleased to see you. Where’s Carla?”

“Stomach flu. Good evening,” he said reluctantly, shaking my offered hand.

The other man smiled with great warmth. “I’m to fill in for her tonight,” he said. I shot a lightning glance at Julian. The newcomer spoke with an unmistakable English accent. “Hello, Julian,” he went on, shaking Julian’s hand.

“Arthur,” Julian said, in a carefully controlled voice, “how are you? Darling, this is Arthur
Haverton
, our client relations manager. Arthur, my fiancée, Kate Wilson.”

Arthur smiled at me, with much more warmth than Geoff Warwick. “Delighted to meet you, Miss Wilson,” he said. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

I smiled back. He was a bit above my height, dark haired, vaguely handsome, vaguely recognizable. “Please,” I said, shaking his hand, “it’s Kate. I’m sorry, have we met before? You look so familiar.”

Silence fell with an almost audible
plop!
into the center of the box. I looked back at Julian with a questioning expression.

Julian cleared his throat. “Arthur has been a good friend of mine since childhood.”

I saw, distantly, that the chandelier outside the box was rising, that the house lights were dimming. It all took place with agonizing slowness, as though the whole world had slipped into a lower gear somehow.

“Oh,” I said. “I see.” I looked again at Mr. Haverton and knew exactly where I’d seen that face before: in a sepia photograph, with a straw boater clasping his head.

Haverton.
Hamilton
.

“You must be Florence’s brother,” I went on. “I’m so honored to meet you, Mr. Haverton. Julian speaks of you so fondly.” I felt intuitively the slow relaxing of Julian’s body next to me; his hand slipped behind my back, supporting me.

“You must call me Arthur,” Florence Hamilton’s brother told me. “I hope very much to have the pleasure of your friendship.”

“Of course,” I said. “Of course.”

A few more people entered the box, laughing uproariously, stumbling around in search of their chairs. “I should think it’s time to take our seats,” Julian said. His eyes rested heavily on Geoff Warwick, who shrugged and sat down again.

Julian took my hand and led me to our chairs at the front of the box. We sat down in the near darkness, and I withdrew my hand and put it in my lap, atop my program.

“D
ON’T BE ANGRY,” HE SAID QUIETLY
. “I hadn’t any idea he’d be here. Warwick invited him deliberately. Stomach flu, my aunt Fanny.”

We were standing together in a far corner of the Belmont Room, the Opera Guild patrons’ lounge, where the heavy hitters congregated during intermission. Geoff had triumphantly dragged Arthur Haverton—Hamilton—to the bar, leaving Julian alone to face my wrath.

“You should have told me about him,” I said, equally low. “You should have trusted me.”

“I
do
trust you, Kate. Of course I do. I didn’t want to cause you any pain, that’s all. I…”

“Florence’s brother. Living right here in Manhattan.
One
of you. Tell me, were you planning on introducing us at all?” I kept my voice even, determined not to make a public scene. “Ever? Or just hoping we’d never run into each other?”

“I was planning on it, eventually. It was a difficult subject to introduce.”

“So you let Geoff ambush me. Did you see the look on his face? Triumphant.”

“I’m sorry for that.” He tried to fix me with his eyes. “Darling, have some champagne. Try to relax.”

“I am perfectly relaxed. And I’ll stick with water, thanks.” I put the glass to my lips. Around us, the giddy chorus of chatter rose and fell; a trill of laughter carried across the room, too amusing for words.

“Thank you,” he said, after a moment. “Thank you for behaving so beautifully. You’re an angel. You were perfectly gracious, far more than any of us deserved.”

“I thought Arthur took it well.”

“Well, he’d had the chance to prepare. Darling, I was wrong. I ought to have told you long ago.”

“You seem to think you can just protect me from everything. That I need to be cosseted and… and
kept
from things, like a child. I mean, what else are you hiding from me? What else?”

He looked at me a long time, and was just opening his mouth to reply when Paul Banner slapped his back from behind.

“Laurence!” he bellowed, spilling a few drops of Scotch from the glass in his other hand. “You asshole, you! Savior of Wall Street, huh?”

“Mr. Banner.” Julian shifted to stand by my side. “What a pleasure. You know Miss Wilson, of course. My fiancée.” He said it with emphasis, and his hand slipped into mine. I let it stay this time.

“Katie!” Banner leaned forward to plant a kiss on my cheek, only just missing my mouth when I turned my head away at the last instant. “Of course I know Katie! Talk about a dark fucking horse, huh? Little did we know what you had up your sleeve last Christmas! Hey, we always said we’d give you the opportunity of lifetime at Sterling Bates! Huh?”

“Well, except when you fired me, of course.”

“Yeah.” His face fell into contrite lines. “Sorry about that. That fucking bitch Alicia had us convinced—don’t know how—but I see you landed on your feet, anyway!” He looked between the two of us.

Julian spoke coldly. “I consider the good fortune to be entirely on my side.”

I turned to Julian. “Honey, I think I see someone I know over there. Why don’t you two have a little chat and catch up? I’ll see you back at the box in a bit.” I lifted his hand and gave it a tiny kiss, just for Banner’s benefit, and then pulled away to drift off to the bar.

“Holy shit, she’s turned into a knockout, huh?” I heard Banner roar drunkenly behind me.

I spotted Geoff and Arthur, pulled up to the bar like horses at the trough, and sidled in between them. “Hello, gentlemen,” I said. “Julian’s busy with his networking again. Tell me, Arthur, how did you like the first act?”

“Oh, I’ve always adored La Fleming,” he said, with enthusiasm. “I saw her several years ago in the new
Figaro
production. She had us all in her palm. Magnificent.”

“And you, Geoff?” I looked at Warwick. “
Traviata
fan?”

He took a long drink of what looked like whiskey before answering. “You know, to be honest, Kate,” he drawled, “I just come to these things for the spectacle.”

22.

We didn’t arrive home until nearly one o’clock. After the gala performance had come the gala dinner, and it had gone on and on with endless speeches and mutual congratulating until I wanted to stand up and scream. The only thing keeping me at the table was the knowledge that if I left to get a breath of air, Julian would follow me. And I wasn’t quite ready for that yet.

Instead, I chatted with Arthur Hamilton, mostly about Julian. “Oh, he was always getting up to something,” Arthur said, smiling. “He was particularly useful during house parties; his parents held a great many of them, and he engineered pranks of quite astonishing complexity. My sister was always his willing accomplice, of course.”

“And his parents?” I asked. “I often think of them. How they must have missed him.”

He took off his glasses and squinted at me thoughtfully while he wiped them clean. “I understand they took his departure for New York very hard,” he replied with care. “A better man and woman I’ve never known.”

“I’m so sorry. I imagine you miss your own family, as well.”

“More than I can say. My sister… but of course you’ve heard about her. An extraordinary woman. Her spirit, her dash, her relentless originality. That finely tuned moral pitch I admired so deeply. And her virtue, of course: nothing like the sort of vulgar woman one finds today, endemic even—or perhaps especially—among the better classes, in every obscene bar and restaurant across the city. How I miss her.” He finished on a sigh.

Had he meant to be cruel? His expression was artless, reminiscent. “I expect so,” I said at last. “So much has changed. Yours was a different time.”

“You can’t imagine how different it was. The concept of honor
meant
something then; one’s
word
meant something. There was a permanence to things, a kind of sweet immutability. Now it’s all quite blown to pieces, of course, this handsome little civilization we’d built for ourselves. Quite beyond recall. Beyond redemption, I should say.” He tossed back the last of his Scotch, in a way that made me think he did it often. “Ah! Dancing at last. May I have the honor, Kate?”

“Of course.” I rose and danced with him, and then Julian claimed me and we danced silently until, at last, I looked up into his furrowed face and said: “Would you please take me home, now?”

He nodded, sent off a quick message to the driver, and in a few minutes Eric was bustling us into the rear seat for the voiceless drive back to Julian’s townhouse.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I said, when we walked into the entrance hall.

Julian turned to the bodyguard. “Eric, that’s all for tonight, thanks.”

I led him up the stairs to our room, listening to his heavy tread behind me as we climbed the steps. Once inside, he closed the door behind us and regarded me with a wary expression.

“Okay,” I said. “We need to talk. I mean, you really can’t go on like this.”

“Like what, exactly?”

“This obsessive secrecy of yours! Not letting me know Arthur Hamilton is alive and well? I’m not a child, Julian. I can handle things. I handled
you
, for God’s sake!”

“Darling,” he said, “you can’t deny that every time the subject of Flora comes up, you turn into a virago of raging jealousy…”

“Oh please! That’s a
massive
exaggeration!”

“It’s like walking on eggshells…”

“No, it’s not! Okay, I’m a bit insecure about it, but you’re
historically linked
with her, for God’s sake! Open any book on war poetry and there you are, mooning over her!”

“The
devil
take that poem,” he hissed.

I drove on. “Julian and Florence, the great tragic First World War romance.
I’m amazed they haven’t made a freaking
movie
about it! Do you have any idea how
annoying
that is?”

“It shouldn’t be. You know the truth.”

“Well, I’m sorry, it
is
annoying. But I’m not raging with jealousy, I’m
not
, and it’s just unfair to say I am!” I narrowed my eyes. “In fact, it’s
projecting,
because
you’re
the one who would probably pull a shotgun on the poor schmuck who took my virginity. If I even dared to tell you his
name
!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He tugged his bow tie apart with a single ruthless wrench. “I’d bloody well settle the matter with my bare hands.”

I threw up my hands. “Oh, good
grief
! And
I’m
the jealous one? Anyway, Arthur isn’t even the point. He’s just a symptom of this… this whole attitude of yours, that I can’t be trusted with my own safety.”

“Rubbish. I’ve merely taken reasonable precautions…”

“Reasonable! I can’t take a freaking breath of fresh air anymore without bodyguards! You treat me exactly like a
doll
, Julian. You dress me, you accessorize me, you keep me under a glass dome! And then you take me out to play with when you’re in the mood, or else to show off to your rich friends…”

“To
play
with!”

“It’s true! It’s so humiliating! And you don’t tell me a damned thing about anything. I know you’re hiding things from me, things from your past.”

“I do not,” he said tightly, “treat you like a doll.”

“Yes. You.
Do
. Look at me! This… this dress, and this stupid necklace!”

How amusing,
a part of my brain observed.
She’s coming completely
apart.

“I’m on display, Julian! Like I don’t have a brain or even a soul of my own. Like I’m one of those fancy little debutantes you used to flirt with. You probably wish I was!”

“Kate, what’s gotten into you? You’re talking complete rot!” He strode across the room to the dressing hall, where he jerked off his tuxedo jacket and hung it up with a crash of the polished wood hangers.
“Debutantes,”
he muttered.

“I’m not talking rot! I’m telling the truth! It’s what I
feel
!”

“Well, you’re wrong! A
doll,
for God’s sake, as though that weren’t exactly…”

“Don’t tell me I’m wrong! You, with all your lies and secrets…”

“
Lies
!
” He whipped around.

“You admitted it yourself! You lied to me about the reason we were in Lyme. About your arm. And there’s such a thing as lies of omission, and God knows you’re the master of that! You and your freaking
boxes
! That shoe-store brain of yours!” I waved my hand at his head. “I just keep waiting for the next one to drop. Maybe you’ve got Florence herself stashed in an apartment around the corner. Maybe that’s why you’re never in my bed in the morning. You might be in hers, for all I know!”

Oh, there’s a good one,
my brain applauded.

“Have you gone completely
mad
?” he exploded. “Like Flora at her damned unreasonable worst, which God knows I’ve…”

“Well, I’m beginning to see her point! My God, facing the prospect of marriage to you, of being locked like a bird in a gilded cage! Nothing to look forward to but a good fuck once in a while!”

Silence spread between us. Julian went still, one shoe in his hand, poised in the half-shadowed doorway to the dressing hall without a hint of expression. A curl of hair gave way and dropped like a sickle against his forehead.