The Property of a Lady (44 page)

“I ain’t seen so much pollen since my childhood in Georgia,” she said, rubbing her reddened eyes, “but whoever he is, Miss Verity, he’s surely stuck on you.”

On Sunday at ten the limousine appeared to drive them to the Hudson River docks and the
Ferdinand A
, a 175-foot seagoing steam yacht with a full set of sails, polished teak decks, and gleaming brass rails. The captain and a crew of twenty were lined up to greet them, and Eddie Arnhaldt was waiting in the saloon that was filled with cream-colored roses.

Missie burst out laughing, staring around her in amazement.
“But where do you find them all?” she asked. “The florists in Manhattan must have run out by now.”

“They have,” he replied. “These are from Washington, brought in this morning by railroad.” His eyes caught hers. “Specially for you,” he added quietly.

“Matiushka
, this is wonderful.” Azaylee ran excitedly into the saloon, stopping short when she saw the baron.

“This is my
sister
, Azaylee,” Missie said, flashing her a warning glance to mind her manners. “Say hello to Baron Arnhaldt, Azaylee.”

“Hello,” she said shyly. “Thank you for inviting me onto your boat. It’s beautiful. Are we going to sail soon?”

He stared at her thoughtfully. “Whenever you like, little girl,” he said. “Just tell the captain we are ready and we’ll be on our way.”

They hung over the rail, watching as the big yacht sailed down the Hudson and out into the ocean. The air was soft, just a light ocean breeze, and Missie lay back in a steamer chair with her eyes closed, feeling relaxed and happy. She wondered guiltily what O’Hara would think if he could see her now. But O’Hara was always busy these days, traveling around the country—“Expanding his business” he called it. Besides, he still thought she was working for Madame Elise. It was a good thing he never set foot on Broadway because then he would know how she had deceived him. She thought about Zev, wondering where he had gone. She missed their Sunday nights at the Ukrainian café. And oddly enough, she really missed him too. There was only Rosa left to keep her feet on the ground, and she couldn’t wait to tell her about Eddie Arnhaldt because he really was the most handsome and most charming man she had ever met.

The lazy sunny day drifted past like a dream. The baron spent a lot of time with Azaylee, showing her how things worked, treating her like a grown-up at lunch. Afterward they lingered on deck, inspecting the little seaports through his high-powered telescope and admiring passing
boats until finally, pleasantly tired, they sailed back down the coast. Missie leaned on the deck rail with Eddie beside her, watching the full moon emerging from the horizon, and he said quietly, “I shall never forget the first time I saw you, but now I’m getting to know you I see so many other facets. I have enjoyed today, Verity.” She wished he would take her hand as they gazed at each other longingly, or even kiss her—but he did not. And as she drove away in his limousine she realized that he had said nothing about seeing her tomorrow.

Ziegfeld questioned her about Arnhaldt the next day, and she told him enthusiastically that everything was all right. Eddie was delightful company. Why, he had even invited her out with her sister. He nodded brusquely and said, “Well, remember I told you first—take care.”

She didn’t hear from Eddie on Monday, or Tuesday, and when he finally sent her a note on Wednesday asking her to have dinner with him, she was overwhelmed with relief and happiness. He would send the car for her, he said, and would be waiting at Rector’s. She dressed with special care that night in her red taffeta dress with flesh-colored stockings and matching red beribboned high-heeled shoes. She swept up her hair at the sides and pinned it with Cartier’s diamond stars, she painted her mouth with Violette Elise and sprayed herself with Elise’s special perfume, distilled from a dozen types of lilies. And as she checked her appearance in the mirror, she knew that for the first time she was dressing to please a man.

She hurried through Rector’s crowded foyer, following the waiter up the wide stairs without a glance right or left. And this time when he showed her into a private dining room she did not object.

Eddie watched her carefully as she came into the room. She looked lovely in that dress, a tempting little morsel, if not quite enough for a man with such a large appetite. He smiled at her, remembering his duty. And by now he knew it was justified.

“Verity, you are so beautiful tonight,” he said reverently.

She smiled, glancing nervously at the table set for two.

“I hope you don’t mind?” he said. “This time I need to be alone with you. Please, I beg of you, don’t say no. I must speak with you.” His eyes gathered her to him and instinctively she stepped a pace closer. “Alone,” he added quietly.

He limped toward the waiting ice bucket and poured champagne. “A toast to your beautiful eyes,” he said, clicking his heels together and bowing slightly. Then he took a small parcel from the table. “I can’t wait for you to open it,” he said, his eyes admiring her.

She glanced up at him, smiling in surprise. “Go on,” he urged, “please—open it.”

She pulled off the ribbons and paper, gasping when she saw the diamond and ruby necklace, the matching earrings, and two matching bracelets lying on the burgundy velvet.

“The parure is an Arnhaldt heirloom,” he said quietly. “I wanted to give it to you, Verity, because I am asking you to be my wife.”

She closed her eyes, stunned. “But we barely know each other,” she said, amazed. “We’ve only met a couple of times—”

“Does that matter?” he asked softly. “Do we have to meet a thousand times to know what is in our hearts? I am thirty-eight years old, Verity, I have been in love a dozen times, and I have loved casually a hundred. Believe me, I know the difference. And when lightning strikes you—or in this case”—he smiled—“a moonbeam—then there is no time to be wasted.”

“But I—” she began.

He held up his hand to stop her. “I’m not a man who takes no for an answer,” he said roughly. “Come here, Verity, come closer to me.”

Hypnotized, she took a step toward him.

“Closer, I said.”

She was next to him and then his arms went around her and his mouth descended on hers, crushing her with passion. He held her strongly but she did not want to escape, she didn’t want to cry out. All she wanted was for him to keep on kissing her.

“Now,” he said, lifting his face from hers and gazing at her triumphantly, “now say you don’t want me as much as I want you, Verity Byron. Say you will be my wife.”

“I will,” she promised, closing her eyes as his mouth claimed hers again. “Oh, I will.”

Hollywood

Zev was sitting on the veranda of the Hollywood Hotel, fanning himself with a copy of the
San Francisco Examiner
. It was nine o’clock in the morning. The clear desert heat made the backdrop of mountains look like cardboard cut-outs pasted against a deep-blue sky and the dusty street beyond the wilting flower beds looked like Main Street, Smalltown, America. Occasionally a car puttered by and in the distance he could see the big orange grove at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. He had thought he was coming to the glamour capital of the world and he had ended up in a village.

He glanced at his watch. At ten o’clock he was to meet Mr. Mel Schroeder to discuss his investment in Schroeder’s new motion picture company. Sipping orange juice, he opened the newspaper, glancing at the headlines and the pictures on the front page. He stopped at the sight of a familiar face.

“Verity Byron Weds Armaments King,” the headline trumpeted over the top of the picture of Missie, looking ethereally beautiful on the arm of a tall, unsmiling Prussian-looking man.

“Showgirl and former Elise mannequin Verity Byron, who created a sensation in her first appearance onstage this season, was married yesterday to the Baron Edmund Arnhaldt, multimillionaire steel and armaments chief, in a small private ceremony at Burkeley Crest, the palatial
Long Island home of Mr. and Mrs. Florenz Ziegfeld. Miss Byron looked radiant in a cream silk georgette ensemble designed by Elise, with a tulip skirt and a cross-over neckline, cream silk roses at the hip and her trademark floating sleeves. She carried a bouquet of her favorite cream roses, and her rings were a seven-carat teardrop diamond and a wedding band of square diamonds, both by Cartier. She was attended by her sister, Azaylee, aged six, in shell-pink taffeta with Valenciennes lace, who carried a posy of violets.

“The bride’s trousseau is by her former employer, Elise, whose beribboned shoes with their perky satin bows she made famous. The groom’s presents to the bride included an heirloom ruby and diamond parure consisting of necklace, two bracelets, chandelier earrings, and a fine ring. The bride bought her husband a gold Cartier cigarette case, specially sized for the long Turkish cigarettes he smokes, inscribed with his initials in diamonds.

“A small luncheon was given afterward by Mr. and Mrs. Ziegfeld (the famous actress Billie Burke) and the house was a bower of cream roses for which it is said the bridegroom ransacked every florist on the East Coast.

“The happy couple sailed yesterday on the RMS
Majestic
for a Paris honeymoon. The new baroness has forsaken the stage to make her home with her husband at the famous Haus Arnhaldt in Germany.”

Zev lowered the newspaper with trembling hands. A great anger was welling in him, the anger of a man forever forgotten, forever trampled upon. He was too late. Missie had married her millionaire and he would never see her again. She was the one person he had cared about, the only one to whom he had bared his soul, the only one he had loved.

The heat of anger faded, leaving him icy cool. His mouth set in a firm line as he told himself he would dismiss her from his mind, from his life. Forever. From now on he would think only of himself. Ambition stirred in
him. If he was not to have love, then he would be a success. He thought of his meeting with Schroeder—the man would look at him in his black pawnbroker’s suit and think he had another sucker here. Well, he would think wrong. Zev Abramski was in charge of his own life now. He was master of his own fate, and no one was ever going to make a fool of him again.

New York

O’Hara strolled around the dimly lighted nightclub, sizing up the room. It was pretty good, he thought, small enough to be exclusive and big enough to make a profit. There was a stage for the band at one end and a circular dance floor that he planned to cover with glass and light from beneath. There were revolving mirrored globes on the ceiling, and the floor was stepped up from the dance area in three tiers, each crowded with small tables. Of course it needed jazzing up with a new color scheme, black and white maybe to set off the women’s colorful dresses, black carpets and tablecloths, silver lamé curtains. Yes, a bit of glitter would be just grand.

He stood in the center of the dance floor, hands in his pockets, envisioning the room with its glossy new look filled with the sounds of jazz music and the popping of champagne corks—at twenty-five dollars a time—and the laughter of wild, pretty young women. This floor he was standing on would be crowded with dancers flinging themselves about in the latest dances, and the men would be paying through the nose for the privilege of membership in King O’Hara’s.

He nodded, satisfied, and the real estate agent standing by the door breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll sign the lease,” O’Hara told him, “but not at the crazy price you are demanding. It’s too far uptown. Not even the biggest sucker on Broadway is gonna pay you that kind of money.”

O’Hara had done his homework. He knew exactly what he was going to charge: twenty-five dollars a bottle of scotch and ten for rye. He would even charge two bucks for a pitcher of tap water. He would have cigarette girls selling trinkets and souvenirs, kewpie dolls and boutonnières, at five bucks a shot, and any guy who didn’t buy one for his girl was a cheapskate.

“We’re talking Harlem here,” he told the nervous real estate man, “and I’m being reasonable when I say I’ll pay twenty-five percent less than you want.”

The man gulped and nodded. “Okay,” he said with a growl, “it’s a deal.”

“And that’s for ten years, not five.” O’Hara added as they walked to the door.

The man winced. “Aw, come on now, Mr. O’Hara,” he said.

O’Hara shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” the man said, scowling and slamming his hat on his head. “I’ll have the lease ready for you tomorrow.”

“Sure and that’ll be just fine.” O’Hara grinned as he watched him walk away. He stepped back on the sidewalk and looked at the façade of his nightclub. He could just see the sign out front: “King O’Hara’s” in shamrock-green, his favorite color. He strolled jauntily along the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. He was going to be his own boss at last. He’d had enough of ferrying hooch for the Oriconne brothers, stocking their clubs and restaurants, doing all the work and taking all the risks as the front man while they made all the money. He had seen how they operated: He had all the contacts and he knew the business like the back of his hand. And after all, it wasn’t a million miles from running an alehouse on Delancey—only this time he stood to make a fortune.