Too Damn Rich (52 page)

Zandra and Karl-Heinz both gave guilty
starts.

Becky smiled. "Mes cheres, we are going to
sit down. You will join us,
j'espere bien?
Come ..."

And hooking an arm through each of theirs,
she led them over to the fireplace.

The formal dining room shimmered. Logs blazed
in the fireplace and candles glowed in the gleaming silver
candelabra. They brought to life the villages, pagodas, and rocky
islands on the eighteenth-century Chinese wallpaper, infused the
mahogany breakfront and Federal sideboard with a rich luminescence,
and reflected off the Paul Revere silver.

The long Chippendale table was like a dark,
reflective lake set with Chinese export porcelain, Federal
flatware, linen napery, and bowls of hothouse roses. Rioja glowed,
bloodlike, in cut-glass decanters and goblets.

Becky was in her element. The head of the
table was just right for her. From it she presided with a quiet,
regal presence, and did what she did best—orchestrating the serving
and keeping the conversation flowing:

"The secret to this wine—" she lifted her
glass of Duque de la Vila 1988— "is we age it entirely in barrels
of French oak. That is what gives it its muted, Bordeaux-like
flavor."

And: "
Cheri
—" this to Robert— "do tell
us how you created all those thousands upon thousands of
superstores out of a single
petit
storefront in ... where
was it?... St. Louis?"

And: "We have among us a most superb
equestrienne
. Now
cherie
, don't be so
timide
—"
she smiled at Nina Fairey— "we are all dying to hear how you became
a female jockey."

And finally: "Pity, how little use the
facilities here get. Truly, it is almost criminal. When you
consider the horses and the indoor everything— pool, tennis courts,
riding arena ... And this white elephant of a house! Imagine
rattling around in it. Sometimes I am actually tempted to sell
it."

"Sell it!" Nina Fairey exclaimed. "But it's
so beautiful!"

"
Peut-etre que oui
." Becky smiled. "Of
course, the reason I don't is because I've become so sentimentally
attached to it. Every corner is filled with memories. Even so, it
does get lonesome at times."

"But, sweetie! I thought you cultivated
privacy," Dina pointed out.

"
Naturellement
! Sometimes I seek
solitude. Who does not? But you must remember: I spent much of my
adult life as a married woman."

No one knew what to say; clearly, this
conversation was headed toward a patch of delicate ice.

"I suppose everything would be different if
I'd had children," Becky mused. "
Oui
. That is what this
house needs. Children. Perhaps then it would truly come to
life."

Mumford, circumnavigating the table, was
discreetly refilling goblets with wine.

"Do you know what else I miss?"

A distant look came into Becky's eyes and she
raised her chin, her Nefertiti-like profile flickering in the
candlelight as she looked around the table.

"Those old-fashioned weekend house parties,"
she said. "Zandra. You and Heinzie know the kind I mean."

"Gosh, Becky. But, darling, last real one of
those was at Chatsworth. That was yonks ago."

"
Oui. Oui
." Becky nodded. "I remember:
we were invited, but then my poor dear Joaquin died so tragically
..."

Mumford poured her some more wine.

"Merci, Mumford."

Becky lifted the goblet by the stem, and then
suddenly her eyes grew huge. She set the goblet back down. "I
know!" she breathed, as though she'd only thought of it that very
instant. She leaned forward in excitement. "
Cheries
! Why
don't you all stay here this weekend?"

Dina pounced. "Here? You mean ... in this
house, sweetie?"

"
Oui
."

The Faireys exchanged hopeful looks, and
Karl-Heinz flicked a glance at Zandra, who looked a bit
startled.

Becky was positively radiant. "It shall be
like an old-fashioned house party! Why not? This house is certainly
large enough. I have lost count of exactly how many rooms there
are. Only ... " She bit her lip.

"Sweetie! What is it?"

"
Mon dieu!
In my excitement, I have
completely lost my manners. Nina,
cherie
. How thoughtless of
me. You will forgive me? I did not mean to steal your guests—"

"No apologies are necessary," Nina assured
her.

"Absolutely not!" Sheldon added.

"
Alors
. It goes without saying that
the invitation includes the both of you."

"How amusing," Nina cried. "A
spur-of-the-moment house party!"

Dina clapped her hands. "It sounds
wonderful!"

"But what about our things?" said Zandra,
eliciting a kick and a glare from Dina.

"
Rien de plus facile
." Becky waved a
hand dismissively. "Mumford and someone else can go over to pack
everything up and bring it back here. Well,
mes amies?"

She looked around the table.

Robert was frowning, but there were no vocal
objections. Lord Rosenkrantz caught her eye and sketched a sardonic
toast with his goblet.

"
Alors
," Becky decreed. "It is
settled. A house party it is." She raised her goblet. "Let us
salute old friends and new."

Goblets were raised and everyone chorused:
"To old friends and new."

"Both of which are very precious," added Lord
Rosenkrantz who, arching a bristly eyebrow, smiled thinly. "In the
words of Lord Lyttelton: 'Women, like princes, find few real
friends.' "

"And was it not Pindar," retorted Becky, no
intellectual slouch herself, "who said, 'Often silence is the
wisest thing for a man to heed'?"

"Touche, my dear," Lord Rosenkrantz smiled,
"touche."

Not, she knew, for the part of the quote
she'd spoken aloud, but rather, for the part she'd left unsaid:

"Not every truth is the better for showing
its face."

Early afternoon the following day, Becky held
court from a cushioned nineteenth-century wicker chaise in the
light-filled garden room, where potted trees and winding lianas
thrived.

The three glass walls, an extension added to
the back of the mansion, were a delicate gridwork of wrought iron,
and had been designed so that each octagonal pane of clear glass
had a diamond-shaped cabochon of blue Bohemian cut crystal at its
corners. Blinding sunlight, bouncing off the white snow outside,
made the blue insets glow like sapphires.

Lord Rosenkrantz occupied the chaise beside
Becky's. Between them, an ebonized table with bamboo-turned legs
held the accoutrements of the idle rich: a sterling coffee and tea
service, champagne in a sweating bucket, antique crystal, and linen
napery.

Dina was nearby, on a cushioned wicker
armchair and ottoman which had been expressly angled so she could
divide her attention equally between indoors and out.

Nina and Sheldon, still dressed in tennis
whites, had just returned from the indoor courts, towels around
their necks. High on endorphins, sipping San Pellegrino, and asking
about Robert.

"He's upstairs, sweetie," Dina sighed,
rolling her eyes. "Using his computer to make money."

In a wing chair in the far corner, surrounded
on three sides by fragrant orange trees laden with fruit, sat
Karl-Heinz. He was flipping through a priceless folio of botanical
watercolors by Redoute which he'd found in Becky's library. But he
wasn't concentrating on the exquisite renderings. In truth, he was
feeling too agitated to concentrate on anything.

He raised his eyes without lifting his
head.

Across the room, half-hidden behind Dina, the
reason for this rare emotion reclined on a chaise. Zandra, arms
raised, was dangling by its stem a huge orange-and-black parrot
tulip, so that the ragged, waxy petals brushed lightly against her
face.

The glimpse of her, so tantalizingly near,
clogged his throat. Right now I should be over there beside her, he
thought. Making my moves. Dazzling her with charm.

One small obstacle. When it came to Zandra,
his famous charm deserted him.

Gott im Himmel!
he thought. I'm
behaving like a child harboring a secret crush!

And there was no reason for him to feel that
way. No reason at all.

I'm rich, titled, and self-assured. I'm the
man who supposedly has it all.

Right.

Then why were butterflies fluttering around
inside him, thrumming against the lining of his stomach as though
seeking escape?

Zandra was feeling decidedly antsy, this
despite the morning walk she'd taken, and the grueling laps she'd
swum in the indoor pool before lunch. Trouble was, just lying
around doing nothing was an entirely new experience. Ever since
she'd arrived in the Big Apple, her every waking minute had been
chock-full of frenzied activity. She'd never once taken a moment to
decompress.

Now that the opportunity to do so presented
itself, what should happen?

Why, irony of ironies! She already missed the
never-ending urban fireworks, that constant, energetic rumpus and
tumultuous multiring circus she'd grown used to, and come to
love.

Next to that, the quiet out here was
positively unsettling.

Turning her head sideways, she caught sight
of a magnificent fox loping slowly past outside. It stopped, looked
in through the glass wall at her, then turned its head and trotted
casually on its way.

She stared out at the paw prints it left
behind in the snow. I've got to get out of the house, she
decided.

Yes. Perhaps a horseback ride would perk up
her spirits.

Anything's better than just lying around.

Lord Rosenkrantz was saying, "So she
bequeathed her entire fortune to this foundation he'd set up, but
there wasn't any foundation, don't you see? It—"

"Shhhhh." Becky, silencing him, possessed an
early warning system that would have done the Pentagon proud.
Sitting straight and tall, she glanced out through the octagonal
panes.

It was just as she had thought. Zandra, who
had left the garden room some minutes earlier, was striding
purposefully across the yard to the stables.

Thanking God that the Faireys had
auspiciously gone upstairs to shower and change, Becky said,
"
Excusez-moi, mon cher
. Duty calls."

"Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, eh?" said
Lord Rosenkrantz.

Ignoring him, she rose from the chaise and
crossed over to where Karl-Heinz, still in the wing chair,
pretended to be engrossed in an elegant study of Metrosyderos
Lophanta.

Becky leaned down, her voice almost a
whisper. "Heinzie," she said.

Karl-Heinz looked up at her. She gestured
toward the wall of glass.

He followed her hand to where Zandra, in
borrowed riding togs— boots, jodhpurs, and a thick brown drover
coat with a partial cape— proved that it was not a case of the
clothes making the lady, but the lady making the clothes.

"Our fair maiden is going for a ride.
Alors
. It is time to get to work."

He nodded, knowing he should already have
given chase. So what was keeping him glued to this chair, hesitant
and immobile? Scruples? Morals?

A hint of a frown crossed Becky's face. "What
are you waiting for?
Mon Dieu!
This is your chance. Heinzie,
follow her! Go!"

When he still didn't move, she reached down,
lifted the folio off his lap, closed it, and set it aside. Then,
taking both his hands in hers, she helped pull him to his feet.

He sighed to himself. Becky was nothing if
not determined.

Whoever coined that phrase about women being
the weaker sex, he thought, obviously never ran across Becky V.

"Now off with you," she said. "And try to
remember what's at stake. If all those billions should end up with
Sofia and Egbert—"

"Erwein," he corrected her automatically.

"Whichever," she said, without the least
concern. "Now go. And
bonne chance!
" And with that, she gave
him a little prod and sent him on his way.

When he reached the door, he turned around
and looked back into the garden room.

Becky, one hand on the wing chair, was
staring at him. She stood tall and sure of herself, and there was
something about her quiet strength which reminded him of newly
minted steel.

Then, his expression pained but resigned, he
went upstairs to change into his riding habit.

"Horse she took's Amethyst Dream," the stable
lad informed Karl-Heinz. "A chestnut mare. All you gotta do is
follow them tracks. Alidad here'll catch up with her—" he snapped
his fingers "—like that."

He was referring to the glossy black stallion
he was holding by the leading rein. A magnificent, high-strung
Arabian, Alidad literally danced in place, neighing and snorting
plumes of vapor as he tossed his head and tail.

The stable lad squinted at Karl-Heinz. "You
sure you're up to rid- in' him?"

"Quite sure," Karl-Heinz smiled. "But thank
you for the concern."

"Mrs. V. don't like it, a guest a hers
gettin' injured."

"I'll take full responsibility," Karl-Heinz
assured him. He took the leading rein, held it tight, and spent a
minute stroking the horse's muzzle and talking to him in calm,
reassuring tones.

Perhaps it was a case of one thoroughbred
recognizing another. Or maybe it was that telepathy peculiar to
horses. Whatever the reason, Alidad instantly calmed down and put
his muzzle against Karl-Heinz's neck, his nostrils making whiffling
movements.

"You sure seem to have a way with him," the
stable lad said admiringly. "I'll give you that."

Karl-Heinz smiled and swung himself expertly
up into the saddle. One shake of the reins and they were off.