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She flicked her ash into a porcelain ashtray. “He left me for an older woman, did you know that? Funny, isn’t it? Alexi closed off my accounts, and the other woman was rich.”
“Shawn Howell is a cretin.”
“He’s a star, baby. It’s just a matter of time before he makes a comeback.” She looked at Fleur with her old reproach. “You could have helped him, you know. Now that you’re a big agent, you could have helped an old friend.”
Fleur saw the displeasure in her mother’s eyes and waited for the old guilt to wash over her, but it didn’t come. Instead she experienced the exasperation of a mother confronting an unreasonable child. “I’m sure I could have helped him, but I didn’t want to. He doesn’t have any talent, and I don’t like him.”
Belinda set her cigarette in the ashtray, and her lips formed a pout. “I don’t understand you at all.” She scanned Fleur’s dress. “Michel designed that, didn’t he? I never dreamed he was so talented. Everyone in New York was talking about him.” Her eyes narrowed vindictively, and Fleur understood she was about to be punished for refusing to help Shawn. “I went to see Michel. Such a beautiful boy. He looks just like me. Everybody says so.”
Did Belinda really think she could make her jealous? Fleur felt a flash of pity for her brother. Michel hadn’t told her about the visit, but she could imagine how painful it had been.
“We had a wonderful time,” Belinda said defiantly. “He told me he’d introduce me to all his famous friends and design my wardrobe.” Fleur could hear the echo of a child’s voice in her mother’s words. And we won’t let you play with us.
“Michel’s a special person.”
Belinda couldn’t hold it together any longer, and her face crumpled. She bent forward in her chair and shoved her fingers through her hair. “He looked at me like Alexi does. Like I’m some sort of insect. You’re the only one who’s ever understood me. Why does everybody make things so hard for me?”
Fleur didn’t waste her breath pointing out that Belinda’s own choices were what had made her life so hard. “It would probably be best if you stayed away from Michel.”
“He hates me even more than Alexi does. Why does Alexi want to lock me up?”
Fleur stubbed out her mother’s smoldering cigarette. “What’s happening with Alexi right now doesn’t have very much to do with you. He’s using you to bring me here. He wants to settle old scores.”
Belinda’s head shot up, and her petulance fell away. “Of course! I should have thought of that.” She stood abruptly. “You have to leave right away. He’s dangerous. I should have realized…I can’t let him hurt you. Let me think.”
Belinda began pacing the carpet, one hand pushing her hair back from her face, the other reaching for her cigarettes as she tried to figure out how to protect her child. Fleur was annoyed and touched. For the first time, she understood how blurred the roles between mothers and daughters could become as they grew older.
It’s my turn to be the mommy. No, you be the baby. No, I wanna be the mommy.
As Belinda paced the floor, trying to figure out how to shelter her daughter, Fleur knew her time of being Belinda’s baby was gone forever. Belinda could no longer control the way Fleur viewed either the world or herself.
“I’m staying at the Ritz,” she said. “I’ll come back in the morning, and we’ll settle his.” She needed to take Belinda with her, but the mortician and his cohorts would make that impossible. She had to find another way.
Belinda gave her a swift, desperate hug. “Don’t come back, baby. I should have realized it was you he wanted all along. It’ll be all right. Please, don’t come back.”
Fleur looked into her mother’s eyes and saw that she was as sincere as she knew how to be. “I’ll be fine.”
She made her way back through the maze of hallways to the staircase. The mortician waited for her at the bottom. She regarded him evenly. “I’ll see Monsieur Savagar now.”
“I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but you’ll have to wait. Your father is not yet ready to see you.” He indicated the rococo chair that sat outside the library doors.
So the warfare dragged on. She waited until the mortician disappeared, then made her way to the front salon, where she plucked one full-blown white rose from the mantelpiece and pushed it into the deep V of the velvet bodice. It gleamed against her skin. She carried its heavy fragrance with her as she returned to the hallway and the library doors.
Even through the heavy paneling, she could feel Alexi’s presence on the other side—grasping for her, clinging to her as tenaciously as the scent of the rose. Alexi, malicious and confident, marking off the minutes in his war of nerves. Slowly she turned the knob.
Only one dim lamp burned in the ornate room, throwing the periphery in shadow. Even so, she could see that the vigorous man she remembered had shrunk. He sat behind his desk, his right hand resting on top, his left hand hidden in his lap. He was dressed as immaculately as ever—a dark suit and a starched shirt with a platinum collar pin at the
neck—but everything seemed too big. She saw a small gap at the neck of the shirt, took in a looseness at the shoulders, but she didn’t let herself believe for a moment that these were signs of frailty. Even in the room’s shadows, she saw that his narrow Russian eyes missed nothing. They slid over her, taking in her face and hair, sweeping along her dress, and finally coming to rest on the white rose between her breasts.
“You should have been mine,” he said.
Chapter 28
“I wanted to be yours,” Fleur replied, “but you wouldn’t permit it.’
“You are a bâtarde. Not pur sang.”
“That’s right. How could I forget?” She wished she could see his features more clearly, and she stepped closer to the desk. “All my Irish Flynn blood is too uncivilized for you, isn’t it?” She had the satisfaction of seeing him stiffen. “I understand one of his ancestors was hung for stealing sheep. Definitely bad blood. Then there was all that drinking and whoring.” She paused deliberately. “His young girls…”
