A Moment in Time (12 page)

Marguerite rose, and Teddy followed suit,
taking her arm to lead her out to the screened-in porch. Valerie
trailed along behind them. Effie had already lit candles on the
porch, and it looked invitingly casual after the formality of the
dinner. Teddy saw Marguerite to her chair, and Valerie spread out
on a big, comfortable, old wicker sofa.

"I'll be right back, ladies," Teddy said,
excusing himself to the bathroom.

The instant he was out of earshot, Marguerite
turned her gaze on Valerie. Even in the dim, flickering light of
candles, Valerie could see her mother's look of determination.

"I hope you're giving Teddy the attention he
so richly deserves," Marguerite said. "I must say, you certainly
seem somewhat lackadaisical about your engagement."

"I've just been very busy, Mother," Valerie
answered defensively.

"Busy! That tiresome excuse!" Marguerite
leaned toward her daughter. "You must not forget that Teddy can
give you everything any young woman could ever want. He has money,
Val, and what's more, he's very good at making more. And it doesn't
hurt that he's also extremely popular. Everybody adores him."

"Or fears him," Valerie said.

"What?" Marguerite looked shocked. "You're
being fanciful. Ridiculous. Why would anyone fear Teddy?"

"Well," Valerie said, "from what I hear, he's
not so popular with some of his tenants, Mother."

"Perhaps they don't pay their rent on time,"
she countered. "Anyway, how could you possibly concern yourself
with what some tenant would say?"

"They're people, too," Valerie said
quietly.

"Humpf!" Marguerite dismissed her daughter's
remark and straightened her shoulders for another assault. "And how
could you forget to wear your engagement ring, Val? That's
positively insulting. Teddy tells me that you won't set a date for
the wedding yet. What in heaven's name is wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," Valerie said with
rising anger. "I'm just not ready yet."

Her mother's eyes caught hers once again.
"It's inevitable, Valerie, dear," she said with a quiet
forcefulness. "There's nobody else, and Teddy is ideal. Certainly
more of a man than I would've ever dreamed it possible for you to
attract."

Valerie swallowed, determined not to lose her
temper, but she couldn't allow her mother's last remark to pass.
That was the old Valerie, she told herself.
The Valerie who
would sit and take whatever her mother felt like dishing
out.

"Why do you always have to put me down?" she
asked.

Marguerite was taken aback for a moment, then
plunged on. "Well, face it, Val, dear," she said, "you were never a
great beauty. Now that you're older, you do have a certain .. .
appeal, I must admit. But you didn't have that growing up. Besides
which, you were always a little . . . strange ... a little
peculiar. That hasn't changed."

She smiled at Valerie, a smile that a
stranger might assume was sweetness itself, but that Valerie knew
to be filled with scornful disdain. "You certainly weren't very
social," Marguerite went on, "with your nose always in a book. Or
playing with your precious pets instead of other children."

Valerie digested her mother's diatribe in
silence, wounded by the dispassionate way in which she described a
shy little girl starved for love
. Despite all of my resolutions
to the contrary,
she thought, I
still want this woman's
approval and love. And no matter how independent I tell myself I
am, I still let her hurt me.

She finally cleared her throat and replied.
"If you'll remember, Mother," Valerie said, "there weren't a lot of
girls you'd let me play with. You didn't think that most of the
ones I tried to make friends with were good enough."

"One has to protect a child from the . . .
less desirable elements in society, Valerie," Marguerite replied.
"And you seemed drawn to that element."

"Then when I got older," Valerie said, "you
always made me feel like I wasn't pretty enough or clever enough.
You always made me want to run and hide from other girls—and
boys—my age because you thought they were so much brighter and
better-looking than me."

"They usually were," Marguerite said firmly.
"I pointed them out as examples for you to follow. Don't you see,
Val? I was trying to get you to make something better of yourself.
But no, you couldn't be bothered with your hair and clothes, could
you? You couldn't be bothered with making yourself attractive to
suitable young men. Thank
God
Teddy came along. And thank
God you'd become a more presentable young lady by then and outgrown
some of your silly shyness and backwardness. At least Teddy could
see the possibilities."

Valerie was growing increasingly furious but
decided to hold her tongue. She knew that any further argument with
her mother would be an exercise in futility.

"Ah," Marguerite exclaimed with delight,
"here comes our handsome young man now. I was just talking about
what a wonder you are, Teddy."

"Me?" he asked in an amused voice. He stood
by Valerie, waiting for her to make room for him on the wicker
couch, then sat down next to her and took one of her hands in his.
"I hope your daughter feels the same way," he said.

Valerie looked at him and smiled. "I think
I'll keep you guessing," she replied. But deep down inside, she was
beginning to feel as if Teddy was anything but the wonder her
mother thought he was, and she wanted nothing more than to get up
and go home to Elvis.

They sipped their coffee, chatting a while
longer, until Teddy pointedly looked at his watch. "It's getting
late," he said, "and I'm afraid we've kept you up past your
bedtime, Marguerite."

"Not at all," she said. "I've enjoyed every
minute of it."

"Well, I've got a very early morning,"
Valerie said, "and I'd better get going."

"I forgot," Teddy said. "Being up here all
week loafing around, I tend to forget that you have a job to go
to."

"It's too bad you couldn't arrange to be off
this week, Val dear," Marguerite said.

Valerie rose to her feet and stifled a yawn.
"It was impossible, Mother," she said. "Things are too busy at the
clinic."

Teddy got to his feet and put an arm around
Valerie's shoulders. "We can see ourselves out, Marguerite," he
said. "Keep your seat."

"Thank you, Teddy," she said, "but I think
I'll go on in now."

He removed his arm from Valerie's shoulder
and extended Marguerite a hand. She rose and offered a cheek for
him to kiss.

"I'm so glad you could come," she said. "And
I'm thrilled with the news."

"Thanks, Marguerite," Teddy said.

"Good night, Mother." Valerie kissed her
cheek. "Dinner was delicious."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, dear," she said.
"And I hope to see more of you both."

They walked to the porch door, which led out
to the parking area, and Marguerite patted Teddy on the back.
"We'll speak soon," she said.

"Yes," he said. "I hope so."

For a moment, Marguerite watched as they
walked out toward their cars, then she snuffed out the candles and
went inside.

In the parking area, Teddy turned and put his
arms around Valerie, then kissed her deeply, running his hands up
and down her back. She drew back and looked up at him. "I'd better
run, Teddy," she said. "It's late, and I'd better get home."

"What?" he said testily. "I thought you'd
spend the night with me."

"I can't, Teddy," she said. "I've got to take
Elvis out."

"Then why don't you go home, take the ugly
mutt out, and then come on over to my place?" he cajoled, brushing
her neck with his lips.

"Not tonight, Teddy," she said. "I've got a
very early morning and a really busy day ahead."

He continued nuzzling her neck. "Come on," he
whispered. "We'll have a real good time, Val. We could fuck all
night long."

"Teddy!" she said. "I just told you that I
have to get up very early, and I have a long, hard day ahead of
me."

"Call in sick," he said, his hands pressing
her buttocks to his groin.

"No can do," she said. "I mean it."

"Aw, Val," he whined, "come on. You can do
it. Let the dogs and cats and horses take care of themselves. Just
this once."

"No, Teddy," she said firmly, trying to
wriggle away from his arms. "I've got a job to do. Now, let me go.
I've got to go take care of Elvis."

Teddy finally let her loose. "Then go," he
said. "Go take care of your fucking mutt."

She looked at him challengingly. "I will,"
she said. She opened the door to her Jeep and climbed in, closing
the door after her. She fired up the engine and gazed at him,
standing alone next to his Jaguar. He looked like a little boy who
hadn't got his way, as he increasingly did these days.

Well, too bad
, she thought.
Nobody
who calls Elvis a fucking mutt and doesn't apologize is going to
get to sleep with me.

She started down the long gravel lane to the
highway and home to Elvis.

"Bitch!" Teddy snapped under his breath as he
watched her taillights disappear. Then he got in his car and headed
straight for Tiffani's, hoping that she would be home.
If
not,
he thought
, I'll find somebody else. No
problem.

Chapter Seven

Arielle Conrad's high-heel, magenta leather
mules, festooned at the toe with a bouquet of lemon- yellow
flowers, click-clacked against the purple bougainvillea-draped
coral stone and marble loggia that adorned the rear facade of her
palatial Palm Beach mansion. The Atlantic Ocean, its breakers
rhythmic and muted, slapped lazily against the pristine beach just
beyond the walled-in perfection of the lawn, and the steady
offshore breeze was refreshing in the summer night's steamy
torpor.

Arielle, however, took no solace from her
grand estate with its manicured gardens. Tonight, the luxurious
trappings of her life seemed to her no more than a stage set for a
tragedy. A Boodles gin with tonic in one hand and a thin brown
cigarillo in the other, she paced restlessly from one end of the
columned loggia to the other, pausing occasionally to run long,
tanned fingers with magenta-lacquered nails through her platinum-
streaked hair.

Catching sight of her reflection in an
enormous mother-of-pearl-framed mirror, she saw how tousled her
hair was. The candlelight was flattering, and she was pleased with
what she saw. Her long hair had that sexy
just-had-a-roll-in-the-hay look that so many women spend small
fortunes to achieve but that for Arielle seemed just another of her
many desirable, if not altogether natural, assets. Her face was
perfectly made up, as usual. Her heavily mascaraed eyes were thinly
lined with black and shadowed with a honey hue accentuating the
shards of amber that streaked through the topaz brown of her
irises. A terra-cotta blusher accentuated her high, prominent
cheekbones, and glossy magenta lipstick adorned her full, sensuous,
and cosmetically enhanced lips. Bee-stung lips, she thought, and
sexy as hell, with a come-hither look.

She turned from the mirror and resumed her
nervous pacing, puffing on her cigarillo, secure in the knowledge
that, if nothing else, she looked appropriately beguiling. Then one
of her heels caught on the weathered marble, and she lurched
forward, just managing to catch herself before she fell to the hard
stone.

Shit!
she thought, looking down at
herself.
Just my fucking luck
. She'd slopped gin and tonic
onto the sheer orange silk blouse that she wore unbuttoned to the
waist, where it was tied in a lavish knot. Somehow, she'd managed
to miss all that lovely exposed flesh.

I must be getting a little drunk
, she
thought.
No, not drunk, she amended. Just getting a buzz on.
She quickly click-clacked to the big marble table where trays of
liquor and mixers stood in attendance. Putting down her drink and
cigarillo, she grabbed a napkin, dabbed it with club soda, and
began brushing her blouse vigorously.

There,
she thought after a few furious
strokes,
that's better
. She tossed the napkin onto the
table, picked up her drink and cigarillo, and went over to a chaise
longue, where she spread out, kicking off her mules and making
herself comfortable. She picked up the latest issue of French Vogue
and idly flipped through its glossy pages, but lost interest after
a few minutes and tossed it to the marble floor with a sigh.

Where is the son of a bitch?
she
wondered, taking a sip of her drink.
He should've been here for
dinner ages ago.
She took a long draw off her cigarillo.
Now, of all times, he's decided to disappear on me. Maybe I
should call the club.

She smashed out her cigarillo in the ashtray
at her side, then pulled another one from the pack that lay there,
lighting it with her gold Cartier lighter.
Yes
, she decided,
that's what I'll do. I'll call the club
. She was reaching
for the cell phone on the table when she heard his distinctive
heavy boot heels on the marble. She looked up as he sauntered
toward her from the French doors that led out from the drawing
room. He was still in his polo gear and looked sweaty and
dusty.

"Lolo!" she cried, sitting up. "I've been
worried sick about you. Where the hell have you been?"

Lolo's darkly tanned face lit up at the sight
of her. Then his dark brown eyes became concerned when he heard the
distress in her voice. "What is it, Arielle?" he asked in his
heavily accented English, rushing to her, the sound of his heels
resounding off the loggia's stone floor and walls.

"What is it?" She glared up at him
malevolently. "You're late!" she cried. "And just when I need you,
Lolo!"