Beast (28 page)

Women that pretty"—he jabbed the pipe toward the window once—"think they own the world."

"She's young. I'll teach her she doesn't."

His uncle made a glum face, the face of an accomplished pessimist. "You can't teach someone what they don't want to learn."

Tino puffed up a billow of smoke. Charles leaned on the window, his back absorbing the vibration again as he stared at a woman, the sight of whom he couldn't seem to get enough. After a few minutes of the two men standing there like this, Charles said, "I don't know if you will see this right away, Tino. Louise is socially adept, competent in a cool way, not in an endearing one. But in her heart—" He sighed. He believed what he was about to say, though a part of him prayed, after only five or six days' acquaintance, that his strong emotions for Louise Vandermeer could really be as clear and sure as they felt. "In her heart," he continued, "she is sweet and good-intentioned. She is funny and honest and dear." Watching her turn the page of her book, he added, "And bright." He poked his uncle in the chest. "She is smarter than
you
are."

"Which makes her
much
smarter than you, then." His uncle rolled his eyes, asking from within a puff of smoke, "So what do you want to do? Her father wants this wedding in two weeks, if he can get it. Is that what
you
want?"

Two weeks? Charles was stunned. "I don't know," he said. "I'll have to talk to her."

Tino rolled his eyes again, more elaborately this time, and groaned his disbelief. Then he turned and walked off down the corridor, trailing smoke as he shook his head and muttered in singsong lament, "
Ah
làlàlàlàlàlà
…"

When fresh, ambergris is tarty and foul smelling. Yet when exposed to sun, sea, and air it quickly
oxidizes, fading to a hard, waxy gray with an appealing fragrance: earthy, cool, and sweet.

Rather like the odor off the mossy floor of a dark forest recently pummeled by a hard rain.

Charles Harcourt, Prince d'Harcourt

On the Nature and Uses of Ambergris

Late the next morning. Louise stood at the edge of the prince's front lawn, a wide, shady lawn that sloped gently down from the house to end in a neat shin-high border of carved white stone balusters.

These ran along the front of the property, curving with the bend of the road just below it. Should she have stepped over the low balustrade or swung out on the tree branch that overhung it, she would have dropped down into the meandering two-lane carriageway that followed the coast. Just on the other side of this road, the land sloped further into a sunny beach, this descending into the Mediterranean itself, a sea so bright a blue it did not look possible. From beneath her shady tree, Louise looked out onto a bay of such vivid color it made the cloudless sky—a sky that would have seemed remarkably bright in New York—look powdery-pale by comparison.

It took no second guesses or long acquaintance to understand why the Cote d'Azur was becoming a very popular—and expensive—place to be. Nice and the prince's seafront house at the western edge of it were premium, part of a paradise on the shore of the prettiest piece of ocean she had ever seen, made finer still for being nestled into the steep, rising foothills of the Alps. Whole villages perched in the hillsides behind her.

She looked out over this sea now and tried to project her mind onto its far shore, onto the shore of North Africa, trying to envision there a tall, handsome man making his way to his family. She tried to imagine her Charles traveling home like this. And failed. She could not envision the man who'd talked to her so earnestly, spoken to her so softly, who'd called his darling, his dear, then uttered her name over and over in long, chaining repetitions, she could not envision
this
man simply packing his bags and sailing away.

Vanity perhaps. She hated to think of him as anything other than staggering around, lost without her. For she felt faintly lost herself. Moreover, she had sincerely felt—still did—that she had charmed him, captivated him. Not to put too fine a point on it, she believed that she had had him on his knees, at her feet, in thrall. It was a chief area of her expertise: Louise usually knew when a man was mad for her.

Thus, she reasoned, wherever her pasha was, didn't his mind, his spirit and will, have to be as seized as hers by the memory of their trip across the dark ocean together? If so, then how could he leave? How could he stay away? Wouldn't he come back to her eventually? He knew where to find her.

No. no. of course not—she shook her head, frowning—this wasn't going to be the way things were going to work. She had had an affair, a memorable one, with a sophisticated adult, with a lover whose life was in a vastly different place, on a vastly different cultural plane, a disparity that left each of them with no claim upon the other. It had been a fabulous, perfect affair really: precisely as Louise had originally intended.

And now she would get on with her life—here in the present, not in the past or in some impossible future—just as she'd promised.

"Louise!"

She turned to see her delicate, pretty mother trotting down the green slope of lawn toward her, her mother's skirts held high enough to show her shoes.

"Darling," her mother said as she came up. She reached out and drew her daughter close, kissing her cheek. "Your father and I have just had the most lovely talk with the prince." Her expression was kind but solemn. "And I have been voted the one who must tell you something—nothing too bad now, don't worry, but something serious. Would you like to go for a walk on the beach?"

They went down the stone steps that led into the drive, then crossed the carriageway carefully, listening as well as looking up and down a road that bent and turned. Once on the other side of the road, balancing beside an iron bench, they took off their shoes and stockings, then tucked their skirts up. There was hardly anyone else on the beach. The season would not start for another two or three months.

Leaving their shoes behind, she and her mother descended down toward the water.

There were no shells. The Mediterranean here had little tide action to bring them up onto the shore—it was the calmest seashore she had ever walked upon. Her bare feet met smooth flat stones as large and round as fried eggs. These stones became smaller and darker toward the water. Eventually Louise crunched in step beside her mother on wet stones that felt like walking on millions of smooth, tiny gray buttons.

Her mother began, "Let me say first that the prince himself wanted to come and speak to you about this, but that I preempted him. Once you are married, he may have precedence." She smiled at Louise in a sideways glance. "But I am not ready to give you up until I have to." She walked maybe five or ten more steps then began, "So. May I say that your father and I have been pleased from the start with this marriage for you, and that now, well, we think it is magnificent"—she touched Louise's arm as they walked, then repeated the word emphatically—"
magnificent
for you." She took a breath, as if to steel herself, then launched into a subject that so surprised Louise. "You must realize that your father and I are honest people. We simply didn't know what to do when we first thought you might be behaving in a foolish manner—" Louise's mother held her hand up to stifle complaint.

Louise stopped, trying to rally a defense—a defense of only God knew what. She wasn't sure what she was being accused of. But there was accusation here somewhere.

Her mother turned and faced her. "Now hear me out before you say anything." She began again. "Your father and I were most uncomfortable marrying you to"—she paused then took audible pleasure in the name—"dear Charles without…"

Dear Charles? For one bewildering moment, Louise thought her mother was speaking of her Pasha Charles. Then her mind settled on the obvious. The one-eyed prince. Louise wanted to curl her lip, make a snide remark. As gracious as he was, the fancy, oddly self-conscious man hardly seemed worthy of endearment.

Her mother continued, "… without, well. Before he married you, we felt we had to be perfectly honest with him." She took a gulp of air, then let it out with, "Especially in light of the fact that we believe you were up to something on the ship as well."

Louise's face went cold. She had to consciously shut her mouth.

Her mother put both hands up now, like a New York policeman trying to hold back traffic. "Louise, stay calm." she said. "Don't fuss. We don't want any particulars, no denials, no explanations. We simply want you to know that we're not idiots, and we would rather die than have the prince believe our family is one of cheats. We are honest people. So we caught the prince as he was coming down the stairs this morning, pulled him into his own study, and told him everything, including our suspicions about, well—"

She halted, let out a breath. "Louise, he is not a fool. He was very guarded when we spoke to him; he knew something. And his uncle was downright hostile yesterday. The rest of the world be hanged—"

This was strong language for her mother. "But one simply cannot deal with good, intelligent people in any other manner than with decent behavior and straightforward talk."

Louise's mother seemed to have to gather her thoughts again, then said in a rush, "It was difficult. Please understand that your father and I love you very much, and that essentially we are proud of you. Nothing has changed. You are going to make a stupendous marriage, just as you deserve. But we want to play safe, darling, just as we always have with you. You are our treasure, and I don't want any bad talk or bad feelings, if you know what I mean."

Louise didn't exactly, though she was so disconcerted that her parents had even an inkling of what she had been about on the ship, she wasn't going to ask for clarification.

Her mother suddenly smiled through all this and said, "Anyway, I can't tell you how fabulously the prince took our revelations. These French." She laughed. "So incredibly broad-minded. He said he didn't mind a little spirit in a wife and that he was committed to you. to us, and would stand by you. Now listen to me."

Louise could hardly do anything else. Her face had gone from cold to hot. She looked away, humiliated to have so underestimated her parents. Honest. Yes. Her pasha had called
her
this. Yet she had not even given honesty a thought when it had come to this new beginning to her life. Here was one of the reasons perhaps that she was uncomfortable with the kindness the prince showed her at every opportunity. This notion—comfort through honesty—swam around in the muddle of her brain.

Her mother's voice continued. "Here is what we have devised, Louise. For form's sake, we will continue outwardly to prepare for a wedding, but the prince has agreed to take you off to Grasse in two weeks in an elopement. We didn't know what else to do, but marriage we think is the safest, surest refuge for a young girl who is, well, um, for you, that is." Her mother's voice caught. "I had so hoped for a big, beautiful wedding, but—" She stopped.

Louise didn't know what to say, where to look. Neither of them spoke for a full minute.