Dangerous to Know (36 page)

Lifting my glass, I took a sip of champagne and shifted on the sofa making myself more comfortable.

Vivienne, who had been watching me alertly, exclaimed, “You’re not going to stop, are you, Countess Zoe? I want to hear the rest of your story.

Please.”

“Then you shall, Vivienne,” I said. “I am going to tell you everything things no one else has ever heard.”

i-i’

I “It was in London that I started my second life, Vivienne. And it was much happier than my first, thanks in no small measure to my Aunt Bronagh.

“She was my mother’s younger sister and an actress. When she lived in New York she had worked with a small theater company in Greenwich Village. And it was there that she met a young English actor named Jonathan St. James. They had fallen in love, and when he returned to England in 1933 she had gone with him. They had been married for five years when I arrived to stay with them.

“The moment I walked into their little house in Pimlico my spirits lifted. It was a warm, cozy place, almost like a doll’s house, and Jonathan St. James made me feel welcome and at home. Like Bronagh he was in his late twenties and the two of them were full of vitality, high spirits, and somewhat bohemian in their lifestyle. They were crazy about each other and the theater, and both were working in plays in the West End. Naturally, they were in their element. Their happiness and gaiety was infectious and I soon felt much better, better than I had since my early childhood when my father was still alive.

They were loving with each other and with me.

“Slowly my health improved; my broken spirit began to heal. And Bronagh restored my soul. Sympathetic by nature, she had an under standing heart; gradually, I started to confide in her. Things came out slowly, little by little. Within three months she knew the whole story of my life, and she was enraged. ‘You’re not going back there, Mary Ellen. I swear to God it’ll be over my dead body if you do.

Mary, Mother of Jesus! It’s criminal, what’s been done to you, sure an’ it is, mavourneen.” Jonathan, who by this time knew everything from Bronagh, agreed that I must not return to New Jersey under any circumstances .

“But no one seemed in much of a hurry to get me back, including my mother. Of course I knew that in her case she was protecting me, trying to keep me out of harm’s way. She wrote to me regularly and never failed to tell me she loved me, and I did the same, sending her a letter once a week.

“At the end of six months in London I was a different person.

Bronagh and Jonathan had truly worked miracles. They had cossetted and pampered me and it showed. I had put on weight; there was flesh on my bones at last. I had grown taller and my figure was willowy. The bloom was on the rose, as Bronagh kept saying to me.

“But most importantly, because of Bronagh and Jonathan I felt safe, more secure than I had for years. I was no longer cowed and scared, fearful of being beaten or abused. The fear I had lived with for so long finally diminished and I came to understand that one day it would vanish completely.

“Once I had believed that the only way out of my torment was to die. I had been a mere child of thirteen when I had contemplated suicide, Vivienne, that was part of the tragedy. You see, I had had no childhood.

“But I turned a corner during those first few months in London. I was aware that I could become a whole new person, have a new identity , start again. -“That summer Bronagh found me a job through a friend of hers. I became a dancer in a cabaret in the West End. Because of my height and slender figure I made the perfect showgirl.

“I loved it all-the glamour, the costumes, the crowds, the glitter of the footlights. I had found my true metier. The stage was mine.

It meant everything to me. It became my entire world. I put death and heartbreak behind me; I reached out for life.

“Since I was living in a brand new world I needed a brand new name.

Discarding Mary Ellen Rafferty, which only reminded me of my pain and humiliation, I invented a new one for myself.

‘Zoe Lysle. That is who I became. With this new name I acquired a different persona. Zoe had never been touched or damaged; she was clean, pure, whole. And every night when I stepped out onto the stage in my fine feathers I was reborn. I soared.

“I missed my mother, I worried about her, and I had moments of sadness when I thought about my baby who had died at birth. But these moments were fleeting. After all, I was only sixteen. I had started my life again … as Zoe. I looked forward always, never back.

“I did not hear from my husband and I was relieved he had remained silent for so long. When I had first arrived in London I had worried that he would eventually drag me back to America. But as the summer passed and there was no word from him I began to relax.

“Then on September the third, 1939, Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. The world turned upside down. The war years in London were extraordinary-full of hardships and danger because of the constant air raids. But I came through them relatively unscathed.

“After America entered the war in 1941, American troops started to flood into Britain. Every time I saw a Gil was scared to look at his face in case it was my stepfather. But he did not show up in London, although I knew from my mother that Thommy had joined the U.S. Army.

“As for my husband, I didn’t know what had actually happened to him. He had sold the farm in Somerset County, divorced me, and had the legal papers sent to me in 1940, in care of Bronagh. I never heard from him again.

“Being a showgirl I had many admirers and went out with some of them.

But I was forever wary, always on my guard, determined that I would not be exposed to the heartlessness of others ever again.

“However, in 1943 I met an English officer in the Coldstream Guards. He was the Honorable Harry Robson, a captain in the army and the son of an English lord. Harry’s father had been married three times and his last wife, Harry’s mother, had been an American heiress with a railroad fortune at her disposal. When she died in 1940 Harry had inherited everything.

“I was twenty-one when Harry and I started going out together. He was twenty-eight. Harry was bowled over by me the first time we met, and I was rather taken with him. He was pleasant to look at and in his demeanor, the first kind man I had met other than Jonathan St. James.

“Encouraged by Bronagh and Jonathan I accepted Harry’s proposal.

We were married in 1944. At the time he insisted I retire from the stage and I had been happy to do so.I had grown accustomed to men ogling me. But in all truth, Vivienne, there was often a knot of fear inside when I sensed instinctively that I had attracted someone who might be difficult to handle. Curiously enough, loving the stage though I had, I never missed it.

“Md so my third life began, Vivienne. Harry and I had five years together. They were good years. I was devoted to him. I know I made him happy; he gave me security and protection and a great deal of love.

“Harry was crossing Oxford Street in 1949 when he was knocked down by a double-decker bus. He died of massive internal injuries a week later. I was grief stricken. I had loved Harry, in my own way, and —’- S I knew I would miss this gentle, generous man who had been so good to me.

“After the funeral I went into mourning, kept to myself, and wondered what to do with the rest of my life. I was twenty-seven and Harry had made me a wealthy woman. I was his sole their.

“I had no wish to return to America. There was nothing there for me. My mother had died not long after I had married Harry. It was a year after I was widowed that I decided to take a vacation in Paris.

Almost at once I knew I would make it my permanent home. I did so and disappeared from the London scene forever.

“I began my fourth life when I married Edouard, but then you know a good deal about that life, Vivienne, and what happened to me in the intervening years. As I already told you, Sam Loring showed up in Paris in 1983 and blackmailed me to the tune of one hundred thousand dollars because of my affair with Joe Anthony, or rather, Sebastian Locke. I paid because I wanted to protect my family, even though I knew that it was risky to do so. Loring could come back at any time and demand more money.

“However, a few days after I had paid Loring I began to worry about another matter, one that had more serious implications than black mail.

I decided to go to America to check out something for myself.

When I told Edouard that I had family business to attend to in the States he suggested I go alone. At eighty-six he did not feel like traveling any more.

“I flew to New York and went straight to the Pierre Hotel, where I had booked a suite. The following day I hired a private investigator to do the work I required. It did not take him long. Within forty-eight hours he brought me the information I needed.

“What I had dreaded and feared was true. For several days I was in shock and incapable of thinking straight. But as the shock receded I filled with enormous rage. For the first time in my life I wanted to kill somebody . .

I realized that I could not continue.

A wave of emotion swept over me, and I was held in the grip of that terrible fury I had experienced twelve years ago. I was trembling in side.

“The rage has never really left me,” I said at last, looking at Vivienne, holding her with my eyes. “Nor have I ever lost the desire to kill that man.”

“Which man? Who do you mean, Countess Zoe?”

“Cyrus Locke.”

“Cyns? But why? Because of Loring? Because Cyrus sent Loring to follow Sebastian all those years ago, when you met him in Cannes?”

“No, Vivienne, this has nothing to do with Loring. In a way he was a godsend, coming to me when he did. He helped me without even realizing it, helped me to avert a great tragedy.”

A puzzled expression crossed Vivienne’s face. “I’m sorry Countess Zoe, but I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

“Of course you’re not,” I said and stopped.

My throat suddenly constricted, I could feel the tears welling behind my eyes and I had begun to shake uncontrollably.

Taking a deep breath, I clasped my hands together to steady myself, but my voice quavered as I saNew York and went straight to the Pierre Hotel, where I had booked a suite. The following day I hired a private investigator to do the work I required. It did not take him long.

Within forty-eight hours he brought me the information I needed.

“What I had dreaded and feared was true. For several days I was in shock and incapable of thinking straight. But as the shock receded I filled with enormous rage. For the first time in my life I wanted to kill somebody . .

I realized that I could not continue.

A wave of emotion swept over me, and I was held in the grip of that terrible fury I had experienced twelve years ago. I was trembling in side.

“The rage has never really left me,” I said at last, looking at Vivienne, holding her with my eyes. “Nor have I ever lost the desire to kill that man.”

“Which man? Who do you mean, Countess Zoe?”

“Cyrus Locke.”

“Cyns? But why? Because of Loring? Because Cyrus sent Loring to follow Sebastian all those years ago, when you met him in Cannes?”

“No, Vivienne, this has nothing to do with Loring. In a way he was a godsend, coming to me when he did. He helped me without even realizing it, helped me to avert a great tragedy.”

A puzzled expression crossed Vivienne’s face. “I’m sorry Countess Zoe, but I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

“Of course you’re not,” I said and stopped.

My throat suddenly constricted, I could feel the tears welling behind my eyes and I had begun to shake uncontrollably.

Taking a deep breath, I clasped my hands together to steady myself, but my voice quavered as I said, “Cyrus Locke was the owner of the farm in New Jersey. He was the man who abused me as a child and raped me when I was fifteen, the man who impregnated me, married me, and then discarded me like a piece of worthless garbage. And he stole my child. He told me my baby had died, but that was not the truth. My son lived. My son Sebastian.”

As I said his name the tears crept out from under my lids and slid down my cheeks. I brought my shaking hands up to my face and the tears continued to fall unchecked.

Vivienne came and sat next to me on the sofa. She took me in her arms and held me close, endeavoring to comfort me.

And I wept as I had wept in 1983, on the night I had discovered the shocking truth. And I felt as though my heart were breaking all over again, as it had done then.

t

3” Eventually I drew away from Vivienne, found a handkerchief in my pocket, and blew my nose.

Then I looked at her.

She was white-faced, and I could see the pain in her eyes.

Reaching out, I squeezed her hand. “Thank you,” I said, and before she could ask any questions I went on, “I’d like to finish my story, tell you the rest of it, Vivienne.”

She nodded. “You must.”

“Armed with Sam Loring’s information I grew suspicious when I began to focus on Joe Anthony’sag” I broke off. “I always think of him as Joe, never Sebastian. Anyway, he was twenty-two and I was thirty-eight when we met in Cannes. Sixteen years difference in age.

My mind began to race. My baby had been born on June the third, 1938.

He had died the same day, according to Cyrus Locke and the midwife who had delivered the child at the farm in New Jersey. Had my baby lived he, too, would have been twenty-two in 1960.

“It was hardly likely that Cyrus Locke had fathered two sons in 1938.

No, only mine, I reasoned. Especially since he had not married again for several years.

“The unthinkable was staring me in the face. Was it possible that my child had lived? Was it possible that Sebastian was not Hildegarde Locke’s son, but mine? And if he were, then I had given birth to a child by my own son. My daughter Ariel.

“I was horror struck, and naturally I denied it to myself for some time.

But in the end intelligence took over from emotion, and I was convinced that Cyrus Locke had lied to me all those years ago. I was haunted by the knowledge that we had committed incest, although we -had done so unknowingly. I felt as though I were living in a nightmare.