Fortune is a Woman (3 page)

"Then there's nothing more to say. The Mandarin guided our lives and we know he was right. Now he will guide Lysandra's and it is my duty to see that what he wished is done."

Grabbing her coat, Annie settled the big fur collar around her throat. "I don't want to quarrel with you, Francie Harrison, but I don't approve of it and I never will. And I'll make sure Lysandra knows where she can come when things go wrong—to her godmother, her aunt Annie, that's where!"

She flounced to the door, then hesitated, her hand on the knob. "Oh, Francie." She sighed remorsefully. "I came to comfort you and all I'm doing is upsetting you. What kind of woman am I?"

Francie smiled through her tears as they hugged each other. "You're just the same woman you always are, Annie Aysgarth, and I wouldn't want you any different."

"Just remember that the past is over, Francie. It's the future that counts."

Francie shook her head. "For the Chinese the past is still part of life."

"More's the pity," Annie Aysgarth muttered under her breath as they walked to the door.

Francie watched the taillights of her Packard disappear into the misty night. It was only nine o'clock, but California Street was deserted. Up the hill she could see the lights shining on the sidewalk outside her childhood home. Of course, it wasn't the same house, because that had been destroyed in the great earthquake in 1906, but her brother, Harry Harrison, had rebuilt the mansion immediately, "To show San Francisco and America that nothing—not even an act of God, could defeat the Harrisons," he had said.
Only Francie had ever been able to do that.

She looked down the hill at the blurred lights of San Francisco, thinking of the happy people going out to dinner or dancing or to a show, and loneliness enveloped her like the cold gray mist, chilling her very bones and making her shiver. Hurrying back inside she threw another log on the fire and curled up on the sofa, wrapping the soft paisley blanket around her. Silence settled about her like the fog; the logs crackled and the clock ticked, but there was not another sound. She might have been the last person on earth.

It was the way she always used to feel when she was a child, alone in her room in the big Harrison mansion on Nob Hill.

The lonely minutes were dragging past and she glanced at her watch. It was small and gold and simple and it had been bought for her years ago by Buck Wingate—and that was another name from the past she shouldn't be thinking of tonight. But she was. His dark, lean, handsome face swam into view in her mind as clearly as a photograph. Eight years had passed and she still thought of him every day and every night. The little portrait of the child he had given her one Christmas was still on her bedside table, his watch was on her wrist and his brand on her body. She was helpless with love for him and she hoped she would never see him again.

Hadn't the Mandarin told her before he died that she must put all that had happened behind her and go on? That she should never look back? She shook her head—it was easy to say but not easy to put into practice.

She stood up, smoothing her soft white dress over her hips and stretching. Then she walked restlessly to the window and pulled back the curtains.

Down the road every window of her brother's house blazed with light and a row of smart, chauffeured automobiles waited outside. Harry was giving another of his famous parties. She knew that despite his rumored financial troubles no expense would have been spared to achieve the perfection he demanded. The food would have been prepared by his French chef; the wines and champagnes would no doubt be the greatest vintages, the best hothouses would have been stripped of their choicest blooms and fashioned into breathtaking bouquets by a dozen fashionable florists. The footmen would be wearing the burgundy Harrison livery and the English butler, who had once worked for a duke and who was said to be more snobbish even than Harry, would announce the guests as they arrived. She knew there would be well-bred women wearing satin and lace gowns from Mainbocher and jewels from Cartier, and the men would look distinguished in black tie and tailcoats. And no doubt Harry would have the latest hopeful movie starlet by his side. And no doubt she would be working hard to please him, because even with two divorces and a reputation for being as chauvinistic as their father, her brother, with his social position and his depleted millions, was still a catch.

She closed the curtains, thinking bitterly that his timing was perfect. It almost seemed as if he were celebrating because at long last the Mandarin, Lai Tsin, was dead and could no longer tarnish the Harrison name.

CHAPTER 2

At eleven-thirty Harry Harrison said good night to his dinner guests. He gratefully watched them go, all except for Buck Wingate and his wife, Maryanne, whom he personally escorted down the marble steps to their car. The Win-gates were an old California family, rich for decades from the likes of grain and property, railroads and banking. But Maryanne's family, the Brattles, were old mainline Philadelphia and they had their money so long, no one even thought about where it came from anymore. Old money was always just there.

Buck's father had been at Princeton with Harry's father, the Wingate law practice had handled their business for years, and Buck and Harry had had a passing acquaintance all their lives, though they could never have been called friends.

He kissed Maryanne's scented cheek lightly as she stepped into the chauffeur-driven limousine, and she gave him the cool little smile that never reached her beautiful green eyes. Her blond hair lay in smooth, sculpted waves, her lips were a perfect glossy red, and her midnight-blue silk gown was uncreased. She looked as though she were just starting out the evening instead of ending it.

Harry knew Maryanne Brattle had not married Buck Wingate because he was handsome and charming and nice—and a good catch; she had married him because he was a man with his feet firmly fixed on the political road and she adored the world of politics. Her family lived and breathed politics. They had been in and out of Congress and cabinet posts for generations, though no one had ever yet made it to the presidency. And that was where Maryanne's hopes for Buck lay. He had been senator for the state of California for the past twelve years, and had held official posts under two Republican presidents. Now he was being spoken of as a future presidential candidate. It was exactly as Maryanne had planned. She had used all her power as a member of an influential political family, and all her plentiful wiles and scheming to get what she wanted.

They had a house on K Street in Georgetown, the Wingate family house outside Sacramento, a vast apartment on Park Avenue, and the imposing country estate, Broad-lands, in New Jersey hunting country, which had been left to her by her grandfather. She had two polite, good-looking children, a stable full of Thoroughbred horses, garages full of expensive cars, and acres of shady lawns for taking tea and playing croquet. Maryanne Brattle Wingate had it all. There was only one man who could stop Buck's ultimate progress to the White House, and that was Harry Harrison. Maryanne knew it and she hated him for it.

She said coldly, "Good night, Harry. I can't say I enjoyed myself. I'm afraid film folk make poor conversationalists." Glancing maliciously at the platinum-blond in the clinging silver dress waiting for him in the hall, she added, "Though I suppose Gretchen has her redeeming qualities."

"Greta," Harry corrected her, smiling and thinking what a superbitch she was. But she was smart, he had to hand her that. Just look at the way she had handled Buck's career. He could have used a wife like Maryanne instead of the two losers he had ended up with.

"Good night, Harry," Buck said, climbing thankfully into the limousine and wondering why in hell he'd just had dinner at Harry Harrison's. He was a busy man, his time was not his own and Maryanne took care of their "social" arrangements, all of which were connected with politics because there was nothing else in their lives. He glared at Maryanne as they edged from the curb. "Can you explain to me exactly
why
we spent the evening at Harry's," he said angrily. "I can't stand the man, you know that."

"I told you earlier, darling, his name still counts for a lot in San Francisco, and he had some very influential money men there tonight."

"I don't give a damn about Harry or his money men," he said coldly. "Just don't ever do that to me again."

"After all, darling, your office still takes care of his legal business. I thought it wasn't right just to ignore him," she said soothingly. "But if you dislike him that much, we won't do it again."

As they drove past Francesca Harrison's house, she noticed he turned his head to look at the lighted windows, but she made no comment.

Harry waved his hand in salute, watching as their car drove down California Street heading for the Aysgarth Arms, where they had taken the Royal Suite because Maryanne thought it bad taste to take the Presidential Suite prematurely. Down the street, lights glowed at the Fairmont and the Pacific Union Club, and at the windows of the only other private house on California Street, his sister, Francie's.

He thought of the report of the Mandarin Lai Tsin's death he'd read in the
San Francisco Examiner
earlier that day, and the speculation about the amount of his fortune. "Lai Tsin a Millionaire" it had said, and then naturally they had mentioned the old scandal about Francie and her Chinaman. The Harrison family name had been dragged through the mud one more time and he had wanted to kill her all over again. He thought bitterly that if Lai Tsin had planned to destroy him he couldn't have chosen a better time to do it, because his death was raking up the old scandal just when Harry needed to stay out of the public eye, at least until he had pulled off this coup with the oil wells.

He walked slowly up the steps, glancing briefly at Greta, the pretty young movie actress waiting in the hallway. She smiled appealingly at him, but he didn't even break his stride. "Ask Huffkins to get out the car and drive Miss Wolfe back to her hotel," he told the butler carelessly over his shoulder as he strode past her. She stared blankly after him; they had been together for three passionate weeks and she had a right to expect at least a civil good-bye, but by the time he reached his study and closed his door he had already forgotten her. Greta Wolfe was in the past.

Harry sank into the buttoned leather chair and put his feet up on the mahogany partners' desk. He was boiling with anger against his sister, Francie, and at Maryanne Brattle Wingate; one because she was a slut who had dragged his name in the dust and the other because she was snooty and unobtainable, and tonight she had let him know she still had the edge on him, despite the liveried footmen, the showy dinner, and the sumptuous flowers. And despite their complex "relationship."

Harry was a handsome man, tall, broad-shouldered, and bearded like his father. He had piercing light-blue eyes, sleek dark-blond hair that was beginning to recede, and a calculated social charm. He also had a great attraction for the opposite sex, but tonight Maryanne had sat on his right in the place of honor, ignoring the fine wines and toying with the delicious food, condescending to listen every now and again to Hollywood's most important moviemaker and owner of Magic Studios, Zev Abrams, as he engaged her in conversation.

She had turned her cool green gaze on Harry and said, "Buck and I are cutting back on our entertaining. We are going in for simple little dinners and smaller, more intimate parties. One feels, in our position, it's just a little bit in bad taste to flaunt one's wealth with the terrible Depression still so close in all our minds." And she had smiled that superior little smile. Maryanne had known the flamboyant dinner party was meant to impress her and Buck as well as the monied guests he hoped to persuade to invest in his oil wells, and she wanted to let him know she wasn't buying it. She knew he was using her and that without her he didn't stand a chance of getting his investors. And, goddamit, she was right.

Harry poured himself a brandy, swilling the rich amber liquid around the thin Baccarat crystal balloon glass.

He rested his head on the cool leather of the chair, remembering the shock of the stock market crash that had halved what was left of his assets overnight, and decimated them again a few days later. And after that had come the Depression and it had been touch and go whether his bank would survive. Oh, he hadn't been reduced to hurling himself from a Wall Street window or selling apples for ten cents on the sidewalks, but the Harrison fortune was no more. Some money still flowed in— thanks to a little stroke of luck he'd had a few years ago,
and
his own cleverness in exploiting it—but it flowed right out again into his various faltering enterprises. This time it was the oil wells; he'd been drilling for over a year day and night with no return. Money and time were running out and he needed more. And that was the reason for the fancy dinner tonight.

He gulped down his brandy, remembering the story of his grandfather and the nuggets of gold accumulating in the vaults of the California Bank and thought wryly that the old trader had been right. Gold was the only safe investment in times of trouble. But now he needed a little help. He needed capital to finance a new company prospecting for oil off the California coast and he had invited Buck Wingate to dinner to soften the other guys up for the kill. He wanted to show them that he didn't really
need
the money, he just wanted to count his old friends in on a sure thing. But Maryanne hadn't played the game properly tonight. She had acted cold and superior, like she didn't quite know what she and Buck were doing here with these inferior people. Maryanne was a bitch and he wished he had one like her.

Harry poured another brandy. He needed an alliance, not a marriage. It was time he found himself a woman with money and power and ambition. After all, look what it had done for Buck. And if his wife were as cold as Maryanne, then, like Buck, he could always take his pleasures elsewhere. He was sure women like Maryanne didn't mind that sort of thing. In fact, they probably welcomed it since it saved them the trouble of having to accommodate their husbands when they had so many other important things to do—like the children and the houses to run, and the servants, and the charity lunches, and the dressmakers, and the political meetings and functions, the fund-raising dinners and the full calendar of events on Washington's social circuit. But the bitch had given him the cold shoulder tonight when by right she should have been gazing gratefully into his eyes and telling everyone to invest in his oil wells.