Perfect (18 page)

T  H  I  R  T  Y  -  S  E  V  E  N

The following day, I was ready to move to the next stage. I had a fairly good fix on the social schedule for the week, thanks to the bugs I’d planted in Constantin’s house. He and Tremaine were going to a dressy cocktail party that night with a number of friends. (I knew it was dressy because according to one of their maids, Sebastian planned to wear his kilt and she hadn’t pressed it properly, the first or second time, and it had almost reduced him to tears.)

More importantly, just this morning, I’d learned that they were hosting a small, formal dinner dance at their chalet on Thursday. Today was Monday. They had to invite me.

I stopped working early enough to go for a walk on my snowshoes. My proficiency had increased dramatically since that first sortie when I thought I would die from the exertion. I was now able to make it to the top of my drive with only two stops for oxygen and then, instead of turning down the road toward the Naxos castle and Schloss Constantin, I turned uphill and pushed myself for what I think would be a city block or two. It was extremely hard, but very healthy work and there was a little turnout at the top where, if it weren’t snowing too hard, I could see the entire valley from one end to the other. It was completely surrounded by mountains and every now and then you could hear the boom of dynamite echoing off the valley walls as the avalanche crews worked to keep the piste clear and safe. On the valley floor, I could see the train tracks come around a bend along the river at one end, and the heliport on its raised platform at the other. One day I watched a large, heavily loaded sledge drawn by four horses make its way slowly along a service road next to the tracks and then disappear from sight at the end of the valley.

Snowshoeing home downhill was my favorite part of this sport—I could almost run—and by the time I got there, I was out of breath and my cheeks were red with exertion. I was becoming extremely fit. Thomas would be so proud.

Thomas.

I left my snowshoes, poles, and boots at the kitchen door for Barnhardt to stow and padded in for a steam bath. By the time I was out, the Japanese masseuse, Yoshi, was set up and waiting, ready to give me a massage and an Energy Salt-Glow Rub, designed to invigorate even the most sluggish metabolism.

“This too hard, Highness?” she asked. She hardened her hands into sharp little hatchets and threw herself into a high-speed chop-chop of all the muscles from my neck to the soles of my feet as though she were a human jackhammer.

“Ow,” I yelled.

“This good for princess. Almost finish.” She started her third lap down my back, looking for a spot that didn’t already have a hematoma. “Okay, that done.”

She gently rubbed on a refreshing tonic from stem to stern and it made my skin come alive, as though she’d covered me with Alka-Seltzer.

“Very nice.” I groaned and relaxed.

“You like?”

“Umm. Very nice.”

“Now nice swishing.”

“Swishing?” I mumbled. It sounded either slightly suspicious, a little illicit—as though she were going to take feathers and tickle me—or completely delicious. I was way off base. She delicately took a bundle of willow branches in each hand, and
thwack!
She started whipping me!

“Ow!” I yelled again.

She was such a tiny, pretty thing, how could she be so mean? And hit so hard?

“Swishing good for princess. Wake up nerves.” The branches flailed down on my back, bottom, and thighs. “All done. Now Salt-Glow, then we done. Salt-Glow make skin beautiful. Soft.”

“Un-huh.” I pulled the sheet around me and started to get up. “You know what, Yoshi? I think my skin is fine—it’s soft and beautiful enough.”

She pushed me back down. “No. No. You see. Just a little rub. Then we all done.”

Reluctantly, I lay back down and just surrendered myself to the pain as she scrubbed handfuls of grainy black sea salt over my entire body, ripping off my epidermis.

At least the whole procedure only lasted an hour.

“See tomorrow?” she asked brightly.

“Tomorrow,” I moaned. “But much more gentle.”

“You want seaweed mud wrap tomorrow? Very nutritional to skin.”

“No. I want a regular massage with rosemary or lavender oil. Something gentle and fragrant.”

She shrugged and nodded. “Okay. Seaweed better for you.”

I’m a fast learner—I had a seaweed mud wrap once and it was terrific except that once the masseuse had gotten me all smeared with foul-smelling black goo, and bundled up in three sheets and covered with an electric blanket turned on high, she said, “Did they tell you you’ll smell a little like seaweed for a couple of days?” I wouldn’t fall into that trap again.

“Good-bye, Yoshi.”

I hobbled into the bathroom, where I took a cool, needley shower that stung my poor skin and made me wail. Mind you, I didn’t
like
the rough massage and cold shower, but if I were going to have the energy to make it through the afternoon and evening, I needed a wake-up call, not a warm-and-fuzzy. Finally, wrapped in a cozy white robe, I sat down at my dressing table with a small coupe de Champagne as a réstoratif and began my toilette.

Robert Constantin had been making his daily grand entrances. Today, it was my turn.

I swabbed my face with a cucumber refresher and patted cream around my eyes. I watched the news while I applied an antiwrinkle gel, after which I pinched my cheeks to give them some extra color and gave my whole face a vigorous rub.

My former nemesis, Giovanna MacDougal, had left her travels with the queen to cover a much juicier story back in London that had to do with a movie star who’d murdered her husband’s lover. A different SkyWord reporter, a middle-aged man, had been assigned to the queen and the royal entourage’s world tour.

“We are here in Victoria, in the tiny island nation of the Seychelles, where Her Majesty has just arrived for a two-day visit en route to India.”

She would wear the parure on Sunday at the Delhi Durbar.

I watched her get off her plane and greet the president and receive a bouquet of tropical flowers from a little girl in native dress. The queen had on what looked like a light cotton dress and a large straw hat. She smiled in her kind, genuine way and accepted the bouquet while her entourage assembled the required distance behind her. There was Prince Phillip, still, at eighty-three, one of the most handsome men in the world, and her ladies-in-waiting and . . . Thomas? What?

What was he doing in the Seychelles with Queen Elizabeth? He was supposed to be looking for me in the Swiss Alps. He was my backup in case anything went wrong. But there he was in his rumpled winter suit in that terrible heat, his white hair blowing in the island breeze, squinting into the sun, smiling and having a little tête-à-tête with one of the security men.

Oh, Thomas Curtis. Why did I let you talk me into this? “Goddamn it,” I yelled at him. I threw my hairbrush as hard as I could at the television set but it bounced ineffectively off the edge of the tub and fell disappointingly to the floor.

What was all that business with the special cell phone and numbers? Call me and I’ll be there in an instant, he’d said. He lied.

Men.

Did the absence of a safety net mean I was going to walk away from the heist? Not a chance. I’d never had a knight in shining armor before so it made no difference if Thomas were on hand to bolster me up or not. I’d worked my brain and my fingers to the bone preparing for this caper and I’d see it through. I didn’t want to be a thief anymore and I didn’t want Tremaine to be one either—if he was one in the first place. I intended to catch him, or whoever it was, red-handed and see him brought to justice. And furthermore, I intended to retrieve the queen’s jewelry and return it to her personally because she was a nice person and didn’t deserve to be a target for a greedy servant, even if he was a charmer like Sebastian Tremaine.

I had another glass of Champagne. I’d think about Thomas later. Right now, I had to get back to my own deal. I had some hills to climb.

“Hello, Black Diamond.” I patted her neck and stroked her jaw. “Is it all right to feed her these? Does she like apples?” I asked Barnhardt.

“Very much.”

She carefully removed them from my flattened hand.

“Would you like to start out again?” he said.

“I would.” I climbed up next to him and picked up the reins and wrapped them expertly in my fingers. “So?”

“Very good. Soon you’ll be driving yourself to town.”

“All right, Black Diamond. Let’s go.” I gave the reins a little shake and she set off. By now I was accustomed to her energy and managed to keep her under control all the way to the square.

It started to snow.

I knew that Constantin and Tremaine had left for the café at four-ten and so we departed a few minutes after that. I’d put on what I considered my maximum outdoor princess clothes—the capacious full-length black mink cape with its hot pink satin lining, a cerise satin blouse with a matching camisole and cashmere slacks, kid gloves, lots of pearls and one of my very favorite pieces of jewelry, which I’d bought at an auction and paid almost 400,000 euros for—a large diamond bow pin—very similar to Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot diamond brooch. I pinned it to the side of my black mink hat. Heads turned from every direction when we entered the square in our fancy red-and-gold sleigh drawn by our rare black Clydesdale.

“Kahlua café, Princesse?” the waiter asked, as he did every day.

“S’il vous plait.”
I picked up my book. I could feel Tremaine’s eyes on my jewelry and Robert Constantin’s eyes on my face. Constantin himself got up from his table and headed in my direction.

I sipped my drink. I was ready to be kind and gracious.

Suddenly I heard a man’s voice.

“Margaret!” he said. “I heard you were here!”

And then his arms circled me from behind the patio railing and gave me a huge hug around my neck and a kiss on my cheek.

I turned to see who it was.

It was George Naxos.

T  H  I  R  T  Y  -  E  I  G  H  T

“George! Alma!” I jumped to my feet.

My arrival might have had the effect of turning heads, but the appearance of George and Alma Naxos had the effect of lighting a bonfire—the real king and queen of Mont-St.-Anges had arrived. Alma looked as regal as ever in a black mink hat and lap robe, a Tyrolean red melton jacket with gaily colored braid, a matching red cashmere scarf around her neck, and colorful peasant-style earrings almost the size of brooches, encrusted with multi colored precious and semiprecious stones. George led the way while their butler, Cookson, pushed her wheelchair through the café entrance and out onto the patio and up to my table. This was an incredible honor to have them come to me—way above and beyond their commitment to aid and abet my mission.

Constantin stopped in his tracks, and stretched out his arms in welcome, a huge smile on his face. He waited for them to get settled.

The waiter delivered the Naxoses’ Kahlua cafés in record time. I was surprised Alma let George have anything so fattening. She lit a cigarette and leaned toward me, taking me in from top to bottom with those large almost almond-shaped, dark blue eyes.

“Impressive outfit,” she whispered. “Any progress?”

“I believe so. When did you arrive?”

“This morning. Can you come to dinner tonight? I want to hear all about everything.”

“Do you mind if I let you know in a while?” I answered. “I think Robert Constantin was just about to invite me to join them.”

She smiled conspiratorially and raised her eyebrows slightly. “Oh, by all means—in any case, it will be just the three of us, if you come. I need an early night to recover from the trip.”

“Did you fly in on your helicopter?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Naturally.”

I shook my head. “Too much.”

Alma laughed. “Not for the fainthearted, but frankly, if I die, I die. I don’t mind.”

Well, I thought, that was definitely the right mind-set.

“Now,” she continued in her regular voice, “with regard to tomorrow—”

Robert leaned down and kissed Alma. There was such affection in their greeting that I realized they were much better friends than Alma had indicated to me in Paris when she’d acknowledged she knew him but was noncommittal beyond that.

“My precious girl,” he said. “Let me look at you—you are more beautiful than ever.”

Her whole face lit up.

George and Robert shook hands warmly and embraced each other.

“Let me introduce you to one of our oldest friends,” George said. “Margaret Romaniei. Incredibly this is her first visit to Mont-St.-Anges. Margaret, Robert Constantin.”

“Margaret.” He took my hand and kissed it. “Welcome.”

“Thank you, Mr. Constantin.”

He covered my hand with his and I felt as though I were surrounded by a soft, warm electronic field. He looked into my eyes and there was an amazing connection. I felt a zingy, tingling sensation as though Champagne bubbles were fizzing around me, tickling my nose and teasing my ears.

“Why haven’t we met before?” he said. “I thought I’d met all the most beautiful women in the world. Why haven’t I met you?”

I know my cheeks colored. “I don’t know what to say. You’re embarrassing me.”

“I was just about to try to convince Margaret to come to our gin rummy party tomorrow night, Robert,” said Alma guilelessly. “She says she can’t but we need her. She’s an excellent player, very competitive. Maybe you can talk her into it.”

Alma was as good a liar as I was.

“I could certainly use you on my team—Sebastian’s hopeless.” He still had a hold of my hand. “You will come, won’t you?”

I hesitated. I knew my expression was innocent. “I’m not sure—I have a lot of work to do and I’ve been staying in.”

“That’s practically a crime in Mont-St.-Anges,” Constantin said. “Unless you’re here to convalesce. Are you?”

I shook my head. “No, no. I’m a painter. I’m getting ready for a show, and I’m very far behind.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that George, who was still standing, was taking advantage of Alma’s attention to our busy conversation to eat the flaky little chocolate-tipped almond tuille cookies that came with Kahlua cafés. He glanced sidelong at the waiter and a new batch materialized instantly.

“Well, if you’re that far behind,” Robert said to me, “you might as well come to dinner with Sebastian and me tonight. We’re going to the Shaw’s for an early supper. Of course everything’s insanely early here because practically everyone, except for Alma and I, gets up at the crack of dawn to ski. Are you a skier?”

I shook my head.

“Good. So a late night shouldn’t bother you at all. Have you been to the disco yet?”

“No.”

He frowned. “This is outrageous. Do you like to dance?”

“I love to dance.”

“Okay, it’s done. After dinner, we’ll go to the Rialto. Alma, are you and George going to the Shaw’s?”

I figured out that Robert and George had an understanding: He kept Alma occupied to give George a chance to eat as many cookies as he wanted without getting yelled at.

“Not tonight, my darling boy. But we’ll see you tomorrow evening at eight.”

“We’ll be there. It was an honor to meet you, Margaret, and I’ll call for you at seven tonight. Where are you staying?”

“I’ve rented Schloss Alexander next door to the Naxoses for a couple of months,” I answered.

“No! That’s right up the hill from my house.”

“It is?”

“Yes. You know the chalet across the road from George and Alma’s? The one with the red mailbox?”

I nodded.

“That’s mine.”

“Small world,” I said.

“See you tomorrow, George,” Constantin said, and winked at him. “Are we still on for lunch?”

“Noon. Main dining room.”

Robert nodded, slapped him on the shoulder, and returned to Sebastian Tremaine and their table of friends.

For the next hour, our corner of the terrace was mobbed with members and guests wanting to welcome George and Alma back to Mont-St.-Anges. I smiled and participated as best I could but the fact was, no one was really interested in me or who I was or what I did, they were just being nice because they wanted to get close to Alma and George.

The whole time, Alma took little swipes at George, who’d ordered a Napoleon. Poor George. He was the richest man in the world but nevertheless was completely tyrannized by his invalid chain-smoking wife. What a horrible way to live, to have someone after you about your weight all the time. Didn’t she get it? The more she harped at him the more upset he got and the more he ate.

As we were leaving, once George and the butler had gone through the ballet of lifting Alma into her sleigh, she leaned down and whispered to me, “Look out for Robert Constantin. He swings both ways with equal enthusiasm.”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll keep my eyes on his hands. But frankly, Alma, it doesn’t make any difference if he swings ten ways to Sunday, with all the groupies and opera junkies around him all the time, he’s not going to spend his time on a woman my age.”

Alma shook her head. “I wouldn’t count on it. He has no discretion. He’s as bad as a dog.”

Well. Excuse me? I watched their sleigh pull away and worked to keep my jaw shut when all it really wanted to do was drop open. That wasn’t very nice, was it? I might be a certain age and I might be wholesome but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a man would need to put a bag over my head in order to make a pass at me.

That Alma. She was a liar and she had a mean streak. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her on my team or not. She’d better not start making cracks about my weight or I’d . . . what? I’d what? Slap her silly? Don’t be ridiculous.