The Chameleon (41 page)

“I hope they're in our favor. This is the nicest time I've had in years.”

Harrison frowned. “You can't be truly happy in this silly circus you star in.” He was convinced of it. “All these ridiculous people.” He waved the duke and duchess and French couturiers away with a vanilla cookie.

“I've given up on romantic love. So don't deny me an occasional bit of amusement. At least I get the gossip on other people's love affairs.” As she spoke she was struck by how thin the skin at his temples had become and at how deep the purplish blue shadows under his eyes had grown.

“You look tired.” She suddenly worried for real that Harrison might not be well.

“It must be the altitudes I travel in. Too much time in airplanes.”

Airplanes. Harry. It all tumbled back. “And how is everything at home?” The word still stuck in her throat.

“A total vacuum without you. I spend as little time there as I can manage. I could write my own travel book about Europe:
The Diplomat's Guide to Seven Cities in Seven Days.
”

Claire smiled briefly but as the last of the other lunchers filed out, she allowed her face to show its true feelings. “I know what you're doing is very important, but I wonder if you aren't burning yourself out. It's been three presidents now. Surely there's another brilliant right-hand man out there.” She wondered if there was really no one else who had taken
her
place. She had never let anyone else into her heart for a second.

“There's no one else willing to be away from home for months at a time.”

“Is there no one … ?”

“Only you.”

She watched his hands as they grasped his fluted glass, the same hands that had held her breasts and the same mouth that had drunk from them. She shivered.

“Are you cold? Would you like my jacket?”

“No, thanks.” A vivid vision of his jacket lying across the same armchair as her dress in their bedroom at Lake Como emerged from her disquieted mind. The good memories seemed to be stored in a more accessible place than the bad ones.

“I'm fine.” She lifted her hair to rub a place on the back of her neck in an unconscious gesture. “Really. Fine.”

“The finest woman I've ever known, Claire.” He knew before she did that she'd shake her head, draw her lips into a Mona Lisa smile, and sit up a little straighter in her chair as if correcting her posture would fix everything. When he leaned over to pick up the bill lying on the table in a leather folder, he caught a whiff of her smells of vanilla and her own sweet juices mixed with the light bouquet of a good French wine.

He picked up her hand instead of the bill and felt her squeeze his fingers back. He was surprised that she wasn't wearing her wedding ring. In fact, she didn't have a single piece of jewelry on, odd for a woman whose husband showered her with everything that shone in a jeweler's light. He lifted her naked fingers to his face, but she plunged them busily into her pocketbook.

When she pushed her sunglasses on it wasn't to keep out the late afternoon light. It was to hide the stubborn tears that wouldn't be willed away. “Let's not do this, Harrison. I'm trying so hard not to want what I can't have.” She sighed. “We have the children in common; let's make that enough. And friendship. Perhaps we can handle that.” There wasn't a trace of bitterness in her words. She was frantically trying to find a way she could preserve the glow that lit the room when they were in each other's presence. It was a feeling of excitement gilded by calm, that complicated emotion two people could share only when they had been both friends and lovers. And both could remember each other's kindnesses as well as kindled desires as clearly as they could recall favorite passages from childhood poems.

They had shared everything. The birth of Sara, the conception of Six, the war, a bed, and an undying tenderness. Surely she could find a way for them to keep each other company in their secret loneliness without removing so much as a brick from the elaborate facades they each had carefully constructed.

“Six is growing up to be so special. Sometimes I think all of this happened just so we could invent him.”

“I'd like to be around him even more. And you. Should we try?”

“As friends?”

“And parents.”

“Done.”

Two intelligent people, even if they had been in love as much as they, could certainly be “just friends.” At least Claire knew it was important to try. Six wouldn't always be a child; it was unthinkable that Harrison wouldn't be his role model. And maybe she could train herself to be satisfied just with Harrison's companionship.

“It's getting late.”

“You know I'm going to badger you about Six going to American schools.”

“We'll negotiate. Boarding school's still a few years away. We have time.”

“I promise to be patient,” the diplomat declared.

Outside, the Ritz's black-tuxedoed Hussier arranged for a car to take her to Fiumicino and her return flight to Rome. Smiling at one another, they stood there, uncertain whether to shake hands or kiss each other good-bye on the cheek European-style. The suspense left them motionless. Finally they hugged. A big, warm American hug in which she closed her eyes. In the rush-hour traffic she didn't hear him when he whispered the words, “My love.”

There was a decided skip in her step and an enigmatic smile on her face when Claire tiptoed in first to Sara and then to Six's room to kiss her children good night. She checked the safety catch on the speargun leaning against Six's stuffed sailfish and knelt on the gaily patterned carpet to roll a football back into his toy chest. Six awakened when her mouth lightly touched his warm bronzed skin.

“Did you have a nice time, Mommy?”

“The nicest. Your grandfather's promised to spend more time with us.”

When Six's lashes fluttered shut, he added the figure of his grandfather to his nine-year-old boy's dreams of soccer goals and ski trails. Looking closely at her child, she could see the man he would become. And she could see his father in him. Claire watched maternally as a sleepy smile curled across his still-childish mouth. Claire smiled too as she softly tiptoed out and closed the door to leave Six to slumber peacefully.

There was tension in the car all the way from Nice to Monte Carlo. Lorenza was riding shotgun in front of the Rolls, Claire's Vuitton travel jewel case sitting squarely in her lap, with Tutti at the wheel. Because of the servants, the Duccios quarreled in English. Claire couldn't quite grasp why her husband was so infuriated. Perhaps it was the unwieldy casino deal he was trying to control in Monaco, pitting himself in a cockfight against Ari Onassis. Or perhaps he was still sulking that Grace Kelly—and the platoon of a hundred reporters trailing her—had sailed over on the SS
Constitution
instead of his ship the
Andrea Doria.
This lost chance at world recognition for his floating investment would explain his bad temper. Claire tried to be accommodating and argued back as pleasantly as possible. The Pirate's black moods got even darker if he had nobody to argue with or nothing to shout at. As they were sitting in the backseat of a speeding Corniche, driving around hairpin curves overlooking the Mediterranean, she was his only available target. get. She wished she'd brought along a punching bag for him to abuse. Instead, she tried to distract him with humor.

“Auntie Slim sent me the funniest clipping from the Chicago
Sun-Times.
Irv Kupcinet cracked in his column, ‘It isn't the romance that interests Miss Kelly—it's the principality of the thing.’”

“Is that all your Americans think about? Marrying money!”

The arrow went where it was intended, straight to the stone heart of Claire and Duccio's arrangement. It was obvious now that their quarrel was personal. But about what? Claire wondered. She turned away to stare absently out the window at the lush scenery passing by at fifty miles an hour. Too fast for these narrow winding roads, she thought. Pine trees, cactus, cragged vertical rocks, and a vast expanse of flat azure sea commingled happily with fragrant blooms in this fairy-tale land topped off by its pink palace. Surely Duccio should be able to lighten his misdirected anger in such a lovely place. Even before their car officially entered the tiny kingdom of Monaco, all 370 acres of it, nearly the same size as the original estate grounds of Charlotte Hall, Claire could sense the joy in the air.

The Monégasques were ecstatic to be able to celebrate not one but two ceremonies, the civil ceremony in the throne room of the palace, and the following day a full Cinderella pageant at high mass in the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, the church that rose regally out of the rocky coast. At the first wedding, the Duccios stood at attention by their gold concert chairs, Fulco sullen that he didn't have a host of medals to display on the left side of his jacket like the decked-out nobility, Claire a fetching picture in a cartwheel of a wide-brimmed hat and a floral violet garden dress, her priceless pearls circling her throat. She found the bride pensive but lovely in a rose lace suit and demure Juliet cap, though afterwards at the garden reception the new Princess Grace joked to Claire that now she was only half-married. Claire realized that she felt the same way about her own marriage. Even if she'd had a second wedding in a church with a thousand people and
Look
magazine in attendance, it wouldn't have made her feel otherwise.

At the next day's religious ceremony, the American actress who had just finished starring in
The Swan,
a fairy-tale film about a girl who marries a prince, played her part for real. Hollywood designer Helen Rose costumed her in a bridal gown so lovely it had already launched a thousand copies. As soon as the color photographs appeared in
Look
and
Life,
Violet's department at Marshall Field's would be besieged by brides who coveted the twenty-five yards of silk taffeta adorned with Brussels lace and the translucent veil seeded with tiny pearls. Now, watching from her ringside seat, even Claire was misty-eyed as Mr. Kelly proudly walked his daughter down the aisle, her long train trailing behind them like an ivory ocean. It was the only thing about the bride she envied: that she had a father to give her away. The handsome prince, her very own kingdom, heirloom jewels, even her own flag to fly … Claire had had the equivalent of these and knew none of it mattered without love.

Claire hoped she hadn't overstepped her bounds when she included a heartfelt handwritten note to the princess-to-be with the six dozen hand-blown Venetian glass goblets emblazoned with the Grimaldi family crest Duccio had insisted they send. She had expressed her welcome from one American woman living abroad to another, and invited her for tea if she ever got homesick. What she didn't say was that they were both married to short Mediterranean men with tall egos, and if Grace wanted marital harmony she'd better get lots of low-heeled shoes. And what she would never hint at was that while Rainier was a prince with a kingdom, Duccio and others like him held Monaco by their purse strings. Claire knew that Duccio held a lien on its banks, if not a mortgage on the palace. Eventually Grace would discover that she was expected to help dig her tiny country out of its debt. Not only was she a brand-new princess, but she had also just become Monaco's vice president of tourism, new business, and casino gambling. CEO, if you will, of Monte Carlo's
Societé des Bains de Mer.
She would have to break bread with starstruck real estate developers from Cleveland, think fast on her feet in both French and Italian, run charity balls when all she wanted was a hamburger, and play gracious hostess to tennis champions, potential investors in Monaco's future, and Greek shipping tycoons … all the things Claire now did so effortlessly.

Claire lifted her head, looking around the reception for her husband in this sea of top hats, royal sashes, and organdy bonnets. He was talking to one of those Greek tycoons now, and his complexion was turning royal purple. She hoped Spiros wasn't setting Duccio's trigger off with his outrageous business demands. Not now, in this romantic atmosphere. Let Grace and Rainier enjoy some of the wedding's afterglow, even with the press hounds at their heels. The last time she'd run into Spiros was in front of the Ritz when Harrison was seeing her off. She disliked the troublemaking Greek hellion and had ignored him intentionally that day. She now watched as Duccio suddenly exploded in anger. He turned and stomped toward her, his twisted face a feverish barometer of his rage. Evidently she'd have to soothe whatever
fasaria
Spiros had stirred up. She straightened her posture, bracing herself for the assault, not knowing it would be directed at her.

“Sgualdrina!”
he hissed into her ear, startling Claire and the multilingual waiter behind her. “You bitch!”

Her eyes widened in shock and her open hands flew up as if to protect herself. “What on earth …”

Duccio grabbed a champagne glass from the waiter's tray. She feared he might hurl it at her, hurt her. It was almost as if he were possessed. She had never seen him this out of control.

“I do everything for you, and you dishonor me, you ungrateful whore.” He held the glass menacingly, toasting her with his venom.

“Are you drunk?” she whispered. Was he crazy? When he brought the side of his hand down, hitting her hard on the collarbone, it was such a blow that it snapped the string holding her pearls together, sending them flying out and spinning like exquisite white bullets. The pain that shot down the back of her neck was nothing compared to the insult she felt, standing there helpless as the priceless pearls rolled down the front and inside of her lilac Dior suit Claire bit her lip to stop a tear. She only wished she had on her wide-brimmed hat from yesterday and not the little cloche that left her entire face exposed.

Fortunately for her, the guests’ attention and all of the photographers were focused on the far side of the courtyard where at that precise moment, his princess by his side, Prince Rainier III deftly cut the six-tiered wedding cake with his saber.

Claire finally closed her mouth after the shock had escaped. She kneeled to gather the scattered pearls. She shuddered as she saw Duccio's shoe stop a hairline away from her fingers. His words were spoken so quietly she was sure no one but she could hear.