The Poet Prince (16 page)

“You hurt him, Maureen, remember? You insisted on separation from him, and he was destroyed when you did.”

“Uh-huh. He was so destroyed that he fathered a child with Vittoria during those months apart as an act of consolation. Must be a European custom I am unfamiliar with.”

Tammy looked annoyed. “He made a mistake. And there’s a child as a result of that mistake, which isn’t the kid’s fault.”

Maureen shook her head, “No, of course it isn’t. If the baby is Bérenger’s, he needs to take responsibility for it and be a father to him.”

“And what are you going to do?”

Maureen shook her head. “It depends on what Bérenger does. He is denying that he ever slept with Vittoria at all, but I don’t believe it. I know him too well and I can tell when he is lying to me. I would rather
he was honest and just owned up to his mistake. And incidentally, why would Vittoria lie about it?”

“Are you kidding? I can think of over a billion reasons why she would lie about it.”

Maureen shook her head. “She’s an heiress on both sides, and she has a career that pays well on top of that. Money isn’t her motivation. And if you had seen her . . . I can’t explain it, Tammy, but there was something in the way she looked at me when she delivered that envelope. It wasn’t evil, exactly, but it was the look of a woman who was very determined to accomplish a mission. And at that moment, hurting me was her only mission. Otherwise, why choose my birthday and a very public place to make her appearance?”

“That bitch,” Tammy snapped. “I’m so sorry you had to endure that. But you’re right, it was carefully calculated. Sounds like jealousy to me. Half the socialites in Europe despise you for snagging Bérenger out from under them. Don’t take it too personally.”

“I’m trying not to . . .” Maureen stopped midsentence when she noticed that a strange look had come over Tammy’s face. Without another word, Tammy dashed past Maureen and into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Maureen could hear Tammy retching, suddenly and violently. Worried, Maureen knocked after a moment.

“You okay?”

She heard the water running and shortly thereafter Tammy emerged, face wet.

“What is it the old wives say when they tell their tales? That the sicker you are, the more likely it is to be a boy? Or is it a girl? I can never remember.”

Maureen screamed and threw her arms around her friend.

“Why didn’t you tell me!”

“The timing didn’t seem to be so great. I didn’t think the word
baby
was one you needed to hear at the moment. But . . . I am telling
you now.”

The two women embraced warmly as Maureen showered Tammy with questions, which she answered patiently. Yes, she and Roland were
extremely happy even though the pregnancy was unplanned and unexpected. Yes, Bérenger knew and he had been instructed not to say a word to Maureen, which was killing him, but Tammy had wanted to tell her in person. And yes, Tammy felt this sick pretty much all the time but hoped that once she entered her second trimester, she would feel better.

And yes, they had a wedding to plan for the early summer, before Tammy got too big to wear a suitably fabulous dress.

Maureen left Tammy in the hotel to nap and walked up the Rue de Rivoli in the rain. She passed the Louvre and the souvenir shops on her way toward the hallowed, book-filled halls of Galignani. The first English-speaking bookstore established on the Continent, in 1801, Galignani had been Maureen’s literary addiction since her first visit to Paris as a teenager. Here she was able to find treasure within pages devoted to great European characters throughout history, often coming across rare jewels for research that were unavailable to her in American bookstores.

As she approached Galignani, Maureen pulled up short with a little, involuntary squeal. There in the window of the most elegant English-speaking bookstore in continental Europe was the British edition of her latest book,
The Time Returns
. Her own novel was on a shelf adjacent to an annotated version of
The Collected Works of Alexandre Dumas,
and just below Emily Brontë’s romantic masterpiece,
Wuthering Heights
. Hoping that the rain would mask her unexpected tears, she stood before the window for another minute to take it all in. To be on a shelf with Dumas and Brontë in this place . . . well, it was more than she could ask for, the perfect realization of her dream to become an author since she won her first writing competition as a child. Dumas was one of her literary heroes; Maureen had cut her teeth on the adventures of D’Artagnan and the Musketeers, the Count of Monte Cristo, and the unfortunate Man in the Iron Mask. And Emily Brontë had made
her weep for hours at a time, as she had so many young women since the publication of her classic romance. Maureen had even memorized pieces of the heart-wrenching story of Heathcliff and Cathy, wondering if that kind of undying and epic passion could ever really exist in the modern world we live in.

He shall never know how I love him . . . because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. . . . He’s always, always in my mind—not as a pleasure . . . but as my own being. . . . Haunt me, drive me mad. . . . Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! . . . I 
cannot
live without my life! I
cannot
live without my soul!

So beautiful, yet so heartbreaking. Why was love so often accompanied by pain? Why were the tragic romances the ones that we remembered and cherished above all others? It was the star-crossed who resonated somewhere in the deepest places of our spirit.

Maureen had the briefest vision then of Bérenger Sinclair’s aristocratic face, accompanied by the fleeting knowledge of something more, something about the past and a promise, something sacred and eternal.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same . . .

“Yes, they are,” she whispered to herself. That was the one thing of which she was certain. No matter what Bérenger may have done in the past, she knew with all her heart and soul that he loved her and that she loved him. This would be her challenge, and she knew it: could she allow love to matter above and beyond the challenges that they were going to face in the spotlight of this new scandal?

She closed her umbrella and turned her own face up to the sky, allowing the light rain to come down on her for a moment. There were times in our lives when we simply needed to surrender to the power of something that is greater than our limited humanity. God had a plan, and he was kind enough in his love and grace to give Maureen signs
along the way that she was on the right track. Today was one of those days, and this was one of those moments that kept her going when faith in many things still so unknown and unknowable was all she had.

“Thank you,” she whispered up to the sky, as a ray of sun broke through the clouds. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but it appeared to specifically illuminate the cover of her book about love, where it sat in the window on a Parisian street.

Château des Pommes Bleues
Arques, France
present day

T
HE SPEAR OF DESTINY
.

It was the legendary weapon of Longinus the Centurion, used to pierce the side of the crucified Christ. Bérenger Sinclair had devoted a portion of his library to this artifact, as it had obsessed him since he was a teenager. He possessed every book that had ever been written about it in multiple languages, had participated in research teams to authenticate items that claimed to be authentic pieces of the spear, and even had multiple replicas created and displayed.

It was one of the greatest legends in Christian history, and now he had a chance to go directly to the source to find the truth. Destino could tell him what had happened to the real Spear of Destiny. But would he divulge such a secret after all this time?

The spear had become an object of questing through history, in the same category as the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant, only
the spear was believed to have extreme powers of negative influence; some even said that it was possessed by an evil demon. Evil or not, it was coveted by military leaders who believed that ownership of the weapon would bring them victory in their battles. Legend claimed that Charlemagne had used the spear as his secret talisman to win more than forty battles, until the greatest of all European emperors dropped
the spear on the battlefield during his forty-eighth skirmish. It was lost to him underfoot in the melee. It was a fatal loss, as Charlemagne died in that same battle. His fate enhanced the legendary status of the great artifact. It was now understood that possession of the Spear of Destiny could lead to unlimited victory, even conquest of the world. But to lose it would prove fatal to the man who allowed it to slip through his hands.

Most famously, Adolf Hitler had coveted the spear and had been committed to obtaining it for the Nazis. Hitler told a story about viewing the artifact for the first time while visiting the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Austria. He was literally entranced by it, feeling as if he were losing consciousness as the power of the spear reached out to him. Hitler had been quoted as saying, “I felt as though I myself had held it before in some earlier century of history. That I myself had once claimed it as my talisman of power and held the destiny of the world in my hands.”

Following that experience, Adolf Hitler had become obsessed with the Spear of Destiny. He believed that possession of it was necessary for him to succeed in his goals of domination. Some said that acquiring the spear was his single greatest personal fixation. Immediately after bringing Austria under Nazi control in 1938, Hitler demanded that the spear be brought to him in Nuremberg. As the Allies gained ground in Europe, he had the spear moved into an underground bunker built specifically to protect it and the rest of his collection of artifacts. In 1945, American forces took control of the bunker and confiscated the Spear of Destiny. Within two hours, Adolf Hitler was dead.

The American military leader of the time General George Patton became convinced that the power of the spear was real, and he studied it in depth, tracing its history and telling its tales. He even wrote poetry about it. But the Spear of Destiny was eventually returned with the rest of the Hofburg collection to the museum in Austria, where it remained.

Bérenger Sinclair had been part of a research team in Vienna that worked to evaluate the age and authenticity of the Spear of Destiny in the Hofburg collection a decade earlier. That research had been financed by Vittoria Buondelmonti’s mother, the Baroness von Haps
burg, who had also secured Bérenger’s participation on the team alongside her daughter. It was where they first met; in fact Bérenger and Vittoria had become quite close during that summer in Austria. Despite the twenty-year age difference between the young beauty and the Scottish oil billionaire, Vittoria’s family was more than eager to broker a wedding between the two. It was a match made in secret society heaven, one which would combine the wealthiest and most pristine bloodlines—and help to contain some of the deepest held secrets—in Europe. Further, there was real compatibility between Bérenger and Vittoria, at least on the surface. She was deeply immersed in the research and they shared a passion for religious artifacts and their potential application to family histories.

There had been high drama around the results of the scientific testing, as it was ultimately determined that the Hofburg spear was not old enough to be the authentic weapon once wielded by Longinus the Centurion. The metal could not have been forged prior to the seventh century. No one was more bitterly disappointed than the baroness herself, who held it as a point of honor that the Hapsburgs had been in possession of this spear for hundreds of years. Bérenger remembered that Vittoria had been emotional about the results as well; she had wept when it was determined that the Hofburg spear was a fake at worst, a replica at best.

When the research project had ended, Bérenger returned to France and Vittoria to Italy. He had no interest in pursuing a relationship with the girl, as that was what she was—a girl. He appreciated her beauty and spirit, but she was half his age at that time. He had watched with interest as her career in the fashion industry catapulted her to the covers of magazines worldwide, but he did not see her again until that fateful meeting in Cannes almost three years ago.

He was thinking about that encounter as his phone rang.

“What the hell are you playing at, Vittoria?” Bérenger snapped as he recognized the phone number. He had been trying to get her on the line for hours and had barraged her with messages since his upsetting conversation with Maureen.

“I’m not playing at anything. It’s true. Dante is your son.”

“I am not an idiot. The dates don’t match. He was born on the first of January, two years ago. The last time you and I were together was that previous May in Cannes. Nice effort, but it doesn’t add up. It means you were already pregnant when you seduced me.”

Vittoria clucked at him, completely unfazed. “Seduced you? Come now, Bérenger. You make it sound like it was a strategy, an effort. Difficult even. Don’t pretend there hasn’t always been chemistry with us.”