The Rich Shall Inherit (30 page)

“The Maître is with the Princesse de Vignes,” the vendeuse informed them loftily. “She is ordering her wardrobe for the autumn.”

“For the autumn,” Angel said, astonished. “But my goodness, it’s still only spring.”

“In Paris, mademoiselle, we order our wardrobes a season ahead. The Princesse already has her wardrobe for the summer.”

The great double doors at the far end of the salon were flung open suddenly and a stately woman wearing a navy silk coat and an enormous hat trimmed with lavish pink roses swept across the room, with the Maître himself in tow.

“Remember, Worth,” she commanded. “I shall need everything in time for my Russian trip in October. And take particular care with the sables. After all, we don’t want the Russians—
who really know about furs
—saying that M. Worth is second-best, do we?”

Her malicious laugh tinkled through the chandeliered salon as she paused and, lifting her gold lorgnette, peered first at Angel and then at Poppy.

“Who are they?” she asked the vendeuse in French.

She shrugged. “They are nobody, Princesse,” she replied. “Just visiting Americans.”

“Ah, les petites Américaines!”
She peered closer as Aunt Melody glared at her uncomfortably, and then she said something in rapid French that made the vendeuse laugh.

Summoning all her remembered French, Poppy thought she’d managed to translate it properly, and she stared at her, puzzled … “They are charming,” she’d said, and “the contrast is magical! The blonde is exactly like a rose that flowers at Christmas—pale, rare, and exquisite. Men will want to guard her, to treasure her, to admire her. And the other—the fiery one—she’s just like a ripe cherry in a summer orchard; men will certainly
want to steal her from the tree and devour her—and lick the juices from their fingers!”

“What is she saying?” Aunt Melody demanded angrily. “Poppy, you speak French, what did she say?”

Dropping her eyes, Poppy studied her dusty shoes, blushing uncomfortably. “I’m … I’m not sure, Aunt Melody,” she murmured, as with another merry malicious laugh the Princesse wafted from the salon, leaving the scent of lilies of the valley hanging in the air. Of course she knew exactly what the princesse had said, she just wasn’t sure she
understood
what it meant—but somehow she sensed she shouldn’t tell Aunt Melody.

The vendeuse showed them into a smaller mirrored salon and Aunt Melody watched irately as, without speaking, the Maître inspected first Angel and then Poppy. Clapping his hands, he summoned half a dozen waiting assistants. “Bring the sapphire blue chiffon for
la petite,”
he cried, pointing to Angel. “And for the other”—a faint gleam of amusement lit his eyes as he glanced at Poppy—“for
la cerise
, the cherry, something more subtle to cool her hair. The moss-green satin perhaps … ah, no, she is too young. I have it … the dove-gray velvet,
oui, c’est parfait!”

Again Poppy blushed with embarrassment as Aunt Melody grumbled loudly, “Such appalling manners and not one of them speaks God’s English.”

“Madame,” the Maître said in perfect English,
“my father was an Englishman.”

“Then why not say so?” boomed Aunt Melody irritably. “You’ve kept us waiting long enough, young man, it had better be worth it.”

“There are those,” said M. Worth, spinning yards and yards of sapphire chiffon from an enormous bolt of fabric, “who would willingly wait a year even to enter the doors of the Salon Worth. When you are dressed by the Maître, everyone knows it. My clothes add distinction to even the gauchest of young women.”

He draped the silk skillfully around Angel, pinning and adjusting, testing it first one way then another, and then he summoned another assistant to take Angel’s measurements. “As the Princesse noticed,” he said to Aunt Melody, “both your girls are charming, the cool beauty of the blonde and the fiery charm of the red. But in
my
dresses they will become sensational.”

“Mmmm,” she sniffed, unsure of what he meant. Still, she could see he’d been right about Angel. The blue did wonderful things for her pink and white complexion and deepened the color
of her eyes, and even though he’d only draped the material around her, it was undoubtedly with the touch of a master. And Poppy, in silk velvet so fine that it slithered from the bolt like a river of mercury, clinging as softly as a dove’s feather to her high bosom and tiny waist, and making her creamy skin glow like alabaster, already looked sensational.

“Well,” she sniffed haughtily, “at least you know your trade, Monsieur Worth. And at least you girls will be a credit to me.”

When he arrived in New York, Mike called Pierluigi Galli immediately to suggest a meeting. He’d read in
The Wall Street Journal
that the Galli empire was shaky, and now the rumors had spread to the
Times
and the other major newspapers. They now said that the Galli empire wasn’t just shaking, it was about to topple.

At first, the harried-sounding secretary said he was definitely not available, not to anyone—no matter who they were.

“Look,” Mike said, “tell him I want to talk to him about the Poppy Mallory estate—tell him Johannes Lieber, in Geneva, asked me to call him. I’m due in London tomorrow, but I’m willing to stay here in New York until he can see me.”

“I’ll call you back, Mr. Preston,” she said crisply.

Feeling rattled, Mike went to his club, swam thirty lengths of the pool, had a massage, took a cold shower, and, after checking that there were no messages, took a walk down Fifth Avenue to F.A.O. Schwarz, where he bought Lauren Hunter’s kid an enormous teddy bear, telling them to gift-wrap and mail it. On the card, he wrote, I
don’t know which of you deserves—or needs—this most, but no doubt Maria will let you share him.
Like her, he signed it
Love—Mike.

There was a crackle of Christmas excitement in the frosty air as he walked back down Fifth Avenue. Saks’ lavishly decorated window with its animated Christmas tableaux was the star attraction, with the enormous sparkling tree at Rockefeller Plaza and the crowded skating rink in second billing. There was nowhere quite like New York at Christmas, he decided, buying a bag of hot roasted chestnuts from the vendor on the corner of the Plaza; there was just that certain extra shot of excitement in the air. He
surely hoped the teddy would help make Lauren’s lonely Christmas a happier one.

There was a message on his answering machine for him to call Mr. Galli when he returned. The secretary sounded even more harassed. “Mr. Galli is too busy to see you this afternoon and he’s leaving for Paris tomorrow,” she told him. “He asked if you could come around to the office this evening, about seven-thirty.”

Pierluigi’s offices were as luxurious as Mike had expected; dark walls, soft carpets, and good paintings. Nothing was overdone, but there was the unmistakable air of opulence that goes along with great success. The secretary was working late, looking even more harried than she’d sounded on the phone.

“I’ll tell him you’re here, Mr. Preston,” she said tiredly.

“It must have been a hard couple of days,” Mike said sympathetically.

She nodded as she buzzed the intercom. “Worse for him than for me, poor man. I don’t know how he’s holding up … all those stupid reports in the papers … Oh, Mr. Galli, Mr. Preston is here to see you.” Putting down the phone, she said to Mike, “You’re to go right in, sir.”

Pierluigi was standing by the window staring down at the Manhattan traffic, thirty floors below. He was wearing an excellently tailored double-breasted suit in dark blue pinstripe, and a somber tie. His face was as colorless as ashes in a grate, and as he turned to look at him, Mike thought his eyes had that same dead feeling.

“Mr. Preston,” he said, offering his hand, “how can I help you?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt at such a difficult time, sir,” Mike said, “but Johannes Lieber asked me to see you.”

“Have a seat, please.” Pierluigi took his place behind an antique tulip-wood desk that looked as though it had come from an Italian nobleman’s salon. “Johannes Lieber? Are you employed by Mr. Lieber then? Or am I to understand that we may be featured in a book at some future date?”

“I must admit there is a possibility of that,” agreed Mike, “it all depends how the story evolves.”

“I see. And how exactly is it ‘evolving’ at the moment?”

“Like Poppy herself, it’s an enigma. I’ve found out about Poppy’s parents and her early life—but nothing yet that’s led me to any satisfactory conclusions.”

“Like
who
is the heir—or heiress?”

“Exactly, sir. Lieber told me why you considered yourself—and your sister—to be the beneficiaries. I’d like to know if there is anything more you can add to that.” Pierluigi stared broodingly at his desk and Mike thought uneasily that he looked like a man containing himself with an effort. There was a lurking quality of emotions too long repressed, of brooding violence searching for an outlet….

“I have nothing to add to the story you already know,” Pierluigi said at last. “Everything I told Lieber, I believe to be the truth.
You
can see the logic of it yourself. Poppy Mallory was my grandmother.” He stood up dismissively and Mike realized that the interview was at an end. If he knew anything more, Pierluigi wasn’t telling.

Pierluigi didn’t accompany him to the door, and when Mike turned to look at him he was standing by the window again, staring down at the traffic. He looked like a man abandoned on a sinking ship.

The memory of Pierluigi’s gaunt face and stricken dark eyes haunted Mike through the movie he went to in an attempt to escape, and through the snack at the Carnegie Deli, where he attempted to divert himself, watching the young cashier arguing on the phone with her boyfriend while he tried to pay his check. “Don’t give me that shit, man,” she hissed, juggling Mike’s change. “I’ve been through all that before, I don’t need it no more.” Slamming his change onto the counter, she sank to the floor, the receiver glued under her chin. “I know you’re married …” she was saying as he left.

A cab screeched to a halt in response to his outstretched hand. “Where ya going?” growled the driver, an edgy young Hispanic with a razor cut down one cheek.

“Park and Sixty-first,” Mike told him.

“Fancy shit,” the driver exclaimed contemptuously, slamming his foot on the gas and jockeying with the cab next to him as to who was to rule the road. Bouncing on the raveled plastic backseat, Mike tried to close his ears to their exchange as they shouted at each other, windows rolled down, as if it were High Noon. “What yuh driving? A fuckin’ ambalence?” screamed his driver.

“Fuck you, cowboy,” the rival driver yelled back.

“’Scuze my language,” the cabbie said companionably, “but he’s a fuckin’ pain in the ass.” Mike sighed as they jolted over the
Manhattan potholes; the exhilarating morning feeling of Fifth Avenue at Christmas was melting like the steadily falling snow, disappearing into dirty water on the sidewalks. It was time he left.

Back at the hotel, he studied Lieber’s list again before he went to sleep. There were three people he had yet to meet: Orlando Messenger, Claudia Galli, and Aria Rinardi. Calling British Airways, he confirmed his seat to book him on the morning flight to London.

Aria unwrapped the painting Carraldo had sent her, hoping it wasn’t the Manet and wishing that her mother wasn’t breathing down her neck. “What is it, Aria, let me have a look.” Francesca grabbed it from her and inspected it critically. “I should have thought the famous art-dealer could have done better than this,” she said contemptuously. “It’s worthless!”

Aria looked at the painting carefully; it was a small pen-and-watercolor wash of Portofino and whoever the artist was, he had a light touch and a way of conveying the outgoing warmth of the little Italian fishing village in its summer finery. “I like it, Mama,” she said. “It has charm I’d like to keep it.”

Francesca leaned across on the breakfast table and, with her chin on her hand, stared at her daughter. “Sometimes, Aria,” she said slowly, “I think you were born without brains. You turn down a Manet, you refuse a maharani’s emerald worth a ransom—and you think this is ‘charming’ and want to keep it. This
cheap
watercolor is what you should return! Really, my girl, where is your common sense!”

“If you’re so convinced I’m Poppy’s heiress, Mama, why are you still insisting I marry Carraldo?” Aria brushed her hair from her eyes, glaring at her mother.

“Just a precaution, darling,” Francesca said airily. “I mean, what if those lawyers should decide you weren’t the heiress? Not that it would be true, of course, but you know how tricky they can be. They’re not prepared simply to take my word for it, they want ‘evidence.’ And when you make the sort of mistakes Poppy Mallory made, the one thing you don’t leave lying around is
evidence.
I told Lieber that. ‘What do you expect? Birth certificates? The woman had an illegitimate child that was brought up by the Rinardis, and Aria is a direct descendant of that child. The money is obviously hers.’”

“And then he told you that Angel Rinardi had brought up
three children, two girls and a boy, and the question was which one was Poppy’s.” Aria finished off her story wearily; she’d heard it all before—a dozen times.

“There were the twin girls,” said Francesca crisply, “and everybody knows that Helena never married, so your grandmother, Maria-Cristina, is the only logical heiress. After all, the will specified an ‘heiress’—a
daughter
, not a son, so any claim that Aleksandr Rinardi was Poppy’s child is ludicrous, I don’t care what Pierluigi and Claudia Galli say.”

“What if Helena, the daughter who never married, was really Poppy’s child? Who gets the money then?”

“That’s hypothetical nonsense,” scoffed Francesca, “besides, everybody knows that Maria-Cristina was the wild one—just like her mother, Poppy.”

“And how do you know so much about Poppy, Mama, when no one else seems to know anything?” Aria asked scornfully.

“Intuition, my dear girl,” Francesca retorted confidently as she sauntered to the door. “I understand women.”