The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (26 page)

“She was about thirty years old then, I guess,” Brad said. “It was before the divorce.”

Phyl threw him a surprised glance; he hadn’t mentioned a divorce. But just then a houseboy appeared with their bags, and Brad did not elaborate.

An enormous Doberman with burning red-brown eyes and a coat as black and glossy as wet lava rock suddenly ran into the room. Phyl shrank back with a frightened cry, but the dog ignored her, leaping at Brad with yelps of joy. Brad laughed as he caressed the dog, sleeking back its ears and speaking softly to it in Hawaiian. He told Phyl its name was Kanoi, the same as the ranch.

He saw she was apprehensive, and he said reassuringly, “The Doberman’s reputation is misleading. It’s quite simple: One man, one dog. They pledge their allegiance to no other than their master.” He caressed the dog’s massive head, and it gazed devotedly up at him. “See how docile he is? Gentle as a lamb.”

Phyl shivered as she looked warily at the powerful dog. Brad put his arm around her, and the dog leaped immediately to its feet It stared balefully at her, tense as a steel spring. She suddenly recalled Bea’s terrible scars, and she shivered; she knew a powerful dog like
that could rip a man to pieces in minutes if it chose, but thankfully, unless Brad touched her, it just ignored her.

While Brad went to talk to his stable manager, Phyl showered and changed into a simple long black silk jersey shift. She caught up her hair for coolness and tucked a red hibiscus flower into it. Then she added long crystal drop earrings and a splash of Bellodgia and wandered out onto the lanai to wait for him.

The humid evening air clung to her skin, and the ceiling fans wafted welcome patches of coolness over her as she leaned on the lanai rail, breathing in the different tropical scents of jungly greenness and night-blooming flowers, listening to the croak of the tree frogs and the chirruping of the crickets and the whir of unseen wings, high in the treetops. She did not hear Brad coming, didn’t know he was there, watching her, until he said, “Do you have any idea how like my mother you look? With your hair up like that, and the flower in it, the way she used to wear it.”

His voice had that hard edge, and Phyl turned to look at him, puzzled. “Your mother was lovely. I take that as a compliment.”

“I saw it right away when we met on the plane. I noticed you at the airport. You even have Rebecca’s walk, the same long, easy stride.”

She smiled. “Was that why you wanted to see me again? Because I look like her?”

Brad laughed. He put his arms around her. “God, no. I never wanted to see that woman again. It was
you
I wanted to see again. The oh-so-clever-and-brilliant Dr. Phyl, whose power over men is such I’m sure she could persuade a king to part with his most intimate secrets.”

He crushed her to him, breathing in her scent. “What secrets would you like me to tell you tonight?” he murmured between kisses.

“About Rebecca?” she suggested, still curious.

He shook his head. “First I should tell you about my
grandmother, the one and only Chantal.” He laughed bitterly. “My God, the Kane men really knew how to choose their women. Every one of them a first-class bitch.”

He let go of her and began to pace the tiled floor, tagged by the dog, who never left his side. Phyl leaned against the rail, watching him as he talked.

“It was the nineteen twenties,” he said. “Archer was still very young when he met Chantal. And she was even younger
and
with the unlikely but oh-so-impressive name of O’Higgins. The O’Higgins name spelled money—big money—on two continents. Chantal was half Irish, half French, and she was the spoiled, wayward heiress to the O’Higgins cognac fortune.” He looked angrily at Phyl. “You saw her portrait. You saw how beautiful she was. Pale blond, with that sullen look in her blue eyes. She had skin like milk and a very tempting mouth, and Archer fell head over heels this time. And I guess so did she. After all, he was a very handsome man, and he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

“Chantal eloped with him to Honolulu, and then Archer brought her back here, to Kalani.
And she hated it.
God, how she hated it. She was shocked when she saw the primitive wooden lodge; she loathed the bugs and lizards and the wind that hurled the Pacific breakers against the rocks on stormy days. She complained that the heat and humidity made her skin feel like blotting paper. She said the servants were sloppy and lazy, and she swore some of the girls had more than just a master/servant relationship with her husband. She was probably right, but despite all her complaints, I guess she loved him, or at least she wanted him enough to stay.

“Archer’s crops had never done well. His pineapples had withered, his sugar shriveled, and wild grasses covered most of his uncultivated acres. But he bought a herd of Hereford cattle and shipped in some better
horses. They roamed the gulches on the western side of the island, tended by the paniolos. It was difficult, but the cattle thrived, and suddenly Archer was struck by the new possibilities of his land.

“He told Chantal he wanted to expand, to buy more acreage on the main islands, and he would need her money. But Chantal was difficult. She was pregnant; she was bored out of her mind and sulky. Finally she agreed, after many wild arguments, but she doled out the money to him, bit by bit, driving him crazy. Still, he managed to buy his first thousand acres on the Big Island.

“Then Chantal gave birth to a son, Jack, and as soon afterward as she could, she left both of them and took off for San Francisco. She said she didn’t want anything to do with either of them, ever again. Not long after, Archer heard she had run off with someone else, and he divorced her.”

Brad stopped his pacing and smiled at Phyl. But his icy eyes were not smiling as he said with a shrug, “And that was Chantal,
my dear grandmother.
”

“But what about her son, Jack? Did he ever see her again?”

“He did,” Brad said grimly. “Many years later and in circumstances I’d rather not talk about right now.”

“So Archer brought Jack up alone, on the island?”

“Almost. He married again a short while later.” Brad laughed. “He always said he had been forced into it. He needed the money to buy more acres on the Big Island. He needed a new, sturdier breed of cattle, better horses, good men. He said his island, his ranch, and his son were his three passions. Women came last.

“You see, women were easy for a man like Archer. He never had to look for them; they were always there when he wanted them. And he said he preferred to buy them in Honolulu’s brothels or in San Francisco, where they were less trouble and more fun.

“He went to Europe to look for new cattle, but being
Archer, he was also on the lookout for a wife. He was handsome, and he could be charming, but he was a hard man, and he was determined not to let anything stand in the way of what he wanted. And right then he wanted a fortune.”

Brad laughed admiringly. “So he married one.” He shrugged. “What else could a good-looking young guy with a glowing future but no money do?”

“So what happened to her?” Phyl asked.

“She couldn’t last the course either. She took herself back home, and that was that. Until years later, when Archer suddenly presented Jack with a half brother he knew nothing about.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “He soon left. I guess the half brother just couldn’t stand Kalani either.”

“Or maybe he couldn’t stand Jack? After all, Jack was there first. And you Kanes are very territorial.”

“Jack hated him,” he said brusquely. “And rightly so. But that’s a long story, and not one I feel like talking about.”

He turned away moodily, and later they had a silent dinner, as though he felt he had already said too much. Afterward he left her at the door of her room with just a brief kiss. “You must be tired,” he said abruptly. “Get some sleep.”

He went off down the hall, and she heard him call the dog to heel and stride down the steps into the night.

Phyl waited a few moments. Then she walked barefoot onto the lanai to look after him, but he had already disappeared. The big moon bathed the island in a silvery light, and it looked even more breathtakingly beautiful than before. But she scarcely noticed. She was thinking that beneath Brad’s urbane, charming facade, he was the most complex man she had ever met.

She wandered back through the silent house and
paused outside Brad’s room. The door stood open, and a lamp was lit, and she could see it was empty. Suddenly curious, she went in and tiptoed across to the ebony chest. She picked up Rebecca’s photograph and stared at it with fascination. Brad was right: She did resemble Rebecca; the big, startled-looking eyes, the same wide mouth, the pale skin and long black hair. “You even have Rebecca’s walk,” he had said.

Was that the real reason he was attracted to her? she asked herself with a shiver of apprehension. And was that why he felt he could bare his soul to her about the past?

She glanced around nervously. There was nothing else personal in his room, not even a book on the bedside table. The big walk-in closet was as neat and anonymous as his bedroom. Everything was in its place: jackets in rows, shirts stacked in glass-fronted drawers, shoes all in a line. She ran her hand along the row of hangers and buried her face in the soft tweed of his jacket, suddenly longing for him, wanting the feel of him, the scent of him. As she pulled the jacket toward her, she noticed a crumpled green canvas bag pushed into the corner.

It looked old and oddly out of place. It certainly did not look like the sort of bag Brad would ever use. Hesitating, she looked at it. Then curiosity got the better of her, and she pulled it toward her. Inside, she saw a jumble of feminine travel items, cosmetic bag, hairbrush, T-shirts, sweaters….

Hot with guilt, she zipped the bag up and pushed it back into the corner. She quickly told herself that of course Brad invited other women here. Why wouldn’t he? He was an attractive man. Plenty of women would be happy to be his guest. Still, the contents of the green canvas bag were not the sophisticated items she might have expected the women in Brad Kane’s life to possess. They were the casual, inexpensive sort of things a girl might carry.

It was none of her business, Phyl told herself guiltily, as she hurried back to her room. She was trespassing on Brad’s privacy, and she should feel ashamed of herself. And she did. Still, she wondered about the girl who had left her bag there.

She undressed and climbed naked under the sheet, then lay awake for a long time, listening for Brad’s return, hoping he would come to her. But he did not, and as she finally drifted into sleep, she wondered again about Rebecca, and the past that troubled him so deeply, and about Jack and the half brother who suddenly arrived out of the blue almost to ruin his life.

22

N
ick Lascelles returned to Antibes with the news that he had learned nothing about the Flora Beale Trust, other than it was administered by the London bank, whose instructions were to maintain the cottage exactly as it was, in perpetuity. There were more than sufficient funds to support it, and the bank believed the donor’s intention was to preserve the property as a museum or even a sort of shrine. The banker said the names and details were confidential, and he would certainly not reveal them—unless the police were involved and it became official business, of course.

“So now we’re back to square one,” Nick said gloomily to Bea and Millie over lunch at the hotel. “The only other link we have is the key we found at the cottage.”

He took the silver key from his pocket and put it on the table. They all stared at it. It was small, anonymous, just like any other key. “Perhaps it fits a suitcase or a trunk?” Bea suggested.

“The only trunk we found at the cottage was in the loft, and it wasn’t even locked.”

“Well, what about a cupboard?”

He shook his head slowly. “No locked cupboards. Nanny Beale kept her only secrets under her mattress. Unless …” He thought for a minute. “You remember how the document finished abruptly, almost in the middle. She didn’t say what happened on the island, just that they arrived there. And that she was no match for the enemy—meaning Johnny’s father. She hadn’t concluded her story; she hadn’t even written ‘The End.’”