Too Damn Rich (4 page)

The memory made her shudder, caused the
bandaged wound on her forearm to throb and sting anew.

Once outside, on the lower level of the
international arrivals terminal, she hesitated, momentarily
wondering whether to wait for a bus or to splurge frivolously on a
cab. She knew she had less than a hundred dollars to her name, but
right now that was the very least of her worries. What mattered was
that she was safe and sound and that, except for the blistering
wound on her forearm, her body was in one piece.

How easily it could have been the other way
around. How all too easily ...

The birth of Anna Zandra Elisabeth Theresia
Charlotte von Hohenburg- Willemlohe, Countess of Grafburg, in
London—followed two years later by the birth of her brother,
Rudolph—was little cause for celebration.

Delivering Zandra was almost more than her
delicate mother could bear, but the strain of Rudolph's birth
proved to be too much. Lavinia von Hohenburg-Willemlohe died in the
midst of delivery, and only the valiant efforts of a highly skilled
team of surgeons had managed to save the child.

Zandra's father, Stefan, was at a complete
loss as to what to do. The death of his beloved Lavinia had left
him dazed and confused. When he had married her, his fortune, in
Czechoslovakia, had been one of the greatest in all Europe, but the
Soviets had confiscated everything. His wife's untimely death, like
his own decline into poverty, was something with which he could
simply not cope. Under the circumstances, a two- year-old daughter
and an infant son, possessors of a series of cumbersome and useless
titles, presented a serious problem.

Not surprisingly, he took solace in the
bottle.

Fortunately, there was no end of rich and
titled relatives whose fortunes, based in the West, were not only
intact but thriving; European nobility being the incestuous soup
that it is, Zandra could count most of the dukes and duchesses of
England, as well as the comtes and comtesses of France, as her
various relatives. But thanks to her paternal grandfather, she was
linked to the princely house of von und zu Engelwiesen, which meant
that Zandra was also a descendant, however convoluted the
bloodline, of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire.

Subsequently, the relatives rallied 'round.
Zandra's godmother, an English duchess, provided the children with
a nanny, while Aunt Josephine, whose husband owned a private London
bank, employed the increasingly alcoholic Stefan with a make-work
job, and Cousin Colin provided a small but rent-free apartment in
fashionable Mayfair. But it was Aunt Josephine who took it upon
herself to take charge.

When Zandra turned six, Lady Josephine told
Stefan in no uncertain terms precisely to which frightfully costly
school his daughter must be sent—the expense being borne by the
family, of course. And so began Zandra's education at the most
exclusive school of its kind in England. The same held true for
Rudolph. Two years later, her brother was sent to the boys'
counterpart of the exclusive girls' school Zandra attended.

As Zandra grew older, she came to understand
that she was different, and fit neither into the simple world of
the commoner nor the Byzantinely formal world of the rich and
titled. She and Rudolph belonged somewhere in between, in some kind
of society holding pen, their futures to be decided upon once they
were of age. "Much like souls in purgatory," Zandra would often
tell herself with a sigh, for along with her title and noble blood
came a strong core of Roman Catholicism.

When she turned eighteen, she was taken to
Buckingham Palace and presented at court. Then came her equally
important coming out. Having one's season was, after all, an
ages-old ritual which was tried and true, and it was precisely in
this very fashion that Aunt Josephine herself had met her
husband.

But if Aunt Josephine thought that finding a
suitable husband for Zandra would be easy, she was to be severely
disappointed. The season came and went, and all Zandra had to show
for it were hordes of eligible young men who, for one reason or
another, she found fault with. Aunt Josephine finally threw up her
hands in frustration. "Beggars cannot afford to be choosers!" she
lamented to her sisters, Lady Cressida and Lady Alexandra, "and our
Zandra is being altogether too choosy for her own good.
Especially," she added ominously, "for someone in 'her position.'
"

The sisters commiserated with Aunt Josephine
and one of them patted her hand. "You've done your best, Josie,
dear," Cressida said. "No one can fault you for not trying."

"Be that as it may," Josephine went on,
"Zandra shall either have to continue her education or go to
work—although only heaven knows what she's cut out for." She sighed
deeply. "I suppose she'll have to decide that for herself."

Zandra decided upon university. And two years
later, so did Rudolph, who went off to Oxford.

From that point on, Zandra saw little of her
younger brother. Unlike the years he had spent at boarding school,
when she could look forward to the summer months as theirs to spend
together, he now made plans of his own which, often as not, did not
include her.

The reason for this change in sibling
relationships was because Rudolph von Hohenburg-Willemlohe had
discovered that most enticing of all heterosexual pleasures—women.
Before long, his name was linked to a succession of beauties, and
his charm and charisma were such that he had members of the
opposite sex literally eating out of his hand. Zandra, in the
meantime, majored in art history, although she wasn't at all sure
where those studies would take her.

And then along came the Miss Great Britain
beauty pageant. She wouldn't have dreamed of participating, had it
not been for the urging of one of her girlfriends.

"Come on, Zandra!" her friend had pleaded.
"What have you got to lose? Besides, I'm not afraid to enter, so
why should you? Really! We'll have tons of fun! Do be a sport!"

And so Zandra became a contestant. It was
purely a lark, of course. Winning the title was the furthest thing
from her mind.

She couldn't believe it when the crown was
hers.

Neither could Aunt Josephine, who hadn't been
consulted about Zandra's entering the pageant, and who did not
think it appropriate for a descendant of the princes of the Holy
Roman Empire to be making so public, so common, a spectacle of
herself.

Nonetheless, a flurry of brief fame followed,
and then came Caracas and the Miss Universe pageant. Regrettably,
Zandra didn't even make runner-up; however, she did make some new
friends—most notably Miss Netherlands, Dina Van Vliet—and then she
returned to England to resume her life where she'd left off.

But Aunt Josephine refused to continue
financing her education. "I am washing my hands of you," the old
lady told Zandra succinctly. "I've tried to help find you a
husband, which you've failed to do. I've seen to your education,
which you saw fit to interrupt. From this point on, you are on your
own."

Being left with no other option, Zandra went
out job hunting. She pounded the pavement. Haunted the employment
agencies. Tried some modeling, but discovered everyone wanted her
to take off her clothes and not put other garments back on. Nor had
studying art history, or her reign as Miss Great Britain, given her
any particular marketable skills. As far as her noble pedigree was
concerned, that didn't buy her so much as a cup of tea. Things got
to the point where she didn't know what she was going to do.

Enter a young businessman by the name of Mark
Brandon, vice president of a firm which specialized in handling
special tour groups from overseas.

"We've put together a new 'Regal Holidays'
package," he told Zandra when he'd looked her up. "It's limited to
groups of twenty-four tourists at a time, and they'll stay in
various castle-hotels, tour country houses and gardens, be taken to
Ascot, and generally be made to feel they're living the kind of
rich, titled life they only dreamed about at home."

He went on to explain that what he needed to
complete the Regal Holidays atmosphere was a genuinely titled lady
to greet the tourists in a beautifully furnished townhouse
apartment in Wilton Crescent, off Knightsbridge.

"All it will entail is an hour or so twice a
week, sipping champagne, chatting, and posing for photographs with
our clientele," he concluded. "After that, they can go back home
and show pictures of themselves with a real aristocrat."

Meanwhile, the lavish accommodations would be
hers to live in for as long as the arrangement stood; a gown,
jewels, and part-time butler would be provided. "We'll pay you two
hundred pounds a week." Brandon smiled ingenuously. "What do you
say?"

Zandra's frown deepened as she'd listened to
his pitch. "I'll have to sleep on it," she told him.

The next day, Rudolph unknowingly made up her
mind for her. He had come to borrow money.

"I'm in a bit of a pinch," he said, trying to
act nonchalant as he shakily fixed himself a drink.

"All right," she sighed. "How much do you
need this time?"

He studied his feet and cleared his throat,
the ice cubes in his glass rattling. "How . . . how much have you
got?"

"Rudolph!" She stared at him.

"It's ... it's a gambling debt, you see." He
was careful to avoid her eyes. "I've got to pay up, or else those
chaps can get quite nasty, you know. Wouldn't want that, now would
we?" He looked at her and tried to smile, but it was a ghastly
attempt at bravado.

And so she called up Mark Brandon. Accepted
Regal Holidays' offer. Moved into the grandly furnished apartment
on Wilton Crescent. And met the tourist groups twice a week.

She was very regal. Every inch the
countess.

The tourists ate it up.

Aunt Josephine didn't. When the old lady
heard about it, she was aghast. So aghast, in fact, that she did a
complete turnaround and actually begged Zandra to go back to
university.

But Zandra wouldn't hear of it. "I like what
I'm doing," she told her aunt stubbornly.

And it was true. She enjoyed her newfound
independence, and had no desire to put herself under Aunt
Josephine's thumb, or accept family handouts, ever again.

And then her father died. Predictably, of
cirrhosis of the liver.

The real trouble started right after.

Stefan von Hohenburg-Willemlohe was barely
interred before Rudolph went around to all the gambling clubs,
lying through his teeth about the millions he was going to inherit
after the will was probated. The club owners' ears perked up;
credit and all courtesies were extended to him.

Rudolph lost hundreds of pounds the first
night alone; more credit was extended. Over the weeks, his losses
accumulated into the thousands, and during the next few months,
those thousands multiplied into the tens of thousands. Before he
knew it, his debts, combined with the usurious interest rates, had
skyrocketed into several hundred thousand pounds.

The club owners discreetly took him
aside.

"The solicitors say it'll be any day now," he
lied glibly. "The will's still in probate, but it's only a
formality. Meanwhile, how about extending me just a few thousand
quid more ..."

Credit was extended. And extended.

And then, inevitably, it was shut off.
Rudolph was given seven days to come up with what he owed—or
else.

Of course he didn't pay—how could he? And
after his week had run out, he came home in the wee hours to find
three burly men detaching themselves from the shadows around his
front door.

In the glow of the lamplight, Rudolph caught
the glint of brass knuckles. Reacting without thinking, he threw
himself to the ground, rolled across a bed of ivy, and lunged to
his feet. He sensed, rather than saw, a fourth man blocking the
open gate to the street, tire iron in hand.

With an almost superhuman strength, he jumped
at the high wall that enclosed the front garden, scrabbled up it,
and dropped down to the other side. Only his quick reflexes—and
sheer luck—had saved him. But it had been a close call. Far, far
too close for comfort.

Zandra found out about it when the telephone
shrilled her awake at half past four in the morning.

"Just listen," Rudolph's ragged voice babbled
from a phone booth somewhere, "and for God's sake, don't
interrupt!"

And he told her everything.

"Rudolph, you've got to go to the police,"
she told him, the level rationality in her voice surprising even
herself.

"The police can't help me." He gave a short,
derisive bark of a laugh. "That would only make matters worse!"

"Rudolph, where are you?" When he didn't
reply, she repeated, "Where ... are ... you ... calling ...
from?"

"It's safer for you not to know. Zands ..."
She could hear him swallow. "I-I've got to make myself scarce, so
don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while." There was a
pause. "I-I've got to dash," he added quickly, and the line went
dead.

He had hung up.

Thirteen hours later, a busload of Regal
Holidays tourists arrived. Zandra didn't know how she functioned.
She went through the ritual on automatic pilot, welcoming them and
chatting by rote, somehow managing a bright false smile while
having her picture taken with the housewives from Brentwood, the
retirees from Jacksonville, and the grain merchants and their wives
from Topeka.

But it was as if they weren't really there.
Rudolph. All she could think about was her brother. Where is he
now? she worried as her body went through the social motions. Is he
safe? And if so, how can he ever extricate himself from this
mess?

Before the tourists were scheduled to depart,
the doorbell rang and the part-time butler—a seldom-employed
character actor—went to answer it. He stood by helplessly as three
uncouth men in loud suits barged past him and invaded the drawing
room.