Woman King (28 page)

Although I was dismayed at his presence,
William’s cleverness tickled me. For him, fitting in here this
evening was likely no different than infiltrating one of the Vichy
cocktail parties he’d described. He understood the dynamics of
political theater well, and had managed to stroll into the room as
if he had been on the guest list to begin with. There was not a
single woman in the room whose gaze wasn’t fixed on him. I felt a
deep twinge of regret for refusing to speak with him, for avoiding
him. But really, what choice did I have in the matter?

At the moment, however, he was impossible to
ignore. I smiled at JP, trying to find a way to make a graceful
exit.

“I’m sorry to run out, but I see someone over
there I need to speak with.”

JP turned his gaze to William and locked on.
It was just my luck to have an intrepid reporter and a stubborn
vampire sharing the same room. What were the odds?

“Who is that?” he asked, no doubt noticing
William was an unfamiliar face in a sea of insiders.

“No one,” I answered casually, “A friend of a
friend. But I do need to go and say hello.”

I walked across the room, trying to keep my
face as blank as possible, my body relaxed, my head held high. I
acted as though I didn’t have a care in the world. JP’s curiosity
was burning a hole in my back, his uncertainty about my
truthfulness palpable

“Gabriel,” I said, offering a relaxed smile
for the room to observe.

“Olivia,” Gabriel said. “As you can see, that
is to say, I invited William. I believe the two of you need to
speak,” he said, raising his eyebrows in a sympathetic
expression.

I looked at Gabriel and then back at William.
He had the advantage, as they say, of the element of surprise. I
was on the clock, being watched by a prominent reporter and a room
full of wealthy donors. While I was tempted to be petulant, I
couldn’t afford to make a scene or express even the slightest
emotion in front of this audience. William was the one who had made
my life sound so unworkable. But here, there was no opportunity to
rebuke him, and to be honest, I’d missed him.

“I don’t believe there is anything to
discuss,” I said lightly. “We seem to have reached an impasse.”

Gabriel smiled nervously, “
Pas grave
.
I think I may have softened the beaches in that area.”

I was on alert now. “
Vraiment?
I hope
you didn’t promise anything on my behalf, Gabriel,” I said in
hushed tones. “I must be free to make my own decisions.”

“I only promised that the Council would not
let you do anything alone,” Gabriel said, sounding a tad defensive.
“And we won’t. The robbery is a matter of concern for the
organization. There is no need for you to investigate this by
yourself, or take any unnecessary risks.”

I looked at Gabriel and then at William, who
had been standing silently during this exchange. My focus had been
about managing my emotions, so much so that I had failed to read
his. He was quite angry. Apparently, looking on silently while I
restated my position was not what he had in mind.

“Gabriel,” William said crisply. “Olivia is
leaving with me. Can you please make her excuses?”

Kidnapping may not have been what Gabriel
expected as the outcome of the evening, but the French are never
vexed for long.

“I suppose that will be OK. The event is
almost over, and has been a tremendous success. I will tell Levi
that you caught a ride with a friend.”

I let the two men enjoy plotting my exit for
a moment, before I made it clear I would not be cutting out early
unless it was on my own terms.

“If you fellows don’t mind, I will make my
own exit from the party.” I glanced at my watch. It was 7:30. The
event was set to end in a half hour. I didn’t think it would harm
things too much if I left in the next ten minutes. But first I had
to think of how I was going to break my dinner date with JP.

“William,” I said, a terse smile on my face.
“I am going to make another pass through the room and check in with
Levi, then I will be ready to leave. I will meet you at the front
door in ten minutes.”

He nodded, fixing me with a stare that was
unfamiliar. His eyes revealed a look of profound exasperation.
Clearly, I had pushed my luck by avoiding him for so long.

I came up behind Levi, his long-ago requested
drink in my hand.

“I am going to leave in the next ten
minutes,” I whispered into his ear. “A mutual friend of Gabriel’s
has offered to give me a lift back to San Francisco.”

“Tonight has been fantastic,” Levi said,
beaming. “This thing is in the bag.”

His remark spooked me. Even without the
supernatural connection, campaign consultants are a superstitious
lot. We don’t believe in tempting the gods by calling a race too
soon.

“Shhh,” I said. “You’ll jinx us. You have to
knock on wood and hope for the best.”

Levi laughed. “Next thing I know, you’ll be
reading my horoscope. Now go on, I’ll touch base with you
tomorrow.”

I smiled and walked away, tapping a wooden
chair as I passed, hoping the gods would accept the gesture.
Moments later JP caught my eye and walked over. I was working
furiously to maintain a neutral expression as I tried to concoct a
story that would sound even vaguely convincing.

“Listen,” I said, trying to sound serious,
but not too grave. “I hate to do this, but it turns out I need to
return to San Francisco to deal with a few things this evening. I’m
really sorry. Can I take a rain check?”

JP didn’t believe a word I was saying. I
could feel his skepticism as he gripped his reporter’s notepad.

“What could be so pressing that he would ask
his campaign manager to leave a fundraiser early?”

Ouch, it looked like we might not be able to
be friends after all. Again, I strived to keep my face relaxed. I
managed to laugh and placed my hand on his arm. “He didn’t ask me
to leave,” I said. “I remembered something I need to work on before
tomorrow. That’s the nature of campaigns, I’m afraid. Things like
this happen. But I don’t have to tell you that, right?”

JP was debating. He was scanning the room for
William. William, meanwhile, was waiting in the corner, his eyes
locked onto me. My excuse seemed thinner in the harsh light of the
living room, and for a moment I thought JP was going to take
another pass at breaking me down, but he didn’t.

“Rain check, then,” he said smiling.

“Rain check,” I agreed, and headed for the
door.

****

William and I walked out of the house in
silence. I don’t think either of us knew where to begin. I’d been
ignoring his texts and emails for more than two weeks. After our
last conversation, it was apparent we had no way to break our
impasse. For now though, Gabriel seemed to have smoothed things
over. I wondered why he cared if William and I were together; then
again, it was hard to know what Gabriel’s motivations were when it
came to me.

William opened the door to his car for me and
I slid inside. He closed the door wordlessly and then walked to the
driver’s side to get in. Once inside, he slowly fastened his seat
belt and started the engine, all without saying a word. The silence
was oppressive. Our anger and hurt feelings were rising up inside
the car until it was difficult to breath.

“Where are we going?”

“I thought we would take a drive to a
friend’s house,” he said, offering nothing more. I leaned back
against the car’s leather seat and looked out the window. There was
no use in forcing him to speak. He would say something when he was
good and ready. I’m not sure if it was the intense silence, or the
fact that I had been working long hours, but within minutes I fell
into a deep sleep. Sometime later I awoke, propelling myself
forward toward the dashboard as I came out of my stupor.

“Oh my God,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I am
sorry.”

William smiled, his normal happy demeanor
back in place. “It’s OK,” he said. “It gave me time to calm
down.”

I looked out my window but didn’t recognize
the landscape. “Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes again.

“We’re about to enter Hearst Castle,” he said
calmly.

“This is an old friend’s house?” We were
nearly a hundred miles from Carmel, heading in the opposite
direction from home. “Now you’re going to tell me that you knew
William Randolph Hearst?”

“We were acquainted,” he said. “But it’s his
grounds keeper that I’m close with. Frank is a vampire and a former
ambulance driver; he took this job after the war. Over the years,
he’s taught me every inch of this place. I thought you might like
to go for a swim.”

“You thought I might like to go for a swim?
We haven’t spoken in two weeks, and the first idea out of the gate
is to kidnap me and take me to another castle?”

“I told you…you belong in a castle,” William
said, as he pulled the car into a darkened spot along an entrance
road and turned off the ignition. “Besides, you needed a nap and I
needed a private place to speak with you. You’ve been avoiding me,
Olivia, and that won’t do at all. I was willing to wait only so
long before I came for you.”

As I was about to give him my opinion of the
situation, he took my hand and admonished me to stay silent until
we were inside the castle.

Hearst Castle is not just any castle.
Conceived and built during an almost 30-year period beginning in
1919, the sprawling complex was designed by architect Julia Morgan
for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. The Hearst family
donated the property to the state and it’s been run as a historic
park since the late 1950’s. Hearst had an appetite for big things
and he spared no expense for his so-called country house, which by
my calculations was about 250 miles from San Francisco, give or
take a mile.

William led me along a darkened path to a
small cottage at the end of the service road we’d parked on. He
fished in his pocket for a key and opened the door. It swung open
into a hallway. The hallway became a long tunnel that led to the
main complex of the castle. Once inside, we walked along the
well-lit interior of a secret passageway that crisscrossed the
property.

As we walked, I tried to stay calm, overcome
by a series of emotions. I was angry with William for showing up at
the party, but also happy that he came. I was nervous about
trespassing in the middle of the night, but secretly pleased that
this time he had found a way to keep me out of the darkness. Using
the hidden system of tunnels beneath the castle that Hearst had
built so his guests could swap lovers discreetly, William and I
made our way slowly to a subterranean pool built at the east end of
the castle.

I stood in awe as we entered. William bowed
at the waist and waved his arms in a sweeping gesture.

“Welcome to the Roman Pool,” he said.

I scanned the room, watching the light bounce
off of what seemed to be one million small, square blue glass
tiles. The blue seemed a shade deeper juxtaposed against similar
sized gold tiles that formed a border on the walls. The tiles
shimmered in the dim light of the lamps that illuminated the room.
The blue also made the water of the pool look deep, endless.

As I walked further into the room, I noticed
a tray sitting in one corner; it held a small bowl of fruit, a
bottle of Champagne and two glasses.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked, stepping
in close to whisper in my ear. I nodded and soon had a flute of
Champagne in my hands.

“What did you mean about waiting for me?” I
asked. “The last time we spoke you made it clear you didn’t approve
of what I was doing.”

William crossed the room, returning the
champagne bottle to the tray.

“I may have mixed feeling about you chasing
after gangsters and meddling in the affairs of humans, but that
doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you. You were injured in the
robbery, almost blinded. Did you really think I wouldn’t have an
opinion?” he asked, taking a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from a small
backpack he had carried into the castle with him. “You seem to
think I’m not entitled to have a view on things, and then, as
usual, before we could really discuss it, you just gave up and
threw me out.”

“I didn’t see the point,” I said, trying to
hold my quivering chin up high. “How can I be with a man who won’t
support my work?”

“Darlin, that is overly dramatic, even for
you,” he said, laughing. “And of course untrue. But I am curious,
is that why you were planning to have dinner with that
reporter?”

William, it seemed, knew more about my
activities then I realized.

“Why not?” I said, but with half the defiance
I intended. “He’s human. He likes politics. Seemed like a good
start to me.”

If a rulebook existed for how to deal with
vampires, the first piece of advice would probably be not to
provoke one when they’re feeling possessive. William quickly came
to stand in front of me and grabbed my chin in his hand.

“Yes, but does he know you and Gabriel like
to fix the races?” he asked, his voice low and angry. “Were you
going to tell him what you do for a living, or would you have him
believe you are especially lucky in your career?”

He was right, of course. I would not have
shared my secrets with JP, at least not right away. The truth was
that I had no interest in having a relationship with him. I wanted
to say as much, but found myself mute, unable to reply.

“Were you planning on leaving with him
tonight?”

I nodded.

“Did you plan on sleeping with him?”

Without thinking, my hand came around and
slapped William square in the face.

“You bastard,” I said. “Why would you ask me
something so insulting?”

William rubbed his cheek, a look of
satisfaction on his face.