Heirs Book Two: American Lady (20 page)

Jazz hesitated, mistrusting the amusement
lurking in the corner of St John’s mouth. Sir Roddy, sitting next
to her, took pity on her. “Do you like seafood, my dear?” he asked
motioning the waiter to pour her a glass of deep purple syrah. At
her silently embarrassed nod, he spoke a few phrases to the waiter.
“I’ve ordered you cauliflower soup to start and some delightful
fish.”

“Thank you,” she said, thinking that sounded
deliciously normal. “It’s such a liability not being able to speak
French.”

“Only in France,” he laughed.

“Or Altobello,” St John added, turning to
Charley. “How is dear Prince Maixent?” he enquired with a lazy
smile. The waiter circled the table pouring red wine into spotless
glasses.

“You can ask him yourself. He’ll be joining
us later this evening.” Charley cast a defiant look at Nikki, whose
fork clattered against her bread plate.

St John raised his glass. “Here’s to
Altobello’s prosperity,” he said looking so meaningfully at Charley
that she blushed in embarrassment and annoyance.

“And here’s wishing bonne chance to Sir
Roddy and Jennifa for a favorable reception of what the reviewers
have called their ‘edgy new thriller’,” Lorenzo proposed.

After the toasts, Jennifa turned a steely
blue eye to Nikki. “So, I understand that Lorenzo has finally
proposed,” she said, tucking into her lemon verbena soufflé,
surrounded with wild truffles. “I suggest you make it official as
soon as possible before he wiggles off the line,” she advised.

Nikki felt nettled. She had certainly lasted
the distance with Lorenzo a lot more successfully than Jennifa, so
she didn’t feel it incumbent upon her to take advice from his
ex-wife.

“We will make the announcement at the right
moment,” she insisted, picking at her own soufflé. She was in fact
hanging out for Paddy Cassidy to give her the all-clear on the
annulment so they could go ahead with the July party.

“Well, I do hope you include Oaks as a
bridesmaid for the wedding,” Jennifa continued. She was dying to
tell Nikki that the only reason Lorenzo had proposed was because of
her machinations. But she daren’t drop a hint with Lorenzo so close
at hand.

“Will Declan be part of the bridal party?”
Oakley looked up from her meal, shreds of green and black food
clinging to her metal braces.

“If only he could see you now,” Charley
muttered.

“The view is simply stunning,” Jazz turned
to Sir Roddy, gazing out over a bruised purple skyline littered
with hundreds of lights from the many moored yachts out at sea.

“Soup’s not bad either,” Sir Roddy smiled
encouragingly.

Dutifully Jazz spooned up the chilled cream
of cauliflower set like custard. Floating around were horrible
looking black balls. She wondered if she should complain to the
waiter. She glanced at Sir Roddy but he was eating with relish.

Noticing the way she kept skirting her spoon
around her plate, trying to avoid the bottom, he smiled
reassuringly at her. “Those are not fly droppings, my dear. It’s
Iranian caviar,” he leaned over to whisper in her ear.

Oh, God, she thought, she was such an
embarrassment to St John. She couldn’t even recognize caviar!
Expectantly she spooned it into her mouth and almost spat it
straight out. Caviar always evoked such eulogies of gastronomic
pleasure that Jazz was bitterly disappointed with her first taste.
How could anyone pay hundreds of dollars for this stuff, she
thought.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Sir Roddy
reassured her.

He was nice, she decided. So much nicer than
his son. Almost as nice as Declan and suddenly she felt an urge to
cry.

As the waiter brought out their main meals,
Lorenzo ordered another bottle of syrah.

“This is an amazing wine,” St John
complimented Lorenzo. “Very fruity,” he sniffed delicately. “A hint
of blackberry perhaps.”

“It’s a specialty of the Rhône Valley,”
Nikki said absent-mindedly.

“Wow, how did you know that, mom?” asked
Charley.

Nikki’s fork fell from nerveless fingers.
There was an abrupt silence at the table as their waiter hastily
retrieved it and brought out a new setting for her.

“My, you are a butter-fingers tonight.
Perhaps you’ve had a little too much syrah yourself,” Jennifa said
snidely, carefully cutting into her succulent spit-roasted rabbit,
flavored with mustard and lemon and greedily scooping up her
mousseline and crispy garlic potatoes.

“You don’t live in France for several years
without picking up scraps of information,” Nikki’s tone was
defensive.

“I think the Marchessinis have an estate
near there,” Charley exclaimed. “Some sort of château where King
Henri’s grandmother lived.”

“Have you visited the Rhône Valley?” St John
leant forward to stare Nikki straight in the eyes. The last time
Nikki had dropped the cutlery was at the mention of Prince Maixent.
He was intrigued by her aversion to the Marchessini family.

Nikki’s eyes darted away. She gave a brittle
laugh. “I can hardly be expected to remember every place I’ve been
to,” she protested.

“Oh, I think I just saw William Hurt!” Jazz
hissed clutching St John’s arm and breaking into the interrogation.
Nikki prayed that their attention would be diverted.

“A wonderful actor. He absolutely deserved
his accolade as best actor in
The Kiss of the Spider Woman
,”
Jennifa said. “I almost worked with him a few years ago. I was
starring in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
in the West End when
Emile Ardolino approached me to play Titania in a movie version he
was directing for television. William was playing Oberon. It would
have been a fabulous experience. Unfortunately they were shooting
in America and of course I couldn’t leave Oakley for that long,”
Jennifa managed to turn the conversation around to herself.

“So in fact you didn’t actually meet William
Hurt?” St John enquired maliciously, while the rest of the table
sniggered.

Jennifa shot her brother a murderous
look.

Nikki excused herself from the table to go
to the ladies and Jennifa jumped up. “I’ll come with you.” She
placed her napkin on her chair and hurried after Nikki. “My brother
is such a bastard if he wasn’t so good looking he’d never pull
birds,” she scowled, then cleared her face to reduce the wrinkles.
“Luckily for you he was able to prise Mallory Argyle away from
Lorenzo.”

Nikki stopped abruptly so that Jennifa
cannoned into her. “What do you mean?” she asked coldly. She well
remembered the night she had asked St John to accompany her to the
Inauguration ball. It had been one of the low points of her
life.

“Oaks told me how infatuated Lorenzo was
with that airhead. I thought it was a shame that all the years
you’d invested in your relationship with him were about to go down
the gurgler so I persuaded St John to fly to New York to charm our
little birdie right out of Lorenzo’s hand. It worked didn’t it?
Lorenzo proposed straight away.” Jennifa smiled smugly. “Don’t
worry about thanking me. I’m just happy you and Lorenzo are back
together. Now, come along, you’re blocking the doorway.”

Furiously Nikki strode past Jennifa, pushing
open the door into the toilets. How dare Jennifa take credit for
Lorenzo’s proposal. Damn it, she needed a bomb disposal unit to get
rid of all the manipulative blond bombshells in her life!

By the time the two women returned to the
table the main meals had been served.

“How is your red mullet, my dear?” Sir Roddy
enquired of Jazz.

Jazz gingerly nibbled a forkful, then nodded
her head with enthusiasm as the tender flesh melted in her mouth.
“Delicious,” she said with relief.

Mischievously St John offered her a forkful
of his frogs’ legs, panfried with tomatoes and draped poetically
over his marinated beef sirloin. She wrinkled her nose and shook
her head.

Once the main course was finished, Sir Roddy
called it a night. He wasn’t as young as the last time he had come
to Cannes, he explained. Jennifa, tired of St John’s indefatigable
quips at her expense, decided to return to the Carlton with him for
her beauty sleep to be prepared for the final night’s celebrations
and they dragged a loudly complaining Oakley back with them.

As the others were choosing their desserts,
for which the Palme d’Or was rightly famous, Maixent was escorted
to their table. Even in that celebrity-studded room, Prince Maixent
had a special aura. The restaurant staff were in a fair way to
tripping over their feet they were bowing and scrapping so
deferentially.

Lorenzo greeted him enthusiastically,
wringing his hand and slapping him on the shoulder.

“I’m hoping to have a word with you about
that documentary,” he muttered quietly so the others didn’t hear.
“I have some good news about distribution rights which I think may
persuade your father to go ahead. Come and take a turn with me
around the Terrace.”

Before Maixent could slip unobtrusively into
one of the vacant seats, Lorenzo whisked him off between the
diners, whose necks were so stretched from craning to get a glimpse
of Prince Maixent and one of Europe’s hottest producers that they
could perform their own swan songs.

“I’ve got someone interested in flooding the
European market with the documentary and if we can guarantee Queen
Leigh as the narrator he assures me the American market is a goer
as well – we’re talking cable of course. I don’t see the
documentary hitting the big screens, but a potential video market
is on the cards.” Lorenzo and Maixent paced around the perimeter of
the terrace, heads together as Lorenzo prattled excitedly. Maixent
could hardly absorb everything Lorenzo was telling him.

“My distributor is also willing to negotiate
on some post-production costs and I’m prepared to hold over the
producer’s costs until the documentary is finished and making
money. Since there are no actors involved, there will be very
little upfront costs – crew of course, music rights, but nothing
that should blow your budget out of the water. Maybe a mill or
two.” Maixent gulped. Would this news be enough to persuade Henri
to set a budget for the documentary?

“I have some ideas for the shooting that I
need to discuss with you,” Lorenzo continued. “I did hint to my
distributor that there would be some interesting developments
happening this year in Altobello which would put this documentary
on the buzz list. But I gave nothing away,” Lorenzo assured Maixent
at his look of horror. “Nikki would never forgive me if I broke the
news before our own engagement was officially announced.”

“I hope that you and Nikki will visit
Altobello after the Festival to become acquainted with my parents.
Perhaps we can work in a way to convince King Henri of the
necessity for the documentary.” Maixent mentally revised the
planned visit to incorporate this new development.

Lorenzo frowned. “I plan to make the Queen’s
Cup polo tournament in early June, but I can spare a free week
now,” Lorenzo mused as the two men approached the table where
luscious desserts were now waiting like a circle of show girls in
extravagant and brightly colored outfits.

Upon their return, Lorenzo formally
introduced him to Nikki. As he bowed over her proffered hand, Nikki
soaked in details about his appearance, noting the thick,
sun-streaked blond mane, the intense blue eyes and the well-molded,
laughter-quivering lips. She couldn’t resist wondering who he most
resembled.

Seating himself in Jennifa’s seat next to
Nikki, Maixent nodded to Jazz, who stuttered a greeting and to St
John whom he knew from their polo match, while across the table
Charley smiled fatuously at him. The waiter fawningly handed over
the dessert menu.

“You look lovely tonight, Madam,” Maixent
turned his attention to Charley’s mother. He needed to get her on
side and in favor of the wedding. “It’s easy to see where Charley
gets her good looks.”

Nikki was far from flattered by this remark.
It emphasized how no one ever commented on Charley looking like her
father. Nikki lowered her eyes and concentrated on her black
truffle ice cream dripping with lush chocolate sauce and topped
with fresh berries.

Tucking into his crème brulée with obvious
enjoyment, Lorenzo said offhandedly, “Prince Maixent has invited us
to Altobello for a few days after the Festival, cara. Isn’t that a
wonderful idea? We can get to know Queen Leigh and King Henri much
better.” Speaking across Nikki, he said to Maixent, “your mother is
a charming woman. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting her at the Valentine
Polo Ball.”

Nikki almost choked. Leigh was a snake
charmer alright, she thought spitefully.

“I’ve already made commitments in New York
straight after the Festival,” Nikki dissented.

“Nonsense, cara,” Lorenzo overrode her. “I
also must get into training for the Queen’s Cup, but I’m willing to
suspend that for a few days.” He brushed his cheek against hers.
“For Charley’s sake,” he whispered.

The waiter brought around an ornate coffee
jug accompanied by palme d’or chocolates and rose flavored jellies
on a silver platter.

Charley looked imploringly at her mother,
her eyes as beseeching as Oscar’s when he wanted a walk.

“There’ll be too much publicity if we turn
up at the Spring Palace,” Nikki was adamant. Perversely she felt
that if she could only keep Maixent and Charley apart then their
romance would fizzle out, just as all Charley’s other relationships
had.

“I will arrange for a villa for your family
to stay in,” Maixent offered. “My parents would be delighted to
meet with you. It will give both you and Lorenzo a chance to look
around Altobello and visit the palace. Hopefully it will give you
the chance to reassure yourself that Charley is not making a
mistake,” Maixent’s eyes twinkled at the absurdity of what he had
said. He knew his eligibility could not be rivaled.