Never Too Rich (21 page)

Edwina’s cutlery had been silent. She had barely
touched the first course of oysters and mussels in featherweight
puff pastry, and she’d stirred her spoon around in the fish soup
without even tasting it. When the sterling trays of squab were
ceremoniously presented, she grabbed one little bird with the
silver tongs, deposited it swiftly on her plate, and spooned some
sauce over it. She eyed the tiny thing malevolently. It looked
suspiciously like a stunted parakeet.

The rich aroma of poultry and truffled meat sauce
rising from the plate brought on a stifling bout of nausea. She
looked away from her plate and breathed shallowly through her
mouth. Any appetite she had had was completely gone. Most of it had
fled when she found her place card and started to sit—and Klas
Claussen had sat down opposite her. From that moment on, her
evening had progressed from bad to hell.

Klas raised his wineglass in a mocking salute, and
she quickly looked away. But where to look? On her right, the old
husband-manager of a soprano was attacking his squab with relish;
fragile bones crackled under his fork and knife. On her left, the
even older publisher of one of New York’s dailies was in a world of
his own, picking at his food and chewing tiny mouthfuls with slow,
mechanical movements; beneath his liver spots, his ancient skin
glowed translucently. Shifting her gaze, she saw the Spanish wife
of an Arab arms dealer, nose poked practically inside her
wineglass, rolling the Riesling around as if it had come from some
dusty hundred-year-old bottle.

Sighing to herself, Edwina bleakly sipped her own
wine. At least, she thought cheerlessly, matters can’t get any
worse. Can they?

And then they did.

“
Aren’t you going to toast me,
Edwina?” Klas murmured tonelessly in that superior, sniffing way of
his.

“
Why should I?” Edwina didn’t
bother looking at him.

Sonja Myrra’s harsh voice reverberated across the
table like a shock wave. “If there is a reason to toast you, Klas,
you
must
tell us!”

“
Sonja is right,” Riva Price, the
gossip columnist, chimed in. “We loathe secrets. Especially me! Is
it something I can dish up in my column?” Riva stared intently at
Klas. Then abruptly her gaze shifted to Edwina; the sharp,
dirt-digging eyes were like two searing laser beams.

Sonja Myrra was, for the moment, blessedly
quiet.

Klas waited, drawing out the suspense. His insolent
pale, goading eyes never left Edwina, who was still slowly sipping
her wine.

“
Well?” Riva prodded.

Klas leaned back easily, smiling with his dissipated
lips. “The announcement,” he said with slow and evident
satisfaction, “will not be officially made until Monday. However,
I’m pleased to announce that I have been promoted.” He raised his
own glass higher, and the smile widened on his narrow face. “You
are now looking at Antonio de Riscal’s new number two.”

Edwina’s heavy Baccarat wineglass slipped from
between her fingers and crashed down on the priceless Meissen
dinner plate. The two-hundred-year-old china cracked. Riesling
leapt high, like a fountain. Crystal shattered. Her squab, thrown
up by the impact, levitated momentarily before plummeting back
down.

At all three tables, laughter and conversation
abruptly stopped. Heads snapped in her direction, but she didn’t
appear to notice. She was oblivious of everything but the bombshell
Klas had dropped in her lap, staring in confusion at the mess of
food, china, crystal, and liquid. Jagged shards of crystal lay
there like so many rainbow-tinged fangs; she drew in a breath of
dismay at the amoeba-shaped stain of Riesling spreading inexorably
in all directions, darkening the snowy starched damask. She gaped,
horror-stricken, at the irreplaceable antique plate that had once
graced an emperor’s table. It sat in two accusatory zigzagging
halves, split down the middle, parted like pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle.

But her embarrassment gave way to her despair at
Klas’s smug revelation. Her world had collapsed. Did an emperor’s
plate really matter? She had been betrayed.

Sensing a sudden presence, she looked up. The
imperturbable Banstead had materialized at her side, a starched
white towel folded neatly across his forearm. “I’m most frightfully
sorry, Miss Robinson,” the butler murmured with heartfelt
sincerity, as though he were somehow personally at fault. “I didn’t
realize you’d been given a cracked glass ...”

Edwina stared up at him. “Cracked? The glass wasn’t
cracked.”

“
Your dress did not suffer, I
hope?” Banstead signaled smoothly to a footman, who jumped to and
began to clear away the mess. “Another place setting will be
brought at once,” he assured her.

Edwina shook her head. “I don’t want another place
setting.” Her voice nearly cracked, and she pushed her chair back
from the table.

“
But, Miss Robinson—”

“
Banstead,
please!”

The butler vanished at once, as if she’d vaporized
him.

Edwina turned to Klas, who met her gaze while
blithely sipping his wine, and almost, but not quite, succeeded in
looking bored. She could see the triumph glitter like moonlit frost
deep within his eyes, the barest upturn of self-satisfaction
hovering indulgently at the corners of his lips.

Moving in slow motion, she carefully removed the
napkin from her lap, crumpled it, and placed it on the table.
Unsteadily she got to her feet. Her knees wobbled and jerked. For
one long, awful moment she was afraid her legs would actually give
out. She had a remarkably clear peripheral view; all around, the
glossy aubergine walls seemed to pulsate slowly. The grandiose
ceiling cornice appeared to tilt and blister. At the windows, the
opulently beribboned braids of pale pink silk seemed to writhe.

Like snakes.

What in God’s name was happening to her?

“
Edwina?”

She gave a start, her attention drawn by the silvery
voice. Anouk, all hollow cheeks and visible bones, was half-twisted
toward her, a pale skeletal elbow draped decorously across the back
of her chair. A long-tined sterling fork was poised like a
miniature pitchfork in her hand.

Edwina could only stare. In the flickering
candlelight, Anouk’s sharp features had a feral quality that seemed
to pulsate, just like the walls. Was it some hallucination, she
wondered, or was it a trick of the lighting . . . or did the heavy
Bulgari sapphires really stretch Anouk’s earlobes halfway down to
her bare, angular shoulders?

“
Darling?” Concern oozed from
Anouk’s voice. “Are you all right?”

“
Yes.” Edwina took a deep breath
and nodded. “I . . . I’m fine. Really.” She could feel everyone’s
eyes staring at her. Rabidly, like hungry wolves savoring a lame
lamb. Then, furrowing her brow, she frowned and shook her head as
though to clear it. “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m
not.”

Anouk started to get up, but Edwina waved her back
into her chair. Air, she thought desperately. I need air. I can’t
breathe in here. It feels like all the oxygen’s been sucked out of
the room.

Drawing deep, ragged gasps, she felt her chartreuse
bodice tighten and loosen with every breath she took.

“
Th-thank you for the lovely
party,” she managed with all the effort she could muster. Her
throat felt clogged, and the words sounded thick, as though they
came from someone else.

“
Eds.” This voice was soft and
familiar, sounded genuinely caring.

R.L.

Mindless of the ravenous eyes all around, Edwina
focused on him. His eyes were looking at her steadily, and the
concerned, tightly knit expression on his face touched her deep
inside. Like a jolt of pain. But just the sight of him was enough
to give her a boost of strength. She couldn’t, mustn’t,
wouldn’t
let him see her like this—not falling into a
thousand pieces. Not while he was watching.

Drawing on the last of her rapidly dwindling
reserves, she forced her limp body to rearrange itself, and the
sagging pieces reassembled themselves into a facsimile of her usual
proud posture. “I . . . I’m sorry.” She raised her chin with an
effort no one in that room except Klas Claussen could appreciate.
“I’m not feeling well.

I . . . I think I have to—”

Then the hungry faces seemed to converge on her from
all sides and the aubergine walls closed in completely.

The suffocating warmth was like a flash of hellish
heat.

Clapping a hand across her mouth, Edwina turned and
fled from the beautiful, stifling apartment without even bothering
to retrieve her coat.

R. L. Shacklebury didn’t wait for her quick
footsteps to fade from the marble-paved hall. Nor did he excuse
himself. Abruptly balling up his napkin, he tossed it on his plate
and went after Edwina.

He’d let her get away once, years ago. He wasn’t
about to make the same mistake twice.

Anouk was burning. Sitting immobile and impassive,
she watched Edwina and then R.L. depart. Nothing indicated her fury
but the merest hint of subtle muscles rearranging themselves under
the smooth surface of her flawless face.

The nerve! The insult! How dare Edwina ruin her
beautiful dinner party, for which every detail, from the most
telling to the most inconspicuous, had been so carefully planned
and artfully fulfilled!

I will kill the bitch! Anouk swore to herself. But
she smiled brilliantly all around and slipped the napkin off her
lap. “If you’ll excuse us, darlings,” she trilled to no one in
particular, “Antonio and I will be back in a moment.” While
speaking, she had risen fluidly to her feet. “Darling?” She raised
her eyebrows at Antonio.

He rose to his wife’s summons. “We won’t be long,”
he said to the room in general, and gestured. “Please. Don’t let
the food get cold.”

“
However,” Anouk, ever the
consummate hostess, added archly over her shoulder, “if I miss so
much as one conversational tidbit, I will want to hear it the
instant I get back!”

Then she and Antonio moved unhurriedly out of the
room. Only once they were out of sight of the diners did they
half-run to catch up with Edwina and R.L.

Chapter 22

They intercepted Edwina in the elevator vestibule,
where she was pacing furiously. She had obviously recovered her
steel. R.L. watched in amazement as they smoothly went to work on
her. He had to hand it to them. Like tag-team professionals, the de
Riscals operated in incredible tandem.

First Anouk: “Darling?” she asked Edwina
curiously.

Then Antonio: “Is everything all right?”

Edwina stopped in mid-pace. “Why shouldn’t it be?”
she asked sharply. “I mean, this
is
the perfect dinner
party, isn’t it?”

“
I don’t know.” The hint of a frown
crossed Anouk’s face and then vanished. “You seemed to be ... ah .
. . stalking out rather angrily.”

For a moment Edwina merely stared, filled with
incredulity.

Antonio picked up where his wife had left off:
“Edwina, if something has upset you, we would really like to know
what it is.”

Edwina’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t believe
her ears. Did he know? Of course he did!

Anouk, pleading: “Darling,
please.
Tell us
what is wrong.”

Antonio: “If it’s something we have done . . .”

Suddenly Edwina’s anger reasserted itself. She had
had enough. She was sick and tired of being toyed with, of being a
pawn in the de Riscals’ manipulative games. “You mean you really
don’t know?” she said, her voice choked with rage. “Somehow I find
that hard—very,
very
hard—to believe.”

“
I see that we must talk,” Antonio
said smoothly.

“
Talk!” Edwina spat, shooting him a
look of undiluted thunder and lightning as she renewed her furious
pacing.

Anouk turned to R.L., who was himself marveling at
the de Riscals’ interaction.

“
Darling,” Anouk sighed, laying a
hand of seeming concern and sincerity on his arm, “we’re not
kidnapping Edwina. We just need two minutes with her.”

“
That’s up to her, isn’t it?” R.L.
responded tightly.

“
Edwina,” Antonio urged smoothly,
“may we talk inside?”

Edwina stood her ground. “I’m not going back in
there.” She was quivering with rage. “If you want to talk, we can
talk here.” She crossed her arms across her chest.

Antonio exchanged fleeting glances with his
wife.

“
Darling?” Anouk looked at R.L.
questioningly. “Would you mind terribly waiting . . .” Her voice
trailed off and she was already sliding an arm through his in order
to lead him back into the apartment.

R.L. hesitated and looked at Edwina. “Eds?”

“
It’s all right, R.L.,” she said
from between her teeth.

“
You’re positive?”

She nodded.

“
Remember, I’m here if you need me.
Just don’t leave before—”

“
I won’t.” Her fingers were digging
in at her elbows, as though preparing for flight.

“
Now, then, darling.” Anouk smiled
sweetly up at R.L. “Have you taken a close look at the pair of
Canalettos hanging in the foyer? They’re really quite superb.” She
led him back into the apartment, her every movement one of supreme
self-possession. She smiled sweetly once he was inside and adroitly
slid her arm from his. She gestured fluidly at the pair of smallish
paintings, one hung above the other, which glowed in the
candlelight. “Beautiful, aren’t they? Now, off I go. We won’t be
long, I promise.” She floated out, shutting the front door softly,
leaving him standing in the domed foyer.