The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (27 page)

“You mean, you think this key opens the door to the place she kept the rest of her secrets?” Millie asked.

“I’d bet my boots on it.” Nick studied the key again. “Look, there’s a number engraved on it.” He grinned cockily at Millie. “Now you tell me where a nice law-abiding old lady would keep her secrets.”

“At her bank,” Millie said promptly.

He nodded. “I’ll bet this is the key to a safe-deposit box. Our problem is which bank.”

Bea sighed, defeated. “There must be hundreds here along the coast.”

Nick grinned confidently at them. “Then it’s up to me to play detective and find the right one, isn’t it?”

Immediately after lunch Nick hurried off on his new mission, and Bea decided to check on the progress at the Villa Mimosa. The kitchen and several new bathrooms were in the process of being installed, and the place was swarming with carpenters and tilers, plasterers and painters. The villa was still hidden under a mass of scaffolding, but the swimming pool was almost finished, and a landscape gardener was working with his team to restore the grounds to their former glory.

Millie’s designer had his new deadline, and he intended to meet it, especially in view of the lavish bonus she had promised, and she was satisfied that though the house might not be completely finished, at least in a couple of days some of the furniture would be in place and it would be habitable.

Millie had intended to go with Bea to the villa, but
then she told her she felt unaccountably weary. “I’ll just let you go alone, dear girl,” she said, kissing her good-bye. “You can bring me back the progress report.”

Millie waved good-bye to Bea and strolled happily along the terrace to her favorite spot overlooking the sea.

She summoned a waiter and ordered a glass of brandy to perk her up. Sighing with satisfaction, she gazed at the pines and olive trees, the pink and purple bougainvillea, and the silvery blue sea. She thought that of all the places in the world she had traveled, this was her favorite.

Silly woman
, she told herself, smiling,
you say that about every place you go. You know by now it’s not just the place; it’s the company you keep. In the old days, when you were young and giddy, it was always a man. And now that you are old, it’s that dear girl Bea. You know she reminds you of yourself at her age, though of course, you never let your loneliness and vulnerability show. Always too proud for that, always covered it up under a devil-may-care attitude.

She laughed, thinking it was too late to care about all that now. The children would be arriving soon, and the Villa Mimosa was almost finished. She had laid her plans, made sure everything was the way she wished it to be.

Millie sipped her brandy happily, gazing out onto the Mediterranean. Seabirds wheeled noisily overhead, the sun was warm on her bare arms, and a gentle breeze rustled the fronds of the palm trees. She heaved a sigh of pure contentment as she put down her glass and leaned comfortably back against the cushions and closed her eyes.

She was fast asleep when the pain gripped her heart as it had done so many times over the past few years. Only this time it was to be the last. She was smiling when she died.

*   *   *

“I don’t believe it,” Bea screamed when she was told. “It’s just not true. Please, please, tell me it’s not true.” Her heart felt as though it would burst with the pain as she turned, ashen-faced, to Nick. “Millie was my friend,” she whispered. “She was good and kind and generous. When I was lost and frightened, she took me into her life and made me part of it.” She began to sob, great, heaving, ugly sobs that almost choked her. “Oh, Nick, why should this happen to her now? Why? It’s just not fair.”

He held her trembling in his arms. He liked Millie, he had seen the goodness beneath the bluff exterior, and he was shocked and sad that she was gone. But he was desolate for Bea; her fragile persona seemed to be disintegrating under this new blow. He tightened his arms around her, wanting to give her his strength, his support.

She was talking incoherently about Millie, saying she must call Phyl, that Phyl was Millie’s friend. He told her gently not to worry, that he would call Phyl; he would call Millie’s attorney in New York; he would take care of everything. But first he took Bea to her room and called the doctor to give her a sedative.

The attorney, John Hartley, arranged for the funeral to take place two days later. He told Nick he would be unable to attend, but that he would be arriving to settle Mrs. Renwick’s affairs at the end of the week.

It was impossible to get hold of Phyl. Nick left a dozen messages on her answering machine, saying that he was calling about Millie Renwick, that it was urgent, asking her to call him, but she did not reply.

“She must have gone away,” said Bea, desolate that Phyl would miss Millie’s last big event.

The day of the funeral dawned clear and blue and sunny. “It’s perfect,” Bea said sadly. “It’s just the way Millie would have wanted it.”

They were the only mourners apart from a straggle of black-coated waiters and hotel staff keeping discreetly
in the background, paying their final respects to Millie Renwick not because she was a generous woman but because, as she had hoped, they were genuinely fond of her.

Bea laid a sheaf of Millie’s favorite pink roses and white lilies on the grave. She stood sadly for a moment, her head bowed. She put her fingers to her lips and blew her a farewell kiss, then, with Nick’s comforting arm around her, walked away slowly.

Bea could not bear the thought of the hotel without Millie and had decided to move into the Villa Mimosa, even though it still wasn’t finished.

She leaned her head on Nick’s shoulder as they drove there in the big black funeral car, thinking what a happy day this was meant to be for Millie. And for her. She was going to live in the house of her dreams; only now, without Millie’s forceful presence, somehow it all seemed meaningless. The car turned in at the big iron gates, and she opened her eyes as they drove silently up the gravel driveway of the Villa Mimosa.

And there, sitting on the steps, with airline identification tags still around their necks, looking lost and forlorn, were two small, pale, frightened-looking children.

“It’s Scott and Julie Renwick,”
Bea gasped, horrified. She had completely forgotten they were arriving today. In fact, she had forgotten all about them.

Relieved finally to hand over her charges, the distraught Air France representative rushed toward them. She told them that when nobody had met them at the airport, she had been worried. The airline had the address of the Villa Mimosa, so she had brought them here. Her responsibility over, she left hurriedly before they could change their minds.

Bea looked sadly at the children and then at Nick. “What do we do now?” she whispered.

Big-eyed, scared, the two children looked back at them. They were alike as two peas: the same round face
and freckles, blue eyes, and ragged fringe of shiny brown hair, hers in a ponytail with the ribbon sliding off it. The boy took his sister’s hand, saying nothing, waiting apprehensively for what might happen to them next.

Scotty Renwick again felt the lump sticking in his throat that meant he had to fight not to cry. He swallowed hard, staring back at the woman and the man who were looking at them as though they had never seen two kids before. He felt Julie’s small, hot hand grip his even more tightly, and he knew he had to be brave for her sake. Hadn’t he been told after Mom and Dad’s funeral that he had to be a man now and look after his sister? He knew it was true. It was just the two of them now against the world. But the world was suddenly so much bigger than the small town they had always lived in, where they knew everybody and everybody knew them. These strangers were looking at them as though they had never even heard of them. And this woman couldn’t be his aunt Millie. Wasn’t she supposed to be old?

He slid his arm protectively around Julie’s shoulders, waiting for them to do something. That’s all that ever happened now. People did things to them, or for them: sent them places to live, gave them food, smiled a lot at them with that special pitying look in their eyes. “Lucky you,” they had said, “having a rich auntie in the sunny south of France. Lucky you going to live in a grand villa.” “Oh sure,” he had mumbled bitterly, “lucky us.”

The red-haired woman was smiling at him now. “Welcome to the Villa Mimosa, Scott and Julie,” she said warmly. “Boy, are we glad to see you. Poor kids, you look exhausted. Come on inside, and let me show you your rooms. Millie had them all fixed up specially for you.”

Scott glanced down at Julie. Her expression was blank, as it usually was these days. As though she had
put her emotions into neutral. Julie hadn’t cried once since the funeral, though she had cried buckets before. And so had he, howling like a wolf sometimes, letting out his pain. And his anger, because boy, was he angry. Angry at whoever had caused his mom and dad to die; angry at them for dying; angry at himself for not being big and strong enough to take care of Julie. Angry at not being able to turn the clock back and make everything the way it used to be, the four of them in the little yellow ranch house with the pepper trees surrounding it, dropping endless leaves onto the lawn. He had even promised God he would never complain again about clearing up those leaves if only he would bring Mom and Dad back. But it seemed God wasn’t one for bargains.

And now here he was, with Julie, in a foreign country called France where they all spoke stuff he couldn’t understand, with two strangers, in an enormous house called the Villa Mimosa that looked like something in the movies. Because even though they smiled at him, they were still strangers. And the truth was he was scared. And homesick.

“Are you my aunt Millie?” Julie said suddenly, looking suspiciously at the woman.

Scott gave her a quick nudge with his elbow; hadn’t he warned her not to say anything, not to ask any questions? He had told her to let him take care of it all, that they wouldn’t stay here. Leave it to him, he had said, and they would soon be home again. “But, Scotty, where is home?” Julie had asked plaintively, and that awful lump had come back in his throat again. He had no answer; he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore. He was only nine years old, and he didn’t want to be a man yet. He just wanted life to be the way it had always been.

“I’m Bea French,” the woman said, hunkering down and giving Julie a kiss on the cheek. She leaned toward
him, too, but he drew back. He didn’t want any kisses from any more strangers.

“And I’m Nick Lascelles.” The man held out his hand, and Scott took it reluctantly. “We’re friends of your aunt Millie’s,” he said. “Come on inside; let’s show you around.”

Scott took Julie’s hand again as they followed them indoors. He stared around the big empty hall, surprised. There was no furniture, no muddy boots kicked into a corner, no coats hanging on a peg like at home.

“This place looks like nobody lives here,” he said in his funny gravelly voice that used to make his dad laugh.

“Your aunt Millie was having the villa redone especially for you,” Bea said reassuringly. “She wanted it to be finished when you got here, but there’s still not much furniture. Just in the kitchen and the bedrooms.”

“And there’s the swimming pool,” Nick said. “Don’t forget that.”

“There’s a pool?” Scott’s tired eyes lit with a flash of interest.

“Sure there’s a pool,” Bea said quickly. “And there’s a beach nearby, and lots of boats for fishing.”

“Yeah.” Scott shrugged his thin shoulders tiredly, glaring at Julie as she ran to Nick and slid her hand trustingly into his.

She looked up at him and lisped plaintively, “Whereth my aunt Millie?”

Bea shot Nick an apprehensive look that said she thought the truth was just too harsh for these poor emotionally battered children right now. “I just told you, sweetie,” she said. “Aunt Millie couldn’t be here today.”

Julie stared at her. “She’s dead, ith’nt she?” She turned her sad gaze on Nick. “That’s what they told uth when my mommy and daddy died. They thaid they couldn’t be with uth anymore.”

Oh, God
, Scotty thought, fighting that lump in his throat again.
Julie’s right. That’s what they told us. Oh, God, what will become of us now? They said she was our only relative … now we have nobody … nobody … we are orphans … in a foreign country … with strangers….

Nick said gently, “I’m sorry, Julie, but everything’s still okay. Bea and I will take care of you.”

“
I’ll
take care of her,” Scotty muttered. “She’s
my
sister.”

“Bea, my hairth metthy,” Julie said, her lisp becoming more pronounced the way it did when she was tired or upset. “And I need to go to the bathroom.”

She yawned wearily as they followed Bea upstairs, still holding tightly to Scott’s hand. “Remember, don’t say anything,” he warned as Bea flung open the door and showed them a pink ruffled bower, fit for a princess.

“Millie knew you liked pink, Julie,” Bea said as the girl gave a delighted cry and ran toward the menagerie of stuffed animals awaiting her on the window seat. “And that your favorite color is green, Scott,” she said, including him in her smile.

“I don’t care,” Scott muttered, with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. He turned away, ignoring his sister exclaiming over the beautiful big doll awaiting her in the middle of the brass four-poster.

It was suddenly all too much. He couldn’t keep that lump away; tears threatened, and he ran from the room.

He stood in the hallway, his shoulders hunched, his clenched fists thrust into his pockets. Even from the back, Nick knew that he was crying and that he didn’t want anyone to see.

He said, “It’s all right to cry if you feel like it, Scott. A lot of sad things have happened to you. First your mom and dad, and now your aunt Millie.”

“What did
she
care?” he said in a tight, choked little voice. “She didn’t even
know
us.”

“It’s true Millie had never met you, but she knew all about you. And what she knew made her care. She was an old lady, you know, but she told us she had never been a mother and now she could be. She was really looking forward to it, Scott. To being with you and Julie and taking care of you.”