Chloe (27 page)

She knew she should be weeping, or maybe filled with anger. But all she felt was shame and disgust.
I’ve been a fool, a stupid little fool.

The next morning, Chloe splashed cold water on her face once more and applied powder, rouge, and lipstick to cover the traces of a sleepless night. Aching and empty, she walked down to the dining room for breakfast. Should she confront her father or hide her knowledge?

He sat at the head of the table, hidden behind the
New York Times
. As she read the title of the paper, she suddenly knew what she would do and where she wanted to be. But not why. “Good morning, Daddy.” Her calm voice sounded artificial to her ears.

“Mornin’, Chloe. Glad you’re home.”

Chloe waited to see if he would say anything about her engagement. He didn’t. Of course not; he was too clever for that. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“I got a call from that orphanage woman.”

This caught her by surprise. Her pulse jerked in her veins. “Oh?”

“Yeah, she wanted to know if you knew Kitty McCaslin is havin’ her parents adopt that kid Jamie.”

Another hit below the belt. She passed a hand over her brow, smoothing away the tension. This was no more than she deserved. She should have adopted Jamie long ago and taken him and her daughter far from her parents. “I knew Kitty had taken him home to live with her parents.”

“No doubt to make up for neither of the McCaslin kids getting married and givin’ their parents any grandkids?” he said with a superior twist to his voice.

Chloe couldn’t make herself reply to this. The pain of losing Roarke was a wound that had never completely healed. “I’m going,” she dropped the bomb, “to make a trip to New York today.”

The paper lowered. “Oh?”

At last, she’d gained his attention. “I have some shopping to do, a dress to buy,” she improvised, “and I think I might as well go up there and get it all done efficiently.” What would going to New York gain her?

“Well, sugar, here you’re barely home and now you’re leavin’ again. You know I missed you.”

Is that right, Daddy?
Should she say anything about her engagement? She’d waffled back and forth, but she realized she must or arouse suspicion. “You should be wishing me happy, Daddy. I’ve accepted Drake’s proposal of marriage.”

“Sugar!” Daddy beamed as if this were the first time he’d heard the news. “I do wish you happiness. You couldn’t do better’n Drake Lovelady.”

Or richer, right, Daddy?
“Thank you. “I’m very happy.”
I was very happy.
Her father got up and hugged and kissed her. Chloe wanted to bat away his hands. The touch of his lips on her cheek made her skin crawl.
Daddy, you should be on the stage like Minnie.
She took grim satisfaction in knowing that if she’d done nothing else of worth in her life, she’d gotten Minnie out of her father’s sweaty palms.

Maybe it was Minnie she wanted to see in New York?

“I’m going to take the train,” Chloe continued, “I can hire a car in the city or just use taxis.”

The maid brought in fresh coffee and her father went back behind the paper. “Well, all right. How long will you be gone?”

The rest of my natural life if I can help it.
“Not long, Daddy,” she lied with a serene smile.

After breakfast and her father’s departure, she called the New York number Drake had given her as the one sure to reach him. Within moments, he came on the line. “Darling, I’m so glad you called. I didn’t think I’d get to hear your sweet voice today.”

“Good morning.” The urge to demand that he tell her the truth about whether he’d let her father know about their engagement chewed at her. Suspicion made her voice come out starchy. “I hope I’m not interrupting any business.”

“The meeting is just about to start and then I’ll be tied up most of the day. The stock market jitters have spooked Dad’s board of directors. We’ve got to reassure them that prosperity is here to stay.”

“I just wanted you to know,” she said, “that I’m coming up to the City today.” Was it Drake, then, drawing her to New York?

“You are? Wonderful. We need to talk over wedding plans with my parents. And let Mother draw up the engagement announcement for all the society pages.”

“You haven’t told anyone yet?” she asked as casually as she could.

“Just my parents. Darn. I’ve got to go. Where will you be staying? You know they’ve razed the Waldorf-Astoria to make room for the new Empire State Building, don’t you? Why don’t you stay with us at our New York apartment?”

“No, I’ll let you know where I end up, Drake. Good-bye.”

“I love you, Chloe. Don’t forget that.”

She hadn’t gotten a clue from Drake’s voice if he’d been in complicity with her father. Then she recalled her father’s intention to use blackmail against Drake. But wasn’t Drake astute enough to avoid such a pitfall? Perhaps one of Drake’s servants had informed her father? That was more likely. She couldn’t bring herself to believe Drake had been dishonest with her. He might be a sinner, but he was an honest sinner. The promise of discretion he’d made her after her acceptance of his proposal had proved that. But her father wanted to use Drake’s propensity to sin against them both. And she couldn’t let that happen.

The next evening, Chloe stood with her hand on the phone in her suite at the Benjamin Hotel. She’d just dialed Roarke’s New York number for the eighth time. Each time she’d hung up before anyone answered. She lifted the receiver again. A knock on the door made her put the receiver back in its cradle.

“Chloe?” Drake’s voice came through the door and she opened it to him. He kissed her hello and then frowned. “What’s the matter, princess?”

She walked farther into the suite, done in maroon and green with a lot of glass and chrome. “Drake, I’m going to Paris.” The plan had come to her when she’d reached New York yesterday.

On a whim, she’d had the cabbie drive her by all the places that had been dear or important to her when she’d eloped here in 1917—Theran’s rooming house, Mrs. Rascombe’s, the shop on Fifth Avenue, that little café in the Village that Kitty had loved. She’d even had the man drive her to the dock where she’d waved farewell to Theran. And there, a longing to follow Theran had swept through her.

Startled, Drake tried to read Chloe, but her eyes were shuttered. “Paris? Why?” he asked as though it were only of mild interest.

“I want to visit my late husband’s grave.”

Of all the things she might have said this ranked as the worst possible news. He walked over to the room’s bar. From the stainless steel ice bucket, he added ice to one of the glasses waiting on the bar. Then he pulled out his sterling silver hipflask and poured whiskey onto the ice. He took a swallow. “Chloe, that’s so macabre.”

“No, it isn’t.” She turned from him and walked to one of the tall windows.

This on top of the awful day he’d had. Drake felt his lungs tighten. He thumped his glass down on the bar. “Why?”

“I need to go and close that . . . that period of my life.”

His temper flared but he clamped down on it. He wouldn’t let his frayed nerves endanger his engagement. “Are you sure,” he said, his voice lazy, “you want to stir up the past?”

“I have to go to Paris and close the book of my first marriage. I should have done it years ago.” She pushed the pale-green draperies farther open, scraping hooks against the rod. “I’ve never felt that Theran and I had a chance to say good-bye once and for all. There was just a memorial service, you know, not a burial.”

It sounded plausible, but he didn’t like the way she turned her back to him. He wanted Chloe more than he’d ever wanted any woman in his life.
I’ve courted you most of a decade.
The fear that he might still lose her churned through him. His temper snapped. “Have you called Roarke McCaslin while you’re in town?”

“Why do you ask me that?”

“Tell me, Chloe—” He tried to pull back to safer ground, but his mouth was dry with longing for her. “I need to know if you’ve called him.”

“Of course, I haven’t.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I haven’t seen him since Kitty was released from the hospital this spring. Why would I call him and why should you care if I did? He’s just an old family friend.”

Through the tall window, the garish night lights flashed into the room, glimmering on her white satin lounging gown, outlining her slender silhouette. In the low light, her skin glowed like ripe peaches. He imagined nuzzling her nape, breathing in her subtle floral perfume. Physical desire for this woman made his whole body clench. It drove him, lashed him to expose his need. “I recall how you looked at that ‘old family friend’ that night in ’21 when I dogged you to that club in Harlem.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Her calm reply drove him to the ropes. “You were in love with him.”

“That’s not true,” she fired up, still not turning. “I’ve never been in love with Roarke. He’s just . . . he was just such a special friend. Roarke always understood me better than I did myself. I just wanted him back that way, the way it had always been between us.”

Maybe she was unaware of her feelings for Roarke. He should let it drop. Again, he couldn’t stop himself. He came up behind her. “I’m sure that’s what you believe, but that’s not what I sensed.” He turned her to face him.

Chloe wouldn’t meet Drake’s eyes. “I’m engaged to you. I will not break our engagement. I am a woman of my word. Do you believe me?”

He didn’t say yes. Instead, he lifted her chin and reveled in her beauty all over again. Other women he tired of—they grew stale and clung. But not Chloe. Never Chloe. “Very well, make this pilgrimage if you must.” He smoothed his hand over her soft cheek, feeling the delicate bones underneath. He slid his fingers up through the shingled hair above her nape.
You will be mine, Chloe.
He dipped into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out an antique red velvet ring box. “This was my grandmother’s engagement ring.” He opened the box. “It’s for you.”

Chloe hesitated.

“Are we engaged or not?” His voice sounded rusty, like an unoiled hinge.

She looked up then. “Have you spoken to my father lately?”

He stared into her eyes, trying to fathom the significance of this odd question. “No.”

Chloe studied him.

Needing to brand her as his, he leaned forward and kissed her. He took his time, drawing all the sweetness from this woman he loved, needed, was desperate to have. “I’ve never loved any woman but you,” he whispered.

In reply, she slipped on his ring.

Relief sighed through him. “I warn you, Chloe Black,” he said, keeping his voice a whisper, but added a hint of steel, “you better come back for our November first wedding or I’ll come and get you myself.”

“You have my promise, don’t you?” She looked him straight in the eye. “If anyone breaks our engagement, it will have to be you. I will not.”

“Then we will marry on November first. In your absence, I’m sure my mother will be glad to make the arrangements for us.”

Chloe stood on tiptoe and kissed him. She lost herself in the feel of his lips and the contrast of textures, her soft skin rasped by his new growth of beard. “Thank her for me,” she said, her forehead resting against his chin, “I just need to work out some things for myself and then I’ll become your wife—fully and forever.”
And be free from Daddy once and for all.

Sometime she’d have to tell Drake about her father’s scheme to use him. But it could wait. She was sure now that Drake hadn’t betrayed her to him. He had nothing to gain from doing so.

Her eyes looked over his shoulder toward the phone. How had he guessed she’d been thinking of Roarke? Did Drake fear Roarke? He shouldn’t. She recalled the proprietary look in Miss Edna Talbot’s expression. And the very capable Miss Talbot didn’t look like the type who failed at anything. She would marry Roarke.

A month later in early October, Chloe sat in the back of the Paris taxi trying to get up enough nerve to emerge from the vehicle. Finally, when the driver started casting furtive backward glances at her, she gave in and got out. She paid off the cabbie and entered the shop that bore the name in gold letters on the show window: “MENER LA MODE.” Under this in the same gold lettering was a name familiar to Chloe. Inside, a shop girl came forward to greet her. “Is Madame Blanche in?” Chloe gave the girl her card. Then she waited, fingering the lace collar on a mannequin.

“Chloe,
mon amie!
” Madame Blanche burst from the back room and threw her arms around Chloe. The Frenchwoman looked much the same as she had the first day Chloe had laid eyes on her. Tall, still pencil-thin, still dark-haired, Blanche was dressed in a fuchsia-and-black dress, knee-length in the front and ankle-length in the back. Chloe breathed in the woman’s rich Chanel N°5 perfume and luxuriated in a genuine welcome in this foreign land.

“But what has brought you here?” Madame drew her to a chair near a rear fitting room.

“I came to visit my husband’s grave.”

Madame Blanche made no reply, merely gazed at Chloe as if her words had made no sense.

Chloe voiced the reason for looking up her old friend, “And I’m looking for a wedding dress. I’m to marry again on the first of November.”

Madame stared at her for several moments. “You did not come to Madame Blanche for fashions or to find your husband’s grave. You wish to . . .” Madame looked into Chloe’s eyes and lifted her own eyebrows.

Madame’s words flustered Chloe, as if she were a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “But I did. I need a wedding dress.”

“Non.”
But Madame led Chloe to the rear. Through the back door near the fitting room was a sight both familiar and nostalgic to Chloe—the messy designing and sewing room. Madame pointed to a mannequin with a half-finished dress of royal blue. “This will be your second wedding so we do not have to use
le blanc
, white.”

Chloe studied the dress. “Too daring. I want something simpler and in a paler color.”

Madame led her over to another. This dress, nearly finished, was in a light-rose crepe de chine. “Why are you marrying again? You do not look like a woman in love.”