No Greater Love (40 page)

“Have you seen this girl?” she asked, showing a small photograph that she had carried for years in her wallet. “She’s traveling with a man named Malcolm Stone, a tall, good-looking man of, say, forty-five or fifty.” The desk clerk looked at Edwina, then Patrick, and then at the bill in his hand, and finally this one nodded and looked up at them again.

“Yeah, they’re here. What’s she done? Stolen something off yer? They’re American, you know.” He apparently
hadn’t noticed Edwina’s accent, and as the money had come from him, he addressed himself to Patrick.

“Are they here now?”

“Nah, they left yesterday. They only been here a few days. I can look up exactly when they came, if you want to know. She’s a right pretty girl she is, got a headful of yeller hair.” Edwina could feel her heart pound to know that she had come this far and was now this close to Alexis, and a tiny part of her was almost sorry to find her so soon. Now it meant she had to go home, and leave Patrick. “They went to Paris for a few days, least that’s what he said. Gave up the room for two weeks, but they said they’d be back again. They will too. He left a suitcase.” Patrick glanced at Edwina, and as she nodded imperceptibly he slipped the boy another bill and asked to see the suitcase. There were assorted men’s clothes in it when they opened it, but right on top there was a white suit. It was the one she’d been wearing when she left Los Angeles, and the hat was all but ruined, but Edwina knew it immediately as Alexis’s.

“That’s it!” Her eyes shone with tears as she touched it, wondering what had happened to her since she left. “That’s hers, Patrick. That’s what she was wearing the day she disappeared in Los Angeles, the day after George’s wedding.” It seemed a lifetime ago now, and in a way it was. It had been more than two weeks, and in that time Alexis’s whole life had changed, she knew, as she looked up at Patrick.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked softly as the desk clerk went back to the front desk to answer a phone.

“I don’t know. He said they’d be gone for two weeks.”

“Why don’t we go to dinner and discuss it.” That sounded fine to her, and before they left, the desk clerk asked if he should say that they’d been there, but Edwina was quick to answer.

“No. Don’t say anything.” Another pound note assured his silence. And she and Patrick walked outside to the waiting car, and drove back to Claridge’s for dinner.

They went back up to her room, and Patrick was quick to ask if she wanted to follow them to Paris, but it seemed like a wild-goose chase to her. They didn’t know where they’d gone, or why, and the suitcase told her that they’d be back again. “I think we just have to wait.” But now they had two weeks at their disposal.

“Is there anything special you want to do here?” he asked. There was one thing, but there was time for that, and she was going to ask Patrick about it later.

“Not really.” She smiled. But he already had an idea. It was something he had wanted to do for years. There was a place he had always longed to go back to in Ireland. He hadn’t been there since he was a boy, and it had always seemed like the most romantic place in the world to him, and as Edwina listened to him tell her about it over dinner, she knew that all she wanted to do now was go there.

“Can you do that?” she asked cautiously, and he grinned, feeling like a wild young boy again. She made him feel young and happy and alive, just as he did for her. She felt like a girl again, only now she knew what she’d missed. And suddenly, everything was ten times as romantic.

“Let’s do it, Edwina,” he whispered to her as he leaned across the corner of the table to kiss her.

And in the morning, it was done. She called Fannie and Teddy to let them know she was all right. And then Patrick picked her up, and they took a train, a ferry across the Irish Sea, and then hired a car and drove to Cashel, where by nightfall they stood in front of the Rock of Cashel. It was a sober, enormous, imposing place, and the fields beyond it were covered with gorse and heather, and even at this time of year she thought
she’d never seen anything as green, as they walked for miles at sunset. And at last they stood in the circle of each other’s arms as he kissed her.

“You’ve come a long, long way to be with me,” he said in the cool evening air as the sun went down over the lake behind them.

“It’s as though it was meant to be, isn’t it?”

“It was,” he promised her, in the gentle brogue of County Tipperary, and then in his own voice again, “I will always remember this day, Edwina, until I’m very, very old, and on the day I die, I will remember this moment.” He kissed her again, and they walked slowly back to their hotel, and upstairs to their room, and she knew at that moment that she had been born for him, that this was meant to be. He had rented a single room for them, and they both knew why. They had so little time, so much to share, so much to learn, and as Patrick gently peeled her dress away and lifted her onto the bed, she knew that he had so much to teach her.

She lay beside him until the dawn, as he drank her in, and she knew that her wedding day had come, the only one she’d ever had, not the one she had been meant to have with Charles, but the only life she would ever have, these brief, sweet, precious two weeks with Patrick.

THE MOMENTS SPED BY ON ANGEL’S WINGS AS PATRICK AND
Edwina roamed across the hills, rowed on the little lake, picked wildflowers, and took photographs of everything, and spent the nights in each other’s arms deep in their bed, and it seemed as though in the blink of an eye, it was over. They traveled back to London silently, anxious not to get there. In the end, they had stolen two extra days, but they both knew they had to get back, and Edwina had to find Alexis. She felt foolish about it at times. By now she suspected the girl didn’t want to be found, and her letter to Edwina in New York had reiterated that they were married. And there were even moments when Edwina envied her, because perhaps she had everything she wanted. Although it was hard for Edwina to imagine Malcolm Stone as a pleasant man, there was always the unfortunate possibility that Alexis really loved him. She still didn’t know what she was going to say to George when she got back, if anything. But
right now she wasn’t thinking of Alexis or George. She was only thinking of Patrick. She slipped her hand into his, and wished that an entire lifetime could be theirs, but they both knew it could never be. He had told her that from the first, and she had to go back to the States to live the life she had left there. But for one shining moment, the dream had been theirs, and she knew they would always cherish it as something rare and precious. As they walked back into Alexis’s hotel, the diamond bracelet shone on her arm, in memory of the days they’d shared, the love they’d spawned, the moments they would treasure.

Patrick asked for Malcolm Stone this time, and this time a different desk clerk told them they were in, and with a quick slip of the hand Patrick told him not to ring, and he looked at Edwina.

“Do you want to come up with me, or shall I see him first?”

“I’d better come up with you,” she whispered, “or you’ll frighten Alexis.” Although admittedly by now, it was difficult thinking of anything that could frighten her, after the life she must have led for the past four weeks. It had been nearly a month since she’d run away. And George was due back home again in a few weeks. She was going to have to get her home quickly if she was going to do it quietly at all, and she followed Patrick up the stairs to the room number they’d been given. And with trembling hands, Edwina waited while Patrick knocked on the door, as they both wondered what they’d find there.

Patrick looked at her, smiled to buck her up, and then knocked loudly, and less than half a minute later, a tall, handsome man with bare feet and a cigar pulled the door open. He had a whiskey bottle in one hand, and beyond him a pretty girl in a satin slip stood watching them. And it was only an instant later that Edwina realized
the pretty girl was her sister. The long mane of blond hair had been bobbed and then marcelled, and she was wearing pale white powder and rouge and lots of kohl and lipstick. But even beneath the mask she wore, Patrick saw that Edwina had been right, the child was a beauty.

She began to cry the minute she saw them, and Malcolm bowed low and invited them in, amused that the virgin sister had brought a hero.

“My, my, a family visit so soon.” He looked at Edwina with sarcasm warmed by Irish whiskey. “I had no idea you’d be kind enough to visit us in London, Miss Winfield.” For an instant, Patrick had the same urge George had had when he’d floored him in Rosarita months before, but he restrained himself and for the moment, said nothing.

Edwina looked solemnly at her sister, and Patrick saw the softness disappear. She was suddenly stern and almost imposing. “Alexis, please be good enough to pack your things.” And then she looked at Malcolm Stone with contempt. He reeked of booze and cheap cigars, and she shuddered at the life of total degradation her sister must have led with him. But Alexis hadn’t moved since she and Patrick had entered.

“Are you planning to take my wife somewhere?” he mocked as he asked Edwina.

“Your ‘wife’ happens to be a seventeen-year-old girl, and unless you plan to answer to charges of kidnapping and rape, I suggest that you let her come home with me, Mr. Stone,” Edwina said coolly.

“This is not California, Miss Winfield. This is England. And she is my wife. You have no say here.”

Edwina looked at him as though he did not exist, and then directly past him at her sister. “Alexis, are you coming?”

“I … Edwina, do I have to? I love him.” The words
struck her sister like a fist, and Patrick sensed it only because he knew her, but there was no sign of it, and he found himself admiring her even more for her strength with this obviously wicked child and disgusting profligate she’d run off with. However upset Edwina may have been, she showed nothing but dignified restraint as she spoke to her sister.

“Is this how you wish to live?” She spoke softly to her, looking around the room, leaving nothing out, the open toilet, their clothes on the floor, the empty whiskey bottles, the dead cigars, and finally, she glanced at Malcolm. “Is this what you’ve always wanted?” It would have shamed anyone, particularly a seventeen-year-old girl. Even Patrick was embarrassed by her tone, and secretly, so was Malcolm. “Is this your dream, Alexis? What happened to the rest of it? Where is the movie star … the home … where is all the love you’ve had? Is this what you’ve turned it into?” Alexis started to whimper and turned away, and in her heart, Edwina knew what she’d done, and it hurt her to realize it. It was no accident that she had done this the day after George’s wedding. She was looking for the father she had lost … just as she had tried to run away when Phillip left for Harvard … she needed men, a man, anyone. But what Alexis really wanted was not a lover or a husband, or just any man, but a daddy. And it almost made Edwina cry as she looked sadly at her sister.

“Edwina …” Alexis began to cry. “I’m so sorry …” It hadn’t been anything she had expected. She had thought it would be glamorous and fun running off with Malcolm, but for weeks now she had known the truth. He was only using her in every way he could, and it was dismal and depressing. Even Paris had been grim. He had been drunk all the time, and more than once she knew he had gone off with other girls, but at least
then she knew he’d leave her alone. She didn’t want anything to do with him, and yet in some part of her, she always wanted him to love her. And when he called her “baby,” she would have done anything for him, and he knew it.

“Get dressed,” Edwina said quietly, as Patrick watched, full of admiration for her.

“Miss Winfield, you may
not
take my wife.” Malcolm took a step toward Edwina then and wove a little as he tried to look menacing, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Patrick approach, but she held a hand out to stop him. She had an idea, and she wasn’t leaving until she knew the truth. He wasn’t the sort of man to marry anyone, let alone a child of seventeen like Alexis.

“Do you have proof of your marriage to my sister, sir?” she asked politely. “You can’t expect me to believe it if I don’t see proof. And by the way …” She turned to Alexis then, as the girl was dressing. She was putting on a red satin thing that made Edwina cringe, but she was only glad to see her putting her clothes on. “By the way, Alexis, how did you get into England and France without a passport, or did you get one in New York?” Edwina spoke very coolly, and Alexis gave her the answer.

“Malcolm told them I’d lost my passport. And I was so sick they didn’t want to upset me.”

“Sick, on the ship?” Edwina asked, sympathetically. She knew how traumatic the trip must have been, and was surprised she’d gone at all.

“They kept me drugged the whole time I was on the
Bremen.”
She said it innocently as she put her shoes on.

“Drugged?” Edwina’s eyebrows shot straight up as she looked at Malcolm. “And do you plan to return to the States, Mr. Stone,
ever
? … drugged … kidnapped … raped … a girl of seventeen … a minor
… what an interesting tale that will make in court.”

“Will it?” Malcolm slowly came to life. “Do you really think your brother and his fancy Hollywood bride are going to want to spread that around? Just exactly what do you think that’s going to do to her reputation? No, Miss Winfield, he won’t go to court, and neither will you, nor will Alexis. He’s going to give me work, that’s what he’s going to do, for his brother-in-law. Or if he doesn’t want to give me work, maybe he’d just like to give me money.” He laughed, as Edwina listened in horror, and then she looked at Alexis and knew the truth. She was crying as she listened in shame to the man she’d run away with. She had known, suspected all along, that he didn’t love her, but now there was no hiding from it at all after what he’d just said to Edwina.

“Alexis, did you marry him?” Edwina looked her straight in the eye. “Did you? Tell me the truth. I want to know. And after what you just heard, you should tell me, for George’s sake and your own.” But Alexis was already shaking her head, much to Edwina and Patrick’s relief, and crying softly, as Malcolm swore, furious with himself for putting it off. But he had never thought they’d come for her all the way to England.