Property of a Noblewoman (30 page)

The Willoughbys had invited everyone to lunch at The Carlyle, Phillip and his mother, and Alex, who had attended the graduation too. And they spent a pleasant afternoon celebrating Jane’s successful completion of law school. Looking back, it seemed easy to her now, but it had been brutal along the way. She knew John had graduated from business school the day before. She hadn’t heard from him since the day she moved out. She wondered if he was going to L.A. with Cara now. She didn’t miss him, and she was having fun with Phillip, but it felt strange to her that she no longer had any contact with a man she’d lived with for almost three years. It had worked out for the best, and her mother told her how much she liked Phillip and his mother, after lunch, when they had both left.

“He’s a lovely man,” Jane’s mother commented, “and his mother is a fireball. She said she’s leaving for Europe and planning to tour around Italy on her own, and having an art show of her work when she gets back. She’s going to visit friends or relatives in California, she said something about possibly taking a class at the Louvre in November, and she’s on the board of the Costume Institute at the Met. I couldn’t keep up with what she was saying. She made me feel like a slug,” Vivian said, sounding admiring and overwhelmed. They knew about the recent auction and were impressed by that too.

“Me too.” Jane laughed about Valerie, and there had been all the excitement and stress of her finding out about Marguerite, dealing with the surrogate’s court, DNA tests, and the auction. Valerie had never slowed down for a minute.

Jane and Phillip spent the weekend with her parents. They went to a Broadway play and had dinner at “21.” The women shopped, while Phillip and Hank went to a boat show and compared newer sailboats to their classic ones, and talked sailing and boats for most of the weekend, and even managed to sneak in a brief visit to Phillip’s boat, and Jane’s father loved it.

It was all very enjoyable, but Jane was happy when they left. She said entertaining her parents was a lot of work – making sure they had fun, were doing what they’d planned, and were eating where and when they wanted to, liked the restaurants, and weren’t too exhausted. She had loved seeing them, but was happy to kiss them good-bye, and go back to her own apartment with Phillip and collapse onto her bed for a quiet Sunday night.

They wound up making love almost as soon as they lay down, and then later foraged for dinner in the fridge. She was standing naked, eating some leftover chicken, when she asked him what he was doing that week, and he laughed.

“Making love to you, I hope, if you’re going to stand around like that.” She smiled and put the chicken down, and wrapped her arms around him.

“Best offer I’ve had,” she said, and kissed him.

“I’m taking my mother to the airport on Tuesday,” he said in a muffled voice as he kissed her neck, and held her round, firm bottom in his hands. “Other than that and work, I have no plans. Why?”

“I want to study for the bar this week. I thought maybe we could steal the day on Friday, and spend three days on the boat next weekend. I can bring my books.” She was happy to have graduation behind her. She had the interviews for jobs that week, but otherwise her life was slowing down. She had reached a major goal.

“Music to my ears,” he said, referring to three days on
Sweet Sallie
, and then he picked her up and carried her back to bed. It was a perfect Sunday night.

Winnie went to see Valerie on Monday afternoon to say good-bye while she was packing. She was almost finished, and they stopped to have iced tea. Winnie had hay fever, as she always did at that time of year, and she looked emotional to see Valerie leave.

“How long will you be gone?” she asked wistfully.

“I don’t know. Three weeks, a month, more. Maybe six weeks. I just want to float around for a while. It’s been a stressful few months.” It was a major understatement. Winnie still felt shaken by everything that had happened, especially learning the truth about her parents, which was still painful for her. She hadn’t recovered from that yet, although Valerie looked better than she ever had, and strengthened and validated from what she’d learned.

“I think I like you better as my aunt,” she teased Winnie. “It makes me feel young.” And she looked it. Winnie really did seem old enough to be her mother, although they were only four years apart.

“Don’t say that. I’m still upset that we’re not sisters anymore.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it.

“You’ll love me as your niece,” Valerie said, leaned over to kiss her cheek, and put an arm around her shoulders. It was easier to make light of the serious situation that had surfaced. Winnie’s anger and accusations were forgotten. The two women had made peace, mostly due to Valerie’s forgiving nature and happy disposition. And things had turned out well. “Why don’t you meet me in Europe? It would do you good.”

“No, it wouldn’t. I hate the way you travel. You dash around all over the place, you change plans every five minutes, you check in and out of hotels. It would put me over the edge. I want to go somewhere and sit and not move. And I don’t want to be packing every five minutes either.”

“Why don’t you rent a house in the Hamptons?” Valerie suggested.

“It’s too expensive,” Winnie said sourly. “I can’t afford it.” Valerie gave her a pointed look that said she knew better. Winnie always cried poor.

“Yes, you can and you know it. You’re just too cheap to spend the money,” she accused her, and Winnie laughed sheepishly.

“That’s true,” she confessed. “Penny’s renting a house in Martha’s Vineyard for the summer. She said I could come up for a weekend if I don’t nag the kids.”

“Could you do that?” Valerie wasn’t sure she could, and neither was Winnie. Her grandchildren drove her crazy, and her daughter, whom she criticized constantly.

“Probably not,” Winnie said honestly. “They’re just so rude and badly behaved, and so noisy, and Penny lets them.”

“They’re just kids, and they’re actually pretty good. They don’t do anything bad in my studio when they visit,” Valerie said easily. She liked Penny’s kids more than Winnie did.

“You’re better with them than I am. I have fun playing cards with them, but other than that, they make me nervous. They move around all the time. I’m always afraid they’re going to spill something or break something, and most of the time they do.” Valerie had seen her in action with her grandchildren, and she agreed with Penny – it was nerve-wracking for all involved.

“If they make a mess, you clean it up. You could stay at a hotel at the Vineyard,” she suggested, but Winnie didn’t want solutions. She was always married to the problems.

“Why spend the money?”

“Well, you can’t sit in your apartment in New York all summer,” Valerie said firmly, but she could see that Winnie wasn’t convinced.

“Why not?”

“It’s depressing. You have to think of somewhere to go, or something to do.”

“I’m not like you. I’m happy at home by myself.” Their mother had been that way too. It seemed grim and mournful to Valerie. She wanted to be out and around, meeting new people. She could hardly wait to leave for Europe the next day. “I’m going to miss you,” Winnie said softly. “Call me.”

“Of course. I’m starting in Rome, to see where my mother lived before she moved back here. And then I’m going to Naples to see the château. Phillip says it’s beautiful, and it’s been restored by the current owner. He didn’t know my mother, but Phillip sent him some photographs of her and the count, at the owner’s request. He has a soft spot for them.” Phillip had given her Saverio Salvatore’s address and phone numbers, and told her to look him up, so she could see the château, and she spoke enough Italian to get by on the phone, more so than Phillip, who had struggled with the language when he met him, although they had managed with the gallery owner’s fractured English. Phillip had noticed that Italians spoke more French than English, and his French wasn’t all that great either. His mother’s was better.

“Well, don’t forget to call me while you’re running all over Europe,” Winnie reminded her.

“I won’t.” Penny had just finished settling the estate for her, and Valerie had paid the inheritance taxes from the proceeds of the sale. She felt free as a bird. “And I want to hear that you’re doing more than just sitting home and playing bridge.”

“I have a tournament this summer.” Winnie brightened at the prospect.

“Good. Do something else too. It’s good for your health.” Winnie nodded, and was genuinely bereft as they hugged when she left. She felt as though she were losing her best friend now, after losing a sister in learning the truth about Marguerite. She had been mourning her illusions now for months. Everything seemed different. Valerie and Penny had discussed it, and Winnie’s daughter had insisted she’d adjust. Valerie wasn’t as sure. Winnie had fought hard all her life to defend their parents, and never criticized them or questioned what they did. She had trusted them completely. Having the blinders torn off her eyes to face reality had been hard on her, and Valerie thought she was depressed. Winnie just wasn’t a happy person, and now less so than ever. But at least they had made peace after their raging battles over Winnie’s parents. Winnie was still inclined to make excuses for them, to her daughter, but she didn’t dare say a word in their defense to Valerie anymore. She had been proven right in her feelings about them for years.

Valerie hoped Winnie would be all right over the summer, and went back to packing after she left. She could hardly wait to leave the next day.

PHILLIP PICKED VALERIE
up at her apartment at four o’clock on Tuesday, having left work early to do so. She had two good-size suitcases, and a tote bag to take with her on the plane, full of books, magazines, and her iPad. She had to be at the airport at five, for a seven
P.M.
flight to Rome. And she looked like an excited kid when he got to her house and put her bags in the trunk. She chatted animatedly all the way to the airport about her plans, to visit museums she’d never been to before in Rome, gallery exhibits in Florence, and the Uffizi, where she’d been countless times and always loved, and the château in Naples. And she would see after that. Maybe a driving tour in Tuscany, or a stop in Paris on the way home. She planned to be in Italy for most or all of the trip.

“Wait a minute. How long are you going to be gone? Two years?” Phillip teased her.

“Maybe.” She laughed. She felt carefree and excited about the trip.

“It sounds like it. Don’t forget to come back. I’ll miss you,” he said sincerely. He was happy to see her so lighthearted since her discoveries about her real mother. Knowing that she had missed an entire lifetime with her had been agonizing, but learning more about her, the life she had led, and the fact that she had hungered for news of her daughter and had been prevented from coming back to her, had helped Valerie bond with her, even after her death. Learning how much her mother had loved her made up for her loveless childhood. It had healed an old wound that Valerie never acknowledged but was always there. She had finally freed herself of the disturbing echoes of parents who had never approved of her, and had been unkind to her all her life. Now she was ready for new adventures, even at seventy-four.

When they got to the airport, he helped her check in her bags, and get her boarding pass for the flight, and she lingered on the sidewalk with him for a little while, before going into the terminal. “Have a good time with Jane while I’m gone,” she told him, looking motherly for a moment, while still trying to respect his freedom of choice as a man. “It was nice meeting her parents. They seem like good people. I enjoyed them.” Phillip did too, to a point.

“They get a little intense sometimes,” he said quietly. Jane never pressured him, but he sensed that her parents might, especially her mother. She made it clear she would like to see Jane married, a goal Jane didn’t care about for now.

“I hope you don’t say things like that about me,” Valerie said, and he smiled.

“Hardly. You’re too busy doing your own thing.” He knew all she wanted was for him to be happy, whatever that meant to him. She left how he achieved that, and with whom, up to him.

“I like seeing you with a good woman, and I wouldn’t want you to wind up alone. But you can figure out all that for yourself,” she said simply, and then added, “Jane is a nice girl.” He smiled as she said it.

“Yes, she is, and she’s a good sailor too. And she’ll be a good lawyer. She’s interviewing with Penny’s firm. It would be pretty funny if she winds up working there.” Penny and Jane got along well too. They’d had dinner together several times, and he and Jane were going to spend the weekend with Penny and her family at Martha’s Vineyard over the Fourth of July.

He liked the fact that his mother never pushed him about his personal life. She was too busy with her own, and the way she lived, enjoying her life to the fullest, served as an example to him. It was one of the things he had admired about his parents’ marriage – they loved and respected each other and gave each other space to be who they were. They had never been confining, stifling, or possessive, or tried to change anything about each other. They were tolerant of each other’s quirks. It had been a partnership that truly worked. He had seen few other relationships that did, and none of his own. Until now, with Jane. And it meant a lot to him that Jane and his mother liked each other, and got along.

He could tell that Valerie was anxious to go inside then, and he hugged her and kissed her good-bye, feeling an instant of panic, like a parent sending a child off to camp.

“Take care of yourself, Mom . . . be careful . . . don’t do anything stupid . . .. Naples is full of pickpockets – watch out when you’re there . . ..” He suddenly had a thousand instructions he wanted to give her, and she laughed.

“I’ll be fine. Take care of
yourself.
You can reach me on my cell, or send me an email.” She hugged him again, waved as she left, and disappeared into the terminal, and he felt happy for his mother, after he left her and drove back to the city. He went to Jane’s apartment, where she was studying for the bar, as she did constantly now.