Sleeping Beauty (25 page)

He gestured with the bread, an offhand movement meant to diminish the importance of the event. He continued, “He said he couldn’t because he’d promised to meet his mother. Except, as we talked, it turned out he was meeting her in San Remo, not fifteen miles away.” Phillip laughed. What a coincidence. “
Voilà
, as the French say. David came
with me, then took the train this morning to San Remo, where he talked his mother into making a kind of a peace treaty visit. She and I, well—” He looked down for a heartbeat, then over at David, a level look. “We didn’t part on the best of terms years ago. I hate to say it, James, but I haven’t always done right by the two of them.”

“Ah.” James nodded. A wonderful explanation. If he hadn’t known that Coco had been planning to spend the summer in San Remo, that she owned a house there, had lived there—spent every summer there—for the last several years. It seemed impossible that Phillip didn’t know these things as well, that he hadn’t perfectly well known she was fifteen miles away when he’d rented this house in the first place.

The conversation wandered into what Phillip was trying to get through the House of Lords, a unifying university financial structure. “I need Athers’s support on the commission, you see,” he said, “as we try to legislate a portion of each college’s revenues to….”

Blah, blah, blah. Phillip said more. James simply didn’t have the interest any longer. He seemed to have left his political ambition in Africa.

He felt vaguely competitive, some of the old desire to win trying to nurse itself alive, when Phillip wagged his finger and said, “Now, just because the Bishop got the better of us in that round involving his people’s diaries, James, doesn’t mean this old bowler here is giving away more runs these days for fewer wickets.”

Cricket. Phillip was keen for cricket. James supposed, in this comfortable, sporting way, Phillip
was about to edge into what he’d referred to earlier as his career’s new “soft ground.”

But Coco finally appeared.

And what an appearance it was. She came through the double dining room doors, a vision in a garnet-red dress that V-ed down at her breasts and pinched tight at her waist. Her hair was swept up, showing off her long, elegant neck. She glided into the room, a swan of a woman. “Good evening. Sorry I’m late.”

Even her son was affected. As all three gentlemen rose from their chairs, David said, “Gosh, Coco, you look smashing.” He almost never called his mother by other than her given name, which rankled James tonight. As if she’d protected the illusions of clients. The word haunted him.
Clients. Just call me Coco, darling, when the clients are about
. Smiling with open pride, her darling glanced at James now and asked, “Doesn’t she?”

Before James could say anything, however, Phillip chimed in. “Coco, you are without a doubt still the most gorgeous woman ever to look upon the Mediterranean. More beautiful than Helen of Troy.”

The live, legendary woman settled onto the chair across the table from James, air shushing through sliding, scrunching silk that had a life of its own—it finally rustled to a standstill about twenty seconds after she did.

Lord, all the same, chagrined or not, to James the woman was the most beautiful on earth. And when she put herself together just so, she became more than earthly: ethereal, otherworldly in her loveliness. Tonight yards and yards of dark red satin,
black hair up, her white throat dotted with the blood-red garnets from the night of the ball, giant, gorgeous droplets, the largest sitting in the delicate recess between her clavicles. She wore more garnet drops at her ears.

James became aware that he was staring at her. “Ah,” he said, trying to smile, “the lost earring is found.” Oh, his friend, his lover. His smile became natural. Never mind his anger. Seeing her felt wonderful. Despite himself, he felt his chest flood with warmth.

She touched an earring, holding her ear as she turned her attention on him, eyeing him. Their gazes held for a moment—she was still irritated, he realized—while the rest of the room may as well have evaporated, taking the air itself with it. Who cared; who needed air? James thought. He’d just breathe Coco for a while. God, she was just something…everything.

He wanted her beside him. He didn’t want her ever to leave his side again. And he especially wanted her beside him tonight, upstairs in his bedroom. Friendship stank; it reeked without the rest.

Chairs scooted. As James sat again, he started asking himself questions like, Why was she angry with him? And how angry? The damn woman guarded her feelings so closely, it was hard to know. Angry enough to throw him out if he slipped upstairs into her room tonight? Would she make a fuss? Would she be willing to come downstairs to his? And, How bad would it be for Phillip to understand his interest here? How competitive, exactly, were he and the man who’d sponsored him,
half-raised him, and now directed much of his work and most of his career?

He realized Phillip remained standing. Phillip had lifted his wineglass. Contemplating it, then looking over its edge at Coco, the married man of the group offered a highly inappropriate toast: “To the most self-possessed—and prepossessing—woman I have ever known.”

Known
. To James’s jealous mind, the last word seemed to carry a biblical nuance of meaning. He scowled down into a plate of roast beef as it was set before him. His blood in the pit of his stomach began to thump, an unpleasant knock.

He heard Coco, across from him, murmur, “Sit down, Phillip.”

Phillip held on to the edge of the table for a wobbly moment—he was tipsy, James realized—then shuffled into his chair.

James felt a kind of inebriation himself as he lifted his gaze, looking for Coco’s face, but getting only as far as her breasts—their globular swell in unison above the satin neckline of her dress, their regress back. He could hear the rhythm of her breathing, like music playing to a perfectly synchronized ballet. He could not distinguish a word of conversation; exchanged murmurs blended into a vaguely irritating hum. Yet he could quite distinctly hear the gentle indrawn rush of air down Coco’s windpipe, then the soft hiss of air rushing out. Slow and rhythmic to the rise and fall of her pale bosom straining against the dark red neckline.

Across from him, Coco felt his interest in a soft flush that spread over her skin. She couldn’t seem to regain her balance, not since the shock of setting
eyes on him this afternoon. James’s arrival, his presence, churned up a commotion inside her. She’d been in a state all afternoon. And, now, just look at this dress! What had she been thinking? She had paced and raged upstairs, telling herself she wasn’t even going to come down to dinner. Why should she after going to such painful lengths to separate herself and James, only to have him undo it all by showing up not even a month later? It was outrageous, unfair. Well, I’ll show him, she’d thought. I’ll wear a dress that looks like exactly what I am. A red, low-cut dress—a savvy, experienced, expensive dress that’ll set him on his ear. How dare he come here. He’ll be sorry he did.

Fool. She may as well have dressed to seduce him. She may as well have put on a coating of hard cherry candy, because James Stoker looked for all the world as if he could eat her dress right off her skin.

Meanwhile, she didn’t know which galled her more—the nerve-jangling surprise of James or the relentless annoyance of Phillip, who yammered away, saying all manner of things meant to impress her.

Phillip’s renewed pursuit after all these years should have been flattering; it was boring. Next to James’s ardor, it was lukewarm at best. James, oh, James. He was at it again, staring, wanting, like the night at Tuttleworth’s.

Oh, why did it have to feel so wonderful to see him—when it should only have felt maddening? Coco wanted credit, wanted all she had tried to do to count for something.
I did this for you
, she wanted to tell him.
I separated us, held us apart, sacrificed my happiness and quite nearly my sanity. And here you are again
. She would have screamed it at him. Only her resentment was watered down, confused and muddied by the sight of him. Why couldn’t she rally a clean, undiluted anger? And why for goodnessake couldn’t he keep off his face what was going on in his randy young mind?

If eyes could have left prints like fingers, then her mouth and throat and bosom would have been reddened, all but abraded, from the graze of James’s lingering glances. They slid over her; they slid away while he tried to keep them under control—it was marvelous how he couldn’t. Marvelous, frustrating—and pitiable because what he wanted was madness.

Lord, she must leave. She should have left already. She should have left the instant she realized he was here. She should leave now, stand up and go.

Yet she sat there, feeling lost, ready to shatter, as delicate as a thin thread of glass.

Phillip meanwhile dominated the conversation. God knew what David made of the evening. Coco picked at her food. James ate hardly at all, pushing potatoes around on his plate, alternately glancing in her direction, glowering in Phillip’s.

It was Phillip who inadvertently put an end to the torture. He suddenly rose to his feet, again lifting his glass, and said, “To the mother of my son.” He cleared his throat. “Who, once upon a time, I wronged and wronged and who, if she’ll let me, I’ll make right. Willy doesn’t want me anymore,
bella—
”

Dear God, his pet name for her years ago. Coco
stared up at him, near-frozen with dread. The man was drunk.

He said, “It will be a simple matter to get a divorce. I’ll be good to her, take care of her, do right.” He laughed hollowly. “She won’t even know I’m gone. Then I’ll marry you, Coco. I’m asking, here in front of our son and my friend. Let me do what I should have done twenty-two years ago—”

Across the table, James stood so abruptly his thighs caught the edge of the table. It lifted a fraction, clinking glassware, then thudded with a scoot back onto the floor. “Excuse me,” he said over the noise. “I meant to go earlier. I was thinking of going to Monte Carlo, the new casino—” He stammered, “I—I’ve been wanting to, ah, see it.” He blinked, made a press of his mouth. “I don’t belong here. The three of you just cozy up to each other and let me know the outcome later. I’ll help you celebrate whatever it is.”

And with that he was out the dining room doorway, the click of his heels diminishing through the parlor.

Phillip looked stupefied as footfalls echoed in taps down the steps into the foyer. He scowled. “Something’s up with that young fellow.” He looked at Coco, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t trust him. He’s hiding something. I can feel it.”

The front door slammed. James had left.

Coco swallowed, trying to find her calm. It took the greatest of self-control simply to lay her napkin into her plate, then reach for the arms of her chair. “Excuse me,” she said, as she slid back.

With as much dignity as she could muster, she got up and ran after James.

On the path at the side of the house, Coco stopped, breathless. She listened, yet she heard only the sound of her own heart beating over a din of emotion, over her own jumbled thoughts. She turned around once slowly, hoping for a glimpse, a sound, a sign. Nothing. Just
tha-thump, tha-thump
, as if her heart were trying to leave her chest.

James had been swallowed up into the night. Coco herself stood in perfect darkness, the sort one found only far from large towns, away from other houses, from other human beings—lightless, still, silent. She called his name softly. No answer. She could find no clue, no indication as to which direction he’d gone. She stood there for a time, bewildered. Please God, don’t let him be near but quiet on purpose; don’t let him not want to speak to me.

I need to speak to him. I need to.

Though, if she did, what would she say?

Go away? I’m not safe for you? I’m not good for you? Or, Come close? I’ve missed you so badly.

A kind of panic took hold. Coco put her hands into her hair, holding her head. If she had never met anyone whom she admired so much as James, anyone who seemed so radiantly and purely good that she was in awe…if she had never known his honesty, his fearless interest, never known his open-hearted understanding, never felt his warm hands and strong body…well, then she would have never been the wiser: She would not have believed someone as fine as James Stoker existed.

But she knew now. And the knowledge was aw
ful. Nothing could be worse than knowing he existed but living without him.

Hang his reputation. She wasn’t the good one, the decent one. For godssake, she wasn’t his mother. Let him take care of himself. She wanted him. She hated him for being here, for undoing all the good she had tried to do him, but she wanted him anyway. Where was he?

In the end, she walked all the way down to the water, calling his name, all to no purpose. A carriage rolled by down on the main road. A small animal, either a cat or a rabbit, took fright in front of her path on the way back up. Other than these events, no one, nothing.

She didn’t have the slightest notion where James was, not then nor for most of the night. It was hours later when she finally heard him straggle in, at which point the sun had already lit her bedroom with the first rays of daybreak.

Chapter 17

T
he next morning—almost noon, actually, since everyone had slept in or at least kept to their rooms—Phillip walked from between the open French doors of the parlor out onto the balconied terrace, where, up before everyone, Coco sat curled onto a chaise longue in the sun, where she was drinking tea.

He greeted her with, “Did you succeed in calming James down last night?”

“No,” she said. “I wasn’t able to find him.”

“Well, I appreciate your trying,” he said. As if she’d gone after James especially for him. “He’s as tight lately as the string of a fiddle. Don’t know what’s gotten into the lad.”

Coco looked at Phillip over her teacup. She would simply have told him at this point about herself and “the lad”—if only she had known what exactly there was to tell. She felt absolutely up in the air as to what was happening between James and herself. Nothing. That was the pity of it. Nothing was happening, except he had dropped in front of her again, as if from out of the sky, and barely spoken two words to her.