The President's Daughter (3 page)

A voice said, “Jake?”

He turned around and found her standing there, wearing a small diamond tiara and a black silk ballgown. “My God, it’s you, Jacqueline.”

The heart turned over in him as he took her hands. She was still so beautiful it was as if time had stood still. She said, “Senator Cazalet now. I’ve followed your career with such interest. A future President, they say.”

“And pigs might fly.” He hesitated. “I was sorry to hear of your husband’s death last year.”

“Yes. It was quick, though. I suppose one can’t ask for more than that.”

Teddy Grant approached with a tray holding two glasses of champagne. Cazalet said, “Teddy, the Comtesse de Brissac . . . an old friend.”

“Not
the
Teddy Grant from that Harvard cafeteria?” She smiled. “Oh, I truly am pleased to meet you, Mr. Grant.”

“Hey, what is this?” Teddy asked.

“It’s okay, Teddy. Go and get another glass of champagne and I’ll explain later.”

Teddy left, looking slightly flummoxed, and he and Jacqueline sat down at the nearest table. “Your wife isn’t with you?” she asked.

“Alice has been fighting leukemia for years.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“She’s a brave woman, but it dominates her life. That’s why we didn’t have any kids. You know, it’s ironic. My father, who died last year, too, urged me to marry Alice because he thought I should have a family. People worry about politicians who don’t.”

“Didn’t you love her?”

“Oh, I have a great deal of affection for Alice, but love?” He shook his head. “I’ve only known love once.”

She touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Jake.”

“So am I. We all lost—Alice, you, and me. I sometimes think I came off worst, having no kids.”

“But you do, Jake,” she said gently.

Time seemed to stop for Jake. “What do you mean?” he said at last.

“Look over there, just at the French window to the terrace,” Jacqueline said.

The girl’s hair was long, the white dress very simple. For a heart-stopping moment, it might have been her mother.

“You wouldn’t kid a guy,” he whispered.

“No, Jake, that would be too cruel. She was conceived that one night in Saigon, and born in Paris in nineteen-seventy. Her name is Marie and she is halfway through her first year at Oxford.”

Jake couldn’t take his eyes off the girl. “Did the general know?”

“He assumed she was his, or so I thought, until the end, when the doctors told him just how bad his heart was.”

“And?”

“It seems that while he was in the hospital in Vietnam after being found up-country, that someone sent him a letter. It told him that his wife had been seen with an American officer, who had not left her suite until four o’clock in the morning.”

“But who—?”

“A member of staff, we think. The maliciousness of it! Sometimes I despair of human beings. But he had known, all that time, my dear Jean. Before he died, he signed a declaration under the provisions of the Code Napoléon,
stating that he was Marie’s titular father. It was to preserve her position and title legally.”

“And she doesn’t know?”

“No, and I don’t want her to, and neither do you, Jake. You’re a good man, an honorable man, but a politician. The great American public doesn’t take kindly to politicians who have illegitimate daughters.”

“But it wasn’t like that. Dammit, everyone thought your husband was dead.”

“Jake, listen to me. You could be President one day, everybody says that, but not with this sort of scandal hanging over you. And what about Marie? Isn’t it better if she just lives with her memory of her father, the general? No, if Marie isn’t told, that leaves only two people in the world who know—you and me. Are we agreed?”

Jake gazed at the lovely girl by the window, and then back at her mother. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you’re right.”

She took his hand. “I know. Now . . . would you care to meet her?”

“My God, yes!”

She led the way to the French windows. “She has your eyes, Jake, and your smile. You’ll see.”

Marie de Brissac turned from speaking to a handsome young officer. “Mama,” she smiled. “I’ve said it before, but you look incredible in that dress.”

Jacqueline kissed her on both cheeks. “Thank you,
cherie
.”

Marie said, “This is Lieutenant Maurice Guyon of the French Foreign Legion, just back from the campaign in Chad.”

Guyon, very military, very correct, clicked his heels and kissed Jacqueline’s hand. “A pleasure, Countess.”

“And now allow me to introduce Senator Jacob Cazalet from Washington. We’re good friends.”

Guyon responded with enthusiasm. “A pleasure, Senator! I read the article about you last year in
Paris Soir.
Your exploits in Vietnam were admirable, sir. A remarkable career.”

“Well, thank you, Lieutenant,” Jake Cazalet said. “That means a lot, coming from someone like you.” He turned and took his daughter’s hand. “May I say that, like your mother, you look wonderful.”

“Senator.” She had been smiling, but now it faded and there was only puzzlement there. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”

“Absolutely.” Jake smiled. “How could I have possibly forgotten?” He kissed her hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to dance with your mother.”

As they circled the floor, he said to Jacqueline, “Everything you said—everything—is true. She’s wonderful.”

“With such a father, she would be.”

He looked down at her with enormous tenderness. “You know, I think I never stopped loving you, Jacqueline,” he said. “If only—”

“Hush,” she said, putting her fingers to his lips. “I know, Jake, I know. But we can be happy with what we have.” She smiled. “Now, let’s put some life into those feet, Senator!”

He never saw her again, the years rolled on, his wife finally died from the leukemia that had plagued her for years, and it was a chance meeting with the French ambassador at a function in Washington three years after the Gulf War that brought him up to date. He and Teddy were standing with him on the lawn at the White House.

The ambassador said, “Congratulations would seem in
order. I understand the Presidential nomination is yours for the asking.”

“A little premature,” Jake said. “There’s still Senator Freeman, if he decides to run.”

“Don’t listen to him, Mr. Ambassador, he can’t fail,” Teddy said.

“And I must believe you.” The ambassador turned to Cazalet. “After all, as everyone knows, Teddy is your
éminence grise.”

“I suppose so.” Jake smiled. Then, he didn’t know why—was it the music?—he said, “Tell me, Ambassador, there’s a friend of mine I haven’t seen in many years, the Comtesse de Brissac—do you know her?”

An odd expression came over the ambassador’s face, then he said,
“Mon Dieu,
I was forgetting. You saved her life in Vietnam.”

“Hell, I’d forgotten that one,” Teddy said. “That’s how you got your D.S.C.”

“You are not in touch?” the ambassador said.

“Not really.”

“The daughter was engaged to a Captain Guyon, a fine boy. I knew the family. Unfortunately, he was killed in the Gulf.”

“I am very sorry to hear that. And the Countess?”

“Cancer, my friend, at death’s door, as I understand it. A great pity.”

Cazalet said to Teddy, “I’ve got to get out of here, and fast. Two things.” He was walking rapidly along a White House corridor. “Get in touch with our Embassy in Paris and check on the present condition of the Comtesse de Brissac, then phone the airport and tell them to get the Gulfstream ready for a flight to Paris.”

His mother’s death a couple of years before had left
him very wealthy, although with his interest in politics, he was content to put it all in a blind trust and leave the finances to others. However, it did give him the privileges of rank, and the Gulfstream private jet was one of them.

Teddy was already speaking over his mobile phone, and as they reached the limousine, said, “They’ll call me.” They got in the rear and he closed the glass partition between them and the driver. “Jake, is there trouble? Anything I should know about?”

Cazalet did an unusual thing for him during the day. He reached for the bar and selected a crystal glass. “Pour me a Scotch, Teddy.”

“Jake, are you okay?” Teddy said anxiously.

“Sure I am. The only woman I ever truly loved is dying of cancer and my daughter is all alone, so give me a Scotch.”

Teddy Grant’s eyes widened and he poured. “Daughter, Jake?”

Cazalet took the Scotch down in one swallow.

“That was good,” he said, and then he told him everything.

In the end, the mad dash across the Atlantic proved fruitless. Jacqueline de Brissac had died two weeks before. They had missed the funeral by five days. Cazalet seemed to find himself moving in slow motion and it was Teddy who saw to everything.

“She was laid to rest in the de Brissac family mausoleum. That’s in a cemetery at Valency,” he said, turning from the phone in their suite at the Ritz.

“Thanks, Teddy. We’ll pay our respects.”

Cazalet looked ten years older as they settled in the limousine, and Teddy Grant cared for him more than any other person on this earth, more even than he cared for
his long-term partner, who was a professor of physics at Yale.

Cazalet was the brother he’d never had, who’d taken interest in his career ever since the cafeteria incident at Harvard, had given him a job with the family law firm, had given him the totally unique job of being his personal assistant, and Teddy had grabbed it.

Once, at a Senate committee meeting, he’d sat at Cazalet’s shoulder, monitoring and advising on the proceedings. Afterwards, a senior White House liaison had come up to Cazalet, fuming.

“Hell, Senator, I truly object to this little cocksucker constantly appearing at these proceedings. I didn’t ask for fags on this committee.”

The room went quiet. Jake Cazalet said, “Teddy Grant graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law school. He was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery in the field in Vietnam and the Vietnamese Cross of Valor. He also gave an arm for his country.” His face was terrible to see. “But more than that, he is my friend and his sexual orientation is his own affair.”

“Now, look here,” the other man said.

“No, you look here. I’m off the committee,” and Cazalet had turned to Grant. “Let’s go, Teddy.”

In the end, when the President had heard, it was the White House staffer who got moved, not Jake Cazalet, and Teddy had never forgotten that.

It was raining at the cemetery and slightly misty. There was a small records office, with a clerk on duty, and Teddy went in to find the location. He returned with a piece of paper and a single rose in a cellophane holder, got in the limousine, and spoke to the driver.

“Take the road north, then left at the top. We’ll get out there.”

He didn’t say anything to Cazalet, who sat there looking tired and tense. The cemetery was old and crowded with a forest of Gothic monuments and gravestones. When they got out, Teddy raised a black umbrella.

“This way.” They followed a narrow path. He checked the instructions on the paper again. “There it is, Senator,” he said, strangely formal.

The mausoleum was ornate, with an angel of death on top. There was an arched entrance to an oaken door banded with iron and the name de Brissac.

“I’d like to be alone, Teddy,” Cazalet told him.

“Of course.” Teddy gave him the rose and got back into the limousine.

Jake went into the porch at the door. There was a tablet listing the names of members of the family laid to rest there, but there was a separate one for the general. Jacqueline de Brissac’s name was in gold beneath it and newly inscribed.

There were some flower holders and Jake took the rose from its wrapping, kissed it, and slipped it into one of the holders, then he sat down on the stone bench and wept as he had never wept in his life before.

A little while later—he didn’t know how long—there was a footstep on the gravel, and he looked up. Marie de Brissac stood there, wearing a Burberry trenchcoat and a headscarf. She held a rose just like his own, and Teddy Grant stood behind her, his umbrella raised.

“Forgive me, Senator, this is my doing, but I thought she should know.”

“That’s all right, Teddy.” Cazalet was filled with emotion, his heart beating.

Teddy went back to the limousine and the two of them were left staring at each other. “Don’t be mad at him,” she said. “You see—I already know. My mother told me
a year or two after we met at the Ball, when she was first ill. It was time, she said.”

She put her rose into one of the other holders. “There you are, Mama,” she said softly. “One from each of us, the two people in the world who loved you best.” She turned and smiled. “So here we are, Father.”

As Cazalet wept again, she put her arms around his neck and held him close.

Afterwards, sitting on the bench, holding hands, he said, “I must put things right. You must allow me to acknowledge you.”

“No,” she said. “My mother was adamant about that, and so am I. You are a great Senator, and as President of the United States of America you could achieve remarkable things. Nothing must spoil that. An illegitimate daughter is the last thing you need. Your political opponents would have a field day.”

“Screw them.”

She laughed. “Such language from a future President. No, my way is best. Only you and I know, the perfect cover.”

“And Teddy.”

“Ah, yes, lovely Teddy. Such a good man and your true friend. My mother told me about him. You mustn’t be annoyed that he spoke to me.”

“I’m not.”

She raised her voice. “Teddy, come here.”

Teddy Grant got out of the limousine and joined them. “I’m sorry, Jake.”

“You did right, Teddy. I’m grateful, but she won’t allow me to go public. Tell her she’s wrong.”

“No, I’m afraid she’s right. You could cripple your chances. The opposition would make it look real dirty. That’s politics.”

Jake’s heart churned, but in his head, he knew they were both right. Damn it! “All right.” Cazalet turned to her, still holding her hand. “But we must see each other on a regular basis.”