Awaken the Devil Page 10

  Did she not know it was November? Who wore sandals in November? She looked like a carbon copy of every one of the girls who had been her grandparents' neighbors. Too pretty, too thin, too heady with the kind of confidence that only came with a million dollar price tag.

  She was openly thrilled when she saw Fielding. "Gol, hi!" Her greeting was too familiar and Fielding looked behind her to see if anyone had joined them, but the four of them were still the only occupants. "You don't remember me do you?" Her laugh was a high-pitched tinkle.

  It was not totally a surprise to run into someone that she knew. New York was a huge city populated by millions of people, but in many ways it was still a small world. She just wasn't happy about it. "Elisa Tabbott. I lived next door to your grandparents about a hundred years ago. You are Richard and Katherine's granddaughter aren't you?"

  Fielding paused and then offered her hand when she failed to think of anything more appropriate to do. "Of course, the Tabbotts. You look different now, obviously."

  She laughed again, like a demented bird. "I was like ten the last time I saw you. You sat for me when my nanny was sick. Don't you remember? I thought it was so cool you were a newspaper heiress. So much more interesting than my legacy. My father's in mustard, you know."

  The visual picture of Elisa Tabbott's father floating up to his neck in a vat of mustard came unbidden to Fielding's head. She smiled slightly. "How nice to see you again."

  The cruel truth was that it wasn't nice at all. What if she let something slip while Chandler was close enough to hear? What if Elisa blew her cover? Even if she merely mentioned again that Fielding was sole heir to not one but two massive newspaper fortunes, he would probably never speak to her again, he hated the press that much.

  The debate raged in her head about how to get Elisa Tabbott out of Calor Profundo without raising anyone's suspicions. "What are you doing here?" She tried not to let the desperation that she felt creep into her voice.

  Elisa's look told her that she hadn't done a very good job. "I met this guy at this sushi place in SoHo a few months ago. He's totally hot but he's got a girlfriend." She waved one dainty hand dismissively. Then she suspended the conversation momentarily to lean into the mirror and give a critical inspection to her eyebrows. She picked up as though she'd never stopped. "So he keeps dragging me to these unbelievable dives so he won't get caught."

  Fielding knew she ought not to encourage conversation, but she felt she had to ask."And that doesn't bother you?"

  Elisa let out another trill. "Why should it? I'm young and he's hot. Why should I be tied down? Sex, thrills, and no three in the morning baby-I-love-you-I-don't-want-to-be-alone phone calls. Just like babysitting. I get him for a while, and then I get to give him back."

  Elisa took one more swipe at her eyebrows and headed for the door. "Well, see you around."

  No! She hadn't had time to develop a plan, and she had to get her and Chandler out of this club. She took off after her and slammed into her back just outside the door. The band was evidently between sets, and they were caught in a small traffic jam as two more women struggled to get into the room, and someone pushed their way out of the men's room.

  "Chandler!" Again she hoped the horror in her voice didn't broadcast loud and clear.

  Elisa eyed him appraisingly. "You must be Fielding's husband. Aren't you two sweet." She had all the effusiveness of the teenager she had just grown out of being. Of course, she assumed they were married. To her, they probably seemed just short of ancient. Chandler's stare would have crippled a lesser person, or a smarter one, but Elisa seemed unaffected.

  "Uh, Chandler's just my…" What? Friend? That didn't seem like the right word at all. "Boss." She finished lamely.

  "Oh, right." She gave them a saucy grin and an exaggerated wink. "Oh, look. Here's my boss." Then she made the situation a million times worse by indicating her cheap lay was none other than Dale, who suddenly entered the backed up hallway looking dazed and horrified at her and Elisa together.

  Prior to that moment, she had forgotten that Dale had been on the subway with her when she had heard about this place. Yeah, New York could be a small town, but not this ridiculously small. This wasn't a coincidence—it was a gosh darn conspiracy. Eight million people in this city, and every one of them she didn't want to see was right there trapped in some obscure hallway in Queens.

  Dale tried to reverse but was blocked by another stream of bathroom-goers. Elisa's fingers wrapped around his arm like talons, and she attempted to steer him through the traffic and into open floor. Fielding could see no point in trying to escape for at least another few seconds. There was only one way out of this hallway, and it was crowded.

  When they were finally clear of the doorway, Elisa shouted over the music. "This is Dale Bradley. Dale, this is Fielding. I used to live next door to her grandparents."

  "We've met." Fielding muttered. She knew how odd it would look to Chandler if she didn't offer at least marginal introductions. Then, they would get out of there as quickly as possible because introducing Chandler and Dale was definitely playing with fire. "Um, this is Chandler Bentley. We work together."

  She saw immediately that Dale recognized the name and the power that it gave him over her when she had caught him here with his pants down, so to speak.

  "Chandler." She suddenly turned on him. "Could you get us a cab, please? I'm suddenly not feeling all that well."

  He gave her a small, wry smile and nodded slightly. "Certainly." He crossed through the crowd and out the door.

  Dale glanced at Elisa. "I think I left your purse back at the bar."

  "Oh, how could you, Dale? Around these people…" She fled for their seats.

  "Taking your work home? What would Mac say? And him so sick!" he hissed as soon as they were alone.

  "Don't bother to threaten me. I don't care about your dirty laundry. You cheated on me with Patrice, why would I care if you're unfaithful to her? She can find out the way I did."

  "So we never saw each other tonight?" He looked instantly relieved.

  She sighed. "If only that were true. Believe me I wouldn't do Patrice any favors. Like I said, she can find out the way that I did." She turned and walked away from him hoping that worry ruined the rest of his evening the way he had just ruined hers.

  Outside, Chandler had obediently hailed them a taxi and was standing and holding open the door. She slid in gratefully, pressing her hands against the pounding in her temples. Chandler slid in beside her, and the cab seemed to shrink, filled with the scent of him.

  "So am I to assume that the little piece of baggage back there is greener pastures after all?" he asked wryly.

  "No, just a hobby. Dale's a chronic philanderer, but he never would have left me, and he'll never leave Patrice either as long as she'll have him. He needs a home base."

  "I'm sorry, I suspect it is no matter of mine, and I ought not to ask, but I'm afraid I must. How did you end up with such a wanker?"

  She sighed again. Here, they treaded on the dangerous ground of reality. But she felt that she couldn't bear to lie to him about anything except the paper, as though that wasn't everything.

  "It's kind of hard to explain, but I told you that my parents died when I was six. They never had time to have any other children besides me even if they had been inclined to, which I suspect they would not have been. They never really wanted me, but someone had to carry on the French and Fielding legacies."

  The last words came out in an embarrassed rush, but all he did was nod, his lips tightly compressed with displeasure.

  Finally, he spoke. "So that's it then. Someone had to produce the next generation, and somehow that someone became you."

  "Yes." Her relief that he understood immediately was almost drugging. "None of my friends understood. They didn't know what it meant to be the last of a line like mine. They couldn't understand what the pressure was. If they were the last in their lines, they didn't care, but they weren't part of the French family."

/>   He smiled slightly, but it was without humor. "Believe me when I tell you that I understand your position better than almost anyone could."

  She impulsively wanted to kiss him for seeing the whole thing so clearly and not making her stumble over an explanation that probably would never make sense to anyone who was not in the same position. Then she looked at the stubbled angle of his jaw and the firm curve of his lips, and she wanted to kiss him just for being amazing and beautiful. She turned away from him and looked out the window even though most of what she could see was her own reflection.

  "So you see I had to get married. I owed it to Mac. He's so worried about his legacy, and I love him so much, and I've been such a disappointment to him."

  His gaze sharpened with irritation. "How could you be a disappointment to any parent?"

  "Oh." She frowned. Now she was on dangerous ground again. Once more, she decided on mostly the truth. "It's the dancing you see. We French aren't dancers. My entire life he's taken care of me, and he really wanted me to take his place at the helm of the family business."

  "Parents should never ask for anything in return for doing as parents ought to do."

  "That sounds all right in theory, but in reality, I'm all he's got but his pride in the family legacy. I don't want it, but I don't think it's unreasonable for him to want me to. Haven't you ever felt pressured by your family? Earlier it sounded like you had."

  Did he understand being pressured by his family? The catalogue of his mistakes made in behalf of the Bentley name was staggering. He was somewhat surprised by the apparent parallels between their lives. Both of them had family names that still meant something. Both of them were raised by people who disdained dancing and had firm ideas of what they ought to be doing instead. Both of them had involved themselves, in the course of their most committed relationships, with chronic philanderers. Yes, he did have an eerie understanding of where she was coming from.

  "Yes, but why him? Why not some decent chap?"

  Her sigh was so heavy her whole body moved with it. "Mac liked him." She shrugged. "He seemed like a steady guy. Very serious and his suits were very starched. I thought he was the perfect avenue to the steady, normal family I always wanted growing up. I was very excited about children." She added in a small voice.

  "So it was for the money? The security?"

  She glanced at him. "Not the money. I have plenty of money. More than I could use in three lifetimes. It was for the security though. I thought he would be there every night at the dinner table. He works for Mac. He's never even been late. I thought he was the kind of husband who would never fly away and miss my birthday."

  She sounded so wistful that he hated her irresponsible dead parents on her behalf. Who flew out of the country on their six-year-old's birthday?

  "I guess I had pretty low standards. That's probably what I get for deciding to get married because I felt I ought to and not for love."

  "Alas," he murmured, "I know exactly what you mean."

  "Did you love her?" Fielding hated the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. And she hated that she cared about the answer for all the wrong reasons.

  He turned away from her and stared out the window. The silence in the cab was deafening. The transmission radio suddenly came loudly to life screaming out incoherent instructions. Chandler's stupor seemed to lift. He blurted out with vehemence, "No. At first I merely disliked her." His voice lowered. "But in the end I hated her." He stared out the window again. "Sometimes I wish I had been the one to kill her. She deserved it."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Fielding felt that the reasonable thing to do would be to change the subject. After that startling pronouncement, Chandler had turned farther away from her, his shoulders angling toward the window. His previous words had been shocking, and she feared worse was yet to come, but she couldn't help asking anyway, "What was she like?"

  "She was a slag." At her blank look, he added, "A slapper." When no recognition on her part was forthcoming, he seemed to search his brain for a more American term. The going was slow, and she had a strong feeling that he was, if not totally drunk, then certainly flirting with its edges. She doubted that he would have been talking to her otherwise, not about Helena. "She was a whore."

  "Oh." She recoiled slightly at the harshness of his voice, of the word. She had the distinct feeling that they had reached the point of total honesty via the transportation of whiskey. "I see."

  He smiled, the first real one she had seen him wear. It was beautiful and cruel at the same time. A laugh rumbled in his chest sounding rusty from disuse. "Do you? I don't think you do." He cracked his knuckles, and she flinched. "When I met Helena, she was a dancer in my first line, the first of my own I mean. So were Sara and Lynette.

  "She was unbelievably beautiful I mean truly. You looked at her, and you couldn't believe what you were seeing. Everyone thought so. And she worked very hard at being what everyone wanted. She had this amazing skill for transforming to please whomever she was with. She didn't turn her talents on me because she wasn't interested. I was nobody as far as she knew. I didn't act as though I had any money, and I had been cautious that no one knew about the title I would inherit…" His voice trailed off.

  Fielding could guess pretty easily what happened next. "Someone told her."

  "Indeed," He smiled again, like the baring of teeth. "Her mother, Constance." He spat the name like it was a dirty word. "She'd had Helena going after a banker's son who had far more money than sense. She was doing very well as he was, I believe, on the verge of proposing. There are some people back there, in England, especially those who are very low, who still value a title above money. A dirt poor Duke is always better than a wealthy common man to that sort."

  "So she turned her charms on you?"

  "Intensely. It was a war campaign to her, and she had amazing strategy. I had no idea what she was, and she was so lovely and unbelievably sexy and well read and charming, and she had lovely manners. I didn't know. I was so bloody stupid. She was seductive and aggressive, and she wanted me. Before that I'd only had one serious relationship. She overwhelmed me."

  "She changed after marriage?" She kept her voice down. Their conversation was private, she felt, even from the cabbie.

  He laughed again. "She never really changed so much as I just figured her out. The trance started to wear off, and I discovered that her charm was manufactured, and her reading had been done in haste just to impress me. I saw suddenly that she was cruel and capricious. I knew before we were married, and I wanted to get away…"

  Again Fielding knew. "Anne."

  His jaw clenched the muscles in his throat working. "The oldest trick on the record. She was aware that her wiles were failing to ensnare beyond the first month, but she was better than that, you know. She had a back-up plan."

  He took a deep breath, his shoulders shuddering. "The first thing she did after she and her mother set their cap for my title was discontinue all of her other relationships. I believe it was the only time that she was monogamous in her entire life. But there could be no question, you know, about the Bentley heir.

  "I told you she was amazingly good at sizing people up, knowing what they were, what would please them, and what would hurt them. She knew from the start that she could attract my attention, but she also knew she couldn't keep it. She, correctly, surmised that the only thing that would keep me bound to her was a child. I would never leave the mother of my child no matter how little I liked her."

  "But how could she be sure?" At this point Fielding wasn't sure she even wanted to know.

  "Planning. She was very good at that, too. She had it all planned out from the moment she heard Lord before my name. Before we even went out the first time she had her mother's quack of a boyfriend prescribe her fertility pills. Then she went and poked three or four holes in every condom I bought. She was pregnant before the haze wore off."

  Fielding flinched at the idea of planning something like that with such cold disrega
rd. She tried for joking. "She's lucky she didn't end up with triplets."

  It was his turn to flinch. "Helena made her own luck. I discovered later that she'd actually had what's called, I believe, a selective abortion. She was pregnant with quadruplets. In reality she was lucky, I guess, that she didn't lose Anne.

  "Selective abortions can be dangerous to the remaining babies. That idiot doctor tried to convince me it was necessary for Anne's health, but somehow I didn't believe him. And sometimes that's true, but she didn't even talk to me. She made me a father without talking to me, and then she killed my babies without talking to me.

  "I hated her." The words were just as fierce and quiet the second time, but they were slightly less shocking. What was shocking was the story he had told. No wonder he was so bitter. And she thought that she'd been screwed by Dale. By comparison they'd parted best friends. She felt slightly like vomiting at the narrative, and he told it with mostly dispassion. It hadn't even happened to her, and she felt sick. If that was the way that Helena had treated her husband, there was probably no end of spurned and angry lovers that were the kind of likely suspects that Fielding was looking for.

  Of course the bitter little history lesson he'd just given provided him with the perfect motive for murder. But why wait seven years to exact his revenge? That just didn't make sense. Then again he mentioned that he had found out "later" whatever that meant. Could later be seven years? It didn't matter; she didn't believe that he could be a murderer. She had a sudden shudder reliving the frost in his voice when he said he wished he had been the one to kill her.

  She jumped when the cabbie loudly announced, "Forty-second and Broadway."

  Chandler hopped out of the cab with his normal agility, but then wavered a little when he hit solid ground. She wondered how many people in the world had ever had the privilege of seeing Chandler Bentley drunk, and she was not particularly happy to be among their ranks. Even if he had turned into Chatty Cathy the minute his blood alcohol level had crossed the legal limit.