“Viv, you know better!” I exclaimed. “You’ll only get a flea in your ear.”
“We’ll see.”
“Take my word for it, honey.”
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“You were in New York last month for the board meeting at Locke Industries. I just wondered if anyone mentioned anything to you. About the new woman in his life.”
“No.”
“Mmmm. Interesting. Perhaps they didn’t know about her.”
“You got it, kid.”
“Jack, you will help me with the profile about him, won’t you? It’s so important to me. Important that I write this, and I do believe it will help me to come to terms with his death.”
“Okay” I agreed reluctantly. And against my better judgment. “But there’s nothing I know. I hardly saw him last year.”
“You might think of something that would give me a clue about his moods, his behavior in those final six months of this life.”
“I gotta go. I’ll call you. Next week.”
“I won’t be here. I’m leaving for New York in a couple of days, Jack. I want to start the interviews with some of my old friends at the foundation. It’ll be a beginning.”
“Have a good trip. Ciao.”
“Bye, Jack. I’ll be in touch, we’ll talk soon.”
“Merde!” I said as I slammed the phone down and sat back in my chair, scowling.
“What is it, Jack? What’s wrong?” Catherine asked in that calm voice of hers. A voice I had grown accustomed to these past few months.
“It’s Vivienne. She’s off the wall.”
“That’s a curious statement to make about someone so balanced and as down-to-earth and rational as she is,” Catherine countered.
“She’s not rational. Not down-to-earth,” I exclaimed heatedly. “Not when it comes to Sebastian. She’s obsessed with him. He’s been dead five months. She’s still ranting and raving about his death. I wish she’d just shut the hell up. Let him rest in peace. I can’t stand her when she’s like this.”
“Like what?”
“Playing the keeper of the flame.” I laughed, added, “She’s carrying a torch,” and laughed again at my play on words.
Catherine did not appear to be amused. She wore a concerned expression.
“From what you’ve told me, she adored him and you hated him. Never the twain shall meet,” Catherine murmured. “You’re poles apart when it comes to Sebastian Locke. You’ll never agree about him.”
“True enough, sweetheart. Vivienne’s got a problem. Not enough to do. Her book on the Brontës is finished. Delivered. Now it’s Sebastian. She’s focused on him. Again. Merde!”
Catherine regarded me thoughtfully for a second or two, then said slowly, “Do you mean she’s going to write a book about your father, darling? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Not a book. A profile. For the London Sunday Times. The magazine section. The editor she works with okayed it. But there might be a book. My grandfather, the old coot, suggested it. At the funeral. Can you beat that. Jeez! She might do it too. Bet she does. Merde! Merde! Merde!”
“Jack, for heaven’s sake, why are you so upset? You’re being quite childish. Irrational, actually.”
“I’m not.”
“Whenever your father is involved I’m afraid you are very irrational, darling.”
“Vivienne wants to probe. Dig into his life. The last year of it. I need to know. That’s what she said. She also said, I need to know what he was doing. Who he was with. What he was like. His moods. His demeanor. I have to understand him. I want to pinpoint the reason he killed himself. That’s what she just said to me.”
“How does she propose to get this information?”
“She’s going to talk to people. Interview them.”
“Who exactly?”
“People who worked for him. With him. At Locke Industries. At the foundation. Me. Luciana. God knows who else.”
“And she’s going to write about her conclusions, is that it?”
“Not exactly. She won’t dwell on the suicide. Not in the article. Knowing her, she won’t mention it. If she does, it’ll be one line. The way she felt about him, still feels, it’ll be a glowing profile. Flattering. She’ll only show his good side. Understanding him, understanding the last few months of his life. That’s what’s important to her. This is purely personal.”
“I see. But I really can’t quite understand why you’re so upset.”
“I wish she’d let it rest. I don’t want constant reminders about him. He’s dead. Buried. I don’t want her digging him up.”
“I do think you’re being just a little bit silly, darling. You just said she won’t write anything bad about him. And I agree with you. From what you’ve told me, Vivienne’s extremely loyal to Sebastian and to his memory.”
“She’s still in love with him.”
“Oh I don’t think so, Jack, really I don’t. Vivienne’s too alive, too sexual, and too sensual a woman to be still hooked on a dead man, from what I’ve observed of her, at least. Good Lord, no. She believes that life is for the living. It seems to me that she’s batty about Kit Tremain. He’s her life now, you know, not Sebastian Locke. Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about, and I know I’m right.”
“I guess you are.” I immediately changed the subject.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“There was another woman,” I said, staring across the dinner table at Catherine.
She stared back at me and then said, with a light, amused smile, “I’m sure there were lots of women before me, Jack. Quite aside from your two wives. I wouldn’t expect it to be otherwise. You’re a very attractive man.”
“No. No. I’m talking about Sebastian. There was another woman in his life. Just before he died. A new woman,” I explained. “I knew nothing about her. No one did. But he told Viv. The day they had lunch. That fateful week he killed himself. He told Viv he was planning to marry her.”
“Who was she?” asked Catherine, looking at me alertly.
I shrugged. “No idea. Viv never asked her name. He never gave it. Just said she was a doctor. Viv mentioned it this morning. On the phone. Not before. Don’t know why she didn’t. I forgot to tell you.”
“Presumably he was happy then. How odd that he took his life when he did.”
“That’s what Viv thinks.”
“On the other hand, the nameless woman could have terminated their relationship,” Catherine remarked.
I smiled at her. “That’s what I think.”
“What did Vivienne say?”
“That he wouldn’t have taken such a drastic step over a failed love affair.”
Catherine seemed to mull this over before saying, “Well, I tend to agree with Vivienne.”
“But you didn’t know him,” I protested.
“No, not personally, and you haven’t told me much about him. Only odd snippets. But I was quite aware of him long before I met you, Jack,” she pointed out. “All the money he gave away to charity. Those huge donations to Bosnia last year. Everyone was aware of him. And naturally I’d read a lot about him. A great deal of space was devoted to him in the press.” She paused to take a sip of her red wine. “He had half a dozen wives, didn’t he?”
“Five.”
“Same thing, more or less. He was rich, handsome, famous, so he had a lot going for him. He was sophisticated, I assume? Worldly?”
“Very.”
Catherine nodded her head. “I think Vivienne’s right. He wouldn’t kill himself over a woman. He was too experienced. Anyway, I’m quite sure he could have had any woman he wanted.”
“True. Women were mesmerized by him. He and I didn’t get on. I’ve told you that. But I’ve got to give the devil his due. He was a magnet to women. They fell over themselves. To meet him. Fell at his feet. He didn’t encourage that. He was very off-hand with women. But he had it. Presence. Charisma. Glamour. Sex appeal. And a fatal charm. Look, he was
lethal. As a man. And unpredictable. Even a little crazy, in some ways.”
“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” Catherine mused.
“That about sums it up. You’ve got a good turn of phrase, sweetheart.”
“Oh, it’s not my phrase, Jack. Another woman said it long before I was born. In the early part of the nineteenth century, to be exact.”
“Who?”
“Lady Caroline Lamb. She wrote it in her diary, the first time she met Lord Byron, the poet. What she meant, of course, was that Byron was emotionally dangerous. He was already something of a legend in London. Great fame had come to him early, after Childe Harold was published in 1812. Women schemed to meet him, squabbled over him. Although he was more chased than the chaser. Later Lady Caroline Lamb completed the phrase when she added, ‘That beautiful pale face is my fate.’ When she met Byron he had acquired a reputation in the London social world. A reputation for being dangerous and irresistible. Legend and rumor played a big part in all of this, of course. They can be very potent stimulants.”
“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” I repeated. “Yes, that fits Sebastian to a T.”
“And no one knew about Sebastian’s most recent conquest?” Catherine asked.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t. Neither did Luciana. She would’ve told me. Curious that he kept it a secret.”
Catherine merely nodded, said nothing.
There was a little silence between us.
Eventually I said, “Do you believe in good genes and bad genes?”
“I’m not sure.” Catherine raised a brow. “What are you getting at?”
“Could the compulsion to commit suicide be genetic?”
“I just don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“Sebastian’s half sister Glenda killed herself years ago. His half brother Malcolm did the same, in my opinion. He was in a boating accident on Lake Como. Supposedly an accident. It wasn’t, I’m sure. Aunt Fiona, Sebastian’s other half sister, became a drug addict. Disappeared. Years ago. She could be alive. Most probably dead though. Bad genes?”
“I simply can’t answer that, Jack. But how awful, how terribly tragic.”
“Yeah. I’m the last. The last of the Mohicans.”
Her brow lifted again. Her expression was quizzical.
I grinned. “I’m the last male of the dynasty. Unless I spawn an offspring. Which is unlikely. And Luciana won’t ever have kids.”
After a moment of looking thoughtful, Catherine asked, “Don’t you find that sad, Jack?”
“What?”
“That you’re the last of a great American family.”
“Not particularly. And I don’t think any of them were that great. Least of all Cyrus and Sebastian.”
“Why do you hate them so much?”
“Do I?”
“That’s the way it’s sounded to me, whenever you’ve spoken about them these few months I’ve known you.”
“Sebastian was never a father to me. He was incapable of it. Incapable of loving me. Or anyone else,” I replied and realized my voice sounded shrill.
“Vivienne says he loved her”
“She likes to think that! But he didn’t He was nice to her. Nicer than he was to the other wives. But he didn’t love her. He couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. Oh, yeah, he gave lip service to it. But it was only that. Trust me.”
“Why couldn’t Sebastian love anybody?”
“How the hell do I know” I swigged some of my wine, lolled back in the chair. “Something missing in his genes?”
She ignored my question, asked one of her own instead. “What sort of childhood did your father have?”
“God only knows. Awful, I suspect. His mother died giving birth to him. Cyrus brought him up. With a nanny. Then Cyrus remarried. He once told me his nanny and his stepmother were hard women.”
“It could be disassociation,” Catherine muttered, almost to herself.
“What does that mean?” I leaned over the table, my interest quickening.
“It’s a psychiatric term. Let me try and put it very simply, as best I can, the way it was once described to me. When a child receives no love, no nurturing at birth and in the very first years of life, that child usually grows up removed from association with others. Thus, the child cannot love because it has not been loved. It doesn’t know how to love anyone. You’d have to talk to a psychiatrist to get a proper medical explanation of it in detail. But in my opinion, disassociation could very well be the explanation for your father’s behavior, his inability to love, if this was the case.”
“It was. Take my word for it,” I said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Catherine and I lay together in my great four-poster bed, sipping cognac.
I was enjoying the closeness, the intimacy. Earlier, I had turned off the lamps. The only light came from the fire burning in the hearth. It filled the room with a warm glow. The intermittent crackling of the logs was the only sound. Except for the faint ticking of the clock on the mantel. It was peaceful here.
I was relaxed. At ease with myself. I frequently was when I was alone with Catherine. I was glad I had found her. Glad she was here at the château.
She had lived with another man once. Years ago. She’d told me all about him. It hadn’t worked out. Not in the end. When we met in Paris there was no one of importance in her life. That was lucky for me. We were well suited. I liked her braininess. The way her mind worked intrigued me. I couldn’t stand dumb women. I’d known a few of those. Too many.
I closed my eyes. Drifting. Thinking. Mostly about Catherine. There was never any pressure with her. Or from her. She allowed me to be me. To be Jack. To her I was her friend. Her lover. I was not the son of the famous Sebastian Locke. I was not John Lyon Locke, the last of the line in a great American family, head of Locke Industries and the Locke Foundation. She did not know that side of me. Nor did she care about it.
Catherine often heard me on the phone with the president of Locke Industries. And with those others who ran the company for me. As they had done for my father. Sometimes I spoke to my assistants at the foundation in front of her. But she paid scant attention to my phone calls. Neither was she curious about my other business interests.
Fortunately she loved the château and the winery. This pleased me. I had started to share my thoughts with her about the wine business. She always listened attentively. She understood my love of the land. My land, my vineyards.
Another aspect of her character was her lack of interest in my wealth. Catherine seemed to be as disdainful of money as Sebastian had been. Material things did not matter to her. This did not trouble me. I only wished she would let me spoil her. Give her gifts occasionally But she found it hard to accept things from me. Unless it was a book. Or something else that was inexpensive.
She interrupted my thoughts of her when she said softly, touching my shoulder, “Jack, are you asleep?”
“No. Only dozing. Well, half-dozing.”
“I’ve just thought of something.”
“What?”
“Did the mysterious woman in your father’s life show up at his funeral?”
“No.”
“I wonder why not? Don’t you think that’s peculiar?”
“Not really” I answered. “The funeral was small. A family affair. In Cornwall, Connecticut. It was strictly private. Verboten to anybody not close. Or closely connected to him.”
“I see. I’ll tell you something, though. If I were in love with a man and engaged to be married to him, and if that man died unexpectedly, I’d be in touch with his family immediately,” she exclaimed. “Even if I hadn’t met them, even if they didn’t know about my existence. I would want to be with them, to share my grief. And I would certainly want to be at his funeral.” Catherine paused, bit her lip. “It’s strange, Jack, it really is when you think about it. I mean, that she hasn’t been in touch with you or Luciana, if only to express her sympathy, give you her condolences.”
“She hasn’
t,” I said. “But she could have been at the memorial service for all I know. Hundreds of people were. It was held at the Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. Since a public announcement had been made, the world at large knew about it. And came.”
Catherine sighed. “And because you never met her, you wouldn’t have known whether she was present or not.”
“Precisely.”
“Do you mind if I ask you something else? Something a little more personal?”
“Shoot.”
“Had your father changed his will?”
“No. Why?”
“I just wondered. Often people who are about to commit suicide put their affairs in order.”
“His affairs were in order, Catherine. Already had been for years. He was made that way. Mr. Efficiency. That was Sebastian.”
“No legacy left to a woman you’d never heard of?”
“No. His will was made three years ago. Nothing was changed in it. If there had been a legacy to a person I didn’t know, I’d have made it my business to find out about her.”
“Yes, of course you would, darling. I’m beginning to realize these are stupid questions. I can be such an imbecile at times. Oh dear.”
She fell silent.
So did I.
She moved her head and the firelight danced in her long hair, turned it into a shimmering cascade of flame around her pale face. She moved again, turned her head the other way, exposed a long white neck. Catherine had a swanlike neck, as Antoinette Delaney had had.
In a rush of words, I said, “You’ve often reminded me of someone, of my Special Lady, but never more so than you do tonight, Catherine. It’s uncanny.”
“Your Special Lady? Who’s that?” This was asked softly, but I noticed that her face had tightened.
“Her name was Antoinette Delaney. She was Vivienne’s mother. I loved her from the first moment she came into my life. When I was six. She was like a mother to me. Kind, warm, adoring.”
“And I remind you of her?” she asked, sounding slightly incredulous. “Am I motherly?”
I laughed. “She was very beautiful. Like you. You have her coloring. The same red hair, white skin, green eyes. She was as tall as you are. As willowy and graceful.”