Beyond Eden

anything imaginable. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Send me the recipe for the scones and the cream.”

Candice Anglethorpe laughed. Inwardly she was so relieved she nearly choked with it. The old lady didn’t know anything, and if she did, she was apparently going to mind her own business.

Candice had been at the academy for only four years, and in her opinion, her performance had been grand, bordering on phenomenal. But one never knew, though, particularly when a new partner was a federal judge from three thousand miles away. She would have to find out why he’d bought into the ownership of the academy. To him it really didn’t seem at all important; to her, it was critical, and it was baffling, this seemingly indifferent attitude of the very rich. Now she was witnessing it in his mother.

“I will, of course, be speaking to the trustees and the school’s accountants while I’m here. That’s merely business and has nothing to do with you, Mrs. Anglethorpe. Incidentally, you use the Mrs. for the girls’ benefit?”

Candice Anglethorpe felt a jolt but quickly suppressed it. The old lady wanted candor—very well, she’d give her just a taste. If she wanted something more, she would have to ask point-blank, because Candice knew never to volunteer anything. “Yes, Mrs. Foxe, I do. It gives me more credibility, both with the girls and with their parents. I’m also a widow.”

“A divorcee would never do. It somehow sounds so very imperfect.”

“I agree with you completely.”

“I don’t blame you. I’d do the same for the same reasons. It’s wise of you, though, not to try to hide such things, particularly from a nosy old lady. All my life, I’ve found things out that I shouldn’t have known about. Strange, but there it is.”

After Gates Foxe had left, Candice saw to it that her secretary sent the recipe for the scones and the clotted cream to Mrs. Foxe in San Francisco. Then she went upstairs to see Lindsay. She could hear the girls laughing and chattering from outside the door. She smiled as she lightly tapped, knowing they probably wouldn’t hear it. They didn’t. Candice shoved the door silently inward.

Bitsie Morgan was painting a picture of a naked boy on Lindsay’s cast. Gayle Werth was holding her sides with laughter. They were trying to decide what to do with the boy’s penis. Should they hide it or flaunt it? They decided to wrap it around Lindsay’s leg. Candice studied Lindsay for a moment before the girl was aware of her presence. She was flushed, in no pain, and enjoying herself immensely. Yes, she was happy here. She belonged. She fit in. No, her parents’ divorce didn’t seem to be affecting her at all. Lindsay looked at her then, and Candice smiled. Ah, those eyes of hers. Lindsay didn’t realize it yet, but someday men would go crazy over those incredibly gorgeous eyes of hers. Yes, they were just like her father’s. Whenever Royce was pounding into her, raised on his elbows, grunting with the force of his exertion, Candice would look into his beautiful sexy blue eyes and feel an orgasm hit.

3

The Betrayal

Finally she was going to see him again. Lindsay hadn’t eaten for a day and a half; she was too excited. She’d felt nauseous whenever she even got near food, even her beloved cheeseburgers. She’d changed, she knew she had, but was it enough? He was used to Sydney and she was perfect. True, Lindsay was no longer the awkward dumb twit who’d stared at him, unable to say anything, unable to do much of anything except gaze upon him with adoring eyes, but that had been nearly two years ago. She’d been young then, very young and gauche and silly. She was grown now; she was mature. She was eighteen and nearly a woman. Her hands were clammy.

She was also in France, riding in a white limousine, provided by the prince, on her way to the George V, and she would see him for the first time since his and Sydney’s wedding. She could still see him clearly in his tuxedo, still remember how the stark white of his dress shirt was so elegant and sophisticated against his olive skin. And his dark, dark eyes, looking at her, so intently, so seriously. She shivered with the pleasure of the thought. Of course Sydney would be there, but Lindsay didn’t care. She just wanted to see him, look at him, know that he was happy.

She pulled out the wrinkled oft-folded letter from her purse and read it yet again. The limo driver had raised the glass shield and she was quite alone. The limo’s engine was powerful, smooth, and quiet. She smoothed out the page and read:

My dearest Lindsay:

Sydney and I will be in Paris the week of April 11. Enclosed is a ticket. We want you to join us. Do come. I, especially, want to see you again.

And he’d signed it as he had the other cards he’d sent during the past two years. With love, Alessandro. She’d turned eighteen the month before. She was grown now. She had a figure too, not as perfect as Sydney’s, but it wasn’t bad. She had breasts and a rear end. She was also awfully tall, but she remembered him as being taller. He would see her as grown, he just had to. She stopped her thinking there, as always. Her half-sister was married to him. That was that.

There had been no more pregnancies, as far as Lindsay knew. The poor prince. If he’d been married to her, she would have done anything for him, had as many kids as he wanted. He was special, he deserved all the good life could provide him. He was wonderful.

She fell into daydreaming about him, and it was always the same, with only minor variations. He was carrying her in his arms and he was telling her that he loved her more than life itself, that she was so dear to him, that only she could make him feel so open, so giving. He was carrying her aboard his yacht and the crew were smiling and nodding, approving of him and of her, approving of them together, and it was perfect. Somehow Sydney was gone, magically, not dead, of course, that would never do. She was just gone and the prince was free and Lindsay was with him and would be for the rest of her life. Oh, how she loved him, and in her daydream he loved her even more. He was Alessandro to her. He was her prince. He was her god. She sighed at the muted sound of the intruding Paris traffic. The daydream was bliss itself, and she was always loath to let it go.

She had three different news clippings about him, one with a photograph. She carried the photo with her in her wallet. She pulled it out now and stared. He looked grim in the photo, but his magnetism was clear to her, as were his beauty and the sweet tenderness of him. The article accompanying the photo spoke about recent problems in the family munitions factory near Milan, of terrorist acts on arms shipments bound for Iran, perpetrated by Iraq. Lindsay hadn’t paid much attention, searching only for personal remarks about him. One article, at the end, had mentioned that he was married to an American heiress and lawyer, Sydney Foxe di Contini, of the international firm of Hodges, Krammer, Huges, etc., now a partner herself. There were no children. It spoke of his antecedents, but nothing of interest to Lindsay.

Lindsay hadn’t seen Sydney since the wedding. She hadn’t even seen a photo of her. Whenever the prince and Sydney had visited the United States during the past year and a half, Lindsay had never been invited back to San Francisco at the same time. And they had never stopped off to see her. She was certain this was Sydney’s doing. Sydney had ceased to like her, had probably never liked her, and finally had just stopped pretending. Lindsay remembered, even now cringing against the black leather of the limo, how Sydney had laughed at her the day of the wedding, telling her that the prince was amused by her silly teenage infatuation. How he found her pathetic. Just like her father. Lindsay cut it off right there.

Why had Sydney suddenly changed her mind? Why did she want to see Lindsay now? She didn’t quite know what to make of it. She believed firmly that the prince had put his foot down. It was his doing that she was now in Paris. Sydney hadn’t had a choice but to go along with it. He was the boss and Sydney had bowed to his wishes.

As for Lindsay’s father, it was as if she no longer existed to him. She knew he was in Italy a good three months of the year, but she knew nothing more, for her father, when he was compelled to speak to her, only remarked that her half-sister was as beautiful and as accomplished as ever. About the prince, his son-in-law, Royce never said a thing. And Lindsay was too intimidated to ask. She’d asked him once, inadvertently, about her mother, and he’d hung up on her.

The limousine was entering Paris proper now and Lindsay pressed the electric button to lower the passenger window. The air was cool and sweet, the sun bright overhead, and it was, after all, April in Paris, the most romantic city in the world in its most romantic month of the year. Lindsay touched her fingers to her hair. The deep waves