Aspen Gold (15 page)

He turned his attention to the guests who had come to dine, dance, and be photographed, paying a thousand dollars a plate for the privilege. There were dozens of people he knew, dozens more he recognized--the Mosbachers, the Basses, the Murdochs, the Fields, Nicholson and friend, Fonda and Turner, an elite collection of the rich, the powerful, and the famous drawn from Aspen's regular glitz contingent, with a few locals thrown in for color. Members of the press circled among them, documenting every designer gown present.

"This is strictly the A list, isn't it?"

Paula murmured upon completing her own survey.

"Not entirely," John replied. "We're here."

"Speak for yourself," she replied, arching a cool but amused brow.

Kit paid no attention to either of them as she scanned the throng of guests, mentally bracing herself for the sight of Bannon. When she failed to see him, she relaxed a little and let her attention drift to the magnificently restored Grand Ballroom, its walls covered in gilded wallpaper in a variety of patterns and its wide windows draped in French damask.

"Wouldn't this be perfect for a period film, Chip?" she said, her imagination already painting the scene with waltzing couples, the men in tails and bat-wing collars, the ladies in bustled gowns of emerald satin, scarlet mousseline, and ivory peau de soie, the flutter of fans and scented hankies, the swish of watered silk and bombazine, the air awash with the fragrances of bay rum, rose water, and lemon verbena. "I wish we were making one."

Chip studied her for a critical second.

"You would make an ideal Gibson girl."

Maury walked up. "She'd make an ideal anything. You name it--Kit can play the part."

"You don't have to sell me on Kit," Chip inserted. "I was sold before you had a chance."

"Do you see our host?" Paula asked.

"No." Looking at all the familiar faces, John realized that was one of the problems with these parties. The same people, the same conversations, the same underlying boredom. The thought prompted him to glance at Kit, a slender golden column standing beside him. Not boredom. Never in her company.

He neatly plucked two glasses of champagne from the tray of the passing waiter and handed one to Kit. "I believe you said you were in the mood for champagne."

"I did, and I am." She took a sip of the effervescent wine, her eyes warm and alive on him, showing a pleasure that he'd remembered.

"Are the guards posted?" He sipped indifferently at his own, more interested in watching her.

"The guards?"

"Around your tongue. This is the part in the social war games where we're supposed to mix and mingle."

Her laugh was quick and soft. "I'll order them out, but don't be surprised if they fall asleep at their posts."

"I hope so." Smiling, John cast a jaundiced eye at the array of beautiful people.

"It might be the thing to liven up this party."

"That isn't nice." Amusement glittered behind her look of mock reproach.

"I know." He grinned and took her arm, letting them be drawn into the vortex of the charity gala.

Old Tom paused in the broad sweep of the Jerome's lobby, his burly chest and big shoulders firmly encased in black evening wear, complete with cummerbund and black tie. With his grizzled hair and craggy face, he looked like a throwback to the cattle barons of old as he drew back his head and cast an assessing eye over the warm, earth-toned lobby, its walls covered in a rich terra-cotta fabric, its gracefully curved chairs in solid dusty blues and striped blues and mauves, its potted palms and baby parlor grand, its great fireplace and silver-dust mirror mantel and the deer heads that flanked it.

When Bannon and Sondra joined him, he turned. Bannon recognized that reminiscent gleam in his eyes before his father spoke. "I remember back during the war when some of the ski troops from the army's alpine division bivouacked right here on the floor." He paused and chortled to himself. "And I remember a time or two, when somebody was driving a flock of sheep through town, that a few of them managed to find their way into the lobby. Of course, I wouldn't be saying how that happened."

"It couldn't have been with some help, could it?"

Bannon wondered, the corners of his mouth deepening with the suggestion of a smile.

"You never know," Old Tom said, the twinkle in his eye belying the shake of his head.

"Are we ready?" Sondra prompted coolly.

For an answer, Old Tom started walking in the direction of the ballroom, taking his time as he looked around. "This place brings back a lot of memories," he declared. "Back during the Depression, fifty cents could buy you one of the best chicken dinners you ever tasted. Practically the whole town turned out for it on Sunday nights. During prohibition, they turned the bar into a soda fountain."

His pace slowed even more as they traveled down one of the hotel's broad, arched corridors, its walls lined with old mining maps and photos of Aspen's past.

"This hotel is as grand as it was in my father's day," Old Tom said fondly. "He was one who could tell you some stories about this place and how it was when Jerome Wheeler himself walked these halls." He turned to Bannon. "Did I ever tell you about the time your granddad walked into Wheeler's private dining room while Wheeler and his fellow silver tycoons were sipping cognac and smoking their after-dinner cigars? Right there, under those glittering crystal chandeliers, your granddad told Wheeler he was representing a miner's widow and that his client intended to sue--"

"I think you have told me that story," Bannon broke in gently.

"Endlessly," Sondra murmured under her breath, then smiled quickly at Bannon in a show of tolerance.

"I guess maybe I have," he conceded, then came to an abrupt stop and peered at an enlargement of an old photograph. "Well, I'll be ... Would you look at this woman in the picture here? The buxom one with the big hat and parasol." He straightened, an odd smile on his face. "I wonder if they knew this was a picture of one of Aspen's most famous madams when they hung it. She ran a high-class establishment, catered strictly to the carriage trade."

Bannon frowned. "How would you know that? That was before your time."

Old Tom reddened slightly beneath his tan.

"Your granddad told me. He--uh--had occasion to represent one of her girls a time or two."

Then his expression took on a faintly sly look. "Got well paid for his services, too, I understand." He started walking again, ignoring the faint stiffness in the tilt of Sondra's head.

"To be honest, I wouldn't mind knowing how a woman looks at a man with a lot of money in his pocket. If he threw a thousand-dollar bill in her lap, would she show him something he never saw before? Would he get something for a thousand that he wouldn't get for ten? And when he paid for it--I wonder if it would be worth it?" He fell silent, pondering the thought.

Thrusting a half-amused glance at Sondra, Bannon murmured, "He's in a philosophical mood tonight."

"I noticed." She returned his look, her eyes a deep, dark brown with a stillness to them that always made him wonder what she was thinking, what her eyes meant when she watched him.

He was never sure, not even during the times when they'd made love.

His glance lingered on her a moment longer, traveling over the pale blond hair running smoothly away from her forehead and temples. Her lips lay together in a soft, sober line, slightly full at the centers, lips that could heat with the first touch of his.

In those rare moments when Bannon thought about his future, there was a sense of Sondra in it. The slow gesturing of her hands and the small swing of her shoulders never failed to capture his attention.

She never asked anything of him, never made demands. She was simply there, waiting with that calm watchfulness.

At the cloakroom, Bannon helped

Sondra out of her fur coat of dark Canadian fisher, then pocketed the claim chit and escorted her into the ballroom.

Together, John and Kit made the rounds, wending their way through the silks, the satins, and the velvets, the Ungaros, the Saint Laurents, and the Lacroixes, drifting from group to group, indulging in the obligatory cheek-brushing and air-kissing, flirting and flattering, lingering when pressed, moving on when not. Once duty was finally done, John edged them back to the fringes.

Taking advantage of the respite, Kit traded her glass of stale champagne for a fresh one. Snatches of conversation came to her, the topics ranging from health spas, plastic surgeons, planned travel jaunts, and Aspen's usual cause c@el@ebre--clean air and the environment--to discussions concerning the economic fallout of a united Germany and a divided Canada.

"It's crazy," she murmured, her lips curving in a bemused smile against the glass's crystal rim.

"What is?" John arched her a curious look.

"All this gloom-and-doom talk. First everyone was worried that the Japanese were going to buy up America. Ten years ago, it was the petro-sheiks from the OPEC countries. Next it will probably be the Germans."

"True."

"I hope he's getting in some practice,"

Kit remarked as her roaming glance came to a stop on the pianist in the corner, one of the musicians from the swing band scheduled to play later in the evening.

"Who?"

"The piano player. Nobody's listening to him."

"But everyone would if he stopped playing."

"Probably." She smiled, her attention diverted by a pair of late arrivals entering the ballroom. The man with the receding hairline, cool eyes, and hard face was easily recognizable as Wall Street's notorious takeover tycoon. "That's Simon Renquist, isn't it?" Kit identified him without hesitation, but not the young blonde on his arm.

"Who's the blonde? Is that his daughter?"

"Girlfriend."

""Girl" is right. She doesn't look a day over nineteen." She studied the two of them over the rim of her glass, guessing there had to be at least thirty years difference in their ages.

"What on earth would they find to talk about?"

John gave her a long look. "You are being droll, aren't you?"

She laughed at herself. "Not intentionally."

Smiling with her, he let his glance drift over the gathering, then lifted his wine glass, acknowledging a nod of recognition from Jack Nicholson. Continuing the movement, he raised the glass to his mouth and took a sip. "I'd love to have a cigarette right now," he muttered, all too conscious of the ballroom's smoke-free atmosphere.

"At a cancer benefit? Shame on you, John T." Her sidelong glance was full of reproach, the laughter in her eyes removing any sting from her words. "Personally, right now I'm craving food."

"That's easily remedied." John caught the attention of a circulating waiter balancing an hors d'oeuvre tray on an upraised palm.

He motioned him over, then waved a hand in Kit's direction when the waiter reached him. "The lady's hungry."

"Ma'am." The sun-bronzed waiter offered her a choice from the half dozen caviar-topped delicacies on his tray.

Kit hesitated. "Why do mothers drum it into our heads that it isn't proper to eat with gloves on?"

Without saying a word, John selected one of the miniature potato pancakes from the tray and carried it to her lips, the impish twinkle in his blue-gray eyes confirming his intention to feed it to her. Feigning demure obedience, Kit opened her mouth, intending only to take a bite from it, but he popped the whole thing inside.

Caught off guard, Kit struggled to chew the mouthful. The laughter gurgling in her throat made the task all the more difficult. Somehow she managed to chew and swallow it without choking, but only barely.

"That wasn't nice," she accused, the laughter still in her voice as she dabbed at the corners of her mouth, certain some had escaped.

"But was it good?" He grinned, remorseless.

"Mmmm, delicious," Kit confirmed and licked at her lips, feeling the telltale roundness of roe somewhere on the lower one. "It was beluga. No pop."

"You missed a crumb."

"Where?"

She started another exploratory search with the tip of her tongue. John stopped her. "Let me get it."

When he crooked a finger under her chin, she automatically tipped her face to him. In the next second, his mouth was covering hers and she felt the velvet stroke of his tongue glide over her lips, licking away the crumbs and taking her breath as well. She swayed closer, feeling the pull of desire and unconsciously seeking to intensify it.

"Really, Travis. Necking in public?" a male voice taunted. John lifted his head, holding her gaze for an instant, observing with satisfaction the soft glow in her face, a glow he'd put there, before he turned to face Tony Akins, one of the jet set's more notorious hangers-on.

"Some things are irresistible, Tony," John replied, smiling coolly.

"Tut, tut, John. Now you're stealing my lines," he chided. The sarcastic curve to his mouth softened when he turned his darkly handsome face toward Kit. "Don't tell me this ravishing creature is your new leading lady I've been reading about in all the right gossip columns. Kit Masters, isn't it?"

"The one and only," Kit confirmed when John remained silent.

"That I believe." He took her hand and made a show of bowing over it and kissing the back of her gloved fingers. "A new bright star bursting over Hollywood's horizon."

"How very flattering, Mr.--" She gently but firmly disentangled her fingers from his grip.

"Akins. Tony Akins--"

"Where's Madelyn?" John interposed.

His glance flicked briefly to John before centering again on Kit. "He's referring to Madelyn St. James. You've heard of her, I'm sure."

"Yes." Madelyn St. James was the granddaughter and heiress to the Hoffstead billions.

"I'm one of the pieces of luggage she carries around. "Miss St. James arrived in Aspen today, with four trunks, five suitcases, and Tony Akins.""

Kit smiled in spite of herself at his self-deprecating humor. "I doubt that's totally true."

"Oh, but it is," he insisted, his smile widening. "I'm not complaining, mind you. In fact, I rather enjoy being a kept man. How else would I get invited to all the best parties and stay in all the best places?"