Deceptions (9 page)

'And then she went off to America,' Sabrina said. 'Leaving me alone with my spotlight.*

Stephanie gazed out the window at guests drifting like flower petals through the gardens, accepting champagne and hors d'oeuvres that waiters presented on silver trays. Four years ago, standing before Judge Fairfax in a different garden, she'd brushed aside the thought that Sabrina might need her; she hadn't really wanted to know.

Well, now she knew. She heard the echo of Sabrina's voice: 'Leaving me alone with my spotlight.' So Sabrina had missed her. Sabrina had needed her. Maybe as much as she had missed and needed Sabrina, even though, with Garth and the excitement of getting settled in Evanston, it had taken her a long time to realize it.

On the lawn, the guests were beginning to congregate near the tent. Sabrina sighed. 'If I dcm't get back, Denton's mother

will say I'll be criticized.' Groaning, she pulled on her shoes. 'Weddings should be held in bed. That's where most of them begin these days anyway.'

Garth chuckled. Stephanie turned from the window. 'Sabrina, when are you and Denton coming to visit us? We have so much to talk about, so much time to make up—'

Something stirred in Sabrina. Stephanie's eyes, clear and shining, met hers without envy. Sabrina felt like singing. So much love to make up. 'I'd come tomorrow if I could. I'll see what E>enton has scheduled. He's full of plans to show me all his favorite places. But as soon as I can ... * She held out her hands. Stephanie took them in hers and they held each other close, for a long moment, as they had in the far-off days when they were all the family they had. 'As soon as I can,' Sabrina whispered. 'I'll be there. I promise.'

Denton Longworth worked now and then in his family's shipping company, where he was vice president of finance and a member of the board of directors. To a point, he had done what his father expected of him, graduating from the university and immediately joining the company. But he had no intention of spending the decade between his twenty-fifth and thirty-fifth birthdays at a desk. Later he would settle in, but first there was a large world to enjoy. So he devoted one year to the office, building a dedicated staff capable of carrying on efficiently in his absence, and then he took off for the playgrounds of the world.

He worked when he felt like it. Rounding the comer of his thirtieth birthday, he discovered in himself a talent for reorganizing small, struggling companies his father acquired at bargain prices, and since that gave him pleasure - the yardstick by which he measured all his pursuits - he spent a few days a month at it.

Now, halfway through his thirtieth year, he assigned himself the happier chore of introducing his bride to his playgrounds and put his considerable energies to work on a grand tour. Within a few months, at Biarritz and Cannes, Wimbledon and Buenos Aires, Minorca and Zermatt, jaded members of the international set were falling over themselves to entertain Sabrina Longworth and bask in her

inesistible combination of beauty, sophistication, open delight in new discoveries and warm gratitude. For when had anyone in their circles last expressed the simple emotions of delight and gratitude? No one could remember.

Wherever they went, invitations awaited them, sent on by Denton's secretary in London. Denton would fan through them, letting some drop to the floor and handing the rest to Sabrina. 'Pick out the ones that appeal to you, sweets. And toss out the rest.* But he would watch her. 'You're not throwing out Cora's invitation, are you? Wonderful hostess; no one misses her parties. And why did you— 7'

So by the time they reached Monaco in May, almost a year after their wedding, Sabrina simply glanced at the invitations and handed them back to Denton. 'You decide. I still don't know everyone.'

He spread them on the coffee table in their suite, arranging them like a poker hand to fill the afternoons and evenings when they were not gambling in the Casino or watching the Grand Prix. 'Well done,' he told himself, having fit everyone in. 'We'll even have time for Max.'

'Who?'

'Max Stuyvesant. Amazing you haven't met him yet; he's all over the place. Pleasant fellow, something of a mystery, you'll like him. He wants us for a cruise on his yacht, four days, just after the race. Good idea; totally new experience for you.'

'Why is he a mystery?'

'Because no one knows how he makes his money.'

It was not that everyone hadn't tried to find out; they had. But no one got beyond Maxim Stuyvesant's own answer: he was 'in art,* which could mean anything. Some guessed he owned galleries in Latin America and Europe; others that he was an agent for wealthy clients. There was a rumor that he supported young artists, hiring people to bid on their paintings at auction to drive up the price and create excitement, then pocketing most of the inflated prices collectors paid for them. Cynics said he was a grave robber in the tombs of Egyptian kings.

However he made it, he spent his wealth lavishly, flying guests in his priviate piane high above Monte Carlo's

fireworks displays, taking thirty friends for week-long African safaris, transporting two hundred people by train across Europe to a Yugoslavian dance festival. Sabrina hated him. He loomed above her, broad-shouldered, with a frizzled halo of red hair and flat gray eyes that guarded his secrets. Denton was surprised. *How can you not like him? You haven't talked to him; all you've done is say hello and make yourself at home on his boat.'

'He's arrogant and brutal and I'll bet he doesn't know the first thing about art.'

'How can you possibly—?'

'I feel sorry for his wife, too. She's like a puppy, waiting for him to pet her.'

Denton was silent. Sabrina slipped on her evening gown of blue-black silk that settled about her like a delicate moth's wing, baring her shoulders and back. 'You'd better dress, darling. Cocktails are at eight, and if we aren't prompt he'll stare at us with those awfiil eyes and turn us into statues. That's the kind of art he's in! He casts a spell on people and then sells them to their grieving families as mementos.'

'Sabrina! Max is our host!'

'I'm sorry, Denton.'

'I hope so. Where are my cuff links?'

Their stateroom was hung with a French tapestiy over the king-size bed. The carpet was deep, the furniture pale ash with ebony handles, the bath blue and silver with a whirlpool in the tub. The Lafitte, 104 feet long, had six such staterooms and five crew rooms. Its decks were teak. In its salon thirty people could move about comfortably beneath a teardrop chandelier. Its chef and wine cellar were famous. Sabrina had learned never to ask the cost of anything, but Denton, planning to buy one like it, said the price, with furnishings, was two million dollars.

Five couples were the Stuyvesants' guests on the Lafitte, Over cocktails, Betsy Stu3nr^ant, Maxim's third wife, small and soft in cashmere and silk, her blond curls trailing wistfully about her ears, told them she was not allowed to interfere in the ship's operations. If they needed anything, Kirst, the head steward, was at their service. For going

ashore, Maxim made all arrangements. She fell silent and did not speak again that evening.

They dined on fish soup with sa£&on and orange peel» followed by baby octopus in champagne sauce; the wine was chilled wMte Palette from the hills above Marseilles. Max proposed a toast. To a successful cruise.' He smiled lazily at his dinner partner, a willowy blonde he had introduced as Princess Alexandra, from a country no one had heard of. Across the table, her husband. Prince Martova, looked fixedly at his plate.

Beside the Prince, a tanned, sleepy-eyed woman asked, 'And where do we go tomorrow?'

'East,' said Max, still looking at Alexandra. 'Along the Italian Riviera di Ponente to Alassio and Genoa and back. Four days. A lifetime.' Alexandra smiled.

Sabrina glanced at Denton and saw him smile lazily at Betsy Stuyvesant, as if he were trying to look like Max.

In the morning they foimd frvdt, croissants and coffee in the small dining room. Max was their maestro. 'Sunbathing on the afterdeck for those who want. Waterskiing at four. Games and stimulants in the salon at all times. Movies in the small theater; Kirst will run them if you wish. We lunch at one. Enjoy yourselves, mes amis/

Denton stretched. 'The salon first, I think. Then sunbathing. All right with you, sweets?'

Five people were, in the salon, sifting through the cocaine and hashish and varicolored capsules in a comer cabinet. 'Max is a lovely host,' the sleepy-eyed woman said, and asked Sabrina, 'What's yours?'

Denton stepped in. 'Good of you, but I'll take care of my wife.' He tapped a small amount of white powder into an empty vial and pocketed it. Watching, Sabrina tried to separate this Denton from the one who lived with her in London. That one hardly took a drink, never smoked or used drugs, never looked at women as he had looked at Betsy Stuyvesant last night. On their travels she had seen hints of this other Denton; now he was in the open. Preoccupied, she followed him from the salon and along the deck to the cluster of reclining chairs and chaise longues used for sunbathing by day and for drinks and snacks at night. Alexandra was there

with her husband and two other couples, all offering their beautifully tanned nude bodies to the molten Mediterranean sun.

Denton barely glanced at them. *Come on, sweets/ he said, dropping his robe. Sabrina felt foolish and clumsy in her reluctance. Tliere was only one Denton, her husband, and he was showing her how he expected his wife to behave. Totally new experience for you,' he'd said of Max's invitation. And when had she been afraid of new experiences? She looked at the magnificent women's bodies spread out before her, oiled and glistening. Hers was better. She dropped her robe and lay beside Denton, letting his large hand oil her back.

But she shook her head when he took some of the white powder on his finger and offered it to her. One thing at a time, she thought, and he did not insist. He sniffed the powder into each nostril as the others sniffed theirs or smoked hashish. The sun beat down on the quiet deck and Sabrina drifted in it imtil a shadow crossed her tyes. She opened them to see Max standing above her. Her muscles instinctively tightened, but he was looking past her at Alexandra. And in a long languorous movement, Alexandra stood and went with him toward the staterooms.

As if she had been waiting, Betsy took Alexandra's place. Denton watched her stretch and pat oil on her white skin. She caressed her breasts, humming to herself, then lay back and in another minute was asleep, her hands clasped as if in prayer.

He turned and found Sabrina's eyes on him. 'You're right,' he said, smiling indulgently. 'She's like a kitten. Cuddly. But not important.'

Sabrina had said Betsy was like a puppy, but she let it pass.

At limch in the port of Alassio, Alexandra maneuvered to sit beside her. 'Honey,'she murmured. 'Relax. You're getting yourself all upset. They make the rules; we follow them. Everything's easier when you accept that.' Sabrina toyed with her appetizer, bending her head to listen. 'You seeyour Denton thinking about spreading little Betsy's legs, or doing

it, you just close your eyes and soak up the sun or learn to snort coke or go off with a good book.'

'How did you know—?'

'Now, see, that's something else you have to learn. Nothing is secret on this little canoe. You can do what you want - no limits - but whatever you decide, Max will know about it almost as soon as you do.'

Sabrina wrapped a slice of pink prosciutto ham around a wedge of pale green honeydew melon. 'Are you really a princess?'

Alexandra laughed heartily. 'That's another lesson, honey. Everything around here is only partly true. You remember that when you're watching your husband watch someone else.'

In the afternoon, as the Lafitte sailed east, they water-skied behind the high-powered speedboat that the yacht carried in place of one of its lifeboats. Sabrina and Alexandra skied side by side, skinmiing the water in a blue and gold mist. Sabrina felt young and strong and beautiful. I can do anything, she thought.

On the yacht, wrapped in bath sheets and drinking wine on the sundeck, Alexandra said, 'You're a hell of a skier. Whcre'dyou learn?'

'At school in Switzerland.'

'Boarding school?'

'Yes.'

'The privileged life. I went to high school in Los Angeles.' She laughed at Sabrina's surprise. 'My mother was a two-bit actress who taught me how to move up in the world. She made me a better actress than she was. Speaking of which, you've perked up. Is that an act?'

'I don't know. I just decided, out there on the water, that I could do anything. Even live hke the rest of you.'

'Honey, you said that as if it were a dose of arsenic. If you think we're poison, what are you doing here?'

Sabrina shivered in the breeze and pulled the bath sheet tighter.

'I didn't mean you. I like you. But I don't like watching Denton ... being expected to watch ... damn, I sound stupid, don't I?'

'Just unprq)ared. Didn't he tell you beforehand? Everybody knows about Max's cruises.'

'I didn't* And Denton never told me.'

'And he's different in London? Cozy by the fire, tucked in by ten?'

Sabrina hesitated, watching the Italian shore come into view, 'No. But I always know where he is when we go out separately.'

'Doyou, now.'

Sabrina ignored her disbelief. 'The trouble is, it doesn't really matter to Denton whether I like something or not.'

*lt doesn't matter to any of them, honey. That's the first rule.'

'So I don't know whether I have a choice.'

Alexandra nodded. 'You're catching on. As long as you want what they provide, you haven't got one small goddamned choice. Now go make yourself glamorous. Dinner in Genoa tonight. Wonderful food.*

As if he had heard their talk. Max organized the evening to demonstrate the life he and Denton could provide. Limousines whisked them along the highway far above Genoa to a restaurant with a sweeping view of the seacoast. After a leisurely dinner served by the chef and mattre d', with a small orchestra playing in the background, they drove to a private party in a glass and wood home jutting out over the ocean, where they drank smooth ruby wines and gambled until three in the morning, when they returned to the yacht. Max took Sabrina's hand as she was going to her stateroom. 'You honor us by being our guest. We will have many cruises together. Pleasant dreams, my dear.'