Peach (38 page)

Harry had given in and here they were. He smiled politely at the persistent woman next to him, who wanted him to speak at the very next meeting of her little literary circle, and avoided the tall, distinguished-looking man who looked like a banker in a Hollywood movie, who asked him how much money there was in publishing these days, pushing his way through the crowd to the buffet where at least there were a couple of pretty girls.

Augusta Launceton watched her husband through narrowed eyes. She and Harry had known each other since childhood, their fathers had been at school together and her brother had been at Oxford with Harry. They had always moved in the same social circles but everyone had been surprised when he’d married her. Quiet little Augusta Herriot. So competent and charming. “That’s exactly why I’m marrying you,” Harry had laughed. “Women are dangerous creatures. At least with you I know what I’m getting.” And of course Augusta understood the importance of Harry’s work. But Harry also liked pretty women.

Noel stood quietly at Cassie’s side, taking in the splendour of the high-ceilinged room and its pale silk-lined walls and solid antique furniture. He refused champagne and
canapés, he was afraid to drink anything in case it loosened his tongue. Cassie kept trying to draw him into the conversation but, beyond admitting he was at MIT Noel managed to avoid their probing questions. He saw how the game worked, though, how all these people meshed into the same network. “I hear you’re from Ohio, do you know the so and so’s?” they said, or, “I went to prep school with a guy from there, name of so and so—father’s in railroads. Know him?” If you did then you had your credentials and you were accepted into the magic circle.

Wait
, thought Noel,
just wait! One day he’d show them all he didn’t need a past to qualify for their world
.

He noticed the girl, at once. She wore a red dress and she was looking around the room with a breathless look of anticipation on her familiar face. Peach de Courmont hadn’t changed that much. Of course she was very tall now, taller than Noel, but she still had that mass of shiny reddish-brown hair and the eager little girl expression. Even in that wild red dress she didn’t look more than sixteen. She still looked like the golden girl of his childhood dreams. His symbol of freedom. The man with her was older, handsome, distinguished. A man at ease in his surroundings and Noel watched them jealously. But of course Peach de Courmont wouldn’t even notice him, much less remember him from their one chance meeting at the Maddox Charity Orphanage seven years ago. He looked different now.
He was different!
The orphanage was buried in his past and no one in his life would ever know about it.

When she saw Harry Launceton Peach’s heart pounded so fiercely she thought she might faint, but then a wave of pure happiness swept through her. Harry was here and her plan was finally coming to fruition. Edging through the crowd she moved closer to him.

Harry stared at the stunning girl in the red dress hovering on the fringe of the circle around him, trying to concentrate on the professor who was explaining Harvard’s literary tradition to him.

“Mr Launceton,” called Peach, her voice breathy with excitement. “Hello. We’ve met before at Launceton Magna …”

She was enchanting, a nymph in scarlet silk with a tumble of hair the colour of tawny port. Feline and feminine and dangerously young … “I know!” Harry said holding out his hands to her. “The cricket match.”

Peach gazed at him in delight, both her hands captured in his. “I was with Melinda Seymour. I didn’t think you’d remember.”

Ignoring the professor, Harry tucked Peach’s arm through his, drawing her from the crowd. “How could I forget? You looked like some exotic creature lost on England’s docile green lawns. You belonged in a tropical rain forest running barefoot and wrapped in animal skins or on a soft white beach, naked but for a lei of scarlet hibiscus flowers.”

“Do all writers talk like this?” she asked, mystified.

“This one does,” Harry replied with a smile, “it’s a hell of a lot better than answering questions on how much money I make from writing and dodging old ladies who want me to speak at their little literary lunches. Now. Exactly who are you?”

Standing by the long windows he turned her to face him and the touch of his hands on her bare shoulders made Peach shiver. “I’m Peach de Courmont,” she replied, her voice sounding very small in the buzz of conversation around them.

Harry’s eyes locked with hers. “And where are you to be found, Peach, if not on a sub-tropical island?”

“I’m at Radcliffe,” she murmured, feeling inadequate for not living up to his exotic image of her. “I’m reading English.”

Harry laughed. “Another one,” he cried. “They all love me for my words, never myself.”

“I don’t,” said Peach truthfully, “I can’t read your books. It’s you I love.”

Augusta Launceton downed her glass of champagne and headed purposefully towards her husband. When Harry laughed like that it meant he was enjoying himself and that girl was too pretty to ignore. “Harry,” she called. “Harry, we really must leave now. We’re going on to the Westmacotts’ for dinner.”

“We shall meet again,” he whispered to Peach. “Radcliffe, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she breathed, “oh yes.”

“I’ll call,” he said, his eyes sealing their secret.

Blushing, Peach avoided Augusta’s piercing glance. She felt hot and excited and a little bit frightened as she made her way to the buffet to get a glass of wine. Her eye caught that of the dark-haired man standing with a crowd of people and she had a sudden feeling that she knew him. It wasn’t the kind of face you forgot.

Peach circled the buffet. Maybe love made you hungry. Or excitement. Or it could be that she hadn’t eaten that day? Oh Harry, Harry, she sang to herself, how beautiful you are, and how clever. She tried to remember what he’d said about her, about jungles and tropical flowers in England’s docile greenness. But what about his
scary
wife? The sweet English rose with a backbone of iron! “I’ll call,” Harry had said. She would live by the phone tomorrow.

Who
was
that man? He kept staring at her and it really made her feel quite strange. He was part of the crowd—but
not really. He looked so uneasy. Yet she was sure she knew him. She
had
to find out who he was.

“Hello,” she said confidently to Noel, “I’m Peach de Courmont. I’m sure we’ve met, I just can’t remember where …?”

“You must be mistaken,” said Noel, uncomfortably. His voice sounded harsh in the sudden silence and Cassie and her friends stared at them interestedly.

Peach stared into the shadowy grey eyes and the bony jutting face of the boy at the car window all those years ago. “
Of course!
” she cried into the waiting silence. “The Maddox Charity Orphanage.
You’re Noel Maddox!
”

Noel felt sure the whole room must have heard her. Now everyone knew his carefully covered secret. Everyone knew of his non-existent beginnings. They all knew that he was a non-person. His fists were clenched, and his face frozen with anger as Noel stared into Peach’s innocent blue eyes.
He wanted to kill her!

Peach was curled up in the chair pretending to read
Past Configurations
by Harry Launceton and waiting for the phone to ring. Just holding his book and looking at the words he had written made her feel close to him. Harry had taken his passion for the myths and legends of the past and transformed them under a microscope of present-day psychological beliefs into “a novel of depth and wit, dissecting
human relationships with a visionary sword”—or so the reviewers had said. Peach felt proud to be the one who was waiting for his call.

For the tenth time she looked at Harry’s photograph on the bookjacket. He was smiling, his eyes narrowed against the sunlight, and he looked boyish and very handsome. Closing her eyes, Peach relived their meeting at the party for the hundredth time. Harry had looked exactly as she remembered him. If only Augusta hadn’t been around she felt sure he would have whisked her away there and then … Oh dear, she didn’t want to think about his wife. The phone rang and she hurtled across the hall to be there first, but the call was for one of the other girls. Sagging with disappointment she padded back to her chair.

She hardly dared go to classes these days in case she missed his call and she left endless messages as to where she could be found, and that if a man phoned to say she would call him back if he would leave his number. But Harry didn’t call.

It must be Augusta, decided Peach, making excuses for him, or he was busy in his new role at Harvard and probably in the throes of writing some wonderful book. Genius couldn’t be harnessed to time. But thinking it over in bed she decided that it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as she had imagined. If she wanted Harry, she would have to do something about it.

She called him the next morning and got Augusta on the phone. “Hello,” said Peach nervously, “I’m calling for the Radcliffe Literary Society. I wonder if I could speak to Mr Launceton, please?”

“Hello?” said Harry.

His voice sounded even deeper on the phone. “This is Peach de Courmont,” she told him.

“Really?” he sounded pleased. “Is it really you? I thought it was the Radcliffe Literary Society.”

He didn’t mention about not calling her and Peach bit her lip nervously. “The society was wondering if you would be able to fit in a talk for us? On your new book,
Past Configurations
.’

“Have you read it?” he sounded amused.

“Yes.” Twisting the telephone cord around her fingers Peach added, “But I admit I didn’t understand it. That’s why I need you to explain.”

Harry laughed. “Well then, if you
need
me, I’ll have to see what I can do. Look, there’s a gap in my diary on the eighth—that’s next Tuesday night. How does that suit your society?”

“Wonderful,” gasped Peach. She hadn’t expected it to be so soon. “That would be perfect.”

“Good. About seven thirty. Just drop me a note and let me know where. See you then.”

The phone buzzed emptily in her hands and Peach stared at it in surprise. He hadn’t even mentioned the party where they’d met, or not calling her or anything. But she’d be seeing him—next Tuesday night.

Harry sat on a sofa being plied with very small glasses of very bad sherry by very charming girls. He’d talked for an hour about his life, his career and his latest book and they’d listened raptly and afterwards some of them had even asked intelligent questions. It had all been most enjoyable—and young Peach de Courmont looked dazzling in tight black pants and a high-necked black sweater. She had braided her hair and wore no make-up and looked quite different from the confident beauty in the revealing red dress. Lovely. Quite lovely. Harry sipped the terrible sherry and pulled a face.

Peach had heard that Harry didn’t drive a car because he found driving on the right-hand side of the road confusing and had once almost crashed. “I’d be pleased to drive you home, Mr Launceton,” she said, “when you’re ready.”

“That’s very kind of you,” he replied looking at his watch.

Squashed into her small, sporty, dark blue de Courmont, Harry suddenly associated the names. “Not
that
de Courmont?”

“ ’Fraid so,” she replied.

Harry whistled. “My father told me he once saw old Gilles de Courmont—‘Monsieur’—at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo. He’d survived a terrible car crash and a stroke and he still looked stronger than ten men. How did he build his empire—through a reign of terror?”

“Probably,” said Peach, “but I heard he was always kind to his servants. They stayed with him for years.”

Harry laughed. “You must admit he was a scandalous man,” he said, “all those court cases and delicious women.”

Peach switched on the ignition so she could see his face in the lights of the dashboard. His arm lay along the back of her seat, just touching her shoulder, and he was looking at her.

“The court case was about my mother,” she said abruptly, “and the delicious woman in his life was my grandmother.”

“Sorry,” said Harry, squeezing her shoulder, “I didn’t mean to unlock the family secrets. It’s the writer in me, I pry into people’s lives.”

“I can’t tell you the secrets,” said Peach, “because I’ve never heard the true story. But all my life I seem to have heard rumours, whispers, snatches of conversation that suggest the tip of an iceberg of some monumental romance between the two of them. Monsieur died before I was born
and Leonie never talks about him. I did ask her once, but all she said was that if she ever thought I needed to know, then she would tell me.”

Harry leaned back in his seat with an exaggerated sigh. “Then I shall never know,” he said.

“And I don’t know where you live,” said Peach. “I’m supposed to be driving you home. Unless you’d like to take me for a pizza. I’m starving.” Harry’s eyes met hers. “I can tell you more stories of the scandalous de Courmonts,” she promised.

“You’re on,” he agreed, laughing.

Peach drove to Pansy’s Pizza in Back Bay, a place where she knew few of her fellow-students were likely to be. Or Harry’s acquaintances. The restaurant was typically dark and Italian, with red-chequered cloths and dripping candles in Chianti bottles. In a high-backed red velvet booth she felt in a private world with Harry. He ordered a pizza for her and a bottle of Barolo which they sipped out of thick greenish glasses. She barely touched the pizza.