The Princess Bride (10 page)

Which was an understatement. She closed her eyes and ground her teeth together as he lifted away from her.

He eased over onto his back with a heavy breath and turned his head toward her. “And now you know a few things that you didn't, before,” he mused, watching her expressions. “Want a bath or just a wet cloth?”

The matter-of-fact question shouldn't have shocked her, but it did. Her nudity shocked her, too, and so did his. Without the anesthetic of passion, sex was very embarrassing. She got to her feet and gathered up her gown, holding it over her front.

“I…I think I'd like a shower,” she stammered.

He got out of bed, completely uninhibited, and took the gown from her fingers, tossing it onto the bed. “None of that,” he taunted softly. “We're an old married couple now. That means we can bathe together.”

Her expression was complicated. “We can?”

“We can.”

He led her into the bathroom, turned on the shower jets, and plopped her in before him.

It was an adventure to bathe with someone. She was alternately embarrassed, intrigued, amused, and scandalized by it. But she laughed with pure delight at this unexpected facet of married life. It had never occurred to her that she might take a shower with King, even in her most erotic dreams.

Afterward, they dried each other and he carried her back to bed, placing her neatly under the covers, nude, before he joined her and turned off the lights.

He caught her wandering hand and drew it to his hairy chest with a chuckle.

“Stop that,” he murmured. “You're used up. No more for you tonight, or probably tomorrow, either.”

She knew he was right, but she was still bristling with curiosity and the newness of intimacy.

His hand smoothed her soft hair. “We have years of this ahead of us,” he reminded her quietly. “You don't have to rush in as if tonight was the last night we'd ever have together.”

She lay against him without speaking. That was how it had felt, though. There was a sort of desperation in
it, a furious seeking and holding. She didn't understand her own fears, except that she was fatally uncertain of Kingman Marshall's staying power. Carla still loomed in the background, and even if he'd found Tiffany enjoyable in bed, he was still getting used to a married status that he'd never wanted. She didn't kid herself that it was smooth sailing from now on. In fact, the intimacy they'd just shared might prove to be more of a detriment than an advantage in the cold light of day.

The worry slowly drifted away, though, as she lay in her husband's warm arms and inhaled the expensive scent of his cologne. Tomorrow would come, but for tonight, she could pretend that she was a much-loved wife with a long happy marriage ahead of her. King must know that she hadn't had time to see a doctor about any sort of birth control. But he apparently hadn't taken care of it as he'd said he would. He'd been too hungry for her to take time to manage it himself.

She thought of a child and her whole body warmed and flushed. He didn't want children, but she did, desperately. If he did leave her for Carla, she'd have a small part of him that the other woman could never take from her.

 

From pipe dreams to reality was a hard fall. But she woke alone the next day, with her gown tossed haphazardly on the bed with her. King was nowhere in sight, and it was one o'clock in the afternoon!

She put on the gown and her slippers and robe and
padded slowly out into the sitting room of the suite. It was empty, too. Perturbed, she went across into her own room and found some white jeans and a red-and-blue-and-white jersey to slip into. She tied her hair back in a red ribbon, slipped on her sneakers, and started to go out and look for King when she saw the envelope on the dresser.

Her name was on the front in a familiar bold black slash. She picked up the envelope and held it, savoring for a moment the night before, because she knew inside herself that whatever was in that envelope was going to upset her.

She drew out a piece of hotel stationery and unfolded it.

She read it twice more, folded it, and put it into the envelope. What sort of emergency was so pressing that a man had to leave his honeymoon to take care of it?

That was when something niggled at the back of her
mind, and she remembered the snatch of conversation she'd overheard before they'd gone to bed. King had said that he'd be home tomorrow—today. She drew in a harsh breath.
Carla.
Carla had phoned him and he'd left his wife to rush home. She'd have bet her last dollar that there was no emergency at all, unless it was that he was missing his old lover. Apparently, she thought with despair, even the heated exchange of the night before hadn't been enough for him. And why should it? She was a novice, only a new experience for him. Carla was probably as expert as he was.

With wounded pride stiffening her backbone, she picked up the telephone and dialed the international code and her father's private office number.

“Hello?” he answered after a minute.

The sound of his voice was so dear and comforting that she hesitated a few seconds to choke back hurt tears. “Hi, Dad,” she said.

“What the hell's going on?” he demanded. “King phoned me from the airport and said he was on his way into the city to sort out some union dispute at one of the branch offices. Since when do we have a union dispute?” he asked irritably.

“I don't know any more than you do,” she said. “He left me a note.”

He sighed angrily. “I could have dealt with a dispute, if there had been one. I've been doing it longer than he has, and I'm the senior partner.”

He didn't have to say that. She already knew it. “I'm
coming home tomorrow,” she told him. “I, uh, sort of had a bout with some aspirin and I'm feeling bad. I was ready to leave, but there was only one seat available on the morning flight. We agreed that I'd follow tomorrow,” she lied glibly.

It sounded fishy to Harrison, but he didn't say a word about it. “You're allergic to aspirin,” he said pointedly.

“I know, but King didn't. I had a splitting headache and he gave me some. He had to take me to the hospital, but I'm fine now, and he knows not to give me aspirin again.”

“Damnation!” her father growled. “Doesn't he know anything about you?”

“Oh, he's learning all the time,” she assured him. “I'll talk to you tomorrow, Dad. Can you have the car meet me at the airport? I'm not sure if King will remember me, if he's involved in meetings.”
Or with Carla,
she thought. King hadn't said anything about her coming home at all in his terse little note. She was going to be a surprise.

There was an ominous pause. “I'll remember you. Phone me when you get in. Take care, darling.”

“You, too, Dad. See you.”

He put down the receiver, got out of his chair, and made the door in two strides. He went past his secretary and down the hall to King's office, pushed open the door on a startled Carla, and slammed it back.

She actually gasped. “Mr….Mr. Blair, can I do something for you?”

“You can stop trying to sabotage my daughter's marriage, you black-eyed little pit viper,” he said with furious eyes. “First you fouled up the flowers, then you wore a dress to the ceremony that even to the most unprejudiced person in the world looked like a wedding gown. You kissed the groom as if you were the bride, and now you've managed to get King back here on some tom fool excuse, leaving his bride behind in Jamaica!”

Carla's eyes almost popped. “Mr. Blair, honestly, I never meant…”

“You're fired,” he said furiously.

She managed to get to her feet and her cheeks flamed. “Mr. Blair, I'm King's secretary,” she said through her teeth. “You can't fire me!”

“I own fifty-one percent of the stock,” he told her with pure contempt. “That means I can fire whom I damned well please. I said, you're fired, and that means you're fired.”

She drew an indignant breath. “I'll file a complaint,” she snapped back.

“Go right ahead,” he invited. “I'll call the tabloids and give them a story that you'll have years to live down, after they do a little checking into your background.”

It was only a shot in the dark, but she didn't know that. Her face went paper white. She actually shivered.

“Your severance pay will be waiting for you on the way out,” he said shortly.

He went out the office door, almost colliding with King.

“I've just fired your damned secretary!” Harrison told
King with uncharacteristic contempt. “And if you want a divorce from my daughter so you can go chasing after your sweet little paramour, here, I'll foot the bill! The two of you deserve each other!”

He shouldered past King and stormed away down the hall, back into his own office. The walls actually shook under the force with which he slammed the door.

King gave Carla a penetrating look. He walked into the office, and closed the door. Harrison had beaten him to the punch. He was going to fire Carla, but first he wanted some answers.

“All right,” he said. “Let's have it.”

“Have what?” she faltered. She moved close to him, using every wile she had for all she was worth. “You aren't going to let him fire me, are you?” she teased, moving her hips gently against his body. “Not after all we've been to one another?”

He stiffened, but not with desire, and stepped back. “What we had was over long before I married Tiffany.”

“It never had to be,” she cooed. “She's a child, a little princess. What can she be to a man like you? Nothing more than a new experience.”

“You phoned and said there was a labor dispute,” he reminded her. “I can't find a trace of it.”

She shrugged. “Tom said there were rumors of a strike and that I'd better let you know. Ask him, if you don't believe me.” She struck a seductive pose. “Are you going to let him fire me?” she asked again.

He let out a harsh breath. Harrison was breathing fire. Apparently he'd got the wrong end of the stick and Carla had done nothing to change his mind.

“You've made an enemy of him,” King told her. “A bad one. Your behavior at the wedding is something he won't forget.”

“You will,” she said confidently. “You didn't want to marry her. You didn't even check about the flowers or a silly bouquet, because you didn't care, and she embarrassed you by wearing a suit to get married in.” She made a moue of distaste. “It was a farce.”

“Yes, thanks to you.” He stuck his hands into his pockets and glowered at her. He wondered how far out of his mind he'd been to get involved with this smiling boa constrictor. She'd been exciting and challenging, but now she was a nuisance. “I'll see what I can do about getting you another job. But not here,” he added quietly. “I'm not going against Harrison.”

“Is that why you married her?” she asked. “So that you could be sure of inheriting the whole company when he dies?”

“Don't be absurd.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it's why she married you, too,” she said, planting a seed of doubt. “She'll have security now, even if you divorce her, won't she?”

Divorce. Harrison had said something about a divorce. “I have to talk to Harrison,” he said shortly. “You'll work your two weeks notice, despite what he said, and I'll see what's going at another office.”

“Thank you, sweet,” she murmured. She moved close and reached up to kiss him. “You're a prince!”

He went out the door with a handkerchief to his mouth, wiping off the taste of her on his way to his partner's office.

H
arrison just glared at King when he went into the office and closed the door behind him.

“I don't care what you say, she's history,” Harrison told the younger man. “She's meddled in my daughter's affairs for the last time!”

King scowled. He didn't like the look of his partner. “I haven't said a word,” he said softly. “Calm down. If you want her to go, she goes. But let her work out her notice.”

Harrison relaxed a little. His eyes were still flashing. He looked deathly pale and his breathing was unusually strained. He loosened his tie. “All right. But that's all. That silly woman,” he said in a raspy voice. “She's caused…Tiffany…no end of heartache already, and now
I've got…to cause her…more…” He paused with a hand to his throat and laughed in surprise. “That's funny. My throat hurts, right up to my jaw. I can't…” He grimaced and suddenly slumped to the floor. He looked gray and sweat covered his face.

King buzzed Harrison's secretary, told her to phone the emergency services number immediately and get some help into Harrison's office.

It was terribly apparent that Harrison was having a heart attack. His skin was cold and clammy and his lips were turning blue. King began CPR at once, and in no time, he had two other executives of the company standing by to relieve him, because he had no idea how long he'd have to keep it up before the ambulance came.

As it happened, less than five minutes elapsed between the call and the advent of two EMTs with a gurney. They got Harrison's heartbeat stabilized, hooked him up to oxygen and rushed him down to the ambulance with King right beside them.

“Any history of heart trouble in him or his family?” the EMT asked abruptly as he called the medical facility for orders.

“I don't know,” King said irritably. For the second time in less than a week, he couldn't answer a simple question about the medical backgrounds of the two people he cared for most in the world. He felt impotent. “How's he doing?” he asked.

“He's stabilized, but these things are tricky,” the EMT said. “Who's his personal physician?”

Finally, a question he could answer. He gave the information, which was passed on to the doctor answering the call at the medical center.

“Any family to notify?” the man relayed.

“I'm his son-in-law,” King said grimly. “My wife is in Jamaica. I'll have to get her back here.” He dreaded that. He'd have to tell her on the phone, and it was going to devastate her. But they couldn't afford the loss of time for him to fly down there after her. Harrison might not live that long.

The ambulance pulled up at the hospital, and Harrison, still unconscious, was taken inside to the emergency room. King went with him, pausing just long enough to speak with the physician before he found a pay phone and called the hotel in Jamaica. But more complications lay in store. Mrs. Marshall, he was told, had checked out that very morning. No, he didn't know where she'd gone, he was sorry.

King hung up, running an angry hand through his hair. Playing a grim hunch, he telephoned Harrison's house instead of his own. A maid answered the call.

“This is Kingman Marshall. Is my wife there?” he asked.

“Why, yes, sir. She got in about two hours ago. Shall I get her for you?”

He hesitated. “No. Thank you.”

This was one thing he couldn't do on the phone. He told the doctor where he was going, hailed a taxi and had it drive him to Harrison's home.

 

Tiffany was upstairs, unpacking. She paled when she saw King come in the door. She hadn't expected her father to be at home, since it was a working day. She hadn't expected to see King, either.

“Looking for me?” she asked coolly. “I've decided that I'm going to live here until the divorce.”

Divorce! Everything he was going to say went right out of his mind. He'd left her after the most exquisite loving of his life. Hadn't he explained the emergency that had taken him from her side? It wasn't as if he hadn't planned to fly right back. He'd had no idea at all that Carla had manufactured the emergency.

“Tiffany,” he began, “I flew back because there was an emergency…”

“Yes, and I know what it was,” she replied, having phoned the office just a while ago. “My father fired your secretary, and you had to rush back to save her job. I've just heard all about it from the receptionist, thanks.”

“The receptionist?”

“I wanted to know if you were in. She talked to someone and said I should call back, you were in the middle of some sort of argument with my father…”

He let out a short breath. “We'll talk about that later. There's no time. Your father's had a heart attack. He's
in the emergency room at city general. Get your purse and let's go.”

She grasped her bedpost. “Is he alive? Will he be all right?”

“He was seeing the doctor when I left to fetch you,” he replied. “Come on.”

She went out with him, numb and shocked and frightened to death. Her life was falling apart. How would she go on if she lost her father? He was the only human being on earth who loved her, who needed her, who cared about her.

Through waves of fear and apprehension, she sat motionless as he drove her Jaguar to the hospital. When he pulled up at the emergency entrance and stopped, she leapt out and ran for the doors, not even pausing to wait for him.

She went straight to the clerk, rudely pushing in front of the person sitting there.

“Please.” She choked, “my father, Harrison Blair, they just brought him in with a heart attack…?”

The clerk looked very worried. “You need to speak with the doctor, Miss Blair. Just one minute…”

King joined her in time to hear the clerk use her maiden name. Under different circumstances, he'd have been furious about that. But this wasn't the time.

The clerk motioned Tiffany toward another door. King took her arm firmly and went with her, sensing calamity.

A white-coated young doctor gestured to them, but
he didn't take them into the cubicle where King had left her father. Instead, he motioned them farther down the hall to a small cluster of unoccupied seats.

“I'm sorry. I haven't done much of this yet, and I'm going to be clumsy about it,” the young man said solemnly. “I'm afraid we lost him. I'm very sorry. It was a massive heart attack. We did everything we possibly could. It wasn't enough.”

He patted her awkwardly on the upper arm, his face contorted with compassion.

“Thank you,” King said quietly, and shook his hand. “I'm sure it's hard for you to lose a patient.”

The doctor looked surprised, but he recovered quickly. “We'll beat these things one day,” he said gently. “It's just that we don't have the technology yet. The worst thing is that his family physician told us he had no history of heart problems.” He shook his head. “This was unexpected, I'm sure. But it was quick, and painless, if that's any comfort.” He looked at Tiffany's stiff, shocked face and then back at King. “Bring her along with you, please. I'll give you something for her. She's going to need it. Any allergies to medicines?” he asked at once.

“Aspirin,” King said. He glanced down at Tiffany, subduing his own sorrow at Harrison's loss. “Are you allergic to anything else, sweetheart?” he added tenderly.

She shook her head. She didn't see, didn't hear, didn't think. Her father was dead. King had argued with him over Carla. Her father was dead because of King.

She pushed his hand away. Her eyes, filled with hatred, seared into his mind as she looked up at him. “This is your fault.” She choked. “My father is dead! Was keeping Carla worth his life?”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Tiffany, that wasn't what happened…”

She moved away from him, toward the cubicle where the doctor was waiting. She was certain that she never wanted to speak to her husband again for as long as she lived.

 

The next few days were a total black void. There were the arrangements to be made, a service to arrange, minor details that somehow fell into place with King's help. The Blair home became like a great empty tomb. Lettie came to stay, of course, and King did, too, in spite of her protests. He slept in a bedroom down the hall from Tiffany's, watching her go through life in a trance while he dealt with friends and lawyers and the funeral home. She spoke to him only when it became necessary. He couldn't really blame her for the way she felt. She was too upset to reason. There would be plenty of time to explain things to her when she'd had time to recover. Meanwhile, Carla was on her way out of the office despite her plea to work out her notice. On that one point, King had been firm. She had her severance pay and a terse letter of recommendation. If only he could have foreseen, years ago, the trouble it was going to cause him when he put her out of his life, all this anguish with Tiffany might have been avoided. But at
that time, Carla had been an exciting companion and he'd never considered marrying anyone. Now he was paying the price for his arrogance.

 

Undaunted by her firing, Carla showed up at the funeral home, only to be escorted right back out again by King. She made some veiled threat about going to the tabloids with her story, and he invited her to do her worst. She was out of his life. Nothing she did would ever matter to him again, and he said so. She left, but with a dangerous glint in her cold eyes.

She didn't come to the funeral service, Tiffany noted, or to the graveside service. Apparently she'd been told that it wasn't appropriate. Some people, Lettie had said huffily, had no breeding and no sensitivity. She said it deliberately, and within King's hearing. He didn't react at all. Whatever he felt, he was keeping it to himself.

The only chip in his stony front came the night of the funeral, when he sat in Harrison's study with only a lamp burning and downed a third of a bottle of Harrison's fine Scotch whiskey.

Lettie intruded long enough to ask if he wanted anything else from the kitchen before the housekeeper closed it up.

He lifted the glass toward her. “I'm drinking my supper, thanks,” he drawled.

Lettie closed the door behind her and paused in front of the big antique oak desk, where his booted feet were propped on its aged, pitted surface.

“What are you going to do about the house?” she asked abruptly. Her eyes were red. She'd cried for Harrison almost as much as Tiffany had. Now her only concern was the girl's future.

“What do you mean, what am I going to do?” he asked. “It belongs to Tiffany.”

“No, it doesn't,” Lettie said worriedly. “Harrison was certain right up until the wedding ceremony that you weren't going to go through with the marriage. He wanted Tiffany provided for if something happened to him, and he didn't want her to have to be dependent on you. So he went to see his personal accountant about having everything he owned put in trust for her, including the house and his half of the business.” She folded her hands at her waist, frowning worriedly. “But the accountant couldn't be located. Then Harrison found out that the man had been steadily embezzling from him for the past three years.” She lifted her hands and spread them. “Just this week, he learned that a new mortgage had been taken out on the house and grounds and the money transferred to an account in a Bahamian bank.” She grimaced as King lowered his feet to the floor and sat up. “He'd hired a private detective and was to see his attorney this afternoon after filing a lawsuit against the man before he skips the country with what's left of Harrison's fortune. If you can't stop him, Tiffany will be bankrupt.”

“Good God!” King got to his feet, weaving a little.
“No wonder he was so upset! Lettie, why the hell didn't you say something before this?”

“Because I wasn't sure that I had the right to involve you, except where the business is concerned,” she said flatly. “You must know that Tiffany doesn't want to continue your marriage.”

His face was drawn taut like a rope. “I know it.”

She shrugged. “But there's no one else who can deal with this. I certainly can't. I can't even balance my checkbook. I wouldn't know how to proceed against the man.”

King leaned forward with his head in his hands. “Get me a pot of strong coffee,” he said through heavy breaths. “Then I want every scrap of information you have on the man and what Harrison planned.”

Lettie brightened just a little. “We'll all miss him,” she said gently as she turned toward the door. “But Tiffany most of all. He was both parents to her, for most of her life.” She hesitated. “She needs you.”

He didn't reply. She didn't seem to expect him to. She went out and closed the door behind her.

Tiffany was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, looking pale and worn. Her eyes were red and she had a crumpled handkerchief in her hand. The long white gown and robe she was wearing seemed to emphasize her thinness.

“Child, you should be in bed,” Lettie chided softly.

“I can't sleep.” She stared at the study door. “Is he in there?”

Lettie nodded.

“What's he doing?”

“Getting drunk.”

That was vaguely surprising. “Oh.

“I want to know why my father had a heart attack,” she said grimly. “The receptionist wouldn't let me speak with King the day Daddy died because he and my father were arguing. Then at the funeral, one of his coworkers said it was a pity about the blow-up, because it was only seconds later when he collapsed. I know he fired Carla. Was that why King argued with him?”

“I don't know. Tiffany,” she said, approaching the girl, “this is a vulnerable time for all of us. Don't say anything, do anything, that you'll have cause to regret later. King's hurt, too. He respected Harrison. Even if they did argue, they were friends as well as business partners for a long time.”