“No, I imagine not. As I said, she’s not well. She will call you soon. Oh, yes, Lindsay, Sydney had a miscarriage. She’s all right, but the prince is desolated. His mother and sister are quite concerned about him. Actually, it wasn’t really a miscarriage, I guess. Sydney was driving somewhere and there was an accident of some kind that brought on premature labor. It was a male child, but it weighed just over a pound. There was no chance to save it.”
“Oh.”
“Your father flew over to be with her. He’s returning again very soon. He says she’s going back to the law firm. You knew she was trying to be a traditional wife, to fit in with all the di Contini social obligations in Milan. Who knows if she was succeeding. After she lost the child, it was over. We’ll see what happens. Alessandro isn’t happy about her decision, but what can he do? Sydney goes her own way. She’s strong, always has been, so you needn’t worry about her.”
Just to hear his name made Lindsay feel terribly exposed, somehow defenseless, made her ache deep inside. Poor Alessandro. She wondered how fast Sydney had been driving, she wondered if it had really been an accident. Sydney was probably driving very fast and it was all her own fault. The poor prince, wanting to be a father, wanting to have his own son, but Sydney had denied him. Lindsay knew, knew deep in her gut, that Sydney was responsible for the baby’s death. And now she would leave him and deny her duty to him as his wife.
Lindsay looked toward her desk. Wrapped carefully inside a silk-screen envelope were the three postcards the prince had sent her over the past six months, each one from a different place, each one precious to her, the first one from Santorini, where he and Sydney had spent several days on their honeymoon. He’d thought of her even then, even when he’d been with Sydney. Everything he’d written had been warm and interesting and he had signed them with love. Not from her brother-in-law, with best wishes, but from Alessandro. With love.
Lindsay swallowed. Sydney hadn’t deserved him, and now look what she’d done to him. She’d cheated him out of being a father. She’d killed his baby. Lindsay was suddenly aware that her grandmother was looking at her curiously, so she asked her about the hospital committee, asked her about Dorrey and about Lansford, the Foxe butler for thirty years.
The next morning Gates met with Mrs. Anglethorpe, the school’s headmistress, a woman in her early forties, black-haired, with a thick streak of silver running over her left temple, all smoothed into a thick chignon. She was deep-bosomed, long-legged, well-dressed, soft in her speech, and direct in her words and manner. After greeting Gates with great deference, as was her due, Candice Anglethorpe gave her tea and the best scones Gates had ever tasted outside Edinburgh.
She studied Candice Anglethorpe. Yes, she could see it, very clearly. The woman was lovely, bright, graceful, assertive, yet sensitive. She would take very good care of Lindsay. “I wish to know how my granddaughter is doing.”
“Ah, well, we were all concerned when she broke her leg skiing. I do understand that the accident would have been difficult to avoid, the other skier a man of uncertain skill, you understand.”
“I wasn’t speaking of her broken leg. How has she adapted? How are her studies progressing?”
Candice Anglethorpe pretended to count off on her fingers. “She’s quiet, but not shy. She’s bright, but not brilliant. She has two or three friends but only one close friend, Gayle Werth, whose parents are, incidentally, in politics. Gayle’s father is Senator George Werth from Vermont and her mother is a state legislator.
“Lindsay has no interest in boys yet, but of course all the girls giggle and fantasize and dish up tall tales. As for how Lindsay’s fitting in here, let me say, Mrs. Foxe, it is my feeling that this was the best thing for her. She’s very happy here. She belongs.”
“I knew she would be happy. Her parents are divorcing, as I imagine you already know.” Gates paused for just a moment, but Mrs. Anglethorpe remained carefully and studiously silent. Gates’s right eyebrow raised just a bit. “No, you didn’t know? Well, I just told Lindsay. She seemed not to care overly, but who knows about young girls? She might blame herself, which is absurd, as I told her already. I wanted to tell you just so if there were any odd behavior, you would be on the alert.”
“I understand. I was also told that you were here on behalf of your son, who is now one of the new partners of the Stamford Girls’ Academy. You have only to ask and I will see that you have whatever records you desire to examine. I will put my secretary at your disposal, Mrs. Foxe.”
Gates merely nodded and took another bite of the heavenly scone. The Cornish clotted cream was beyond 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 divorcée 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.