Danielle Steel - The Kiss

She spent the next few days with Teddy, and talking to Bill. He was staying at the rehab center for New Year's Eve, and they were planning all kinds of festivities. He promised to call her at midnight in Paris on the thirty-first, so they could see the New Year in together, and she was going to call him at midnight in New York. She was waiting for his call when the telephone rang, and a woman at the other end sounded startled to hear her voice.

“Oh, how stupid of me!” she said, “I'm terribly sorry, I dialed the wrong number. I was calling to say I missed my flight.” And with that, sounding even more confused, and a little drunk, she hung up. Who she was, and where she was flying to was a mystery to Isabelle. And she assumed the woman had dialed a wrong number entirely, and Isabelle hung up.

Bill called promptly, as he had said he would, they toasted the New Year in Paris, and Teddy was asleep by then. And Isabelle called him back at six in the morning, her time, when it was midnight for him. It had been a funny thing to do, but it amused them both. And after she spoke to him, she went downstairs to make a cup of tea, read the newspaper, and then came back upstairs. She had given Teddy's nurse the day off for New Year's Day, and she was happy to take care of him herself.

He slept late that day, and she started reading the paper again, and was surprised to see Gordon's name in a gossip column, mentioning his stay in Saint-Moritz. It said that he was there with friends, it mentioned the Aga Khan, Prince Charles, and a number of notables. And then she noticed another name. The column said that the Comtesse de Ligne was expected to join them for New Year's Eve as well. She was the woman who had invited them the day before to her daughter's wedding, and Isabelle could only assume that she and Gordon were friends. And then, as she thought of it, she remembered the call the night before, from the woman who said she had missed her flight. And for the oddest moment, the hair stood up on the back of Isabelle's neck. Why would the woman have called Gordon's house? And why on earth would Isabelle assume it had been the Comtesse de Ligne? Her first name was Louise. Isabelle couldn't imagine that she was involved with Gordon in any way, she was probably a friend of the other people going to Saint-Moritz. But the coincidence of it haunted her all day. And at six o'clock, Isabelle decided to do something totally insane. She had nothing else to do, and she wanted to hear Louise de Ligne's voice. She called information and got the number easily, sat thinking about it for a long moment, and then dialed. The phone answered at once at the other end.

“Allo? Yes?”

“Is this Madame de Ligne?” Isabelle asked, eliminating her title.

“Yes.”

“I'm calling to confirm your flight to Saint-Moritz,” Isabelle said, with no idea what she'd say after that.

“I told you an hour ago, I can't go now until tomorrow. My husband is very ill,” she said, sounding irritated, but Isabelle had heard what she wanted to know. It was the same voice as the night before when the slightly confused, seemingly inebriated voice had called to say she'd missed her flight.

“Oh, I'm terribly sorry. That must have been my co-worker. Of course. I apologize, Madame de Ligne.”

“Do I need to confirm it again?” the countess asked, sounding somewhat imperious. It was odd, she had the same dismissive quality of arrogance in her voice that Gordon had, Isabelle noticed. They sounded like twins.

“No, you don't. Have a good trip,” Isabelle said pleasantly, and then hung up. And she didn't know why, but she was shaking at the other end, trying to figure out what she had learned. She had no idea why she'd been suspicious of her, but she knew she was. And suddenly she couldn't help wondering why the countess had called Gordon the night before. She didn't want to jump to conclusions, but it seemed obvious to her. She had a sixth sense that Gordon was having an affair with her. She had meant to call him in Saint-Moritz to tell him she'd missed her flight, and she'd obviously been drinking and called the Paris house instead.

“Who was that?” Teddy asked as he wandered into his mother's room, which he seldom did. But he was startled when he saw the look on her face. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I… I was just calling Papa in Saint-Moritz. He was out.”

“He's probably skiing, or gone to a dinner party,” Teddy said sensibly, and she nodded her head.

And when Bill called later on, she mentioned it to him.

“It sounds pretty far-fetched to me,” he said cautiously. “But women have amazing intuition about those things. I trust your gut more than my head. I've always known when Cynthia was sleeping with someone. She always looked different to me, she was friendlier and more jovial. I guess she was having more fun than she did with me.” It had happened to him a lot, and he was almost always right when he guessed about her affairs.

“I don't even know why I called. It could have been a wrong number, but she was too polite about it. If it had been, she would have just hung up. And why would she invite us to her daughter's wedding?”

“If your theory is right, he probably told her you wouldn't come, and she wants him there. She screwed herself with good manners,” Bill commented dryly, “she should have just invited him.”

“I should frighten them both and accept,” Isabelle said.

“Do you care?” Bill asked, curious at her reaction. He knew she hadn't slept with Gordon in years, but she was still married to him. And Gordon had been so nasty with her since the accident, that in some ways it would have been a relief to have something on him. It wasn't a nice way to look at it, but that was how she felt. He'd been acting like outraged virtue ever since she'd come back from the hospital, and Isabelle was sick of being treated like a criminal in her own home.

“I don't know what I feel,” she told Bill honestly. “Angry, hurt, relieved, avenged, humiliated, I'm not sure. Maybe they're just friends and I'm wrong.”

“It would be interesting to know,” Bill said quietly.

“How would I ever find out? If I'm right, he's not going to admit it to me. He'd be crazy to. I have no idea what he does, where he goes, or who he sees.” He hadn't shared any of that information with her in years.

“Hire an investigator,” Bill suggested practically.

“That would be too rude. And he'd be furious if he found out. He'd torment me even more to cover his guilt.” Bill agreed that that was probably true.

“Well, keep your ear to the ground. Maybe something will come out in the press after she's been to Saint-Moritz.”

“Gordon's too smart to expose himself that much,” Isabelle said, thinking about it. And after they hung up, she had another idea. There was a woman she had known years ago, in the haute couture world. They'd gone to school together and been good friends, but Isabelle hadn't seen her in years, ever since Teddy was born prematurely and was so sick. Her name was Nathalie Vivier, and as young girls they had been very close.

Isabelle called information again, and got Nathalie's number. She had never married, and was a considerable force in the haute couture. She was basically of equal importance to Louise in a rival house. Isabelle felt as though she were unraveling a great mystery, and she was compelled to find out whatever she could about Louise de Ligne. In the past twelve hours, it had become an obsession with her.

Isabelle waited till a respectable hour and called Nathalie. It was a Saturday, and she answered the phone herself. She was stunned when she realized who it was.

“My God, I haven't talked to you in years … how is your little boy?” Isabelle explained that he had been ill for fourteen years and had become her whole life.