Danielle Steel: Passion's Promise

“And what exactly are you planning to do?” He was dying inside. But she was awfully young and very beautiful.

“I don’t know exactly. But I have some ideas.”

“Share them with me.”

“I plan to, but don’t be disagreeable, Edward.” She had turned toward him with fiery amethyst lights in her rich blue eyes. She was a striking girl, even more so when she was angry. Then the eyes would become almost purple, the cameo skin would blush faintly under the cheekbones, and the contrast made her dark hair shine like onyx. It almost made you forget how tiny she was. She was barely more than five feet tall, but well proportioned, with a face that in anger drew one like a magnet, riveting her victim’s eyes to her own. And the entire package was Edward’s responsibility, had been since her parents’ deaths. Ever since then, the burden of those fierce blue eyes had belonged to him, and her governess, Mrs. Townsend, and her Aunt Hilary, the Contessa di San Ricamini.

Hilary, of course, didn’t want to be bothered. She was perfectly willing, in fact nowadays frankly delighted, to have the girl stay with her in London at Christmas, or come to the house in Marbella for the summer. But she did not want to be bothered with what she referred to as “trivia.” Kezia’s fascination with the Peace Corps had been “trivia,” as had her much-publicized romance with the Argentinian ambassador’s son three years before. Her depression when the boy had married his cousin had also been “trivia,” as had Kezia’s other passing fascinations with people, places, and causes. Maybe Hilary had a point; it all fell by the wayside eventually anyway. But until it did, it was inevitably Edward’s problem. At twenty-one, she had already been a burden on his shoulders for twelve long years. But it was a burden he had cherished.

“Well, Kezia, you’ve been wearing out the rug in my office, but you still haven’t told me what these mysterious plans of yours are. What about that course in journalism at Columbia? Have you lost interest in trying that?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. Edward, I want to go to work.”

“Oh?” He had shuddered almost visibly. God, let it be for some charity organization. Please. “For whom?”

“I want to work for a newspaper, and study journalism at night.” There was a look of fierce defiance in her eyes. She knew what he would say. And why.

“I think you’d be a good deal wiser to take the course at Columbia, get your master’s, and then think about working. Do it sensibly.”

“And after I get my master’s, what sort of newspaper would you suggest, Edward? Women’s Wear Daily maybe?” He thought he saw tears of anger and frustration in her eyes. Lord, she was going to be difficult again. She grew more stubborn each year. She was just like her father.

“What sort of paper were you considering, Kezia? The Village Voice or the Berkeley Barb? ”

“No. The New York Times. ” At least the girl had style. She had never lacked that.

“I heartily agree, my dear, I think it’s a marvelous idea. But if that’s what you have in mind, I think you’d be far wiser to attend Columbia, get your master’s, and….” She cut him off, rising from the arm of the chair where she’d perched, and glared at him angrily across his desk.

“And marry some terribly ‘nice’ boy in the business school. Right?”

“Not unless that’s what you want to do.” Tedious, tedious, tedious. And dangerous. She was that too. Like her mother.

“Well, that’s not what I want to do.” She had stalked out of his office then, and he found out later that she already had the job at the Times . She kept it for exactly three and a half weeks.

It all happened precisely as he had feared it would. As one of the fifty wealthiest women in the world, she became the puppy of the paparazzi again. Every day in some newspaper, there was a mention or a photograph or a blurb or a quote or a joke. Other papers sent their society reporters over to catch glimpses of her. Women’s Wear had a field day. It was a continuation of the nightmare that had shadowed her: the fourteenth-birthday party broken into by photographers. The evening at the opera with Edward, over the Christmas holidays when she was only fifteen, which they had turned into such a horror. A pigsty of suggestion about Edward and Kezia. After that he had not taken her out publicly for years… and for years after that, there were the photographs of her that were repressed, and those that were not. The dates she was afraid to have, and then had and regretted, until at seventeen she had feared notoriety more than anything. At eighteen she had hated it. Hated the seclusion it forced on her, the caution she had to exercise, the constant secretiveness and discretion. It was absurd and unhealthy for a girl her age, but there was nothing Edward could do to lighten the burden for her. She had a tradition to live up to, and a difficult one. It was impossible for the daughter of Lady Liane Holmes-Aubrey Saint Martin and Keenan Saint Martin to go ignored. Kezia was “worth a tidy sum,” in common parlance, and she was beautiful. She was young, she was interesting. And she made news. There was no way to avoid that, however much Kezia wanted to pretend she could change that. She couldn’t. She never would. At least that was what Edward had thought. But he was surprised at her skill at avoiding photographers when she wanted to (now he even took her to the opera again) and the marvelous way she had of putting down reporters, with a wide dazzling smile and a word or two that made them wonder if she was laughing at them or with them, or about to call the police. She had that about her. Something threatening, the raw edge of power. But she had something gentle too. It was that that baffled everyone. She was a peculiar combination of her parents.

Kezia had the satiny delicacy of her mother and the sheer strength of her father. The two had always been an unusual couple. A surprising couple. And Kezia was like both of them, although more like her father. Edward saw it constantly. But what frightened him was the resemblance to Liane. Hundreds of years of British tradition, a maternal great-grandfather who was a duke-although her paternal grandfather had only been an earl-but Liane had such breeding, such style, such elegance of spirit. Such stature. Edward had fallen head over heels in love with her right from the first. And she had never known. Never. Edward knew that he couldn’t … couldn’t … but she had done something so much worse. Madness … blackmail … nightmare. At least they had averted a public scandal. No one had known. Except her husband, and Edward … and … him. Edward had never understood it. What had she seen in the boy? He was so much less a man than Keenan. And so … so coarse. Crude almost. She had made a poor choice. A very poor choice. Liane had taken Kezia’s French tutor as her lover. It was almost grotesque, except that it was so costly. In the end, it had cost Liane her life. And it had cost Keenan thousands to keep it quiet.

Keenan had had the young man “removed” from the household, and deported to France. After that it took Liane less than a year to drown herself in cognac and champagne, and, secretly, pills. She had paid a high price for her betrayal. Keenan died ten months later in an accident. There had been no doubt it was an accident, but such a waste. More waste. Keenan hadn’t given a damn about anything after Liane died, and Edward had always suspected that he had just let it happen, just let the Mercedes slide along the barrier, let it careen into the oncoming highway traffic. He had probably been drunk, or maybe only very tired. Not really a suicide, just the end.

No, Keenan hadn’t cared about anything in those last months, not even, really, about his daughter. He had said as much to Edward, but only to Edward. Everyone’s confidant, Edward. Liane had even told him her ugly stories, over tea one day, and he had nodded sagely and prayed not to get sick in her drawing room. She had looked at him so mournfully, it had made him want to cry.