Danielle Steel - Passion's Promise

“Only Americans, Kezia?”

She shook her head. “No. They’re all as bad. But they can be more direct about it here. They’re gutsier, or less embarrassed. They show less ‘deference,’ I don’t know … maybe she was just too frail. And too lonely. She always looked as though she didn’t quite understand ‘why.’”

“She left your father?” He was interested now. Very. He was beginning to feel something for the woman who had been Kezia’s mother. The frail British noblewoman.

“No. She fell in love with my French tutor.”

“Are you kidding?” He looked almost amused.

“Nope.”

“And it made a big stink?”

“I guess so. It must have. It killed her.”

“That, directly?”

“No … who knows? That and a lot of other things. My father found out, and the young man was dismissed. And I guess it got to her after that. She was a traitor, and she sentenced herself to death. She drank more and more, and ate less and less, and finally she got what she wanted out of it. Out.”

“You knew? About the tutor, I mean.”

“No, not then. Edward, my trustee, told me later. To be sure that the ‘sins of the mother would never be visited on the daughter.’”

“Why do you call it a ‘betrayal’? Because she cheated on your father?”

“No, that would have been forgivable. The unforgivable was that she betrayed her ancestry, her heritage, her class and her breeding by falling in love—and having an affair—with a ‘peasant.’” She tried to laugh, but the sound was too brittle.

“And that’s a sin?” Lucas looked confused.

“That, my dear, is the cardinal sin of all! Thou shalt not screw the lower classes. That applies to the women of my set anyway. For the men it’s different.”

“For them it’s okay to screw the ‘lower classes’?”

“Of course. Gentlemen have been balling the maid for hundreds of years. It’s just that the lady of the house is not supposed to get laid by the chauffeur.”

“I see.” He tried to look amused but he wasn’t.

“That’s nice. My mother didn’t see. And she committed an even worse crime. She fell in love with him. She even talked about running away with him.”

“How in hell did your father find out? Did he have her followed?”

“Of course not. He never suspected. No, Jean-Louis simply told him. He wanted fifty thousand dollars from my father not to make a scandal, not very much, all things considered. My father paid him twenty-five and had him deported.”

“Your trustee told you all this?” Lucas looked stormy now.

“Of course. Insurance. It’s meant to keep me in line.”

“Does it?”

“In a way.”

“Why?”

“Because in a perverted way I’m afraid of my destiny. It’s sort of ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.’ I think that if I lived my life the way I’m supposed to, I’d hate it enough to drink myself to death like my mother. But if I betray my ‘heritage,’ then maybe I’ll end up like her anyway. A betrayer betrayed, in love with a two-bit low-class jerk who blackmailed her husband. Pretty, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s pathetic. And you really believe that crap about betrayal?”

She nodded. “I have to. I’ve seen too many stories like that. I’ve … in small ways it has happened to me. When people know who you are they … they treat you differently, Lucas. You’re no longer a person to them. You’re a legend, a challenge, an object they must have. The only ones who understand you are your own kind.”

“Are you telling me they understand you?” He looked stunned.

“No. That’s the whole trouble. For me, none of it works. I’m a misfit. I can’t bear what I’m supposed to be. And I can’t have what I want … I fear it anyway. I … oh hell, Lucas, I don’t know.” She looked distraught as she folded a matchbook between her fingers.

“What happened to your father?”

“He had an accident, and not because he was heartsick over my mother. He had a healthy number of women after she died. Even though I’m sure he missed Mummy. But he was very bitter then. It seemed as though he didn’t believe in anything anymore. He drank. He drove too fast. He died. Very simple really.”

“No, very complicated. What you’re telling me is that a ‘betrayal,’ as you call it, of your ‘heritage,’ your world, leads to suicide, death, accidents, blackmail and heartbreak. But what does following the rules lead to? What happens if you play it straight, Kezia, and never ‘betray your class,’ as you’d put it? What happens if you just go along with their rules … I mean you, Kezia. What would it do to you?”

“Kill me slowly.” Her voice was very soft but she sounded very certain.

“Is that what’s been happening to you?”

“Yes. I think so, in a small way. I still have my escapes, my freedoms. They help. My writing is my salvation.”

“Stolen moments. Do you ever take those freedoms openly?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lucas. How?”

“Any way you have to. Just do what you want to, openly for a change?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Edward. The press. Whatever I did that was even the least out of line, would be all over the papers. And I mean something as simple as going out with someone ‘different,’” she looked at him pointedly, “going somewhere ‘inappropriate,’ saying something unguarded, wearing something indiscreet.”

“All right, so you get bad press. And then what? Chicken Little, the sky would not fall in.”

“You don’t understand, Lucas. It would.”

“Because Edward would raise hell? So what?”

“But what if he’s right … and … what … what if I end up …” She couldn’t say it but he could.

“Like your mother?”

She looked up, her eyes swimming in tears, and nodded.

“You wouldn’t, babe. You couldn’t. You’re different. You’re freer, I’m sure. You’re probably more worldly, and maybe even more intelligent than she was. And hell, Kezia, what if you did fall in love with the tutor, or the butler, or the chauffeur, or me for that matter? So fucking what?”

She didn’t answer the question. She didn’t know how. “It’s a special world, Lucas,” she said finally, “with its own special rules.”

“Yeah. Like the joint.” He looked suddenly bitter.

“You mean prison?”

He nodded quietly in answer. “I think you may be right. A silent, invisible prison, with walls built of codes and hypocrisies and lies and restrictions, and cells padded with prejudice and fear, and all of it studded with diamonds.”

He looked up at her suddenly and laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing, except that nine-tenths of the world are out there beating each other over the head to get into that elite little world of yours, and from the sound of it, they won’t dig it when they get there. Not much.”

“Maybe they will. Some do.”

“But what happens to the ones who don’t, Kezia? What happens to the ones who can’t live with that bullshit?” He held tightly to her hand as he spoke, and her eyes rose slowly to his.

“Some of them die, Lucas.”

“And the others? The ones who don’t die?”

“They live with it. They make peace with it. Edward is like that. He accepts the rules because he has to. It’s the only way he knows, but it’s ruined his life too.”

“He could have changed all that.” Luke sounded gruff and Kezia shook her head.

“No, Lucas, he couldn’t have. Some people can’t.”

“Why not? No balls?”

“If you want to call it that. Some people just can’t stomach the unknown. They’d rather go down with a familiar ship than drown in unfamiliar seas.”