Danielle Steel - Crossings

“No, thanks. I want to have another massage before lunch.”

“The massages must be great.” There was suspicion in his voice again, and he berated himself silently for what he thought. It was crazy to distrust your own wife to that extent, yet she had cuckolded him so often before that now he suspected her at every turn.

“They are.”

“See you at lunch.” She nodded and closed the door, without saying good-bye to their son. John came in a few minutes afterward and looked around.

“Did Mom go out?”

“Yes. She went to get a massage at the pool, like yesterday.”

John looked up at his father with confused eyes and shook his head. “She doesn't even know where the pool is. I wanted to show it to her and she said she had something else to do.” Nick nodded, pretending almost not to hear, but he had already heard too much. And he knew that she was at it again. But where? And with whom? In tourist class? In cabin? With a purser on another deck? He couldn't chase her everywhere. He was going to confront her at lunch, but now he forced his mind back to his son.

“Do you want to go look at the dogs?”

“Sure.” The little boy beamed and they went upstairs to the upper sun deck, to see the dozen or so French poodles being exercised there. There was also a Saint Bernard, a Great Dane, two small ugly pugs, and a Pekingese, and John petted each of them in turn as his father looked out to sea, lost in his own thoughts. He was thinking of Hillary again, and wondering where in hell she was. For an instant he wanted to scour the ship and turn it upside down, but what was the point. He had fought this battle for nine years, and he had long since lost. He knew it well. Even on the ship she was the same as she was in Boston or New York. She was rotten to the core and had always been, the only thing he thanked her for was their son. He turned his eyes back to John and smiled. He was holding one of the funny, snortling little pugs.

“Dad, when we get to Paris, can I have a dog?”

“Maybe, we'll have to see what the house is like.”

“Could I really maybe?” John's eyes almost popped out of his head and his father laughed.

“We'll see. Why don't you put your friend down for now, and I'll take you to the playroom to find your other friends.”

“Okay. But can we come back?”

“Sure.” And as they left, Nick glimpsed the tennis courts and remembered his invitation to Liane the day before. Her husband hadn't seemed to object, and he would enjoy a game or two to burn off steam. It was either that or throw something at the wall in his suite. He had to find something to do to calm his nerves between now and one. He was almost sorry that he had not yet met a man with whom to play. But Hillary was right about one thing at least, the group at their table in the Grande Salle à Manger was extremely dull. There were not too many young people on the ship, it was a very expensive journey, and most who made it in first class had long since “arrived.” There were important journalists and authors, attorneys and bankers, musicians and conductors, but all of them had reached a certain stature in life, not unlike Armand. And few of them were as young as Nick, possibly none of them, except the ambassador's wife, Liane, and his own. He was used to being the youngest man around, but for a moment he regretted it. He would have liked to have had a male friend his own age along just then.

He escorted his son downstairs to the playroom, where he spotted Armand and Liane's girls, and then after a moment's hesitation he decided to take a walk on the promenade outside the Grill, and he saw Liane there, sitting on a bench with a book, her head bent and her blond hair flying in the wind.

He hesitated before he approached, but in the end he decided to anyway. “Hello.” She looked up in surprise and then smiled as she saw him. She was wearing a pink cashmere sweater set and gray slacks, and a double strand of pearls. This was acceptable only as morning dress, for a walk on the promenade, but she had no other plans. “Am I disturbing you?” He stood, with his hands in his pockets, braced against the wind, in white flannel slacks and blazer once again, but today he wore a bright red bow tie.

“Not at all.” She closed her book and slid over on the bench.

“Is the ambassador already at work?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “His assistant arrives every day at nine o'clock, with one of those big hooks they used to use in vaudeville, and whether Armand has finished his breakfast or not, Jacques drags him off.” Nick grinned at the image she conjured up.

“I saw him yesterday. I must admit, he doesn't look like much fun.”

“He isn't, but he'll make a good ambassador one day.” And then she smiled again. “Thank God Armand was never like that.”

“Where did you two meet?” It was a little bit impertinent to ask, but he was intrigued by them. It was obvious that they had a special bond, a deeply woven tie of love, despite the span of years that separated them, and the fact that Armand obviously worked very hard. But she seemed to understand and sympathize, and wait ever patiently for him. He wondered how one found a woman like that. Perhaps by being not quite so impetuously taken with a young debutante of eighteen. And yet Nick knew, from the age of their oldest child, that Liane must have married young as well. She couldn't have been more than thirty now, he thought. In fact, she was thirty-two, but she had always been mature well beyond her years, woman enough to marry—unlike Nick's wife, the spoiled child bride.

“We met in San Francisco when I was very young.”

“You still are.”

“Oh, no.” She laughed. “I was fifteen then, and …” She hesitated for a moment, but one said things to people on ships that one would not say at other times. She fell prey to that magic now, and turned to him with wide-open blue eyes. “Armand was married to someone else, a woman I loved very much. My mother died when I was born, and Odile, Armand's wife, was like a mother to me. He was the consul general in San Francisco then.”

“Did they divorce?” Nick was intrigued, Liane looked all innocence, not the harlot or the home wrecker, somehow she didn't figure in this plot, but Liane slowly shook her head.

“No. She died when I was eighteen, and Armand was almost destroyed. We all were, I think. I think I was numb for almost a year.”

“And he fell in love with you?” Now the story began to make sense.

Liane drifted back in memory, her eyes wearing a far-off look and her mouth a gentle smile. “Not as quickly as all that. It took a year or two before we realized how much we cared. I was twenty-one when we finally admitted it to ourselves and each other and we got engaged.”

“And got married and lived happily ever after.” He liked the story better still. They were fairy-tale people after all. But again Liane shook her head.

“No. Just after our engagement was announced, Armand got transferred. To Vienna. And my father insisted that I finish my last year at Mills.” She turned and smiled at Nick. “It was a very long year for us at the time, but we survived it. We wrote to each other every day, and as soon as I graduated he came back, and we were married, and off we went.” She was smiling broadly now. “Vienna was a wonderful spot. We were very happy there, and then London after that. Marie-Ange and Elisabeth were born in those two posts respectively, and then we came back to the States.”

“Your father must have been pleased.” And then suddenly he remembered the error of what he had just said, remembering that her father had probably been dead for nearly ten years.

“No, my father was already gone. He died right after Elisabeth was born.” She smiled gently at Nick then. “That seems a long time ago now.”