Читать книгу From Paris With Love Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 53

Fourteen

As the cab rattled along the quay, Sarah wondered how she could be such a blithering idiot. One word from her, just one little word, and she could spend the rest of the afternoon and evening curled up with Dev in bed. Or on the sofa. Or on cushions tossed onto the floor in front of the fire, or in the shower, soaping his back and belly, or...

She leaned forward, her gaze suddenly snagged by the green bookstalls lining the riverside of the boulevard. And just beyond the stalls, almost directly across from the renowned bookstore known as Shakespeare and Company, was a familiar bridge.

“Stop! We’ll get out here!”

The command surprised both Dev and the cabdriver, but he obediently pulled over to the curb and Dev paid him off.

“Your favorite bookstore?” he asked with a glance at the rambling, green-fronted facade of the shop that specialized in English-language books. Opened in 1951, the present store had assumed the mantle of the original Shakespeare and Company, a combination bookshop, lending library and haven for writers established in 1917 by American expatriate Sylvia Beach and frequented by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald. During her year at the Sorbonne, Sarah had loved exploring the shelves crammed floor to ceiling in the shop’s small, crowded rooms. She’d never slept in one of the thirteen beds available to indigent students or visitors who just wanted to sleep in the rarified literary atmosphere, but she’d hunched for hours at the tables provided for scholars, researchers and book lovers of all ages.

It wasn’t Shakespeare and Company that had snagged her eye, though. It was the bridge just across the street from it.

“That’s the Archbishop’s Bridge,” she told Dev with a smile that tinged close to embarrassment.

She’d always considered herself the practical sister, too levelheaded to indulge in the kind of extravagant flights of fancy that grabbed Gina. Yet she’d just spent several delightful hours on a touristy, hopelessly romantic river cruise. Why not cap that experience with an equally touristy romantic gesture?

“Do you see these locks?” she asked as she and Dev crossed the street and approached the iron bridge.

“Hard to miss ’em,” he drawled, eyeing the almost solid wall of brass obscuring the bridge’s waist-high grillwork. “What’s the story here?”

“I’m told it’s a recent fad that’s popping up on all the bridges of Paris. People ascribe wishes or dreams to locks and fasten them to the bridge, then throw the key in the river.”

Dev stooped to examine some of the colorful ribbons, charms and printed messages dangling from various locks. “Here’s a good one. This couple from Dallas wish their kids great joy, but don’t plan to produce any additional offspring. Evidently seven are enough.”

“Good grief! Seven would be enough for me, too.”

“Really?”

He straightened and leaned a hip against the rail. The breeze ruffled his black hair and tugged at the collar of his camel-hair sport coat.

“I guess that’s one of those little idiosyncrasies we should find out about each other, almost as important as whether we prefer dogs or cats. How many kids do you want, Sarah?”

“I don’t know.” She trailed a finger over the oblong hasp of a bicycle lock. “Two, at least, although I wouldn’t mind three or even four.”

As impulsive and thoughtless as Gina could be at times, Sarah couldn’t imagine growing up without the joy of her bubbly laugh and warm, generous personality.

“How about you?” she asked Dev. “How many offspring would you like to produce?”

“Well, my sisters contend that the number of kids their husbands want is inversely proportional to how many stinky diapers they had to change. I figure I can manage a couple of rounds of diapers. Three or maybe even four if I get the hang of it.”

He nodded to the entrepreneur perched on his overturned crate at the far end of the bridge. The man’s pegboard full of locks gleamed dully in the afternoon sun.

“What do you think? Should we add a wish that we survive stinky diapers to the rest of these hopes and dreams?”

Still a little embarrassed by her descent into sappy sentimentality, Sarah nodded. She waited on the bridge while Dev purchased a hefty lock. Together they scouted for an open spot. She found one two-thirds of the way across the bridge, but Dev hesitated before attaching his purchase.

“We need to make it more personal.” Frowning, he eyed the bright ribbons and charms dangling from so many of the other locks. “We need a token or something to scribble on.”

He patted the pockets of his sport coat and came up with the ticket stubs from their lunch cruise. “How about one of these?”

“That works. The cruise gave me a view of Paris I’d never seen before. I’m glad I got to share it with you, Dev.”

Busy scribbling on the back of a ticket, he merely nodded. Sarah was a little surprised by his offhanded acceptance of her tribute until she read what he’d written.

To our two or three or four or more kids,

we promise you one cruise each on the Seine.

“And I thought I was being mushy and sentimental,” she said, laughing.

“Mushy and sentimental is what phase two is all about.” Unperturbed, he punched the hasp through the ticket stub. “Here, you attach it.”

When the lock clicked into place, Sarah knew she’d always remember this moment. Rising up on tiptoe, she slid her arms around Dev’s neck.

* * *

She’d remember the kiss, too. Particularly when Dev valiantly stuck to their renegotiated agreement later that evening.

After their monster lunch, they opted for supper at a pizzeria close to the Hôtel Verneuil. One glass of red wine and two mushroom-and-garlic slices later, they walked back to the hotel through a gray, soupy fog. Monsieur LeBon had gone off duty, but the receptionist on the desk relayed his shock over the news of the attack on Lady Sarah and his profound regret that she had suffered such an indignity while in Paris.

Sarah smiled her thanks and made a mental note to speak to the manager personally tomorrow. Once on her floor, she slid the key card into her room lock and slanted Dev a questioning look.

“Do you want to come in for a drink?”

“A man can only endure so much torture.” His expression rueful, he traced a knuckle lightly over the bruise she’d already forgotten. “Unless you’re ready to initiate phase three, we’d better call it a night.”

She was ready. More than ready. But the companionship she and Dev had shared after leaving Inspector Delacroix’s office had delivered as much punch as the hours they’d spent tangled up in the sheets. A different kind of punch, admittedly. Emotional rather than physical, but every bit as potent.

Although she knew she’d regret it the moment she closed the door, Sarah nodded. “Let’s give phase two a little more time.”

* * *

She was right. She did regret it. But she decided the additional hours she spent curled up on the sofa watching very boring TV were appropriate punishment for being so stupid. She loved Dev. He obviously loved her. Why couldn’t she just trust her instincts and...

The buzz of her cell phone cut into her disgusted thoughts. She reached for the instrument, half hoping it was Alexis trying to reach her again. Sarah was in the mood to really, really unload on her ex-boss. When her sister’s picture flashed up on the screen, she almost dropped the phone in her excitement and relief.

“Gina! Where are you?”

“Lucerne. I...I waited until morning in New York to call you but...”

“I’m not in New York. I’m in Paris, as you would know if you’d bothered to answer any of my calls.”

“Thank God!”

The moaned exclamation startled her, but not as much as the sobs her sister suddenly broke into. Sarah lurched upright on the sofa, the angry tirade she’d intended to deliver instantly forgotten.

“What’s wrong? Gina! What’s happened?”

A dozen different disasters flooded into her mind. Gina had taken a tumble on the ski slopes. Broken a leg or an arm. Or her neck. She could be paralyzed. Breathing by machine.

“Are you hurt?” she demanded, fear icing her heart. “Gina, are you in the hospital?”

“Nooo.”

The low wail left her limp with relief. In almost the next heartbeat, panic once again fluttered like a trapped bird inside her chest. She could count on the fingers of one hand the times she’d heard her always-upbeat, always-sunny sister cry.

“Sweetie, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I can’t. Not...not over the phone. Please come, Sarah. Please! I need you.”

It didn’t even occur to her to say no. “I’ll catch the next flight to Lucerne. Tell me where you’re staying.”

“The Rebstock.”

“The hotel Grandmama took us to the summer you turned fourteen?”

That set off another bout of noisy, hiccuping sobs. “Don’t...don’t tell Grandmama about this.”

About what? Somehow, Sarah choked back the shout and offered a soothing promise.

“I won’t. Just keep your phone on, Gina. I’ll call you as soon as I know when I can get there.”

She cut the connection, switched to the phone’s internet browser and pulled up a schedule of flights from Paris to Lucerne. Her pulse jumped when she found a late-night shuttle to Zurich that departed Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11:50 p.m. From there she’d have to rent a car and drive the sixty-five kilometers to Lake Lucerne.

She could make the flight. She had to make it. Her heart racing, she reserved a seat and scrambled off the sofa. She started for the bedroom to throw some things together but made a quick detour to the sitting room desk and snatched up the house phone.

“Come on, Dev. Answer!”

Her quivering nerves stretched tighter as it rang six times, then cut to the hotel operator.

“May I help you, Lady Sarah?”

“I’m trying to reach Monsieur Hunter, but he doesn’t answer.”

“May I take a message for you?”

“Yes, please. Tell him to call me as soon as possible.”

Hell! Where was he?

Slamming the phone down, she dashed into the bedroom. She didn’t have time to pack. Just shove her laptop in her shoulder tote, grab her sweater coat, make sure her purse held her passport and credit cards and run.

While the elevator made its descent, she tried to reach Dev by cell phone. She’d just burst into the lobby when he answered on a husky, teasing note.

“Please tell me you’ve decided to put me out of my misery.”

“Where are you?” The phone jammed to her ear, she rushed through the lobby. “I called your room but there wasn’t any answer.

“I couldn’t sleep. I went out for a walk.” He caught the tension in her voice. The teasing note dropped out of his. “Why? What’s up?”

“Gina just called.”

“It’s about time.”

She pushed through the front door. The fog had cleared, thank God, and several taxis still cruised the streets. She waved a frantic arm to flag one down, the phone clutched in her other fist.

“She’s in some kind of trouble, Dev.”

“So what else is new?”

If she hadn’t been so worried, the sarcastic comment might not have fired her up as hot and fast as it did.

“Spare me the editorial,” she snapped back angrily. “My sister needs me. I’m on my way to Switzerland.”

“Whoa! Hold on a minute...”

The taxi rolled up to the curb. She jumped in and issued a terse order. “De Gaulle Airport. Hurry, please.”

“Dammit, Sarah, I can’t be more than ten or fifteen minutes from the hotel. Wait until I get back and we’ll sort this out together.”

“She’s my sister. I’ll sort it out.” She was too rushed and too torqued by his sarcasm to measure her words. “I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s what.”

“Yeah,” he bit out, as pissed off now as she was. “You do that.”

In no mood to soothe his ruffled feathers, she cut the connection and leaned into the Plexiglas divider.

“I need to catch an eleven-fifty flight,” she told the cabdriver. “There’s an extra hundred francs in it for you if I make it.”

* * *

The Swiss Air flight was only half-full. Most of the passengers looked like businessmen who wanted to be on scene when Zurich’s hundreds of banks opened for business in the morning. There were a few tourists scattered among them, and several students with crammed backpacks getting a jump start on spring break in the Alps.

Sarah stared out the window through most of the ninety-minute flight. The inky darkness beyond the strobe lights on the wing provided no answers to the worried questions tumbling through her mind.

Was it the ski instructor? Had he left Gina stranded in Lucerne? Or Dev’s Byzantine medallion? Had she tried to sell it and smacked up against some law against peddling antiquities on the black market?

Her stomach was twisted into knots by the time they landed in Zurich, and she rushed to the airport’s Europcar desk. Fifteen minutes later she was behind the wheel of a rented Peugeot and zipping out of the airport. Once she hit the main motorway, she fumbled her phone out of her purse and speed-dialed her sister.

“I just landed in Zurich,” Sarah informed her. “I’m in a rental car and should be there within an hour.”

“Okay. Thanks for coming, Sarah. I’ll call down to reception and tell them to expect you.”

To her profound relief, Gina sounded much calmer. Probably because she knew the cavalry was on the way.

“I’ll see you shortly.”

* * *

Once Sarah left the lights of Zurich behind, she zoomed south on the six-lane E41. Speed limits in Switzerland didn’t approach the insanity of those in Germany, but the 120 kilometers per hour max got her to the shores of Lake Lucerne in a little over forty minutes.

The city of Lucerne sat on the western arm of the lake. A modern metropolis with an ancient center, its proximity to the Alps had made it a favorite destination for tourists from the earliest days of the Hapsburg Empire. The Duchy of Karlenburgh had once constituted a minuscule part of that vast Hapsburg empire. As the lights of the city glowed in the distance, Sarah remembered that Grandmama had shared some of the less painful stories from the St. Sebastians’ past during their stay in Lucerne.

She wasn’t thinking of the past as she wound through the narrow streets of the Old Town. Only of her sister and whether whatever trouble Gina was in might impact their grandmother’s health. The old worries she’d carried for so long—the worries she’d let herself slough off when she’d gotten so tangled up with Dev—came crashing back.

It was almost 3:00 a.m. when she pulled up at the entrance to the Hotel zum Rebstock. Subdued lighting illuminated its half-timbered red-and-white exterior. Three stories tall, with a turreted tower anchoring one end of the building, the hotel had a history dating back to the 1300s. Even this early in the season, geraniums filled its window boxes and ivy-covered trellises defined the tiny terrace that served as an outdoor restaurant and biergarten.

Weary beyond words, Sarah grabbed her tote and purse and left the car parked on the street. She’d have a valet move it to the public garage on the next block tomorrow. Right now all she cared about was getting to her sister.

As promised, Gina had notified reception of a late arrival. Good thing, since a sign on the entrance informed guests that for safety purposes a key card was required for entry after midnight. A sleepy attendant answered Sarah’s knock and welcomed her to the Rebstock.

“Lady Eugenia asked that we give you a key. She is in room 212. The elevator is just down the hall. Or you may take the stairs.”

“Thank you.”

She decided the stairs would be quicker and would also work out the kinks in her back from the flight and the drive. The ancient wooden stairs creaked beneath their carpeted runner. So did the boards of the second-floor hallway as Sarah counted room numbers until she reached the one at the far end of the hall. A corner turret room, judging by the way its door was wedged between two others.

She slid the key card into the lock and let herself into a narrow, dimly lit entryway.

“Gina?”

The door whooshed shut behind her. Sarah rounded the corner of the entryway, found herself in a charming bedroom with a sitting area occupying the octagonal turret and came to a dead stop. Her sister was tucked under the double bed’s downy duvet, sound asleep.

A rueful smile curved Sarah’s lips. She’d raced halfway across Europe in response to a desperate plea. Yet whatever was troubling Gina didn’t appear to be giving her nightmares. She lay on one side, curled in a tight ball with a hand under her cheek and her blond curls spilling across the pillow.

Shaking her head in amused affection, Sarah dropped her tote and purse on the sofa in the sitting area and plunked down on the side of the bed.

“Hey!” She poked her sister in the shoulder. “Wake up!”

“Huh?” Gina raised her head and blinked open blurry eyes. “Oh, good,” she muttered, her voice thick with sleep. “You made it.”

“Finally.”

“You’ve got to be totally wiped,” she mumbled. Scooting over a few inches, she dragged up a corner of the comforter. “Crawl in.”

“Oh, for...!”

Sarah swallowed the rest of the exasperated exclamation. Gina’s head had already plopped back to the pillow. Her lids fluttered shut and her raised arm sank like a stone.

The elder sister sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments longer, caught in a wash of relief and bone-deep love for the younger. Then she got up long enough to kick off her boots and unbelt the cherry-red sweater coat. Shrugging it off, she slid under the comforter.

As exhausted as she was from her frantic dash across Europe, it took Sarah longer than she would have believed possible to fall asleep. She lay in the half darkness, listening to her sister’s steady breathing, trying yet again to guess what had sparked her panic. Gradually, her thoughts shifted to Dev and their last exchange.

She’d overreacted to his criticism of Gina. She knew that now. At the time, though, her one driving thought had been to get to the airport. She’d apologize tomorrow. He had sisters of his own. Surely he’d understand.