Forbidden Read online

  I won’t have to put up with this for long, she told herself. I will live in my own suite at the Jayquith, just like Theodora.

  Twenty-four hours later, she knew better.

  First she tried to get to the twelfth floor of Jayquith Corporate Headquarters, which contained the television studios. The guards lounging in the lobby rested their palms on the guns they carried on their hips. She explained that she was Theodora Jayquith’s daughter. “Please give Miss Jayquith this message,” said Jade. “I have come.”

  The guards did not even laugh at her. “Get out, kid.”

  “I really am! You have to let her know I’m here!”

  “Our job is to keep the nutcases away, not make introductions.”

  “Listen to me!” cried Jade. “I have proof. I can—”

  “Don’t make us get rough, kid. Buzz off.”

  Failing at the studio, she tried the Jayquith Hotel. Jade was escorted out of the building the moment she asked to see Miss Jayquith. She circled the block and came in another entrance, only to be met by the same uniforms who had removed her a minute before.

  “Please,” she said, “I have to see Miss Jayquith. It’s very important.”

  “Right,” said the uniforms sarcastically, and led her back to the sidewalk.

  Next Jade telephoned.

  A voice said, “Jayquith Hotel, how may I help you?”

  The moment she told them how they could help her, they disconnected. They had no intention of helping her. The world was full of sickos who used any excuse in the world to get near a star, and Jade’s story of being Theodora’s daughter was instantly dismissed. But I have proof! thought Jade.

  It had not occurred to her that nobody would even bother to look at her proof.

  In despair and rage she went to the only place that seemed safe enough to sit down in—the New York Public Library.

  The reference librarian whipped out a volume called How to Find the Rich and Famous. Alphabetical order—hundreds of show business people, their street and business addresses, their summer house and ski chalet addresses.

  Theodora had four listings:

  Jayquith Building—phone number of the main switchboard that had already refused to speak with Jade.

  Jayquith Hotel—phone number of the front desk that wouldn’t give her the time of day.

  Eleven Levels Road, Litchfield, Connecticut. No phone number.

  Pink Roof House, Bermuda. No phone number.

  Much as Jade would like to visit Bermuda, that would have to wait until Theodora took her. But Eleven Levels Road, cut, sounded possible. The phone number, of course, was unlisted. Fine. She’d just drive there.

  She bought a map, located Litchfield and went to rent a car. “Under twenty-one?” said the rental people. “Nope. Gotta be twenty-one.”

  She called the train station. No train went remotely near Litchfield. Called the bus station. No buses, either. But the man said, “It’s a resort, isn’t it? See if a tourist agency runs a day trip.”

  The answer was at her own ugly hotel. The desk fixed her up with a tour. She would be forced to visit a Flower Farm, whatever that was, have lunch at some country inn, and finally arrive in Litchfield for two hours of “walking on the green,” whatever that was, too.

  If they won’t let me in the front, I’ll come in the back, thought Jade.

  And what if she didn’t? What if, after all, there was no entrance to Theodora’s world?

  Her hatred hardened like a diamond that could cut through glass.

  Daniel Madison Ransom and Michael Thiell had become friends in the way of college boys who are not talkers. They did things together. They skied, played squash and tennis, went sailing, were partners in car rallies, traveled in California and Europe. The only thing they had never done together was study, because Michael had not the slightest interest in school.

  “You have to study,” he told Daniel, “because you’ll grow up to take your father’s old Senate seat. I can skip all that.”

  Michael skipped everything he could. It was his way of rebelling against his own famous father, J Thiell, whom he avoided whenever possible. Not that avoidance was necessary. He rarely even knew where his parents were living. Every year or so, each of his parents liked to acquire a new spouse and a few new residences. They might winter in Italy or summer in Norway, spend Christmas in Mexico or Thanksgiving in Hawaii. Michael was not usually invited along. Michael had spent many holidays with Daniel, but Daniel had never visited Michael.

  The only constant in J Thiell’s life was Theodora Jayquith, who fascinated him. Between wives—or even during wives—J Thiell liked to be seen with a Jayquith.

  Yet Michael loved the idea of marriage. He wanted a traditional stable, solid marriage. He yearned to start his own family. He all but took notes when he visited other people’s families, so he could see how it was done.

  Daniel understood that. He wanted Michael to have it, and wanted to be in the wedding party. Nevertheless, Michael’s choice was mystifying. Venice Pearse was one unfeeling woman. Difficult to imagine wanting to be around her full-time.

  But then, Daniel had an unfeeling woman of his own to contend with. His mother. Catherine Ransom appointed Daniel to take his father’s place when he was only twelve. Her demands never ended. Her interest in his life was so intense that sometimes Daniel could hardly bear to answer the phone, let alone go home for a weekend.

  Daniel’s mother had never remarried. Instead she made a career of being Senator Ransom’s widow. Daniel felt she enjoyed being the widow as much as she had enjoyed being the wife. And the next career with which she dealt was Daniel’s: He was to follow in his father’s path.

  Like child stars in television, he had been a child star at political events. Daniel wanted medical school. He loved babies and small children, and hoped to be a pediatrician. It sounded like a wonderful life, as close to normal as he would get. His mother insisted on law, which would lead to politics, which would put a Ransom back in the Senate.

  Daniel had read biographies of famous military men, and discovered that great generals like MacArthur had mothers who actually moved to West Point to monitor their sons. He sympathized. His mother’s main home was in Manhattan, and she also kept a winter house in Boca Raton, The Camp in Massachusetts, and when Daniel went to Harvard, she bought a place in Cambridge.

  Nearly ten years had passed since his father’s murder. Catherine Ransom, whose self-imposed loneliness had lasted so long, wanted to celebrate the murder anniversary the way a normal woman would celebrate her wedding anniversary. Catherine Ransom wanted a party … at which she would expose the murderer.

  Two Senate committees had failed to uncover anything. But Catherine went to work, after all that time, and found a single fact. Working from that, she uncovered two more. Three little pieces of knowledge, but Catherine—and now Daniel, too—knew who had ordered the killing of Senator Ransom.

  Proving it to the world, let alone judge and jury, would be harder.

  Catherine swung from one terrible mood to a worse one, obsessed even more by the anniversary date than by Daniel’s future. When she could not gather anything past her three facts, she determined that Daniel had to go public: On Theodora’s show, fittingly, he would announce the truth and they would see what happened next. The reporters of the world loved this family; they would always and forever be on a Ransom team; let them chew on this.

  Daniel was accustomed to turmoil. But if this failed, living with her would be hell on earth.

  Though Michael Thiell had a difficult bride, he was going to have a terrific mother-in-law. Venice’s mother was a doll. Wait until he, Daniel, got married. His wife would have Catherine Ransom for a mother-in-law. There’d probably be a second murder.

  Daniel struggled to give his mother what she required, but he also struggled to keep a distance between them. Coming home with a girl caused lots of distance. There was no end to the girls willing to come. Daniel’s fame, as exhausting as his mother, lined
them up. Invariably the girls told him what they had been doing at the moment his father was shot. Then they would tell him how adorable he had been in his little black suit, walking his mother into the cathedral.

  Daniel had not cried since the day he was immortalized on film as the little boy who wept for Daddy. But he was forced to see himself, relentlessly exposed year in and year out, whenever the clips were rerun.

  If he had thought about it—how the world had tuned in to his childhood; trespassed on him every mile and classroom of the way; observed his torn jeans and baseball strikeouts, his honors in biology and his failures on stage, his braces and his latest sailboat—he would have gone insane.

  He had dreaded the event held in the Egyptian Room. In all four years of their friendship, he had not met Michael’s father and was not the least interested in J Thiell’s pet charities. They had been invited solely for the Ransom name.

  His mother was in one of her worst moods. “When at the last minute she had a migraine, she expected Daniel to stay home with her. Suddenly the Egyptian Room became a sanctuary, where he could be away from his mother. “One of us has to go,” he had said lightly. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Well … he would tell her nothing.

  Because at the edge of the reflecting pool, he had actually met a girl he would have brought home for the pleasure of her company. Annabel. A romantic name, and not the kind Daniel would have expected to like. Too decorative for his taste. And Annabel was decorative, but unlike other beautiful girls with whom he had been paired, she was serene. There was a calm to Annabel, as if the world were a companionable place for her, and whatever upsets she might be dealt, she would go on being comfortable and easy.

  It was rare for Daniel to be easy with strangers. He had a public persona he slipped over his personality like a Halloween costume, keeping it between himself and the stranger. But Annabel had not recognized him. He did not have to listen while she went on and on about where she’d been when the senator was murdered. He did not have to nod, Yes, I am that Daniel Ransom, Yes, the senator was my father, Yes, it was very sad, Yes, I’m fascinated that you were in gymnastics, on the balance beam at the moment my father was shot.

  Instead Daniel could share cake icing, which they both liked better than cake. Wonder how on earth the braiding of her hair and the interweaving of the gold cords had been accomplished. Stare at the thin white gauze of her Egyptian costume, which seemed transparent, and yet could not be seen through. Wonder, if he could see through it, what he would see.

  I’ve known Annabel for three hours, he thought, and I am in deeper than I’ve ever been with a girl.

  What would happen when he introduced himself? Would she demand an autograph, beg to be photographed with him, get all giggly and silly? Would he despise her?

  He helped Annabel into the taxi. The combination of her smile, her voice, and her scent made him dizzy.

  I think, thought Daniel Madison Ransom, that this is called falling in love.

  Four

  “HOW WAS THE EGYPTIAN Room?” said Hollings Jayquith, bending over to kiss his daughter. He was a hard lean athlete, always in a dark and serious suit unless he was on a ball court, in which case he played in a dark and serious manner. Everything about him was long and thin, all his edges were sharp, all his speech quick.

  Annabel was snuggled up in front of the television. At Wythefield, television had been impossible to come by. You had to go to the student center, since TVs were not allowed in the rooms, and in all four years, Annabel had failed to get to the television first. Invariably somebody was already tuned to a show she didn’t want to see. Besides, what with required sports, formal dinners, and enforced study hours from seven to ten, there was not much TV time.

  Now, Wythefield graduate that she was, Annabel could have supper while watching Jeopardy and Star Trek.

  Her father eyed the screen in disgust. Hollings Jayquith felt that television—even Aunt Theodora—was a great waste of precious time. “For this I shipped you away for four years and suffered in a lonely house?” he said. He caught her loose hair and ponytailed it vertically, like Woody Woodpecker. “For this I underwrote the costs of an entire boarding school and gave them a new library? So you could watch reruns?”

  “Daddy.” She tilted way back and they regarded each other upside down. “You did not give them a new library.”

  “Okay, a new encyclopedia.”

  They laughed.

  “Yes. For this,” said Annabel. She patted the sofa. It was so nice to have her father home. She was, however, slightly suspicious. Hollings Jayquith did not banter. This easygoing conversation was out of character. “Sit down and watch Jeopardy with me. I’m rooting for the guy on the left, Daddy. Isn’t he cute?”

  “He looks dorky to me.” Her father took great interest in the boys Annabel liked. Without exception he considered them dorks and was quick to point out their flaws and shortcomings.

  “He’s very dorky,” admitted Annabel, “but he’s still cute.”

  Her father folded his arms. It was not a good sign. The sharper his elbows, the worse his mood. She had a feeling the teasing was over. Sure enough, in a taut voice, her father said, “Tell me about the Egyptian Room, Annabel.”

  The Bruce-Newcombes had told. Well, she had known they would. Eighteen, and she was as supervised as most ten-year-olds. Boarding school required passes and permissions and sign-ins to go anywhere with anybody, and home was no different. “I met somebody there,” she said carefully, “and we went on to a club he belongs to.” She had phoned the museum so the Bruce-Newcombes wouldn’t worry. And they told anyway. That’s the last time I admire her nasty old pearls and diamonds, she thought.

  “Who was this boy?” Her father’s voice incised the air like a glass cutter.

  Annabel, who left the verbal fights to her Aunt Theodora, felt a fight coming on. She should be bouncing in her corner of the ring, jabbing the air, not curled like a kitten under the comforter. “Man, not boy,” Annabel corrected her father. “He’s twenty-two. He’s going to law school in September.”

  “What’s his name?” demanded Hollings.

  She did not want her father to possess Daniel’s name. She did not want to hear him say (as he had of Gavin), “Doesn’t have his family’s brains, does he?” She did not want him to say (as he had of Jeremy), “Kind of low-slung, isn’t he? Reminds me of an ape.”

  Last night had been precious. Short, far too short: a single evening. But long on feeling. Through Daniel’s wonderful smile, Annabel could see into his heart. It was a generous heart, full of duty toward his family. A heart that accepted the demands of a Ransom’s life. A strong heart.

  In her own heart, she kept him a secret, but he was there. She loved having him unknown except to her. She wasn’t even telephoning Emmie to give her the details, as she had with every other boy she’d dated at Wythefield.

  Besides, Daniel didn’t know her last name. The right order was for Daniel to know first.

  Her father had come first in every event in her life. She was aware of a great shift, as if Daniel, in the Jeopardy game of life, had acquired vastly more points, and was going to win. Her father was not first. Daniel, whom she had known only one night, came in ahead of him. Annabel shivered slightly, trying to see into the future.

  Hollings Jayquith found the remote and shut off the television. Annabel was not eager to look up. Hollings Jayquith, angry, frightened even his daughter. The indulgent blue eyes could turn to glaciers and freeze the blood. “Annabel,” said her father, “what was his name?”

  “Daniel,” she said. She could not remember a time when she had been purposely obstructive.

  “Daniel who?”

  “I didn’t ask.” This was true. She hadn’t needed to ask.

  “Annabel! I cannot believe this! You went alone into the city, late at night, with a man whose last name you don’t even know?”

  “Don’t make it sound like a list of crimes, Daddy. We had a wonderful ti
me. And he’s not a dork. I promise. He’s perfect.”

  “Nameless, but perfect?” said her father. He was soft-spoken with his anger. He never yelled. Never raised his voice. She forced herself to meet his eyes and knew immediately that he thought a lot more had happened than was the case. Nothing happened, Daddy, she thought. No sex, if that’s what you’re worried about. We laughed, Daddy. We understood each other, we were special to each other.

  But if she said this, he would roll his eyes at the distant ceiling, he would turn his face away, as if another more sensible person were there listening. He would know better. He would make her feel like a little girl.

  So she said nothing. I have not had many secrets in my life, she thought. There are no secrets in a girls’ dorm anyway. But now I have one. Daniel.

  Staying silent when her father wanted talk gave her power. No wonder Aunt Theodora likes this! thought Annabel. Being powerful is more fun than being beautiful.

  “This is New York!” said her father. He was furious. “Muggings, murder, and kidnap are around the next corner.”

  “They are not! How many people do you actually know who get kidnapped? Not one! This isn’t Beirut or Brazil! Don’t say anything bad about New York. I love New York.” And I love Daniel Madison Ransom, who is my kind of New Yorker.

  She had expected this to be the summer of Venice’s wedding. A summer filled with frothy dresses and frilly themes for parties: roses and lace and swans carved in ice. A summer of giggling with Emmie and dancing with strangers. Perhaps instead, this would be the summer she truly turned eighteen, and became a woman who made decisions, instead of her father’s little girl. It amazed Annabel that she had been content with the way things were: that until this minute, this argument, she had accepted the way Theodora, Hollings, and Mrs. Donovan, the housekeeper, controlled her existence. No more, she thought, and new heady perfumes filled her: the scent of being in charge of her own life. She found herself smiling, and tried not to, since it would only anger her father more.