will. If she succeeds in convincing the courts that MacNair Products rightfully belongs to Peter’s legal heirs—his wife and children—she will take it away from you. But MacNair Products doesn’t exist as such anymore; it’s now Empress Cosmetics. So you see, unless you fight it, Lorna will get everything and you and I and your family will be back to square one without the proverbial pot, my dear.”
Lydia looked dazed. “Can she do that?”
“She sure as hell is going to try,” Evelyn said, pointing to the legal paper.
“Dear God. I just thought of something,” Lydia gasped.
“What?”
Lydia thought back. “Do you recall when I first hired you, Evelyn?”
“Sure. You’d met that awful Walter Hanover when you and April first came here with the dowager empress’s personal scent. Walter said it could be duplicated and promised to supply the money to set up Empress Cosmetics.”
“And then he skipped out, leaving us with a pile of debts and very little future.”
“But we managed to survive rather nicely without Walter,” Evelyn said proudly.
Lydia shook her head. “Walter had me sign a paper when we started the company. It was to be a fifty-fifty proposition, which was exactly what I wanted. I had no intention of being beholden to Walter, if you know what I mean.”
Evelyn knew. Walter had wanted to bed Lydia and obviously he had, because he wasn’t the type of man who gave anything without getting something in return. She nodded.
“Years after Walter skipped out and you and I made a success of our company, he showed up again and laid claim to his fifty percent share. Peter MacNair bought that fifty percent from Walter for an exorbitant price.”
“So?”
Lydia ran her hand across her eyes. “Oh, Evelyn, I’d forgotten all about that paper until just now.”
“What about it? When Peter died and left you everything in his will, his fifty percent interest in Empress Cosmetics automatically became yours.”
“Not exactly,” Lydia said hesitantly. “You know how I was after Peter died? I didn’t care about much of anything and I wasn’t interested in the company. I’d forgotten all about that paper giving Peter half of everything I owned. Fool that I am, I’d never thought to have Peter reassign that half back to me before he died. That claim was in Peter’s safe in his private study. I never got it. Lorna obviously found it. All that was mentioned in Peter’s will was his bequest to me of MacNair Products. There was no mention of his half interest in Empress Cosmetics. According to the will, the MacNair company went to me and all the other rights and assets in his estate went to Lorna. So Lorna MacNair actually inherited that percentage in our company, Evelyn.”
“God in heaven,” Evelyn breathed. “That means that in addition to suing for ownership of MacNair Products, Lorna can still claim half of our enterprises.”
“And I’m sure she won’t settle for just half, my dear. But by God, she isn’t going to get anything,” Lydia swore, throwing back the coverlet. “I’m getting dressed now, and then you and I are going to pay a visit to our attorneys. That bitch will regret picking a fight with me.”
Evelyn clapped her hands. “That’s my girl. Welcome back to the living, kiddo.”
CHAPTER TWO
Italy was beginning to settle down after the year-long war with the Turks over the rights of Italians in the Turkish colony of Libya in North Africa. Though Libya and the Dodecanese Islands were again under Italian control, there was brewing unrest in the northern parts of Europe. The Balkan Wars had started, the Balkan countries fighting each other for more territory. There were constant rivalries over trade and commerce, everyone battling to control the raw materials, competing for new food sources and new regions to colonize. The German navy was threatening British supremacy on the high seas, and the Russians were hoping to dominate all of the Balkans.
The city of Venice was a fantasy place where Caroline Nightsong tried to forget her unhappiness as she travelled the canals that took the place of streets, visited the museums, churches, and palaces. The city seemed far removed from all turmoil. This peaceful serenity was what kept Carolina rooted to the place. She wanted to think of herself as a woman alone in an enchanted land where the sordidness of her past did not exist. Though only twenty-four and extremely beautiful, she didn’t feel beautiful. She always wore her thick black hair as plainly as possible, hid her sparkling green eyes and flawless complexion behind broad-brimmed hats.
Part of her wanted desperately to go back to Nob Hill. But a larger part of her shivered at the thought of returning to the home of her grandmother, who’d only serve as a constant reminder of everything Caroline wanted to forget. Caroline still found it almost impossible to believe that Adam Clarendon was her brother. How could she have had sex with him and not have felt some intuitive warning of their blood-relatedness? He wasn’t a full brother, only a half-brother, according to her grandmother. Still, it terrified her to recall the sexual pleasure she’d experienced in the arms of a man forbidden her.
“Dear God, I still love him,” Caroline cried aloud, feeling the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. He was several years younger than she, but that didn’t matter. He was so sophisticated, so British, with his charming accent and courtly manners. She was sure he loved her as desperately as she loved him. He had to love her.... He had to, she kept telling herself.
She cried into her hands and then began shaking her head. “No, this is madness.” She would have to put Adam out of her mind, forget she’d ever even met him.
Of course she’d been telling herself that every day since running away from him that afternoon in London. She still insisted to herself that there was no actual proof that he was Adam MacNair and not the son of Lord and Lady Clarendon. But deep down, she knew the truth.
As Caroline stood on the balcony of the Palicio D’Oro looking through her tears at the bobbing gondolas, she thought she might have made a mistake coming to Venice, land of beauty and romance. A gondolier with his straw hat and fluttering red ribbon was crooning softly to a couple wrapped in each other’s arms, oblivious of Caroline standing there, crying softly. The sky was the color of a robin’s egg, with clouds as wispy and white as fluttering feathers. It was a clear, perfect day, a day she should be spending happily out-of-doors instead of moping here in her room, wishing for the impossible.
She pushed herself away from the balustrade and went into the sitting room with its high, ornate ceiling and heavy Italian Renaissance furnishings. She’d go into Saint Mark’s Square and have some lunch at a little cafe, she decided. The square was one of her favorite spots in Venice, a place where she could sit, almost unnoticed, sipping an aperitif as she watched the constantly changing parade.
She put on a blue dress and wide, floppy hat. Her hair she knotted tightly in a bun at the back of her neck. The mirror told her she looked the way she wanted to look, like a woman alone who wanted to be left alone.
The sun was warm but not hot on her back as she turned along the canal, crossed one of the stone bridges with its wrought-iron railing, and headed toward the square. She’d been warned of the canals’ odious smell during the hot summer days, but she noticed nothing objectionable. But then, she thought with a sigh, so many people constantly found fault with perfection. And Venice, to her, was the perfect city.
As always, the moment
