Embrace Me (16 page)

‘Do we really believe that?’

‘Yes,’ they all said together.

There was not a person in that room who believed Olivia would ever be captured. Harry tried to shake off the feeling; it was his job to find her and bring her to trial, after all. Every loose end had to be tied up before he and his team left Sefton Under Edge. Olivia had thrown them more red herrings than was imaginable. But, he had to ask himself, might there have been one that had not been just another ruse, some small mistake that would give him a clue as to how she had managed to slip his net at every turn?

Marguerite returned with a platter heaped with ham and cheese sandwiches. Suddenly everyone felt hungry. They devoured their sandwiches and drank their coffee. It was during that midnight feast that Harry came to realise how badly the disappearance of Lady Olivia Cinders had affected them all. He could now understand why Marguerite had to lay her ghost before any of them could proceed with a life without her.

Suddenly Marguerite put down her sandwich and gazed at him. ‘What is it, Harry? I know there’s something on your mind.’

Everyone stopped eating and all eyes turned to him. ‘One of Lady Olivia’s red herrings turns out to be a possible clue,’ he announced.

Before he could continue, Marguerite interrupted, ‘The so-called hunter in Jethroe’s cap and jacket!’

‘He was the villain she hired to drive the car and lay the Sefton Under Edge trap for us all to get caught up in. She bought the jacket and cap and dogs that looked as close to Jethroe’s as possible – just to cover her tracks in case anyone saw him. And indeed someone did: the postman. Joe, first thing in the morning find that postman and have him go through the mug shots of known villains who might fit the description. Lady Olivia had everything worked out to the last detail.’

‘So would you, Harry, if your life depended on it,’ said September.

Marguerite looked at Harry. She really liked him, but he was
Olivia’s enemy. If anyone could find her it would be Harry. She could see that and also that it would never happen. She didn’t feel sorry for him, he was not a man one pitied. Her thoughts switched to Olivia. Was she happy? Yes, of course she was. And no doubt already steeped in her new life. Did she have a lover yet? Was she living in a city or a remote part of the world where she would be safe? Was she still blonde and ravishingly beautiful or had she dyed her hair black and bought herself a new face? Marguerite could not believe she would destroy her looks. If she had done that then she might as well have killed herself. Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, she would always be the most ravishing English beauty, bursting with life and love.

Marguerite sighed heavily and looked away from Harry. He went to her and asked if something was wrong. ‘No,’ she replied. But he didn’t believe her.

‘When are you leaving, Harry?’ asked Miss Plumm.

‘In the morning.’

‘Then you go away empty-handed?’

Harry thought that this was as good a time as any to let the secret become public knowledge. He looked across the room at September. She smiled at him and he felt her love and passion for him. He almost faltered then turned back to Miss Plumm. After raising her hand and kissing it, he announced, ‘Not quite empty-handed, September is coming with me.’

Chapter 16

For Harry, one of the more unpleasant aspects of the Lady Olivia Cinders case was having to deal with the prince’s brother and family who were running their own investigation. A team of the best private detectives were working round the clock and all over the world. They not only wanted the murderer of the prince, they wanted slowly and painfully to murder the murderer.

That was, of course, not possible so far as England and the Home Office were concerned. Harry had been fearful that they might find Olivia but after that evening at Marguerite’s, he was certain it would never happen. If Lady Olivia were playing New Scotland Yard for fools, then she was making even greater ones out of the prince’s family.

Jenny traced the prince’s brother who was sailing the Côte d’Azure on his ocean-going yacht. Harry had made an appointment to meet the prince the following day at the marina in Nice. But for the moment, driving into London with September at his side, he could think of nothing but the woman he loved.

‘I’m not a wealthy man, September,’ he told her after they had been driving in silence for some time.

‘You’re the richest man I know. You’ve got me,’ was her reply as she snuggled up closer.

‘You’re very sure about us, aren’t you?’

‘And you aren’t?’ she enquired.

‘You know better than that!’

‘Then why are we having this conversation?’

‘Because I’ve never been in love like this before. Because I’m driving back into the city a different man: one committed to
loving you. Because I feel the excitement of sharing my life with another human being and being loved on such a grand scale.

Harry pulled the car over to the soft shoulder and turned off the motor. He pulled her into his arms and they kissed passionately. Then Harry caressed September’s hair and grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘It’s going to seem like an eternity before we get home,’ he told her.

At last he left the car in the courtyard of Albany and, arm in arm, they walked up the stairs to his set of rooms. He opened the door and carried September over the threshold. She was charmed by the old-fashioned rooms and commented, ‘Sherlock Holmes could have lived here.’

‘He does, only he’s changed his name to Harry Graves-Jones. How does September Graves-Jones sound to you?’ he asked.

‘Music to my ears,’ she told him, and jumped into his arms. He caught her and they laughed as he carried her to the bedroom.

September closed her eyes and bit the back of her hand as copious and strong orgasms took her over and transported her into an erotic nirvana. There was something about Harry’s body scent, the texture of his skin, the way he was formed … he was incredibly sexy to her. She was never happier than when she was in the throes of sex, but this was that and more. She gave in to her orgasms, one following another quite quickly, and Harry bathed himself in them and adored her even more for her lustfulness. His sexuality, his love for her, was overwhelming.

September felt she need never hold back sexually from Harry. He wanted everything erotic to be played out in their lives. They would give each other everything and dwell in a private world of all things lustful that gave them pleasure.

Long after September fell asleep in his arms, Harry lay awake thinking about Olivia and how he must never let her come between his love and himself.

Over breakfast: buttered toast with lashings of Cooper’s marmalade and coffee in bed, he said, ‘I think it would be a good idea not to bring home my work, so to speak.’

‘So that Olivia will not come between us? I think that’s a very good idea. We have a life of our own to build.’

‘You are so special, my love. Beautiful, clever, creative, sensitive and understanding. You make my life rich and full where previously it was empty. Thank you,’ he told her.

They woke early because September wanted to show him her London studio. It was amazing, once the entire floor, the loft of a great house with a perfect north light flowing through half a dozen arched windows. And, unbelievably, it was a corner site in Knightsbridge with a view of the park.

‘It’s fantastic. However did you find it?’ he asked.

‘The family owns the building,’ she answered.

Harry laughed. He felt as if he belonged in the studio in the same way he felt at home in Sefton Park.

‘We’re one of those families that are property rich and always cash poor. Do you mind?’ she asked teasingly because she knew he didn’t.

Harry took the afternoon flight to Nice and a taxi from the airport to the marina where he was met by four of the crew of the
Gloriana
, the dead prince’s yacht. He was taken from there by motor launch directly to the yacht anchored a mile off the coast.

Harry’s first impression was of the vessel’s size and beauty. Once on board he realised that Olivia had had a hand in the design of the interior. This was no gin palace awash with marble and gilt. It was like the prince’s bedroom or Olivia’s own rooms at Albany: grand yet impressively simple.

Harry was shown into the library where he was offered tea and small bite-sized sandwiches of smoked salmon. When, after an hour, he was still waiting to see the prince’s brother, he began to seethe with irritation. After two hours he rang the service bell and asked to be taken ashore. It was half an hour after that that the prince’s brother appeared. There was no apology.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Graves-Jones, have you any positive news for me? That, for instance, you have captured my brother’s murderer.’

‘No, sir, I’m not able to tell you that.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘Because I have reason to believe that Lady Olivia Cinders had
received a substantial sum of money some time before she murdered your brother. I am trying to trace that money, who gave it to her and what she did with it.’

‘A bit slow, weren’t you? Follow the money and you will always find your villain. We’ve been on that for weeks.’

‘And?’ asked Harry.

‘And, nothing,’ answered the prince bitterly.

‘How much did your brother give her?’ probed Harry.

The prince paced the room, picked up the telephone and ordered coffee. Then, turning back to Harry, he said, ‘Olivia has been devilishly clever. My brother bought her for eighty million dollars. She refused to become his forever until that sum was deposited in a Swiss account. She toyed with him for almost eight months after she received the money.

‘The first thing I did after my brother was murdered was to go after that money. I knew where it was – or, rather, I thought I knew where it was. Olivia collected the money a week after it was deposited in the bank. She used to tease my brother that it was her insurance, her getaway fund, so he had better stay in love with her and in line. Don’t waste your time speculating about that money. You have to find it before you can follow it and so far, just like Olivia, it has vanished without trace.’

The two men gazed at each other, equally determined to find Olivia. For the first time, the prince realised that Harry Graves-Jones would never give up this hunt. They were comrades-in-arms who would become enemies once Olivia had been found. Harry Graves-Jones would never turn her over to the prince. His sense of justice, his Englishness, would never allow it. Harvard-educated and worldly, the prince loved the west but a passion for the power and the justice of Islam was bred into him.

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ asked Harry. Mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He had come to find out about the money and he had. There was little more to say or do.

He had ways and means of tracing large sums and would try them all. That was all he had to go on. Every lead to finding Olivia seemed always to come to a dead end. When the prince shook his head, Harry asked if he might be put ashore.

‘At once. I will walk you to the deck.’

He felt uneasy with the prince and could hardly wait to be out of his presence. There was something brutal about him despite the American accent and Armani clothes. He was darkly handsome with a short-cropped beard, should have made one feel he was one of a new generation who were done with acts of barbarism. But that was not the case.

‘You will keep me informed?’ asked the prince.

‘Yes, and I hope you will do the same with me.’

As the two men walked through the various state rooms Harry saw several beautiful women, as stunning as catwalk mannequins, draped decoratively around the yacht. It was difficult to imagine Lady Olivia being one of them. It prompted him to ask his host, ‘Did you know Olivia well?’

The prince said nothing for a minute and then, when they had reached the gangway that led to the motor launch, he answered Harry, ‘Olivia enchanted me as she did my brother. I thought her dazzling, quintessentially English with all the right aristocratic connections. She was wildly free, gloriously beautiful, unimaginably sexy. My brother was besotted with her and I travelled with them frequently. We thought we had her bent to our will and that was our fatal mistake. Now she must die for what she has done to my family. Goodbye, Chief Inspector.’

Harry was halfway down the gangway when he turned and took the stairs two at a time, returning to the prince. ‘One more thing – that tract of land in South Africa that your brother bought for her. Is there anything you can tell me about it?’

‘That’s the last place she would go. She knows it’s the first place I would look. As I have done already. Olivia is not there.’

In the taxi on the way to the airport Harry kept thinking about the money and those sightings he had heard of from South Africa. Once more he climbed into Olivia’s skin and tried to work out what she had done with the money and whether she was or was not in South Africa on her game reserve.

The papers were still full of reports about Olivia which Harry found irritating. He saw them in Nice airport and didn’t bother to buy one. It was a two-hour wait before his flight was due to take off, and in those two hours an aspect of Olivia
manifested itself that he had not considered before. Lady Olivia would not have committed that crime without understanding very well she would subsequently have to change her life and goals. That she would, in penance for her violent action, retreat from the shallow and sick world into which she had been dragged by the prince. No doubt she had retreated with her money to a place where she could make a difference without incurring any notoriety.

But was he right? So many times he’d thought he had fathomed Olivia and never received any proof that that was so. Restless, he called September. The message he found on her studio answer machine was, ‘I’m on the way to the airport to meet your plane. I still love you.’ Harry left the telephone booth smiling.

It was one of those glorious Indian summer days that can happen in September. Under a warm, clear, bright blue sky, the leaves on the trees were just beginning to turn coral and orange, yellow and rust. It was considered the society wedding of the year. And anyone who was anyone was going to be there. James, as head of the family, was giving the wedding as a gift to his sister. He was also giving September away. Neville was Harry’s best man. Joe and Jenny were ushers, showing people to their pews. Marguerite and Angelica were in the wedding party as September’s attendants. Miss Plumm was given a seat of honour close to the altar. The church looked splendid, dressed in white roses and Longee lilies. The men wore tails and old-fashioned fully-blown yellow roses in their lapels. The bride, dressed in her great-grandmother’s white lace wedding dress, carried a waterfall of white moth orchids and was wearing the family’s wedding and coronation diamond tiara.

There wasn’t a room to be had in the area and the entrance to Sefton Park was patrolled by gatemen collecting invitations. The car park was outside the village and beautiful elegantly dressed women, and handsome men dressed in tails and carrying or wearing top hats, wandered through the village to the church. There were horse-drawn carriages for those who found the walk from the church to the reception in the Park a step too far.
Everyone in the village was invited to attend the ceremony and the luncheon party as well as the wedding ball to be given that evening. Both
Hello
and
OK
as well as
Vogue
and
Tatler
were barred from the premises. Harry had organised tight but unobtrusive security.

The night before the wedding he spent at Miss Plumm’s house. He had hardly any sleep. He had drunk and eaten too much at Sefton Park where the closest friends of the family had been invited to a sumptuous evening meal and a cello recital. Harry had never felt so loved or that he belonged anywhere so completely as he did the night before his wedding. At one point he and September sneaked off and made love in her bedroom then he went back to Miss Plumm’s.

Many of the Buchanans’ friends arrived in their bi-planes. Harry saw them on the grass like grand butterflies as he walked by. They were parked in a neat line, leaving the field free for others to land. Harry was not so much overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the wedding as entranced by the fun of it.

His colleagues were dazzled and quite obviously out of their depth until Harry told them, ‘For God’s sake, I just want you all to be yourselves and have a great time. I’m only going to do this once.’

As people walked to the church they were entertained by a string quartet playing near the duck pond. In the church, instead of organ music, there was a harpist and two flautists playing baroque music. The church bulged with guests and the service was short but touching, all the more romantic because someone had let white doves loose in the rafters: they seemed to coo and swoop at all the right moments.

‘This is the most thrilling and happy day of my life,’ Harry whispered in September’s ear before he gave her the expected kiss at the end of the ceremony. Then they walked down the aisle and out into the sunlight.

There were streams of people walking down the road to Sefton Park and cheers for those who chose the open horse-drawn carriages. Miss Marble – who had of course made the wedding cake, a splendid five tiers decorated with blown sugar doves – rode by with her two helpers and the cake up the avenue
of limes. It seemed to Harry that his wedding was like a cross between an upmarket fête and a grand party where everyone was bound to have the best time ever.