Beyond Eden

3

The Betrayal

Finally she was going to see him again. Lindsay hadn’t eaten for a day and a half; she was too excited. She’d felt nauseous whenever she even got near food, even her beloved cheeseburgers. She’d changed, she knew she had, but was it enough? He was used to Sydney and she was perfect. True, Lindsay was no longer the awkward dumb twit who’d stared at him, unable to say anything, unable to do much of anything except gaze upon him with adoring eyes, but that had been nearly two years ago. She’d been young then, very young and gauche and silly. She was grown now; she was mature. She was eighteen and nearly a woman. Her hands were clammy.

She was also in France, riding in a white limousine, provided by the prince, on her way to the George V, and she would see him for the first time since his and Sydney’s wedding. She could still see him clearly in his tuxedo, still remember how the stark white of his dress shirt was so elegant and sophisticated against his olive skin. And his dark, dark eyes, looking at her, so intently, so seriously. She shivered with the pleasure of the thought. Of course Sydney would be there, but Lindsay didn’t care. She just wanted to see him, look at him, know that he was happy.

She pulled out the wrinkled oft-folded letter from her purse and read it yet again. The limo driver had raised the glass shield and she was quite alone. The limo’s engine was powerful, smooth, and quiet. She smoothed out the page and read:

My dearest Lindsay:

Sydney and I will be in Paris the week of April 11. Enclosed is a ticket. We want you to join us. Do come. I, especially, want to see you again.

And he’d signed it as he had the other cards he’d sent during the past two years. With love, Alessandro. She’d turned eighteen the month before. She was grown now. She had a figure too, not as perfect as Sydney’s, but it wasn’t bad. She had breasts and a rear end. She was also awfully tall, but she remembered him as being taller. He would see her as grown, he just had to. She stopped her thinking there, as always. Her half-sister was married to him. That was that.

There had been no more pregnancies, as far as Lindsay knew. The poor prince. If he’d been married to her, she would have done anything for him, had as many kids as he wanted. He was special, he deserved all the good life could provide him. He was wonderful.

She fell into daydreaming about him, and it was always the same, with only minor variations. He was carrying her in his arms and he was telling her that he loved her more than life itself, that she was so dear to him, that only she could make him feel so open, so giving. He was carrying her aboard his yacht and the crew were smiling and nodding, approving of him and of her, approving of them together, and it was perfect. Somehow Sydney was gone, magically, not dead, of course, that would never do. She was just gone and the prince was free and Lindsay was with him and would be for the rest of her life. Oh, how she loved him, and in her daydream he loved her even more. He was Alessandro to her. He was her prince. He was her god. She sighed at the muted sound of the intruding Paris traffic. The daydream was bliss itself, and she was always loath to let it go.

She had three different news clippings about him, one with a photograph. She carried the photo with her in her wallet. She pulled it out now and stared. He looked grim in the photo, but his magnetism was clear to her, as were his beauty and the sweet tenderness of him. The article accompanying the photo spoke about recent problems in the family munitions factory near Milan, of terrorist acts on arms shipments bound for Iran, perpetrated by Iraq. Lindsay hadn’t paid much attention, searching only for personal remarks about him. One article, at the end, had mentioned that he was married to an American heiress and lawyer, Sydney Foxe di Contini, of the international firm of Hodges, Krammer, Huges, etc., now a partner herself. There were no children. It spoke of his antecedents, but nothing of interest to Lindsay.

Lindsay hadn’t seen Sydney since the wedding. She hadn’t even seen a photo of her. Whenever the prince and Sydney had visited the United States during the past year and a half, Lindsay had never been invited back to San Francisco at the same time. And they had never stopped off to see her. She was certain this was Sydney’s doing. Sydney had ceased to like her, had probably never liked her, and finally had just stopped pretending. Lindsay remembered, even now cringing against the black leather of the limo, how Sydney had laughed at her the day of the wedding, telling her that the prince was amused by her silly teenage infatuation. How he found her pathetic. Just like her father. Lindsay cut it off right there.

Why had Sydney suddenly changed her mind? Why did she want to see Lindsay now? She didn’t quite know what to make of it. She believed firmly that the prince had put his foot down. It was his doing that she was now in Paris. Sydney hadn’t had a choice but to go along with it. He was the boss and Sydney had bowed to his wishes.

As for Lindsay’s father, it was as if she no longer existed to him. She knew he was in Italy a good three months of the year, but she knew nothing more, for her father, when he was compelled to speak to her, only remarked that her half-sister was as beautiful and as accomplished as ever. About the prince, his son-in-law, Royce never said a thing. And Lindsay was too intimidated to ask. She’d asked him once, inadvertently, about her mother, and he’d hung up on her.

The limousine was entering Paris proper now and Lindsay pressed the electric button to lower the passenger window. The air was cool and sweet, the sun bright overhead, and it was, after all, April in Paris, the most romantic city in the world in its most romantic month of the year. Lindsay touched her fingers to her hair. The deep waves were in place, with tendrils wisping around her face. Gayle’s mother had done little with the thick overly curly masses of hair, but she’d told Lindsay not to worry. By the time she was twenty, she’d said, the fashion world would be ready for her. Lindsay pulled out her compact and studied her face. Too pale, but she didn’t have any blusher. All she wore was lip gloss, and that was a soft pink and nearly gone. She was eating it off.

She was so nervous she felt nausea rising in her throat. She swallowed and breathed in the wonderful Paris air and tried to practice what she would say to him. Her mind was sluggish and she felt like a fool. She felt her spirits plummet and knew she would make an idiot of herself in front of him and in front of Sydney. And Sydney would laugh at her. And then she’d tell their father, and he’d laugh too.

She was to go to the reception at the George V Hotel and ask to be escorted to the suite of Prince Alessandro di Contini. She wondered if the prince would be there to greet her or if just Sydney would be there waiting. It wouldn’t matter, she told herself, he would be there soon enough and she could look her fill and, she prayed, she would say something witty, something to charm him, something that would make even Sydney look at her with new respect.

Her luggage was old and battered, and for the first time she was embarrassed. The doorman, however, didn’t seem to notice. She was led inside, allowed with gentle condescension to try out her French, and then escorted across the grand lobby to the correct elevator.

The bellhop led her down the wide carpeted corridor of the twelfth floor. Lindsay slowed; her palms were wet and she felt stickiness in her armpits. She’d shaved her legs the previous night and cut herself badly in three places. At least the bleeding had stopped so she didn’t have to wear Band-Aids under her panty hose.

The bellhop knocked lightly on the suite door. There was no sound from within.

Lindsay felt frozen with such excitement she thought she would throw up.

The bellhop knocked again. She heard approaching footsteps. Then, slowly, the door was pulled open. He stood there, dressed in dark slacks, white shirt, open at the neck, and he was smiling at her, and he was so beautiful she couldn’t see anyone else. There was a small St. Christopher medal on a gold chain around his neck. He motioned to the bellhop to place the bags just inside the door. He gave him a tip. He closed the door on him. She watched every move he made, listened to his fluent French, saw his charm, extended even to the bellhop, saw the man respond to his natural magnetism.

He turned to Lindsay and his smile widened. “You’re here,” he said. He held out his arms to her and she was quickly pressed against him, just the way she’d dreamed. She couldn’t believe it. He was holding her and he was glad to see her and his body was warm and inviting, molding to hers. He was touching her hair, her back, his breath was sweet and warm on her face.

He set her away from him then and looked her up and down, in silence, for a good two minutes. She stood very still and tall, for her grandmother had sworn that if she ever hunched her shoulders to try to minimize her glorious height, Gates would, quite simply, strangle her. Lindsay stood five-foot-ten… well, five-foot-ten and two-thirds, truth be told exactly.

“My God,” Alessandro said.

She smiled tentatively.

“You’ve become more than I had believed you would. In another two years you will be a very beautiful woman.”

She laughed, and poked his arm, just like a kid would, she thought, and wanted to curse herself out, but it was funny, this ridiculous sweet flattery of his.

“I was a dog two years ago,” she said a shade too loud because she was disconcerted. “I’m just not so gross now.”

“Nonsense,” he said, and hugged her to him again, kissing her cheek. “A pity that you had to grow up. But here you are, nearly as tall as I am.”

She resisted the urge to hunch forward.

“No, no, I’m not criticizing, cara. It pleases me. All little girls have to grow up. I like your height. With your sister I have to bend over, and I get a crick in my neck. Yes, a tall girl is very pleasing.”

“Where is Sydney?”

The prince looked away. He shrugged. “She isn’t here.”

Lindsay felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Now she’d have to leave. It wasn’t fair. After all this time—it wasn’t fair. He wouldn’t want her here without Sydney. She wanted to cry. She wanted to kill her selfish sister. Damn her for doing this.

“She left for London this morning,” the prince said after a tense moment.

“But why didn’t she want to see me? She knew I would be here this afternoon. Why?”

“I’m sorry, Lindsay. She did want to see you. But she also wanted to get away from me more. Don’t take it personally. I will be honest with you. Sydney doesn’t much like me anymore, and that’s what makes her do hurtful things like this. You probably heard from your father that she is now working again. In a career! I am rich; I can take care of her, buy her everything she wants, but she claims she wants to be independent of me. I begged her not to, I pleaded with her to remain at the villa, to be my hostess, to become friendly with all the longtime associates of my family, to become pregnant again, but she refused. Ah, sweet Lindsay, I shouldn’t speak of these things. Please forget them. Believe me, I swear Sydney didn’t leave here because of you.”

He saw the blatant worship in her incredible eyes, the anger all funneled toward her sister, and he smiled wearily. “You’re a good girl, Lindsay. Come, let’s put your luggage in your room and then you and I can go exploring. This is Paris and there’s so much for me to show you. There’s no reason to cut your visit short, is there?”

She looked at him and smiled as she nodded happily.

Lindsay tried not to think about what he’d said. Sydney didn’t like him now? Why, for God’s sake? Did that mean they were getting a divorce? Her mind boggled at that thought. If so, then he would be free. That brought her up short. Jesus, she was only eighteen years old. The prince was thirty-one or two. He wouldn’t marry her. It was stupid. She was a kid to him, nothing more. She was his young sister-in-law, nothing more. She was nothing at all.

But if he and Sydney did divorce, then would she never see him again? The thought brought tears to her eyes.

“What’s the matter, cara? What is this, tears? You don’t like the escargots? Come, tell me what’s wrong.”

What could she say? Lindsay stared dumbly at him across the small table outside Les Deux Magots. The French were loud, she thought, as others’ conversations assaulted her ears. So many people, and they were all out on this beautiful mild April evening. He’d called her darling in Italian.

“Here, have some more wine.” She didn’t want any more. She’d rarely drunk wine in her life, and it was making her feel dizzy. She was afraid she’d throw up. She handed him her glass that was still half-full. He grinned and filled it to the rim.

“Drink it up, Lindsay.”

She did, knowing that it pleased him. She wanted to see him smile, to forget, even for a few moments, about Sydney and the hateful things she’d done to him.

“Tell me about school,” he said, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankles. “Do you and the other girls tell each other about your dates? Do you tell each other about how talented the boys are? Do you compare your boyfriends’ physical endowments?”

She shook her head.

“Come now, you do have boyfriends?”

“No. Maybe when I go to college. My friend Gayle says that’s when you’re supposed to…”

“Supposed to what? Ah, my dearest little love, you mean that’s when you’re supposed to lose your virginity?”

She couldn’t speak; she nodded. His love. It was all the wine. She wasn’t hearing him right. “I—I’ve never even met a boy I wanted to even, well, to kiss.”

It was as if he sensed her embarrassment and quickly backed off.

It began to rain.

They walked through the rain, uncaring, oblivious, the prince with his arm around her, holding her close to his side, getting her even wetter. They laughed a good deal. She felt such adoration for him, such complete devotion, and she guessed he realized it. She didn’t care.

When they reached the suite, he didn’t try to hold her in more conversation. He gave her a chaste kiss on her forehead and gently pushed her into her bedroom. She didn’t want the evening to end, but she realized she was drunk, not serious drunk, but dizzy, and wiped out with jet lag. She smiled and giggled a bit when she brushed her teeth in the bathroom. She pulled her cotton nightgown over her head and climbed into her bed. The room shimmered around her like a mirage in the desert. She felt soft and warm and the dizziness was part of the sweetness of her mood. What a wonderful evening, better than anything she could have fantasized. The best evening she’d ever have in her whole life. He was perfect and warm and so tender. Yes, perfect, and maybe tomorrow would be the same.

She wondered where he would take her tomorrow. This evening they’d wandered through Montmartre and he’d told her wicked stories of the artists who’d lived there at the end of the last century. La Belle Epoque, it was called, and he told her how one artist had painted himself making love to his model and how his wife had come to his showing, seen it, and set it and him and his model on fire. The painting had sold for a stunning sum just three years before here in Paris. Some Japanese had bought it, he said, laughing.

He was the most romantic man in the world.

Lindsay was on the point of sleep, her thoughts drowsy now and vague. The door opened quietly, and a shaft of light fell across her face from the living room.

She sat up quickly, disoriented. “Is there something wrong, Alessandro?”

The prince stood in the doorway, wearing a dark blue dressing gown, his feet bare. Her eyes adjusted to the light. She saw that he was smiling. Tentatively she smiled back at him.

“I’ve been thinking, cara,” he said, and took a step into her room. “I’ve been thinking about you, ever since the wedding. I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”

She saw then that he didn’t have pajama bottoms on. His legs were as bare as his feet. They were hairy. Black hair. His feet were long and narrow. Something stirred in her, something alarming, something utterly alien, something that made her heart pound in her stomach, something that scared the hell out of her. She pulled the covers to her neck and waited, not understanding, not wanting to understand, really, as his words replayed over and over in her brain.

“I’ve been thinking that it’s absurd for a beautiful innocent girl like you to allow a fumbling boy to take your virginity. You wouldn’t enjoy it at all. You’d cry and hate it. No, I’ve decided I can’t allow that to happen.”

She knew quite clearly at that instant exactly what he meant. It froze her, mind and body and tongue. Her dream of him died in that moment, became ashes, cold and insubstantial. He was a stranger and she was afraid. She’d been more than a fool, she’d been a blind idiot, a silly little girl. Oh, God, what was she going to do? She was alone here with him. She felt cold and numb and terrified.

“You’re very lucky, Lindsay,” he continued in his warm soft voice, coming ever closer. She measured with her fear each step he took toward the bed. Her breath hitched in her chest. “Don’t look at me like that, cara. I’m still Alessandro, the man you’ve loved for nearly two years now. I haven’t changed. And I’m going to teach you how to be a woman and you’re going to be grateful to me for it. You’re going to thank me. Tell me, cara, how much petting—? That is what you teenagers call it, isn’t it? Yes, well, you must tell me how much you’ve let those bumbling boys do to you.”

She tried to find saliva in her mouth. She spoke in a desert-dry whisper. “You’re married to my half-sister.”

He gave an elegant shrug. “Sydney is a castrating bitch. She’s frigid and she’s really quite annoying with her bourgeois notions of morality. She’s also stupid, contrary to what your besotted ass of a father believes about her. She isn’t beautiful, she isn’t perfect, she isn’t anything. She doesn’t matter, just as that stupid baby she was carrying didn’t matter. She acted like a fool when she was pregnant, like it was so important to her, to me, to my family. She was enough for me to put up with without having her belly bloated out with a brat. Ah, yes, that was much too much to bear.

“I remember when I first saw you, you were all clumsy angles and bony knees and knobby elbows and you were just to my liking. I knew when I saw you at the wedding that you would become quite lovely in the future, but I knew too you would be older and I hated that. I wanted you then, with all your teenage awkwardness, all your little-girl innocence and guilelessness. God, I wanted you and your virginity. I wanted to cover myself in your sweet innocence. I still want you; I want your virginity even more now. I didn’t think I would, since you’re eighteen now, but I do. Other men will consider you more beautiful in the years to come, but that’s for them, not me.

“No, I can’t wait any longer, Lindsay. I’ve already had to wait too long for you. I sweated and worried, thinking it could already be too late. And your damned father gave you freedom by sending you to that school in Connecticut. I know what girls are like today, fucking when they’re young, far too young, letting young boys take them in the back-seats of their grubby cars. But you managed to make it to eighteen and you’re still a virgin. God knows that by the time you’re twenty, you’ll have let a good half-dozen boys fuck you. They’d all be Americans and clumsy boors. No, I’ll not allow that. I’ll teach you to be discriminating. I’ll teach you how to fuck a prince.”

He was standing by the bed now. He leaned over and switched on the Tiffany lamp. He sat down beside her. He took her cold hand and squeezed her limp fingers.

“Tell me, cara, have you let boys stick their tongues in your mouth? Have you let them French-kiss you?”

She nodded, her eyes never leaving his face.

“Did you like it?”

She shook her head. He leaned over and his mouth touched hers.

He immediately straightened. “No, you wouldn’t have. They’re fools, those boys, not like me, not men. No, they’re not anything like me. I don’t mind you being afraid, Lindsay, because it really doesn’t matter to me. Perhaps it even amuses me. Have any boys played with your breasts? Kissed your nipples?”

She stared at him, unmoving, so afraid she was paralyzed.

“Or your crotch? Have they put their fingers in you? No? Well, I’ll make it very nice for you. Girls like to have their lips rubbed and kissed. And there’s your little clitoris. Have you masturbated much, Lindsay? Have you given yourself much pleasure? Did all the girls at your school talk about it? How much they wanted to do it?”

He leaned toward her again, his lips parted, his eyes intent on her mouth. “Have you any idea what it will feel like when I have my tongue hot on you?”

Lindsay cried out, the sound of her own voice shoving her back into reality, back into herself. But this reality was ugly and it was right here beside her. She rolled to the side away from him and onto the floor, coming up to her feet.

He was still smiling. He rose and came around the end of the bed. “Why are you afraid? It’s me, Lindsay, and you’ve loved me since you first saw me. Admit it.”

“No, no, stay back. Oh, God, you’re not what I thought you were.”

He moved quickly then, grabbed her upper arms as she tried to dodge past him, and dragged her back onto the bed. “I don’t mind if you fight me,” he was saying over and over against her cheek, his breath hot, his voice fast and high. “You won’t like it as much, but I will. Jesus, I’ll love it.” He was still smiling and she could see the gold filling in one of his back teeth.

“No, damn you, no!” She saw that words had no effect on him. He was going to rape her. The instant she thought the word, a string of stark images flashed through her mind, and she went crazy. He was ripping her cotton nightgown open at the throat and she felt cold air on her chest. She kicked her legs up; they were strong because she played soccer, and he grunted with pain. Her knees hit his groin and he grabbed her two wrists and now he pressed himself down on her, pinning her legs. He was breathing hard with exertion, trying to hold both her wrists in one of his hands, but she was too strong. She was a big girl and she was in good shape. “You’re acting like a bloody American bitch,” he yelled in her face. “Stop it, for God’s sake! Hold still for me! Don’t be like your fool of a sister!”

This was the real Alessandro, the man Sydney had married in good faith, the man Lindsay had fantasized about and dreamed about. He had set this whole trip up and he fully intended to rape her. God, she couldn’t believe—She twisted and yanked at his hold, tried to bring her legs up again to give her leverage. She was muscular, and she wasn’t going to lie there like a victim. She remembered her self-defense courses. Scream, scream, scream. Had he done this before, to Italian girls? And they’d just lain there whimpering and let him rape them? She yelled right in his face, spittle spraying him, and heaved upward, nearly knocking him to the floor off her.

Suddenly he released her left hand, and immediately she was clawing at his face. He struck his fist into her jaw. She felt pain slam into her face, saw flashes of light, and gasped. He struck her again, hard.

She was on the brink of unconsciousness for a few seconds, enough time for him to rip her nightgown open to the hem. He jerked the cotton edges apart.

He was straddling her now, keeping her legs down by sitting on them, and he was staring down at her. He was smiling; there was triumph in his dark eyes. He forced her hands down on her abdomen, holding them there.

“I hadn’t thought your breasts would be so large and your nipples so big,” he said now, dissatisfaction clear in his voice. All the softness, the gentleness, was gone. “Most young girls aren’t so filled out as you, but it doesn’t really matter. It was my choice to wait, so I have only myself to blame.” Because he couldn’t hold both her hands down with just one of his, he had to force her hands upward with his so he could touch her breasts.

She screamed at the feel of his fingers against her cold flesh.

He released her hand and hit her again with his fist. He was smiling as he hit her.

It didn’t register in her mind; she screamed again, gurgling because she was choking on her own saliva.

He grunted in fury and quickly brought his mouth down over hers. It was brutal and it hurt and she tasted blood. She was biting her own tongue. She wished he’d stick his tongue in her mouth. She’d bite it off, but he didn’t.

He struck her again, without warning.

Her head flew back and for a few moments she was unconscious. When she opened her eyes, he was between her legs and he was looking at her, his hands on her, probing, hurting. He was ready, she knew it, and he was simply waiting for her to wake up. He saw her open eyes, saw the awareness in them, and he reared back and slammed into her.

Lindsay rose up off the bed, yelling blindly with the pain. He pounded into her, harder and harder still, and she yelled and cried out, but he didn’t slow.

Her tears began to choke her. But still she yelled and cried out.

“Shut up, damn you!”

He slapped her hard, sending her head violently to the side. He was heaving now, hurting her more and more, and she realized vaguely that he was enjoying this. This was what he liked, what he was good at. This was what he’d always wanted from her. She screamed again, blood bright red on her lower lip, the coppery taste of it in her mouth. She managed to free her right hand. She slammed her fist into his mouth. He went at her in a frenzy then, striking her in rhythm with his punishing blows inside her. Then, suddenly, he tensed, his whole body freezing, his back arched. She bucked and yelled and pushed. She felt the semen burst deep inside her, and in that moment she wanted to die.

“My God! Oh, my God, no!”

Lindsay stared at the unexpected voice and yelled again, disbelieving. It was Sydney and she was watching, mouth agape, frozen just inside the open bedroom doorway.

“Help me, Sydney! Please, help me!”

The prince didn’t seem to hear his wife’s voice. He was heaving and jerking over Lindsay. And then he was groaning, and she felt his body’s contractions with the power of his orgasm.

“Help me, Sydney!”

The prince laughed and struck her again, hard on her jaw. He raised his hand again for another blow, smiling, oh he was smiling grandly, his pleasure full to bursting, but his violence still lacking.

There was a loud popping sound. The prince stiffened suddenly and then he was staring down at Lindsay, and he was frowning in confusion. Slowly he swiveled about, still inside her, to see his wife standing not ten feet away, a .32-caliber pistol held straight out toward him in her right hand.

“Sydney? Is that you? Whatever are you doing here? You should be at home. You should be tending my mother. Why did you shoot me? Why?”

Sydney, pale, still now, screamed, “By God, my own sister!” She aimed the gun and pulled the trigger again.

He shuddered when the bullet went into his flesh, then he fell sideways, sliding out of Lindsay, rocking sideways, slipping silently onto the floor.

Lindsay couldn’t grasp it. She saw the gun, saw the blood, all over the bed. She leaned over and looked at him. There was blood all over his chest, and then she saw her own blood between her legs and his sperm leaking slowly out of her. She started shaking.

She was cold, out of control, she realized vaguely, but couldn’t do anything about it. She hurt inside and out, and she couldn’t seem to think. There was Sydney standing there, dead white, eyes dilated, and holding that damned pistol straight out in front of her, and she said, her voice as dead frightening as hell because it was emotionless and singsong, “Are you all right, Lindsay?”

“N-no.”

“Jesus, I wasn’t in time. I’m sorry, Lindsay. I wasn’t in time. God, I’m so sorry. I came as soon as I found out what he’d planned. The bastard really covered his tracks this time, so it took me longer. When I realized he was still after you, I went crazy. I couldn’t believe it at first. It was too insane, too much, even for him. Oh, God, what the hell are we going to do?”

“Is he dead?”

“Dead? He should be, I shot him twice.” She looked at the prince’s sprawled naked body. “I shot him,” she said again. “I shot the bastard twice.”

Suddenly Sydney sank to her knees. She rocked back and forth, back and forth, a strange keening noise coming from her throat. The pistol fell from her fingers onto the carpet.

It was the sight of her sister—perfect Sydney, brilliant and beautiful Sydney—looking like a crazed woman that gave Lindsay a focus. It gave her a notion of reality and what it was they now faced.

She scrambled off the bed and onto the floor next to her sister. She didn’t look at the prince. He didn’t matter right now. She was unaware of her nightgown flapping around her body.

She grabbed her sister’s shoulders and shook her. “We’ve got to do something! Stop it, Sydney, for God’s sake, stop it, get hold of yourself!”

“I murdered him. There’s nothing to do. I murdered him and everything’s over now.”

She raised her face from her hands then and stared blindly at Lindsay. “Our daddy’s a judge. Isn’t that something, Lindsay? He’s a fucking judge!”

“No, no, listen to me, you saved me. He was raping me and you saved me! It was self-defense. We’ll be all right. I swear it, Sydney.”

Sydney merely stared at her, shaking her head slowly back and forth, so pale Lindsay thought she would faint. But she didn’t.

Sydney said, even as she shook her head as if in denial, “You stupid little idiot.” Her voice was now strong and hard, her eyes dark and wild. “You fool girl, you let him think you wanted this. He’s not normal. He took your silly infatuation for sexual overtures. For two years you’ve let him get you ready for this. What did he do, write you his titillating little postcards? Show you how caring and tender he was? How much he appreciated you, a very young girl? No, don’t bother saying anything. It’s far too late now. I know, you see, he never changes his routine, there’s never been any need to, because I let him have his fun. No choice really, once I figured out what he was all about. Don’t you know why he married me, Lindsay? Jesus, of course you don’t know. He married me for my future inheritance! The interest from my trust fund doesn’t begin to satisfy him. And there you are, gawking at him like he’s God. You came running, didn’t you? He loves young girls, haven’t you figured that out yet? He thinks I’m old. He thought I was too old when we got married. Eighteen is really his limit. He had to wait for you because he couldn’t get to you before. I’ll just bet he was dying, wondering if he could get to you before an American boy had taken your virginity. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I would have killed him anyway, whether or not he was raping you. You stupid little fool, Jesus, stupid, stupid.”

Sydney began crying into her hands, harsh ugly cries. Lindsay watched her, unable to move, unable to think, her half-sister’s words dinning in her mind. No, no time to think about this, it was time to act.

Lindsay shrugged off her shredded nightgown. She felt the awful stickiness between her legs, felt the vague stinging inside her. Her face throbbed from his blows. She wanted to vomit. She was eighteen years old, too young, too young, and yet there was no one else to help her. She might as well have been alone with a dead man.

What to do?

She managed to rise. She felt herself begin to tremble, knew she was about to lose control, just as Sydney had. She couldn’t allow it. She walked to the ornate telephone and picked it up. She stared at it, wondering how to ask for the police in French. Her hand shook; she stopped it. She drew a deep breath. She got a good grip on herself, and said when the operator came onto the line, “Les gendarmes, s’il vous plât. C’est tre`s important.”

Suddenly the prince groaned.