In Their Footsteps / Stolen: In Their Footsteps / Stolen

“Only because I’ve been watching your diet,” said Helena.

“Then tonight, dear,” said Reggie, plucking up another oyster, “would you mind looking the other way?” He lifted the shell to his mouth and tipped the oyster. Nirvana was written on his face as the slippery glob slid into his throat.

Helena shuddered. “It’s disgusting, eating a live animal.” She glanced at Jordan, noting his quietly bemused look. “Don’t you agree?”

Jordan gave a diplomatic shrug. “A matter of upbringing, I suppose. In some cultures, they eat termites. Or quivering fish. I’ve even heard of monkeys, their heads shaved, immobilized—”

“Oh, please,” groaned Helena.

Jordan quickly escaped before the marital spat could escalate. It was not a healthy place to be, caught between a feuding husband and wife. Lady Helena, he suspected, normally held the upper hand; money usually did.

He wandered over to join Finance Minister Philippe St. Pierre and found himself trapped in a lecture on world economics. The summit was a failure, Philippe declared. The Americans want trade concessions but refuse to learn fiscal responsibility. And on and on and on. It was almost a relief when bugle-beaded Nina Sutherland swept into the conversation, trailing her peacock son, Anthony.

“It’s not as if Americans are the only ones who have to clean up their act,” snorted Nina. “We’re none of us doing very well these days, even the French. Or don’t you agree, Philippe?”

Philippe flushed under her direct gaze. “We are all of us having difficulties, Nina—”

“Some of us more than others.”

“It is a worldwide recession. One must be patient.”

Nina’s jaw shot up. “And what if one cannot afford to wait?” She drained her glass and set it down sharply. “What then, Philippe, darling?”

Conversation suddenly ceased. Jordan noticed that Helena was watching them amusedly, that Philippe was clutching his glass in a whiteknuckled fist. What the blazes was going on here? he wondered. Some private feud? Bizarre tensions were weaving through the gathering tonight. Perhaps it’s all that free-flowing champagne. Certainly Reggie had had too much. Their portly houseguest had wandered from the oyster tray to the champagne table. With an unsteady hand, he picked up yet another glass and raised it to his lips. No one was acting quite right tonight. Not even Beryl.

Certainly not Beryl.

He spied his sister as she reentered the ballroom. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittering with some unearthly fire. Close on her heels was the American, looking just as flushed and more than a little bothered. Ah, thought Jordan with a smile. A bit of hanky-panky in the garden, was it? Well, good for her. Poor Beryl could use some fresh romance in her life, anything to make her forget that chronically unfaithful surgeon.

Beryl whisked up a glass of champagne from a passing servant and headed Jordan’s way. “Having fun?” she asked him.

“Not as much as you, I suspect.” He glanced across at Richard Wolf, who’d just been waylaid by some American businessman. “So,” he whispered, “did you wring a confession out of him?”

“Not a thing.” She smiled over her champagne glass. “Extremely tight-lipped.”

“Really?”

“But I’ll have another go at him later. After I let him cool his heels for a while.”

Lord, how beautiful his baby sister could be when she was happy, thought Jordan. Which, it seemed, wasn’t very often lately. Too much passion in that heart of hers; it made her far more vulnerable than she’d ever admit. For a year now she’d been lying doggo, had dropped out entirely from the old mating game. She’d even given up her charity work at St. Luke’s—a job she’d dearly loved. It was too painful, always running into her ex-lover on the hospital grounds.

But tonight the old sparkle was back in her eyes and he was glad to see it. He noticed how it flared even more brightly as Richard Wolf glanced her way. All those flirtatious looks passing back and forth! He could almost feel the crackle of electricity flying between them.

“…a well-deserved honor, of course, but a bit late, don’t you think, Jordan?”

Jordan glanced in puzzlement at Reggie Vane’s flushed face. The man had been drinking entirely too much. “Excuse me,” he said, “I’m afraid I wasn’t following.”

“The Queen’s medal for Leo Sinclair. You remember Leo, don’t you? Wonderful chap. Killed a year and a half ago. Or was it two years?” He gave his head a little shake, as though to clear it. “Anyway, they’re just getting ’round to giving the widow his medal. I think that’s inexcusable.”

“Not everyone who was killed in the Gulf got a medal,” Nina Sutherland cut in.

“But Leo was Intelligence,” said Reggie. “He deserved some sort of honor, considering how he…died.”

“Perhaps it was just an oversight,” said Jordan. “Papers getting mislaid, that sort of thing. MI6 does try to honor its dead, and Leo sort of fell through the cracks.”

“The way Mum and Dad did,” said Beryl. “They died in the line of duty. And they never got a medal.”

“Line of duty?” said Reggie. “Not exactly.” He lifted the champagne glass unsteadily to his lips. Suddenly he paused, aware that the others were staring at him. The silence stretched on, broken only by the clatter of an oyster shell on someone’s plate.

“What do you mean by ‘not exactly’?” asked Beryl.

Reggie cleared his throat. “Surely…Hugh must have told you…” He looked around and his face blanched. “Oh, no,” he murmured, “I’ve put my foot in it this time.”

“Told us what, Reggie?” Jordan persisted.

“But it was public knowledge,” said Reggie. “It was in all the Paris newspapers…”

“Reggie,” Jordan said slowly. Deliberately. “Our understanding was that my mother and father were shot in Paris. That it was murder. Is that not true?”

“Well, of course there was a murder involved—”

“A murder?” Jordan cut in. “As in singular?”

Reggie glanced around, befuddled. “I’m not the only one here who knows about it. You were all in Paris when it happened!”

For a few heartbeats, no one said a thing. Then Helena added, quietly, “It was a very long time ago, Jordan. Twenty years. It hardly makes a difference now.”

“It makes a difference to us,” Jordan insisted. “What happened in Paris?”

Helena sighed. “I told Hugh he should’ve been honest with you, instead of trying to bury it.”

“Bury what?” asked Beryl.

Helena’s mouth drew tight.

It was Nina who finally spoke the truth. Brazen Nina, who had never bothered with subtleties. She said flatly, “The police said it was a murder. Followed by a suicide.”

Beryl stared at Nina. Saw the other woman’s gaze meet hers without flinching. “No,” she whispered.

Gently Helena touched her shoulder. “You were just a child, Beryl. Both of you were. And Hugh didn’t think it was appropriate—”

Beryl said again, “No,” and pulled away from Helena’s outstretched hand. Suddenly she whirled and fled in a rustle of blue silk across the ballroom.

“Thank you. All of you,” said Jordan coldly. “For your most refreshing candor.” Then he, too, turned and headed across the room in pursuit of his sister.

He caught up with her on the staircase. “Beryl?”

“It’s not true,” she said. “I don’t believe it!”