Hide and Seek Read online

  At nineteen, the Blond Arrow began to make the gossip columns as well. He was “fox hunting with friends in Gloucestershire,” “grouse shooting on Lord Dunne's moor near Balmoral,” “playing polo at Swinley Forest, in the presence of the Royal Family. The Blond Arrow cuts a dashing figure—wherever and with whomever.”

  When he was twenty, Will led Liverpool to the League championship. He was arguably the biggest star in Europe. He was runner-up for FIFA's Best World Player award. “Frankly, Scarlett,” he commented on the award, “I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks of my playing. I'll tell you whether I'm the best or not.”

  During the same time, Will had been playing international football with the U.S. team. It was his stubborn attempt to keep some connection with America. He quickly tired of being a very good player on a team of donkeys. He quit the team, and thus all international play.

  The news stories rapidly became disturbing, and therefore much more interesting to the public. There were hints of alcohol abuse, of drugs, and worse. “Personal reasons” made him miss practices before games. Liverpool transferred him to an ambitious rival for two million pounds. In the off-season, Will began to drive Grand Prix race cars, an avocation forbidden by his contract. “If I live, it doesn't matter. If I die, it doesn't matter,” he was quoted on the racing flap.

  The Blond Arrow was all the rage—absolutely irresistible.

  CHAPTER 20

  IRRESITIBLE.

  Will drove Melanie Wellsfleet's supercharged red Ferrari sports car to her estate in Somerset. He got the new automobile up to over 115 at one point on the narrow, curvy road, and was seldom under ninety for the length of the trip.

  “It's not a bloody race car!” Melanie laughed and shouted during one harrowing stretch of high speed and danger.

  “It is now. With me at the wheel it is. Hang on, Mel. Ride of your life and all that.”

  The estate in Somerset was everything Will had expected—and much, much more. The grounds seemed to have been tended with tweezers; the twenty-six rooms inside Ryertton Hall were like a Tudor museum.

  “My boss lives very well off my efforts,” Will said to Melanie as she guided him through each of the nine bedrooms. Melanie was the thirty-one-year-old wife of Sir Charles Wellsfleet, who owned Will's football team, as well as a stable of racehorses and a well-respected publishing house. Charles Wellsfleet was sixty-nine years old.

  “Charles owned this house long before you made the scene,” Melanie laughed, and gave Will a hug. They had been carrying on their secretive affair for the past four weeks. She couldn't get enough of Will, and was sure he felt the same way about her. He couldn't be faking that, the former high-fashion model reassured herself during an occasional “blue” moment.

  “I missed you, I want you, I need you,” Melanie announced when they reached the master suite with its commanding view of a topiary garden and water terrace. “What do you need? What do you want?”

  He seemed bemused by the question. He wandered around the spacious suite, searching through Melanie's dresser drawers and her huge walk-in closet. He selected several dresses, evening gowns, lingerie, stockings, shoes, and laid them all out on the bed and floor.

  “May I ask what you're up to, Will?” Melanie pouted just a little. “I didn't know you had a fetish for my clothing.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Will you model for me? I've never seen you in any of these lovely getups. I'd very much like to.”

  Melanie smiled. She loved his imagination, his games, his need to play. He wasn't another empty-headed player like so many others she'd sampled in the past. Will had also lived up to his reputation as a sensational lover. She now thoroughly understood this “Blond Arrow” business. She was obsessed with him, and couldn't imagine any healthy woman who wouldn't be. He was that damn good.

  She tried on Karl Lagerfeld evening dresses, a black dress by Jil Sander, sandals by Chloé. Will sat on the bed, gloriously naked, playing with himself, and watching her every move.

  She already knew that he could keep himself hard for hours. If he had a problem in the sack, it was climaxing. So far, he hadn't with her. It was something to look forward to, no?

  She was wearing a red gown and a lustrous pearl choker when she found that she couldn't stand it any longer. She scampered across the floor toward Will and his beautiful arrow.

  “Please, please, please me!” she laughed and swooned in a theatrical fashion. “Let me fall on your sword.”

  Will didn't let her take off the Carolina Herrera, worth thousands of dollars. Not even her Ernesto Esposito pumps. He used the Hermés scarfs and nylons to tie Melanie to the bedposts. Then he made love to her for several hours. He helped her come so many times that he finally lost count. He didn't climax himself.

  Sir Charles Wellsfleet arrived at the estate in Somerset around eleven that evening. He'd had a frightfully long day of meetings in London, and expected to find Melanie asleep in the bedroom, as usual.

  His wife was wide-awake, however. Her eyes were like huge blue marbles, and she looked as though she had been sobbing for days. She was still tied to the bedposts with the scarfs and nylons, wearing nothing but the choker. Her face was puffy, but as pale as the pearls. The expensive Italian lingerie was strewn about the bed along with the shoes and the torn Herrera gown.

  That summer, Will was transferred from Sir Charles's team. The press suspected everything except the truth: Will had tired of Melanie. The Blond Arrow needed to move on to a much larger stage.

  CHAPTER 21

  WILL INVITED HIS brother, Palmer, to his Chelsea apartment one afternoon before the new season began. Though it was expensively furnished, the living space seemed sterile, almost as if no one lived there. A Maggie Bradford record played softly, soothingly, in the background.

  “I need your help,” Will said, sipping the expensive brandy he had poured for them. Actually, it was his fourth or fifth brandy, and the third time he'd played the same record.

  Palmer looked at his brother, surprised. Will never seemed to need anything, from anyone. “How could I possibly help you, Will?”

  “I need a manager. I think you'd be perfect. I've thought about it a lot, actually.”

  “A manager! I thought Jacob Golding did that.”

  “He handles my business affairs. I mean a personal manager. Someone to look after me. Keep me out of trouble.” I'm starting to scare myself, brother. If you won't help me, then who will?

  “A bloody nursemaid, Will?” Palmer shook his head and laughed.

  Will shrugged. “If that's what you want to call it. Will you do it? The pay is awfully good.”

  Palmer swallowed his brandy and stood up. “Not a chance, big brother.”

  “Why? What are you doing now that's so important?”

  “As a matter of fact, I've got a good job in the marketing department of Cadbury's. But even if I were out of work, I wouldn't do it.”

  Will smiled. “Because you hate me?”

  Palmer shook his head. His hair was blond, like his brother's, but cut, short. “No. Because I hate living in your shadow. I don't hate you, Will. No one can hate you.”

  “You won't help then? Even if I told you that I'm desperately unhappy? That I'm running on empty? That night after night I think of killing myself?”

  Palmer couldn't take his eyes off his fabulously handsome and successful brother. He sat down again. “Are you bloody serious, Will? Or are you play-acting again? Is this another of your mind games?”

  “Completely fucking serious. I want to kill myself right now. Even as we speak. Do I sound like I'm playing a mind game?”

  “My God,” Palmer said. “I think you are serious. Or mad. Or quite possibly, both.”

  “I'm no good,” Will said. “No damn good. Never have been. You're the only one who can help me, Palmer. We have to stick together.”

  Palmer stood, a strange, sad half smile on his face. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I can't help you, Will. You'll have to find somebody else.”
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  Will watched his brother leave. He refilled his snifter with brandy and drank it in a gulp. “But who is there to find?” he whispered. “Who could there possibly be to really love me?”

  CHAPTER 22

  FACE THE MUSIC, Maggie. It's time to get to Will, to really talk about Will, to get it out once and for all. This is what everybody came to hear.

  People ask, especially reporters, how I could have fallen in love with Will? I always want to say—you would have too, in a millisecond. Don't kid yourself. That wasn't the way it happened though—not for me.

  But Will could be extremely charming. You have no idea! And I was extremely needy. I wanted to be loved more than anything else. I'd always wanted that. Doesn't everybody? Don't you?

  It happened like this, more or less anyway. This is the truth, and nothing but, so help me.

  I began my first European tour in London. It was tense, wild, but quite wonderful. The best of times. Jennie and I stayed at Claridge's. We went to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and saw The Mousetrap, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben. We were fantastic tourists together, and best friends. The two of us never shut up.

  I was to give two concerts in London. And I was the honored guest at a costume ball in Mayfair, admission £1000, all receipts given to the fight against children's cancer.

  The night of the charity party, I made a “grand entrance” into the living room of our hotel suite.

  “Mom, no! You're not going out in public like that!” Jennie said, and made a face as though she'd just had a sip of warm stout.

  I held a gold lamé vizard, a costume ball mask, up to my eyes. I peered into the mirror and then doubled over with laughter. Jennie was right on. I was straining the seams of my stiff antique ball gown, and my breasts were exposed farther than I'd imagined. Sheesh.

  “Of course I'm going out like this. I think it's perfect. So would Barbara Cartland.”

  “Who's Barbara Cartland? Your fancy dressmaker? The costume designer for Dracula?”

  “You don't know who Barbara Cartland is? Well, that proves you don't know anything about masquerades. You don't get a vote on this.”

  Jennie rolled her eyes. She buried both hands in her long hair. “But who are you supposed to be? Don't,leave me in such terrible suspense.”

  “A queen in the court of Louis the Fourteenth. Who else?”

  Jennie giggled. She dropped down to the thick carpet and rolled over a few times.

  “You look more like a stripper. Sorry. Sorry. Just kidding, Mom.”

  “You better be.”

  Anyway, what difference did it make how I looked? It was all a dream, wasn't it? None of this could possibly be real. It was too good, and I was way too happy.

  CHAPTER 23

  THIS WAS SO not-me. That's why it was perfect. The grand ball was held in the home of Lord Trevelyan, a four-storied Georgian mansion lit for the evening by enormous searchlights placed on the roofs of the opposite buildings.

  When my car arrived, so did the black cab of a boisterous group impersonating the Bloomsbury literary crowd. They were dressed in knickers, suffragette blouses, and long puffed skirts, carrying dusty books and baskets of cut flowers. Jennie would have approved.

  I went inside with the Bloomsbury characters to find at least two hundred guests, all outfitted in an array of costumes from all centuries and walks of life, sipping champagne (a glass was quickly served me) and chatting the night away.

  Soon a trumpet sounded and the guests grew silent. Down the steps leading to the main foyer in which most of us were gathered came—Queen Elizabeth I! Her crown of rubies and sapphires glistened in the light; her dress, festooned with a thousand pearls, was as regal as its wearer. This is a dream, right? A neat dream though.

  The “Queen” was, of course, Lady Trevelyan, our hostess. “Supper is served,” a butler announced, and we entered a magnificent dining room. We feasted on salmon, salads, cheeses, fresh fruits, and petit fours. After an hour or so, Lady Trevelyan rose and nodded to two footmen. The doors were swung open to the grand ballroom. Soon music started, a series of waltzes and fox-trots.

  A man strode toward me on the dance floor. I would have turned away, but it was crowded, and there was nowhere to go.

  He was dressed all in black, a hood over his head, a mask covering his face, so that only his eyes were visible. He had beautiful eyes, I couldn't help noticing. Something moved inside me. Strange.

  “You're Maggie Bradford,” he said. “Please give me your jewels or I'll be forced to steal them.”

  “You have the advantage,” I said. “You know my name, but I don't know yours.”

  He bowed and raised my hand to his lips. “I'm Raffles, the infamous thief, at your service. And I'd rather steal your heart than your jewels.”

  I didn't look away from his eyes. “Then let me see your face. I don't let just anyone steal my heart.”

  I didn't know what to make of him. Lots of men had tried to seduce me since I had become someone, but this was a new approach. Hi, I'd like to steal your jewels, or maybe, your heart.

  He bowed again, and with a single gesture removed his mask and hood.

  Before me, without any exaggeration, stood one of the most handsome men I had ever seen. His blond hair hung down to his shoulders, and his green eyes blazed with an all-consuming light. Music came into my head. His tanned skin announced that he spent a lot of time outdoors, but his face was unlined; he was still young. His smile—and he was smiling now—revealed perfect white teeth and the skin around his jaw was smooth and taut.

  “Raffles. Really? And what do they call you in the light of day?” I asked.

  “Will,” he said, “Will Shepherd.” He took a step back to study the effect his name had.

  It had no effect. I had never heard of him. “A nice name.” I had noticed his accent. “You're American?”

  “By birth. I've spent most of my life in England. I resisted sounding like one of them. I'm stubborn sometimes. Most of the time.”

  “And what do you do, Mr. Shepherd? Besides conduct highway robberies?”

  If possible, his smile grew even brighter. “I'm afraid that I play football. Or soccer, as you would call it. You could come someday to see me play.”

  “I'd enjoy that. I guess I would. Although I should warn you, I'm not much of a sports fan.”

  “Yet I'm an unabashed fan of yours,” Will said.

  “I love your music,” he went on. “The lyrics especially. You seem to understand.”

  Suddenly he took me by the arm. “I play your songs all the time, Maggie Bradford. I want to take you home with me tonight. I'm telling you the truth. I want to make love to you. Let's get out of here. You know you want to.”

  How could he say that to me? How could he? … You know you want to!

  “How dare you speak to me this way,” I shouted over the music.

  I slapped him hard, and he stepped back, surprised. My voice must have reached the musicians, for they stopped in mid-melody. Everyone was staring at us.

  I didn't care. His touch on my arm was Phillip's touch; his words were Phillip's words.

  “If you had really listened to my songs, you'd know what I think of cheap come-ons,” I said. My voice was shaking, my whole body was. “You've ruined this party for me. I don't give a damn if you're the best soccer and football player in the world. To me you're dirt-common, filth, and if you ever dare speak to me again, I'll—” I was about to say—kill you.

  He had already moved away, so I didn't finish. I watched him—we all watched him—walk across the room to the door, his head held high, long hair flowing, his steps measured, manly, but absolutely revolting to me.

  I stood very still, fighting down embarrassment and rage. The music started again; people began to dance. Lady Trevelyan came up to me and gently touched the back of my hand.

  “I'm sorry,” I blurted, and felt close to tears. “So sorry. I didn't mean to make a scene. I'm so sorry.”

  “Don't
even think about it,” she said, her voice on the edge of laughter. “You gave Will Shepherd exactly what he deserved, and there isn't a woman in this room who isn't cheering for you right now.” Finally, the hostess did laugh. “Of course, they'd all hop into bed with him given the chance. But bravo for you anyway.”

  Book Two

  Calm Before the Storm

  CHAPTER 24

  IT WAS ONE of the earliest court appointments—I don't remember which. All I know was that I was so glad to be leaving prison for any reason, even just to travel back and forth to court.

  I felt that I was wearing my scarlet M, of course. I'm innocent, until proven guilty, but not in the minds of an awful lot of people, or so I've found. People who don't know me have already prejudged and condemned me.

  For some, I'm guilty of murder. For others, they assume that I must have slept around, though God knows, nothing could be farther from the truth. The worst hurt of all, the deepest wound, comes from those who judge me a bad mother. If they saw me for ten minutes with my children—if they asked my kids about their mother—they'd know how wrong they are.

  But I am prejudged. Women, I think, are guilty until proven innocent. And many of the worst accusers are other women. Why is that?

  So I wore my scarlet M to court that summer morning. I was just glad to be outside. The pollen count must have been high, since several people we passed on the streets were sneezing, and the parked cars were blanketed with a thin, green dust.

  The guards from the prison knew me, and liked me, and they tried to protect me from the inevitable crowds at the courthouse. A few of the “faithful,” “Maggie's mob,” had brought their angry placards. “Maggie Is a Murderer” and “Husband Killer” and “Give Maggie a CHAIR, She Looks Tired From All That Killing.”

  “Keep your head down, Maggie, and just follow us straight in,” one of the guards told me.

  I had spent so much time inside, cut off from the world, that I wanted to look—but the guard was right. I dropped my head, even though it made me look guilty.