Kiss an Angel(130)

As he faced the older man, he saw how Max had aged in the past month. Some of the starch had left his diplomat’s spine. His movements seemed slower, his voice a bit less firm. In his own way, narrow and judgmental as Alex believed it to be, Max did love Daisy, and he was suffering.

Alex gazed for a moment at the silver samovar he’d located for Max in a Paris gallery. It had been designed by Peter Carl Fabergé for Czar Alexander III and was imprinted with the two-headed Russian imperial eagle. The dealer had told Alex it was made in 1886, but the detail in the work made Alex place it closer to 1890.

Contemplating the genius of Fabergé was easier than thinking about what he needed to tell Max. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks, then drew them out. He cleared his throat. “Daisy had more to be upset about than what I did to her with the whip.”

The older man grew instantly alert. “Oh?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“I told you so,” Amelia said from the couch.

Max and Amelia shared a conspiratorial look that made Alex instantly alert. Max regarded her fondly. “You did tell me, didn’t you, my dear.”

“And Alex behaved badly when he heard the news.”

Amelia was annoying, but she wasn’t stupid, and the old pain struck, strong and sharp. “I behaved badly,” he agreed.

Amelia regarded her husband smugly. “I told you that would happen, too.”

Alex swallowed hard before he forced out the ugly words. “I ordered her to have an abortion.”

Max’s lips pinched. “You didn’t.”

“You can’t say anything to me I haven’t already said to myself.”

“Do you still feel that way, about it?”

“Of course, he doesn’t,” Amelia said. “You only have to look at him to see that. Guilt’s hanging over him like a bad hairdo.” She rose from the couch. “I’m late for my facial. You two will have to sort this out for yourselves. Congratulations, Max.”

Alex noted both Amelia’s final words and the telling smile she gave Max. He stared at her as she left the room and knew that something important had passed between them.

“Is Amelia right?” Max demanded. “Have you changed your mind?”

“I didn’t mean it when I said it. She’d scared the hell out of me, and I was running on adrenaline.” He studied Max. “Amelia wasn’t surprised to hear about Daisy’s pregnancy, yet she knew she was taking birth control pills. Why is that?”

Max walked over to a walnut cabinet where he gazed through the glass doors at his porcelain collection. “We were both hoping, that’s all.”

“You’re lying, damn it! Daisy told me Amelia filled the prescription for her. Tell me the truth.”

“It was—we did what we thought was best.”

A great stillness fell over Alex. He thought of the small compartmentalized compacts that held Daisy’s pills. As if he were seeing them for the first time, he remembered that the pills had been unprotected. In an age when so many medications were in blister packs, these pills hadn’t been covered by anything more than the lid of the compact.

The ever-present constriction in his chest tightened. Once again he had failed to trust his wife, and once again he’d been wrong. “You planned this, didn’t you; just like you planned everything else. Somehow you substituted pills.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The hell you don’t. The truth, Max. I want it now.”

The older man seemed to collapse. His knees bent, and he slumped down into the chair nearest him. “Don’t you see? It was my duty.”

“Your duty. Of course that’s how you’d see it. I can’t believe I was so stupid. I’ve always known how obsessed you were with family history, but it never occurred to me that you’d do something like this.” Bitterness welled in his stomach. From the beginning, he and Daisy had been nothing but puppets serving Max’s obsession with the past.

“Something like what? By God, you should be grateful.” Max erupted from the chair. His finger shook as he pointed it toward Alex. “For a man who’s an historian, you have no sense of your own lineage. You’re the great-grandson of the czar!”

“I’m a Markov. That’s the only family history that means anything to me.”

“A worthless band of vagabonds. Vagabonds, do you hear me? You’re a Romanov, and it’s your duty to have a child. But you wanted no part of it, did you?”

“It was my decision, not yours!”

“This is bigger than some selfish whim.”