Fancy Pants Read Online Free PDF Page A

Harrods, he reappeared as abruptly as he'd
left. "Hello, pet," he said, standing in the doorway of her house with
his cashmere suit coat carelessly hooked over his shoulder. "I've
missed you."

She fell into his arms, sobbing out her relief at seeing him again.
"Jack . . . Jack, my darling . . ."

He ran his thumb across her bottom lip, then kissed her. She drew back
her hand and slapped him hard across the face. "I'm pregnant, you
bastard!"

To her surprise, he immediately agreed to marry her, and they were wed
three days later at the country home of one of her friends. As she
stood next to her handsome bridegroom at the makeshift garden altar,
Chloe knew that she was the happiest woman in the world. Black Jack Day
could have married anyone, but he had chosen her. As the weeks passed,
she determinedly ignored a rumor that his family had disinherited him
when he was in Chicago. Instead, she daydreamed about her baby. How
exquisite it would be to have the undivided love of two people, husband
and child.

A month later, Jack disappeared, along with ten thousand pounds that
had been resting in one of Chloe's bank accounts. When he reappeared
six weeks later, Chloe shot him in the shoulder with a German Luger. A
brief reconciliation followed, until Jack enjoyed another turn of good
fortune at the gambling clubs and was off again.

On Valentine's Day 1955, Lady Luck permanently deserted Black Jack Day
on the treacherous rain-slicked road between Nice and Monte Carlo. The
ivory ball dropped for the last time into its compartment and the
roulette wheel jerked to a final stop.
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2
One of the widowed Chloe's former lovers sent his Silver Cloud Rolls to
take her home from the hospital after she'd given birth to her
daughter. Comfortably ensconced in its plush leather seats, Chloe gazed
down at the tiny flannel-wrapped baby who had been so spectacularly
conceived in the center of
Harrods' fur salon and ran her finger along the child's soft cheek. "My
beautiful little Francesca," she murmured. "You won't need a father or
a grandmother. You won't need anyone but me . . . because
I'm going to give you everything in the world."

Unfortunately for Black Jack's daughter, Chloe proceeded to do exactly
that.

In 1961, when Francesca was six years old and Chloe twenty-six, the two
of them posed for a fashion spread in British Vogue. On the left side
of the page was the often reproduced black-and-white Karsh photograph
of Nita wearing a dress from her Gypsy collection, and on the right,
Chloe and Francesca. Mother and daughter stood in a sea of crumpled
white backdrop paper, both of them dressed in black. The white paper,
their pale white skin, and their black velvet cloaks with flowing hoods
made the photograph a study in contrasts. The only real color came from
four jolts of piercing green—the unforgettable Serritella eyes leaping
out from the page, shimmering like imperial jewels.

After the shock of the photograph had worn off, more critical readers
noted that the glamorous Chloe's features were, perhaps, not quite as
exotic as her mother's. But even the most critical could find no fault
with the child. She looked like a fantasy of a perfect little girl,
with a beatific smile and an angel's unearthly beauty shining in the
oval of her tiny face. Only the photographer who had taken the picture
viewed the child differently. He had two small scars, like twin white
dashes, on the back of his hand where her sharp little front teeth had
bitten through his skin.

"No, no, pet," Chloe had admonished the afternoon Francesca had bitten
the photographer. "We mustn't bite the nice man." She wagged a long
fingernail polished a shiny ebony at her daughter.

Francesca glared mutinously at her mother. She wanted to be home
playing with her new puppet theater, not having her picture taken by an
ugly man who kept telling her not to wiggle. She stubbed the toe of one
shiny black patent leather shoe into the crumpled sheets of white
backdrop paper and