Sleeping Beauty Read Online Free PDF Page A

have a surprise or two the Vice-Chancellor doesn’t suspect—”
    “You’re mistaken. That woman is the widow of an Englishman. Her name is Wild, Mrs. Wild.”
    “Ha- ha! ” Teddy exclaimed, as if this proved his point. “Right-o. Nicole Villars Wild. Married a doddering old retired admiral of the Royal Navy when Louis-Napoleon’s empire collapsed, lots of money. Lived with her admiral in Italy somewhere till the fellow died and left her even more filthy rich than before. That’s the one,. James. Coco Wild to her friends. The one. The only.”
    James glanced at Teddy, who, even sober, frequently got his facts confused. He stared back at Mrs. Wild. She was lovely; there was no doubt. Petite, feminine; stylish, smiling. That she should be…well, anything other than what she seemed was impossible. Unthinkable. “You’re wrong,” he said flatly.
    “All right. Explain all her money. And why men give her houses.”
    Across the room, Mrs. Wild accepted a champagne glass from a barrel-chested man in a natty evening suit, his white silk scarf still over his shoulders. Their party must have just arrived.
    Teddy slouched toward James, reaching up to sling his arm around James’s shoulder. “Here’s what I’ve heard.” His voice dropped to the whisper of shared, delectable secrets. “Prince Napoleon, the emperor’s cousin, built her an astonishing house.Huge. Marble staircases, an onyx tub the size of a small pond, with jeweled faucets. Legend has it he filled it with champagne and she bathed in it nude for him. Then later some eastern shah or other filled it with orchids and had her picture painted in it, up to her naked shoulders in fat purple orchids. She has another house here. No one is willing to speculate who paid for it. The money came through a small private banking house. She’s terribly discreet. And has a bevy of smaller properties in England and on the Continent, a regular real estate tycoon over the last decade.”
    James tried to imagine what a woman could do to merit such gifts. A woman other than one’s wife.
    A wicked woman.
    Wicked . He ran his mind around the word, caressing it. While he stared at the very nice woman from the dentist’s office. From across the room, he watched her wide, mobile mouth, red and smiling. She didn’t look wicked. She looked human, warm in her demeanor. And genuine. There was no pretense to her interest in those around her, in her easy composure. She chatted, laughed with her companions—three men and two women of whom James knew only one, a showy, abrasive American he’d met once and didn’t much like; he couldn’t remember his name.
    “Who is her ‘protector’ now?” James asked.
    Teddy shrugged, his slung arm sliding along James’s shoulder. “No one, I suppose. That’s the rub. Giving a woman all that money, so many things. Well, she simply doesn’t need a man any longer, does she?”
    The question went unanswered, for Athers suddenly cut between James and Teddy and the rest of the room. The man was moving at a clip, on a mission.
    James watched him head through the crowd directly toward Phillip Dunne, the Vice-Chancellor. Phillip would soothe whatever was wrong, James didn’t doubt. But James was fascinated to understand so clearly that soothing was necessary. Athers spoke heatedly to the Vice-Chancellor for perhaps a minute. Phillip nodded. The Bishop spoke some more. More nodding, an exchange, then some sort of agreement. The two of them signaled someone across the room. The majordomo. Before the chief steward could get over to the men, however, Athers’s wife had joined the group. She spoke intently, mostly to her husband, all the while smoothing the front of her gown, one gloved hand down her skirt, once, twice, and again. As if she could smooth out her own agitation: she too displayed an inappropriate choler.
    The majordomo arrived, after which a quiet, though heated, discussion ensued.
    James frowned at the foursome. Phillip, he imagined, was