Chapter 32

AT THE BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL

AUGUST 4

There is a strange feeling of unreality after a traumatic event like the one we have just experienced. My feelings are suddenly very raw and all I can think of is going home to England, back to normality. I have had enough of film stars and palm trees!

A trundle bed was put up in my bedroom for Belinda. Algie was sent, protesting, in search of Tubby Halliday. I rather thought those two deserved each other. Next day Mummy was magnanimous for once and took Belinda and me shopping for clothes. I was grateful for this even though we found nothing as glamorous as the backless evening gown and silk pajamas. I wondered if I would ever see their like again—ever be able to afford their like. Mummy even sprang for a new uniform for Queenie, even though she protested about this. “I can’t think why you ever took her back, darling. Utter disaster.”

“She did save Claudette,” I reminded her.

Darcy was gone all the next day, busy with the sheriff. Ronnie came to visit us, the usual worried frown on his face. It seemed the remaining wild animals had been rounded up and sent to the Los Angeles Zoo. After an extensive manhunt for Juan, his charred body was finally found, pinned against the fence at the top of the property where he had been trying to get out. So he had been trapped by his own fire. Served him right. He might have had a grudge against Mr. Goldman, but he could easily have killed us all. And those poor animals too. Ronnie said that a date for the funeral had been set and Mrs. Goldman was going to stay on for a while, determined that the studio and all of Cy’s hard work would survive. She seemed utterly devastated by his death.

On our third day back at the Beverly Hills Hotel a small package was delivered to me.

“This came for you, Lady Georgiana,” the bellboy said. “By hand.”

I opened it. Inside was a small velvet pouch and inside that was a huge and gorgeous ruby pendant. I ran after the bellboy who had brought it to me. “Wait. Who delivered this by hand?” I asked.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “It was left at the front desk with the words ‘For Lady Georgiana. By hand.’ That’s all I know.”

I handed it over to Darcy when he showed up that evening. He whistled as he looked at the ruby, sparkling red fire in his hand.

“So your friend Bella really must have decided to go straight,” he said. “I’ll have to deliver this back to Princess Promila. She will be pleased. And at least I’ll have something positive to show for my journey here.”

“You aren’t going to stay and hunt down Bella?”

“If this came by hand then she’s still in the area and it’s quite possible she’s staying with her sister,” he said. “I’ll certainly follow up on that.”

“I think it’s unlikely,” I said. “She took the first opportunity to slip away from us at the estate. Her sister may know where she is, but I bet she won’t tell, not after Bella saved her life.”

Darcy shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. I have no warrant for her arrest and no official jurisdiction anyway. And as far as we know she has committed no crime in America, apart from the diamond ring we presume she stole on the ship.”

I laughed. “I forgot to tell you about that. Bella says she didn’t take it and she suspected the woman said it had been stolen in order to claim on the insurance. She said people do it all the time.”

Darcy smiled. “How interesting. I’ll hand that tidbit of information over to the New York police. Not that they’ll ever be able to prove anything. Pity. A woman like that should get her just deserts for once. And when I get home I’ll give my report to Scotland Yard and they’ll be on the lookout for Miss Brightwell if she ever decides to come home to England.”

I felt rather glad that Bella wasn’t going to prison, at least not in the foreseeable future. And if she was with her sister, then I was glad of that too. Stella would need someone to comfort her with Cy gone.

I was plucking up courage to remind Darcy about our day out alone when he said, “Look, Georgie. I should really deliver the ruby back to the princess right away.” He obviously read the disappointment in my face because he went on hurriedly, “So we’d better make our day out tomorrow before I catch the night train back to New York. I’ll go and see about that motorcar.”

It was a sparkling fine morning when we set off for the coast. Beverly Hills looked at its pastel best with its palm trees shimmering in a light morning breeze.

I glanced across at Darcy and felt a great bubble of happiness inside me. I was in an open sports car with the man I loved beside me and a whole day ahead of us. Darcy had ordered a picnic basket from the hotel and a bottle of bubbly. Thank heavens for the end of prohibition!

“Someone suggested we drive as far as Santa Barbara to the north,” he said, “but I’m not sure we want to waste the whole day together in a motorcar, are you?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “I say we find the first little cove and have our picnic there.”

So we turned north at Santa Monica, with its funfair and pier giving the place a festive feel. “Too public,” Darcy said and we shared a grin. Then the road narrowed and hugged the shoreline as we retraced our route to Mr. Goldman’s ill-fated castle. We had only gone a few miles when we saw the perfect spot. A narrow strip of beach below the highway with big rocks on one side, and nobody else in sight. Darcy pulled off the road. We took the picnic basket and climbed down the sandy cliff to the beach. It was a narrow half moon of sand, strewn with driftwood. A flight of pelicans drifted past. We found a spot out of the wind among the rocks and changed into our bathing suits.

“Do you want to go for a swim first?” Darcy asked.

“All right. Last one in is a rotten egg.” I ran toward the waves, reached them and stopped short with a yell. “It’s absolutely freezing,” I said.

Darcy joined me, laughing. “Yes, I’m afraid California is never noted for its warm water,” he said. “Even in summer.”

“I think I’ve changed my mind about swimming,” I said.

“Where’s that rugged Scottish blood, Georgiana Rannoch?” Without hesitation he dived into an oncoming wave. Of course after that I could hardly back out. I took a deep breath and plunged in after him. A large wave broke over me, submerging me whether I wanted it or not and tumbling me over and over. I felt Darcy’s hand gripping my arm and pulling me to the surface. “Sorry, I should probably have warned you that the waves can be rather fierce too. But good for bodysurfing.”

“How do you do that?”

He dove into a breaking wave and rode it into the shore. “Like that.”

I wasn’t quite as successful, but I think I got the hang of it after a while. When we rode a powerful wave in together and it ended by flinging us up onto the beach we lay there gasping, side by side. Then before I could recover Darcy turned to me, swept me into his arms and started kissing me. His lips felt cold and salty and the salt tingled on my body as it dried in the sun. Waves rushed in past us and receded again, but I was only conscious of his body pressing against mine, his lips crushing mine, his tongue in my mouth. Oh golly, I wanted him badly. I had never felt a surge of desire like this. I had never known such desire to be possible.

Who knows what this might have led to but a loud honking and catcalls from the road above revealed that we were all too visible to passing motorcars. We broke apart, with a guilty smile. Darcy helped me up and hand in hand we went back to our towels. I wrapped my towel around me and sat there, watching him as he stood there, his dark hair tousled by sea and sand. I took in every inch of him, the muscular chest with just a little dark hair in the middle, the slim waist and then the bathing trunks below it. I think my eyes lingered there longer than they should. I looked up to find him eyeing me with amusement, and I blushed.

“I’ll open the champers, shall I?” he asked, reaching into the bag and not waiting for a reply. He poured two glasses and sat beside me against a large boulder. It was warm in the sun and smelled of the sea. Darcy raised his glass to me. “To us,” he whispered. “Hoping it won’t be too long.”

“Amen to that,” I said, clinking glasses with him.

We sipped and he laughed. “I think you’re actually quite a hot little piece, Miss Georgie,” he said. “There is something of your mother in you after all.”

“Golly, I hope not too much. You want a wife who will be faithful to you forever, don’t you?”

He looked at me long and hard. “I know what I want,” he said.

I felt the shiver go all the way down my spine.

“We should see what they packed for us to eat,” I said uneasily and turned to open the hamper. There was a delightful assortment of sandwiches, fresh cheeses, fruit and biscuits. It’s amazing how hungry swimming in a cold ocean can make one. We both tucked in, Darcy sitting close beside me.

“It’s a good thing we started out early,” he said looking out over the ocean. “It seems that the fog might be coming in again.”

And indeed what looked like a bank of dark cloud now lay over the horizon. We put away the picnic, then went for a walk along the beach, hand in hand, with me pausing to pick up shells and interesting pieces of driftwood. We talked about what kind of house we’d like and where it should be and whether we needed a place in town and what kind of servants would be ideal. It was all very silly, given that neither of us had a bean, but it gave us both hope. I kept thinking that I wanted to preserve this moment forever, to somehow catch it in a glass jar to be brought out when Darcy was far away.

“If only I’d been able to do that part in the film,” Darcy said thoughtfully, “I might have been able to make this reality. Do you really think I have star quality?”

I laughed. “Yes, but I’m biased.”

“Do you think I should stay on here and take my chances?” he asked.

“Do you want to be a film star?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, “but I’m willing to do what it takes to get us together.”

“Then I say you should go home. And you should tell these people who hire you for mysterious assignments that you need a proper job with decent pay from them or you are not helping them out again.”

He laughed now. “I’ll take you with me. You’ve got Queen Victoria’s air of authority when you say that.”

We made our way back to our things, had another glass of champagne and immediately felt sleepy. I lay against the rock with my head on Darcy’s shoulder. I think we must both have drifted off because I awoke to something cold and wet hitting me. I sat up to find the dark clouds were now overhead and it was raining.

“Not fog after all,” Darcy said. “I didn’t think it rained in California in the summertime.”

“Maybe just a passing shower,” I said hopefully. As if in answer the heavens opened and a deluge hit us. Immediately after there was a rumble of thunder out to sea.

“That’s not good,” Darcy said. We leaped up, grabbing our things and slithering up the now-muddy cliff to reach the motorcar. Then we couldn’t find a way to close the top, if it actually had one. We had to drive for several miles, with the rain stinging in our faces, before we found a small shack on the seashore and went inside for a hot cup of coffee. The rain showed no sign of abating so we were forced to drive back to Beverly Hills, feeling wet, miserable and disappointed.

“It’s lucky we weren’t planning to spend the night together in a wayside inn,” Darcy said, rain running down his face. “A fine couple we’d have looked, turning up like this.”

As we turned into the forecourt of the hotel the clouds parted and the rain miraculously stopped.

“Just our luck,” Darcy said. “We should have sat it out after all.”

“And been washed out to sea, I think. All that mud coming down the cliffs would have been horrible.”

He nodded agreement. We got looks of commiseration as we picked our way through the gardens, where hotel staff were now drying off lounge beds and sweeping up bits of foliage. As we opened the cottage door Mummy leaped to greet us.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was going frantic because I had no way of reaching you.”

“We were fine, Mummy,” I replied. “We just got a little wet. It wasn’t dangerous or anything.”

“Oh, I know that,” she said. “I wasn’t worried about you. But I’ve had an awful telegram from Reno. It seems that Homer Clegg has shown up in person. We have to leave immediately.”