A Rather Curious Engagement Read online

  “What now?” I asked in dread.

  “There was a delay back at the home office, and the insurance papers haven’t been fully processed and signed,” he announced, with horrified mirth. “If we play our cards just right, we might manage to be entirely, totally out of luck.”

  “Harold will sort this out for you,” I said.

  But Jeremy looked slightly alarmed and said, “The last thing I want is for the office to find out about this.” He added gloomily, “I suppose we’ll hang about here for a few more days, then head back to London.”

  “London!” I exclaimed. “What for?”

  “What else can we do?” he said. “We can’t stay here inhaling all this sawdust and plaster while the villa is being repaired . . .”

  At the mention of London—and the image of Lydia still ensconced in Jeremy’s building—my mind started whirling rapidly.

  “I think that would be a mistake,” I said quickly. “We should stick to our plans of travelling, so we can keep checking in here to make certain they’re still looking for the boat. Somebody’s sure to have seen something.” Then I added, “Wow, I almost forgot. We have a lunch date with Erik and Tim today.”

  “Can’t we postpone it?” Jeremy asked. “I’m not very good company today. Or else, perhaps you should go alone—and at least get a breather from me,” he said, as if he felt a little ashamed of himself for losing even a modicum of self-restraint.

  “I’m afraid to leave you alone,” I said, only half-joking.

  But Jeremy rallied enough to give me a firm nod and say, “No, no. I’ll be fine. I have to straighten out this mess, and that wouldn’t be any picnic for you. Go, and give them my apologies, and tell your friends I look forward to seeing them next time. I’ll drop you off at the hotel on my way to the harbor.”

  Actually, I was glad to go alone, so I could blurt out the whole disaster and soak up all the sympathy I could get. Whereas when you’re with a boyfriend, he never wants you to tell other people about your troubles because he thinks it reflects badly on his male competence. But as a woman, I knew that life is full of screw-ups, and the only way to get on top of them is to rip ’em apart in conversation and cut them down to size.

  I found Erik and Tim sitting beneath a white carousel pony with a blue saddle, in a famously eccentric bar/restaurant in one of the most elegant and expensive hotels on the Promenade des Anglais. The dining room was completely decked out with rows of vintage merry-go-round ponies and decorations. Amid walnut panelling, velvet armchairs, low-key lighting, fascinating tapestries, and portraits of famous people, the booths were a raspberry-colored pink with yellow trim and yellow-and-white tablecloths. Erik and Tim had been holding court here all morning, meeting with colleagues and friends.

  We had worked together for years, in fact, Erik was the one who launched me in my career as an historical researcher for films. So he took one look at my face and said instantly, “Oh my God, what happened?”

  “Somebody stole our boat!” I cried, slipping into my side of the booth.

  “What!” Erik and Tim chorused. At their sympathetic clucking, I felt like a little kid who’s been very brave up till now, but at the mere sound of paternal comfort, becomes ready to bust out bawling. I told them the whole sorry story of how Penelope’s Dream was rapidly turning into Penelope’s Nightmare.

  The waiter, at first attentive, saw that something was amiss, and politely backed off. But now Erik said, “You poor baby. You need sustenance. Here, I’ll order for you. Let’s see, some white asparagus salad and then something hot for nourishment, like grilled fish with fennel.” He signalled the waiter and gave him the order.

  “Thanks. Well, anyway, Jeremy and I are now homeless,” I announced dramatically.

  “You mean you are ‘all at sea’?” Tim couldn’t resist punning, and I groaned. “I suppose you have no idea who stole the yacht,” he mused, more seriously. “But are you sure you haven’t missed any clues?”

  Erik was gazing upward at the sky, as he does when he’s thinking deeply. “It seems to have been outfitted carefully, with no expense spared. Who was the original owner?”

  “Some old guy that used to race it,” I said. “He’s well-known around here, but I don’t know much about him.”

  Tim declared that the French police were efficient and effective, so we surely had not seen the last of Penelope’s Dream. This made me feel enormously better, as did the excellent lunch.

  Then, ready to abandon the whole miserable subject, I was grateful when Erik regaled me with stories of the latest fiascos, as he called them, on the sets of the historical bio-pics that they produced with Bruce for cable TV. They had now branched out into “historical” stories of ghosts, witches, séances, and other tales of the supernatural.

  “Which, to my humble prop-master’s mind, go beyond the realm of ‘history,’ ” Tim said.

  “But, you’d be surprised at how many generals, kings, and politicians believed in the power of tarot cards and tea leaves and astrology, ” I said.

  Erik sighed tragically. “We miss you dreadfully! I don’t know what to do with these new kids out of college, they are so careless with the facts. Not at all like you, Penny dear. You were so blissfully meticulous. When you go back into business, whatever you choose, please leave room for a little consulting for us. We are merely floundering without you.”

  “So is Paul,” Tim added slyly, referring to the cable network executive who’d been a former boyfriend of mine, “why, he’s had a broken engagement with a gal from Scarsdale who met somebody else—apparently more important than Paul—at a health club. Well, honey, she dashed away with him a mere two weeks before she was supposed to tie the knot with Paul.”

  The waiter smiled in relief at us, seeing that things were going better, as he deposited the check. Erik was the only person I know who, since the inheritance, still offered to pay for lunch instead of automatically expecting me to do it. He insisted today, and I tried to argue, but I somehow knew that it was best to let him do it. However, I made him promise to let me pick it up next time.

  “By the way, what happened with Jeremy’s ex-wife?” Erik asked.

  I filled them in, and explained that Jeremy was already threatening to go back to London. They both shook their heads vehemently. “Well, don’t let him!” Erik exclaimed.

  At that moment my mobile phone rang. I answered it, spoke briefly, then turned to my two friends, wide-eyed.

  “Oh, dear,” said Erik. “This looks serious. I sense there’s more trouble ahead for the Homeless Heiress and Her Hero.”

  “That was Jeremy,” I said. “The gendarmes have just found Penelope’s Dream.”

  “What!” Erik and Tim chorused. Then, “Where?”

  “Sitting in the harbor at Villefranche.” Thierry had been out in his patrol boat, and spotted it.

  “Villefranche!” Tim said, intrigued. “Isn’t that where the Rolling Stones hung out to record Exile on Main Street?”

  “That’s a spooky place,” Eric warned. “All those dark, narrow streets. I was once accosted by gypsies there, too. I’m not kidding! ”

  I rose quickly. “I have to go,” I said. “Jeremy’s going to pick me up on his way from Antibes.” I turned back to kiss Erik and Tim goodbye.

  “Beware London,” Tim whispered to me.

  “Good luck, and when you get home, call me,” Erik said, looking amused. “I want to hear every last word!”

  I went outside, where the cabs and doormen were busily orchestrating the arrivals and departures of hotel guests. Jeremy came motoring up to the front door and just barely stopped the car long enough for me to hop in. Then we roared off to Villefranche.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Villefranche is indeed an intriguing corner of the Côte d’Azur. An old military port, it’s a very deep, natural harbor with a forbidding stone fortress and an antiquated, scary-looking eighteenth-century building that was once used as a prison for galley slaves. From the main, corniche road we ha
d to drive down, down, down, spiralling along hairpin turns with very narrow, walled roads that eventually took us to sea level. With its sheer height and old stone architecture, Villefranche is breathtakingly beautiful, yet on its labyrinthine roads, one wrong turn can send you into a walled-in, deserted cul-de-sac, gloomy in the shadows of mysterious old houses packed in cheek by jowl, so that it can be dark even in daylight. I could see why Cocteau used it as a setting for the underworld in his film Orpheus.

  And Erik was right; when we paused at a traffic light, aggressive gypsy girls wearing tank tops and jeans that left their midriffs bare, accosted us. They were carrying buckets of dirty water, and brandishing squeegees, trying to intimidate every alarmed driver who stopped at the light into paying for their dubious windshield-washing.

  When we reached the quay, Thierry looked very excited as he stood on the deck of Penelope’s Dream waiting for us, just like a hunting spaniel who has been keeping his eye on a pheasant, and is very proud of having found it for you. I praised him to the hilt, whether Jeremy liked it or not. Thierry explained that the boat-jackers had apparently dropped anchor to hide it between some bigger boats. But, he warned us, the boat had been “deeply disturbed.”

  From a distance, the yacht appeared virtually untouched, unmolested. Inside was another matter entirely. The boat had definitely been ransacked, including Jeremy’s new wine collection—several bottles were shattered as if they’d been hurriedly shoved aside. Yet, after a thorough search, we found nothing missing. All the little treasures were still there in the curio cabinets and china cupboard.

  Thierry explained to us what he thought had happened—that the boat-jackers had taken the boat out, discovered that there wasn’t much fuel, and hastily pulled into the nearest harbor. He pointed to the shore, where our little lifeboat was beached. He thought it would have taken two men to haul it off the yacht. “They took the lifeboat to shore, and left it there. They probably ran away or had someone pick them up. We are checking with local bars and cafés.”

  “Those jackasses,” Jeremy muttered in disgust when he saw our little emergency boat lying where it had been hastily abandoned.

  Claude showed up, and at first he whistled when he saw the damage. Then he walked up and down the boat with an incredulous look on his face, the expression of a captain who took great pride in the boat he was skippering, and was personally offended by what had been done to it. He’d brought Gerard, the engineer, with him. Gerard was a big bear of a fellow from Wales, with tattoos on his arms, and he went right to work to silently appraise the situation. Claude retrieved the little emergency boat, and they hoisted it back on the yacht.

  When Gerard finished his assessment he told Jeremy reassuringly, “It’s not too bad. They damaged the engine some. I’ll bet the noise it made was what scared them off. But it can be fixed.” He surmised that the thieves had been amateurs. Claude concurred, and guessed that it was probably kids who had taken it out for a joyride.

  Thierry said, “A terrible prank, but alas, we, too, have our share of destructive hoodlums.” Thierry turned to me and said, “Try not to become too jaded by all of this.”

  “I’ll refuel it here so I can get it back to Nice to work on it,” Gerard said. He added that the repairs must be done before we could even think of taking her out to sea on an extended voyage. So he and Claude stayed behind with Penelope’s Dream, and Thierry took off in his patrol boat.

  Jeremy and I got back in his car and drove to the maritime police station in Nice, where the older gendarme was preparing new paperwork for this latest twist of events. While Jeremy was finishing up with him, Thierry returned. I stood gazing out at the harbor, waiting for Jeremy, until I recalled what Erik had asked me.

  “Thierry. Who exactly was the original owner of this boat?” I inquired.

  “I show you,” Thierry said. He led me to the yacht club next door. The bar area was filled with patrons, many in nautical gear with white trousers, navy blue jackets and gold braid, and spiffy caps on their heads. They were jocular and talkative, but there was a light drop in the conversation level as we entered, the way regulars do when somebody new arrives. They knew Thierry, and probably assumed I was a lady friend, judging by their grins. Thierry acted proud to have me as his companion in public, but was at all times very elegantly deferential to me.

  He led me to a bunch of framed photographs on the wall to the left of the bar. These were pictures of prize-winners, whether they were holding up big fish that they had caught, or trophy cups that they’d won in a car or yacht race. He pointed to a photograph of a very dapper man wearing elegant nautical attire and an ascot at his throat, and holding a trophy cup. Thierry told me this was an old German aristocrat, the Count von Norbert, well-known as a kindly, generous, courteous gentleman. But nothing much was known of the man’s personal life.

  “He is older now than he was in this picture,” Thierry said. “Alas, he does not show up so much these days. The yacht just sat here, winter and summer, kept up but seldom taken out, until that last time, which was quite out of season and pas normal,” he said, sounding puzzled in the way a Frenchman can’t figure out why someone’s behaving irrationally. “We were not entirely surprised to see him put his boat up for sale.”

  Over the next couple of days, Jeremy and I regrouped at the villa, discussing our options amid all that banging, hammering and sawing that the workmen were doing. By now Jeremy had recovered his old can-do, warrior spirit, since the boat was back where it belonged and the insurance papers had come through.

  While he worked out the boat repairs with Gerard and Claude, I borrowed his car and went to local libraries to do some fast research and mighty nimble footwork. Killing two birds with one stone is a dreadfully strenuous activity: I had to dissuade Jeremy from going back to London and giving up on our Plan; and, I simply had to get the bottom of Le Boat-Jacking. The police had already investigated the crew, and the other bidders, but turned up nothing, so the trail went cold. Therefore, I felt I must find out all I could about the history of Penelope’s Dream.

  Because not for a minute did I believe that we had simply been the victim of a delinquent’s prank. And, much as everybody wanted to just put the whole thing behind them, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the story wasn’t over. So I wanted to be ready when the next shoe dropped. And I wanted Jeremy aboard.

  “Come on,” I coaxed, trying to engage his curiosity about the theft. “Dontcha wanna find out who took our boat?”

  “Penny,” Jeremy said in a strained voice. “We told the police everything we know. We even told them about Rollo, just in case he had anything to do with it, which I doubt.”

  “Yeah, and did you see their faces when we described Rollo?” I said. “The older cop especially. He started looking at us funny, as if we were a bit fishy.”

  “My point exactly,” Jeremy said. “It’s a great big world out there, little girl, and the cops have seen and heard it all—money-laundering, insurance scams, you name it. If you start acting peculiar, they’ll soon be giving us the fisheye.”

  This intrigued me momentarily. “You think the cops are now thinking, Perhaps this couple isn’t as dopey as they look. Perhaps Penny and Jeremy are really the brains behind a ring of con artists?” I asked.

  “They will if you keep acting like a Girl Detective,” Jeremy cautioned. I could sort of see his point. You know how it works. The minute you start telling people about your strange relatives, well, you start to sound strange for having them. And there is just something about Rollo that actually does make you end up doing things that technically you shouldn’t be doing, like sneaking into hotel rooms and crossing the border with priceless art.

  “So just let the police do their job,” Jeremy said. “And stay out of it. Don’t go looking for trouble, because if you do, you will surely find it.”

  “But now we’ve got our reputations at stake—” I objected.

  “Leave it to the cops,” Jeremy said firmly. “I want to put this whole mess o
ut of my mind for awhile. Then I’ll figure out what to do.”

  That sounded ominous to me. “What do you mean?” I prodded.

  “I mean, I might just sell this damned unlucky boat and go home,” he said.

  “Back to your old life?” I said, as if I could not believe my ears.

  “Yes, my dull old life,” he retorted. “Where I may not have had a yacht, and a flooded-out Riviera villa, a townhouse in Belgravia and huge investments . . . but, on the other hand, at least I used to have a job, a purpose in life, and, most magnificently of all, my sanity.”

  I knew he was just letting off steam. Surely. But, I couldn’t take any chances.

  “Oh, come on, brace up!” I said, invoking his staunch English heritage of sailors and pirates and explorers and empire-builders. “When the smoke clears, you’ll see that there are great adventures to have, and many pleasures ahead.”

  “Fine,” Jeremy said, “I’ll keep the Victrola and sit in my parlor on Sundays, listening to Mozart.”

  I seized this opening. “Would you settle for Beethoven?” I asked eagerly, knowing it was his favorite composer. I saw the gleam of interest in his eyes.

  “Oh?” he said idly. “Where?”

  I bounced onto the seat next to him. “Lake Como,” I proclaimed, emboldened.

  Jeremy looked startled. “Lake Como! Great,” he said, “we can extend the wreckage of our luck to yet another country now.” I ignored this.

  “They’re having a classical music festival featuring Beethoven this year. Plus, I heard that Lake Como is just beautiful, a really enchanted place,” I said.

  “I know Lake Como is beautiful,” Jeremy informed me. “I went there as a little boy. By any chance have you been talking to Mum?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I just heard it’s a secluded, perfect spot to chill out.”

  “It is indeed,” Jeremy admitted. “Especially on an island there, the Isola Comacina, with just a restaurant and the ruins of old churches, and old olive trees. Nobody really lives on it. I pretended I was a castaway, on my own island. I remember feeling as if no harm could come to us because nobody would ever find us there, hidden among the mountains.”