Imperfect Strangers

CHAPTER 36

At precisely eight-thirty they were seated at a corner table on the street side of the Connaught Restaurant, a spacious room with candlelight reflecting from polished mahogany paneling and tables set with snow-white cloths and gleaming silver and crystal. Half an hour earlier Sandy had met Angus's girlfriend, whose name was Maggie Fox, and Angus had met Cara. Any early awkwardness had passed after a bottle of Veuve Cliquot '66, and by the time the first course arrived they were the best of friends. Sandy, ever the good host, had ordered for all of them.

"It's beautiful," Maggie said as a small plate was set before her. "What is it?"

"Two versions of the same dish," Sandy said, pleased that she had asked. "Croustade d'oef de caille-one called Maintenon, the other Christian Dior. Maintenon is quail's eggs in a little pastry boat covered in a cold white sauce and sprinkled with Beluga caviar; Christian Dior is the same, but on a bed of duxelles of mushrooms and covered with hollandaise sauce. There's no polite way to eat them, just gobble them up."

Maggie did just that. She was tiny, not much more than five feet, of slender build, with large eyes, perfect teeth, and short hair as thick as fur. "Oh, God," she murmured. "I've never had anything like it."

Cara and Angus had similar remarks to utter, but Sandy was concentrating on pleasing Maggie. "Which do you like best?" he asked.

"I can't decide," she sighed.

"No one I know has ever been able to make that decision," Sandy said.

"And what's the wine?" she asked, sipping from the glass of white.

"A Puligny Montrachet, Les Combettes, 70," he replied.

"It goes beautifully with the quail's eggs."

"Thank you," he said, beaming at her.

The main course was Noisettes d'Agneau Edward VII, little filets of lamb on fried bread, and a slice of pate with a brown sauce.

"This is perfectly wonderful," Maggie said. "And the wine?"

"A red Bordeaux, or as the English like to call it, a claret. This one is a Chateau Palmer '78, one of my favorites."

"The perfect accompaniment," she said, raising her glass to him.

"Thank God you're not a vegetarian and a teetotaler," Sandy said. "I'd have to deny you my son."

She laughed aloud. "What a relief!" she crowed. "Anyway, I don't think a surgeon can be a vegetarian. It's not appropriate, somehow."

"I see your point. Will you practice general surgery?"

"Certainly not. I plan to lead a civilized life, and that doesn't include getting up in the middle of the night to perform emergency appendectomies. In the fall I'm entering a residency for plastic surgery, specializing in the face. You see, when I was a little girl I was something of a tomboy, and I broke my nose falling out of a tree. It was repaired by the most marvelous surgeon, and my fate was set, as well as my nose."

"He did a fine job," Sandy said.

"How kind you are."

"Where do you come from?" he asked.

"From a small town in Georgia called Delano."

"I didn't detect an accent."

"That's because I went to Harvard for my undergraduate work and med school and then to New York for my internship and residency. I've been in Yankeeland so long my accent has gotten scrambled; when I get a little drunker, it may reemerge."

Sandy was in love with her before dessert came.

Dessert was creme brulee, with a crust so thick you had to rap on it with the back of a spoon to break through, and with raspberries mixed in. Sandy was just beginning his when he looked up and saw Peter Martindale walk into the restaurant. Sandy watched, frozen, as Martindale and another man were shown to a table in the far opposite corner of the room.

"Something wrong, Sandy?" Cara asked, looking at him oddly. Her back was to the room.

"No, no, I was just entranced by this dessert."

"Me, too," she said, smiling at him. They had hardly exchanged a word the whole evening, he had been so preoccupied with pleasing Maggie.

Sandy raised a hand and summoned the maitre d'. "Mr. Chevalier," he said in a low voice, "someone I would rather not speak to has just come into the restaurant; he's sitting in the far corner. I would be very grateful if you would move that screen by the door a couple of feet so as to block his view of us."

"Of course, Mr. Kinsolving," the man said, and a moment later the adjustment had been made.

Sandy breathed easier, and he resisted the impulse to bolt from the restaurant. When they had finished dessert he suggested they have coffee in his suite. On their way out Sandy made sure to keep the screen between Cara and Martindale. After all, the art dealer believed his ex-wife dead, and Sandy didn't want to give him too great a shock.

As they waited for the lift, Sandy sidestepped to the front desk. "Is there a Mr. Peter Martindale registered here?" he asked, then prayed as the young woman flipped through the register.

"No, sir," she said.

"Thank you," he replied, then got onto the elevator with his party.

In the suite, they ordered coffee, then shared a bottle of port. Maggie, as she had promised, became more southern as she drank, and, Sandy thought, even more charming. He hoped the hell his son had the good sense to hold onto this young woman.

"How long will you be in town?" he asked his son.

"We're leaving for Stuttgart tomorrow, to pick up the car."

"And then?"

"France. Maggie wants to visit the wine country, so we're driving to Beaune for our first night."

"Would you like me to set up a tour of a vineyard or two for you?"

"Dad, that would be wonderful."

"It certainly would," Maggie chimed in. "It will probably be a bore for Angus, since he's grown up around wine, but I'm really excited about it."

"You get better and better," Sandy said.

Sandy lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, as Cara slept soundly beside him. This business with Peter Martindale was becoming too complicated. Tomorrow he was going to have to tell Cara everything. In effect, he would be trusting her with his future. He hoped he knew her well enough for that.