Caprice

  Chapter One

  “I don’t know,” said Caprice, doubtfully. “I guess I’d have to think about it.”

  “Good God, Cap!” said Roxanne, in an explosion of impatience. Caprice turned her head to look at the brunette who was possibly her closest friend, and the only one who got away with calling her “Cap”. “What is there to think about? Either you want to come or you don’t.” Then Roxanne turned suddenly doubtful herself. “Right?”

  Caprice turned back to the outfit she was considering with a vague eye. She had a particular talent for putting all her friends and acquaintances off stride with her preoccupied air, as though she were somewhere else, or at least wishing she was.

  And she knew it. That air of distraction was carefully cultivated, and her sudden changes of mood, along with her apparent indecisiveness, kept everyone around her on their toes and hopping. The fact that Roxanne was apparently Caprice’s closest friend but that nobody could really tell for sure was just another example of elusiveness that clung to the girl wherever she went. It drove the opposite sex quite crazy, but they seemed to go for it like panting, thirsty dogs, for an entourage of young men from Caprice’s acquaintance gathered around her constantly.

  She put her slim forefinger to the side of her mouth, pulling down her lower lip thoughtfully as she stared from Roxanne to the dress she was holding, to the floor and then to the ceiling, and then back to Roxanne. “We’ll just have to wait and see,” she said then, sweetly.

  Her friend was flabbergasted, and frankly close to fury. She had jumped to accept the weekend invitation for the two of them, for Jeffrey Langston’s family lodge in New England was reputed to be quite luxurious and was most certainly exclusive. Not everyone got an invitation for the weekend, but Caprice didn’t seem to realize that.

  Roxanne had even let her frustration show, but Caprice had shrugged the irritation aside as if it were no more than a buzzing fly. Sometimes nothing seemed to get to the other girl, and Roxanne wondered briefly if she was as dumb as she sometimes seemed.

  But no. One thing that could safely be said about Caprice was that she most definitely was not stupid. She had gained high marks at Vassar yet had hardly ever opened a book, Roxanne remembered that Caprice occasionally would let slip statements that showed a keen working intelligence behind her ever-shifting, changing facade. She had once said of one of the brunette’s boyfriends that he had Rox on the brain, and such comments came from her at, to say the least, the most unsettling of times.

  Caprice shook the dress by the hanger, making the creases fall out of the static-charged skirt. She was fully aware of what Roxanne was thinking, knew better, most likely, than Roxanne herself, but she let none of it show on her face. Then she held the dress to her front and stared at her reflection in the full-length, polished mirror.

  A sun-kissed, golden-brown face peered back at her, with silver-gilt, baby-fine hair. It fell to past her shoulders, for the most part fairly straight from the weight of the length, but with wispy tendrils that escaped and framed her face in a luminescent halo. Huge, midnight-violet eyes were in the middle of this delicately framed, delicately boned face. Perhaps the jaw was rather firm, but nobody ever noticed, for the immense, eloquent eyes were what captured the attention and then gently but quite inexorably held it.

  She murmured, imagining herself dancing in the dress under soft lights, “I think it’s the wrong color for me, don’t you?”

  With a short, gusty sigh, the brunette turned her attention to the dress also. “It looks fine to me,” she said.

  Those violet eyes turned to her friend, noting the pique. She held the dress next to Roxanne and then dreamily replied, “Mmm. It would look better on you.”

  That attracted the other girl’s attention. She peered into the mirror herself and said, on an interested note, “Do you really think so?”

  “Yes.” Caprice abandoned the dress by shoving it into Roxanne’s hands, and then she went along the rest of the small boutique, humming lightly under her breath. On a whim, she threw several different outfits over one arm and headed back to the dressing rooms to try them all on. Snagged by the praise Caprice had given her, Roxanne trailed behind, still clutching the dress.

  About forty minutes later, they were both walking out of the shop, laden down with packages. Caprice slid a quick glance over to Roxanne’s larger load. If the other girl wondered why she had been the one to end up with the larger purchase when it had been Caprice’s idea that they go shopping in the first place, she didn’t say so aloud.

  “What now?” asked Caprice lightly as she stood in the middle of the pavement and looked around her. In the sun, her hair nearly shimmered and sparkled, it blazed so brightly. “Lunch?”

  “I don’t know.” Roxanne looked up and down the street. “I spent more money than I had expected to. My allowance for this month is practically gone, and it’s only the nineteenth.”

  “No problem.” Caprice’s reply was serene, and she headed down the pavement. “I’ll buy today.”

  The restaurant they went to boasted superb service and exorbitant prices. They were soon seated, and within no time a bottle of white wine was ordered and brought to the table, frosty and dripping from the bucket of ice it resided in. Out of the corner of her eye, Caprice could see Roxanne settling back to enjoy the treat, sipping pleasurably at a glass of the chilled wine, and she turned her attention to the menu selection, frowning delicately in indecision. After they had ordered, Roxanne turned to her and said, “About next weekend, Cap—”

  “Oh yes, of course,” she said mildly, hiding her bored resignation. “I’ll go.” She watched as Roxanne stumbled to a halt in the middle of a nonexistent argument.

  The other girl asked carefully, “Just like that? You’ll go? I thought you wanted to think about it.”

  She resisted a caustic retort. “I have. I think it’ll be fun.”

  “I—see.”

  Caprice smiled very slightly as Roxanne let her mouth hang open as if to say something else, but then apparently changed her mind and shut it tightly. Within a very short time their lunch was served, cold, delicately flavored shrimp and leafy salad, and then they turned their conversation to other, mundane things while they ate.

  Later, after she had dropped Roxanne at home, she went home herself, humming as Three Dog Night howled over the radio. She pulled, quick and yet neat, in to the driveway and to the huge garage, pressing the automatic door opener and watching it swing up with a slight motor whine. She parked her Porsche neatly and then grabbed for her packages as she climbed out of the car and entered the huge old colonial house.

  Her parents weren’t home yet, so after calling a cheery greeting to their housekeeper, Liz, who was busy in the laundry room, she raced upstairs to her bedroom. Because of the house’s age, every bedroom had a fireplace and exquisite, polished hardwood floors that her mother only occasionally and not very sincerely lamented. Caprice had a French tapestry rug spread on the floor of her room that dated back to the late 1800s, with heavy, dark wood furniture and a Victorian dresser with a marble top. The color of the wood reflected a golden warmth whenever she lit a fire in her room.

  She carelessly tossed her purchases onto the neatly made, canopied bed and went to her tiny bathroom to work the tangles out of her windblown, silver-blonde hair. She stared into the bathroom mirror with a certain amount of wryness.

  She was the very first of anyone to admit that she was a rather odd creature. Her mother was Italian, though not full-blooded, having an English grandmother from whom Caprice inherited both hair and eye coloring. But her skin was definitely Latin, as she tanned deeply and quickly to that sun-burnished, dark gold without a hint of a freckle anywhere on her slim body. Her first name was an Italian adaptation, and a difficult one to live wit
h at that. But her last name, Hagan, like her father, was decidedly Irish, which was all fair enough considering that they were at least third-generation Americans, and part of the huge melting pot that mixed ethnic groups indiscriminately.

  But to saddle her with a name like Caprice was cruelty beyond all cruelties. She tried a frown into the mirror and noticed that it came out petulant, as her frowns always did, so she ironed her brow out again with a sigh. Oh, well, it could have been worse. She could have been named something totally unspeakable, like Olympia or Myrtle.

  The problem was, people tended to form instant impressions about people from their name, and Caprice certainly didn’t lend itself to immediate respect.

  To be perfectly frank, she realized as she walked back to her bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed—and incidentally on the new blouse she’d bought—she really was a bit capricious. She was whimsical and given to impulse. What was it, really: a case of the name predicting the personality, or the personality fitting itself to the name? She didn’t know. Her hand, still clutching the brush, sank slowly to her lap.

  For a moment, and only for a moment, something desolate and terribly lonely looked out of the exquisite, immense violet eyes. The whimsical aspect of her personality was only a part of her, she knew. Wasn’t it? But then that was all anybody saw in her, even down to her closest friend, so perhaps she was wrong after all. Her expression lightened again, without a single lingering trace of the odd darkness that had showed just a moment before. What difference did it make? Her life was amusing and diverse.

  With a shake of her slim shoulders, she dismissed philosophy from her mind and ran down the stairs in search of her younger brother. Perhaps she could persuade Ricky to play a couple of games of tennis before supper. After that large lunch, she needed to work up an appetite.

  She managed to coerce Ricky into playing with her. He had just started college the year before, whereas she had just graduated, but they had one characteristic in common: they were lazing the summer away. They were also well matched for hard tennis playing, for what Caprice lacked in sheer bulk and power, she made up for in finesse and experience, having played for several years longer than Ricky. But in the end, her large lunch told against her, and she lost rather heavily, much to her brother’s mild derision. One commendable characteristic of Ricky’s was, however, that he both won and lost with excellent sportsmanship, so they walked back to the kitchen for iced tea in perfect harmony.

  Back inside and blinking against the darkened interior of the kitchen, they at first didn’t see Liz, who said, as if appearing from thin air, “Your mother and father are meeting in the den for drinks at six, and wanted to know if either of you are dining at home.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Liz!” said Caprice breathlessly, while Ricky, too, apologized. “I’m eating in tonight. I forgot to tell you.”

  “And I’m not,” said her brother remorsefully. “Does it mess up your evening meal?”

  “Lord, no,” said Liz, well used to such domestic crises.

  Caprice and Ricky then headed for the stairs to clean up. “Going out with someone?” asked Caprice interestedly, to which her brother grinned.

  “Yes, but not in the way you mean. Larry and I are hitting the town tonight.”

  “In other words,” she retorted with a laugh, “you’re bar hopping, complete with fake ID, I’ve no doubt.”

  “Hush!” he whispered conspiratorially, looking from left to right with dancing eyes. “You never know who might be listening.”

  She stopped stock still on the second floor landing and stared at him with fascination. “No!” she exclaimed. “Really? You actually have a fake ID? Where’d you get it? Can I see it?”

  He took her to his room and pulled out the identification from his wallet, and she looked it over carefully. It certainly looked quite legitimate, except for the fact that the birth date was set a few years back. To her repeated question, he replied casually as he stuffed it back into his wallet, “I got it through one of the fellows at school. Everybody has them. The man who makes them, whoever he is, makes a fortune, no two ways about that.”

  She shrugged. “As long as you’re careful.”

  Ricky stopped her with a hand on her arm. “You wouldn’t mention this to Mom and Dad, would you?” he asked, searching her eyes.

  “Good heavens, no! It’s none of my business, unless you drive home roaring drunk some night,” she said airily, dismissing his question with a wave of her hand. “But you’re too levelheaded to do that, aren’t you?”

  “God, yes,” he said with some grimness as he let go of her. “I may be wild, extravagant and utterly devastating to the opposite sex, but I am not stupid.”

  She glanced at him rather sharply. He was as dark as she was fair, but they shared the same general facial characteristics, and he was indeed quite handsome. She smiled and patted his lean cheek with something of an absent air. “That you’re not, love.”

  “No more than you, though you like to act it sometimes,” he said, unexpectedly shrewd. After searching his eyes, feeling slightly troubled, she merely smiled again and left his bedroom. He shut his door behind her sharply after slapping her saucily in the rear.

  With a glance flashed at her slim gold wristwatch, a graduation present from her parents, she hurried to her own room to shower and change out of her tennis outfit. As it was quite hot, with no breeze at all outside to relieve the mugginess, she slipped on a sleeveless, light blue blouse with a matching pencil-slim skirt and high-heeled sandals. Her breasts were slight and firm, and so she could get away without wearing a bra whenever she felt like it, her usual practice in the summer heat. After brushing her damp hair and letting it hang carelessly loose, she skipped lightly down the stairs and strode for the den in long, easy, athletic paces.

  “Hello, Mom, Dad!” she said breezily, stopping for a moment to press a light kiss against her father’s graying forehead and to receive one in return. “Did you both have a good day?”

  “Hallo, dear. As good as can be expected,” said Irene, a slight-boned, dark woman with a streak of silver threading her hair at each temple. She was a woman with a placid nature, whose life revolved around the social gatherings and charity functions she was so fond of.

  “Huh,” grunted her father. “Speak for yourself, Irene. Every damned thing went wrong at the office today. Stupid Witcomb screwed up his account.”

  Caprice grinned. Stupid Witcomb was her father’s favorite complaint. She sometimes thought that he kept Witcomb around just so that he had something to complain about. The three talked for a little while, sporadically, and her father made her a drink of Bacardi and Coke with lime. Then Ricky came into the den for a short time until Larry came to pick him up, and after a flurry of good-byes and the slam of the front door, things quietened considerably.

  When they went in to supper, Caprice said, just remembering, “Oh, yes. Roxanne and I are going to the Langstons’ for the weekend, unless I’ve managed to forget some vastly important event?”

  Her mother thought for a moment. “No, dear,” she said then. “Nothing’s happening that I know of. Is it to be a party?”

  “From what I gather,” she said airily. “It’s to be at their lodge in New England. Roxanne says the place is something else.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard too,” said Irene with some smugness. “You should be glad you’re going.” She sent a dry look at her father at that, which her mother luckily did not catch. “But didn’t you say something about avoiding Jeffrey for a while?”

  She then frowned for a moment, a tiny furrow appearing between her brows, which was gone the next second like a cloud passing by on a sunny day. “Yes, I did,” she admitted while she worked on her spicy, sauce-covered veal. “He’s entirely too obvious for my taste. But Roxanne is crazy about him. I’m afraid she might get into something she can’t handle if she were to go by herself.”

  “Something she can’t handle?” grunted her father.

  She shrugged. �
��She’s crazy about him, but he isn’t crazy about her. If he plays around with her, she might end up getting quite hurt.”

  Richard Senior frowned. “Would young Langston do that?”

  She looked to her father and a slow, sweet smile spread across her lips. “Not if I’m there,” she said.

  After a blank moment, he took a bite of veal and then asked, “Do you mean you plan on keeping an eye on your young girlfriend for the whole blasted weekend?”

  “Oh no,” she replied with a little laugh. “I mean that, if I’m there, Jeffrey won’t be paying an inordinate amount of attention to Roxanne.”

  “You see,” said Irene, exasperated with her obtuse husband, “Roxanne is crazy about Jeffrey, but Jeffrey is crazy about Caprice.”

  Caprice had forsaken alcohol during the course of supper, and she reached for her iced water, feeling the slick wetness of the sweating glass as she raised the cold drink to her lips. “Entirely too obvious,” she repeated, not without a sneaking degree of satisfaction.

  “And who’s chaperoning this weekend fling?” asked her father.

  She shook her silver-blonde head. “I haven’t the faintest idea. I would think it’s quite respectable, knowing the Langston family. I wouldn’t put anything past Jeffrey, but his parents surely wouldn’t let him have the full use of the lodge unquestioned. Someone will undoubtedly be there.”

  “Langston,” mused Richard idly. “What’s the older Langston boy doing?”

  Caprice didn’t know, but Irene did and said, “I think he’s managing the New York branch of the family business now. And he’s hardly a boy, dear. Heavens, he must be close to thirty by now.”

  “I never met an older brother,” Caprice said then. “What’s his name?”

  “Pierce, I believe,” replied her mother absently. “And it’s really not surprising you haven’t met him, dear. Not really your age group, is he?”

  The next day, Caprice received a phone call from Roxanne, who wanted to make plans for the weekend. She listened as the other girl chattered about flights from Byrd Field, but then interrupted gently.