Sweet Revenge

She could have filled her mind with other memories, with old faces and with new, with idle conversation, flirtations, and simple laughter. She might not have dreamed then, but once the dream began, it was too late.
    Scents stay with us the longest, a whiff of fragrance bringing back memories long buried, feelings long forgotten. This scent was of coffee laced with cardamom, competing with the heavy, opulent scents of perfume. The scent, even the dream scent, took her unerringly back to that night on the eve of her fifth birthday.
    Her own sobbing woke her. Sitting up, Adrianne pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and tried to break out of the dream. When it came strongly, as it had tonight, it tended to linger. While her breathing was shallow, and sweat pooled at the base of her spine, she fought to regain awareness of who she was now.
    She wasn’t a child anymore, curled under the bed praying for her father to stop and leave her mother in peace. That had been a lifetime ago.
    She rose, fumbling for the light and then her robe. She was never able to bear the dark after one of her dreams. In the bathroom she splashed cold water on her face, knowing that the trembling had to run its course. It was a blessing that this time the nausea didn’t accompany it.
    She had hung from a rope fifty stories above Manhattan, had sprinted down alleyways in Paris, and had waded through a swamp in Louisiana. Nothing, nothing frightened her more than the memories that came back in dreams.
    As long as her hands continued to shake, she leaned against the sink. Once they were steady, she lifted her head to study her own face. She was still pale, but the fear was no longer in her eyes. That was the first thing that had to be controlled.
    The streets of London were quiet. In the sitting room she leaned her forehead against the window, grateful that it was cool. The time was coming, Adrianne thought, and the knowledge both thrilled and terrified her. The date had been chosen, though she hadn’t even confided in Celeste. She would be going back to Jaquir soon, to get revenge on the man who had abused and humiliated her mother. She would take what was hers. The Sun and the Moon.

Chapter Twelve
    “Darling.” Adrianne brushed the baby soft cheek of Helen Fume. “So sorry to be late.”
    “Nonsense. You’ve not late at all.” Lady Fume wore green silk cut low and snug to show off not only her emeralds but the ten-pounds-lighter figure she’d acquired in the last month in a spa in Switzerland. “But I do have a bone to pick with you.”
    “Oh?” Adrianne unhooked the clasp of her cape.
    “I’ve heard you’ve been in London for days and you haven’t rung me once.”
    “I’ve been hiding out.” Adrianne smiled as she swirled off her cape and handed it to a waiting servant. “Not fit company.”
    “Oh, dear, a tiff with Roger?”
    “Roger?” Adrianne linked arms with her hostess and started down the wide checkerboard-tiled hallway. Like most women, Helen would assume that a woman’s moods depended on a man. “You’re behind, Helen. That’s been dead for weeks. I’m a free agent these days.”
    “We should be able to fix that. Tony Fitzwalter has separated from his wife.”
    “Spare me. There’s nothing worse than a man newly released from holy wedlock.”
    The ballroom, with its polished floors and ivory-papered walls, was already filled with people and music. There was the glint of wine in crystal, the scents of perfume, male and female, and the shimmer of jewels. Millions of pounds, Adrianne thought, in stones and metal. She was going to take only the tiniest percentage.
    Most of the faces were familiar. That was one of the problems with these parties. The same people, the same conversations, the same underlying boredom.
    She spotted an earl whom she’d relieved of a diamond and ruby ring six months earlier, and Madeline Moreau, the French ex-wife of a film star she hoped to hit next spring. With a smile for both, she slipped a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter.
    “Everything looks lovely, as always, Helen.”
    “Such a dreadful amount of work for such a short time,” she complained, though she’d done nothing more strenuous than try on the dress she was wearing. “But I do so love to entertain.”
    “One should enjoy what one does well,” Adrianne said before she sipped. “By the way, you’re looking smashing. What have you done to yourself?”
    “A little trip to