The Charmers: A Novel
Elizabeth Adler
Acknowledgments
Of course, and as always, my thanks to Jennifer Enderlin, the best editor any writer could wish for. I consider myself lucky to have her insight. She always knows exactly how the timing should be to get maximum suspense and impact, as well as what they should be eating and drinking in the south of France!
My thanks also to all the team at St. Martin’s Minotaur, who, with their hard and careful work, make the production of a book seem so easy. And of course to my wonderful agent, Anne Sibbald of Janklow, Nesbitt & Associates, without whom I would not be publishing my thirtieth novel, with my other novels in more than thirty published languages. Quite simply, she is the best, and when we’re not talking plot lines, we are talking “kitties,” hers and mine, who keep us amused, not to say “on our toes” chasing after them when they get a little bored and start swiping ornaments off shelves.
Last but not least, my husband of so many years we’ve stopped counting, Richard Adler … “without whom” … is all I need to say. He checks my every word, queries plot directions, retypes it all, and pours the champagne when it’s finished. What more could I want?
A few months ago, my darling black cat, Sunny, got sick with cancer. Losing him was a terrible sadness; he was fifteen years old and so much a part of our lives. We miss his golden-eyed innocence, his pleasure in life. Our Siamese, Sweet Pea, is still with us, thank heaven, and becoming more vocal with age.
So, here I am enjoying the desert sunshine, and already writing the next … and then the next and the next. Please, enjoy them.
Prologue
The Painting
April 14, 1912
Walter Matthews
Walter “Iron Man” Matthews was propping up the first-class bar on the new luxury liner, the RMS Titanic, as it plowed steadily through the Atlantic. There were no waves, no wind. The ocean was flat as a board. A faint haze hung over it, under a sky so glittering with stars it outshone the great ship’s own lights.
He was downing a double Macallan whiskey, his preferred pre-dinner tipple wherever he was in the world, be it on a boat or in a London drawing-room, in a Manhattan penthouse or a canoe floating down the Amazon, because of course in places like the jungle one must always take one’s own supplies. It was the only civilized way, even though in the jungle one’s boots might be being attacked by fire ants, and in the drawing-room one’s soul attacked by someone’s unlovely daughter “tinkling the ivories” as they called it, without a speck of emotion.
He placed the painting on the bar. It was a river scene by the artist J. M. W. Turner. He had fallen in love with its misty colors.
It was professionally wrapped in waterproof covering. “Just in case, sir,” the art dealer had said with a faint smile. “One can never trust the ocean.”
Quite right, Walt thought now as he became aware of a grinding noise and a sideways lurch that sent his glass sliding half the length of the mahogany bar and almost into the lap of another fellow. He waved an apologetic hand even as he slid from his seat because there was no more traction to hold him in place. Gravity had shifted and with it the enormous, new, unsinkable ship.
He was one of the first on deck. It was bitterly cold. A white cliff loomed beside them. They had struck an iceberg, formed by the cold waves of the Labrador current mixing with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
Ever the gentleman, he helped the ladies into the constantly moving lifeboats that lifted and dropped with the movement of the ship. He never let go of his painting though, kept it tucked inside his dinner jacket. He had been about to go down for dinner and of course had dressed appropriately for his position in first-class. He kind of regretted the dinner; it would have been good, solid fare, a bit Frenchified perhaps as they often were on the big ships, but he enjoyed that. And he regretted the Macallan, which had spilt all over the place, including on his hand-tailored Soames and Whitby jacket, even staining his pristine white shirt cuffs that were linked with circles of gold and sapphire, matching the studs in his starched white shirt front.
The situation was disastrous, he knew it; recognized what fate had in store for all of them; heard the screams of the terrified women on the lower decks, the wails of children and infants, the cursing of the seamen attempting to get the insufficient lifeboats lowered from the constantly shifting ship.
Now, the ship slipped even lower, tilted, stern-up. The lifeboats already in the water pulled away, afraid to be caught in the whirling downward current as the liner quickly began to sink.
“Mr. Matthews, sir, come this way.” An officer grabbed his arm, tugged him toward the ladder over the side, leading into a small dinghy. But Walt stepped back when a young woman ran toward them, screams dying in her throat, fear written across her face.
Here,” he said, grabbing her arm, “now jump.” And he gave her an almighty shove that sent her dropping feet first into the orange dinghy.
“Jump yourself, sir,” the officer beckoned him from the dinghy.
But Walt could see it was already overloaded and, holding the painting over his head with one hand, he jumped into the icy depths. The winter temperature was minus two degrees. He might last, at most, fifteen minutes. He grabbed onto the dinghy’s rope with his free hand, splashing his already-numb feet in his good crawl stroke, wondering if this was, in fact, the end. How ironic, he told himself. And how much he would have enjoyed that dinner.