Chapter Three
Three
By six thirty that evening, Villa Sérénité was ready for her guests.
Soft jazz played through the speakers concealed throughout the house, and fat candles filled the air with sea salt and jasmine.
Baxter stood in the hall with his back to the front door, viewing the place through a visitor’s eyes.
Although the sun was still high, he switched on the vast chandelier, and the glass prisms cast a thousand rainbows onto the ceiling.
As Baxter climbed the stairs, the tiny strips beneath each tread illuminated in turn.
At the top, by the entrance to the living room, an oversized ice bucket held three bottles of Dom Pérignon, a silver tray filled with glasses waiting beside it.
He crossed the living room—a tweak to a cushion here, a flick of a polishing cloth there—and stepped through the flung-open doors to the pièce de résistance: the large terrace with its views stretching across to Cannes.
From here, a stone staircase led down to the pool.
The table was a triumph. A white linen tablecloth lay beneath a strip of burnt umber silk chosen to match the intricately folded napkins.
Greenery weaved between cut-crystal glasses and gleaming flatware, punctuated by orange and yellow marigolds threaded through the stems. Two candelabra added height and drama to the tablescape, and now Baxter lit the candles, satisfied that the breeze had dropped sufficiently to preserve the flames.
As he did so, he heard a car approaching.
He looked up to see a taxi sweeping up to the front of Villa Sérénité.
Baxter straightened. The first guest had arrived.
Alec Prescott was in his fifties, his bald head as shiny and round as a boiled egg. His belly rejected the conventions of trousers, pillowing instead over the top of his waistband. “It’s bloody hot,” he said in lieu of a greeting.
“Twenty-six degrees.” Baxter had surmised the Englishman would prefer Celsius over Fahrenheit.
“Unseasonably warm for May.” Despite the air-conditioned villa, a trickle of sweat traced his own spine as he thought of the instructions Anya Kovács had issued to him.
It went against everything he believed in, but a butler was only as good as his last reference, and Lady Ashcombe had been quite firm on that point.
“You will be gone by the morning,” she had demanded. “If I ever hear or see your name again, I shall call the police.”
What choice did Baxter have? He had burned through his savings in the months after leaving the Ashcombes; without a job, he would be unable to pay the mortgage on his apartment.
“Bloody hot, isn’t it, darling?” Alec had turned to his companion, a young woman Baxter might have assumed to be Alec’s daughter, had he not learned over the years never to assume.
“It’s the South of France,” she snapped. “What did you expect—snow?”
A flash of irritation crossed Alec’s face so swiftly a less observant person would have missed it. He turned an indulgent smile on Baxter. “Kaitlyn’s a little tired.”
“I’m not tired.” Kaitlyn Hargreaves scowled. “I’m fucking furious.” She was almost a head taller than Alec and at least two decades younger, with lean limbs and eyelashes so long they looked as though they might tangle when she blinked. Her blond hair was wrapped around several enormous rollers.
“A glass of champagne, perhaps?” Baxter gestured to the stairs.
“I have to take this out.” Kaitlyn pointed at her hair, and Baxter thought for a second that she expected him to do the honors.
Like many butlers, he was proficient at a wet shave, but a woman’s blowout was a little beyond his talents.
He was relieved when he realized Kaitlyn simply wished to be shown to the bedroom.
The principal suite was in the center of the ground floor, with glass doors leading directly onto the pool deck.
Baxter deposited the guests’ cases in the dressing room—Alec had declined his offer to unpack them—and the two men left Kaitlyn glowering into the mirror as she unraveled the complicated arrangement on her head.
“Women, eh?” Alec gave Baxter a conspiratorial glance, which Baxter returned with the noncommittal smile that was his go-to expression in such situations. It didn’t do to form alliances with the guests.
“When we were getting on the plane,” Alec said, “I happened to mention my ex-wife would be joining us for a few days. Well, that was it—Kaitlyn didn’t speak to me till we landed! Now …” Alec rubbed chubby palms together. “Champagne, you said? Lead the way, my good man!”
Baxter did so. “Your ex-wife being … Sylvie Calloway?” He knew the guest list now as intimately as his own family tree.
“Indeed.” Another conspiratorial glance, this time with a pantomime wince. “I’m well out of that one, I can tell you, but we always try to be together as a family for our son’s birthday. We’re celebrating his twenty-first this week.”
Baxter knew this too. Carter Prescott and his girlfriend had been allocated the second largest room, immediately opposite his father’s. No pool view, but the private suntrap terrace more than made up for it.
“Cheers.” Alec raised his glass in a toast Baxter acknowledged with a nod. “This place is all right, isn’t it?” He walked through to the terrace and shielded his eyes with his hand to better see the view. “Bit of a trek down to town, mind.”
“I will make myself available to drive you or any of your party, sir,” Baxter said, realizing this could provide the perfect opportunity to secure the information Anya had requested. “Alternatively, there is a fleet of vehicles at your disposal.”
“Excellent, excellent.” Alec drained his champagne. “I’d better see if I can coax Kaitlyn out of her strop.”
“If you will permit the question, sir, are the two women already acquainted?”
“No, they’ve always refused.” Alec raised an eyebrow. “Sylvie has … shall we say, ‘robust views’ about my taking up with someone on the younger side.”
“Well, then it is admirable on her part to join you and Ms. Hargreaves at Villa Sérénité.” It was only as Baxter finished his sentence and caught Alec’s expression that he understood the truth of the matter. He paused. “Ms. Calloway doesn’t know Ms. Hargreaves is here, does she, sir?”
Alec looked sheepish. “I didn’t quite get around to telling Sylvie, no.”
“How do you think she’ll take it?” Baxter said.
A horn sounded violently. Both men looked up to see a red sports car zooming up the winding road toward the villa, a cloud of dust billowing in its wake.
Alec took a deep breath. “We’re about to find out.”