came up over London. How he managed to work as hard as he did was a mystery to Serena. By the end of two weeks she had circles under her eyes and she was exhausted. The only prospect of relief in sight was a week at his house in Saint-Tropez, where they were going to spend their honeymoon. But Vanessa was already complaining about that. She didn't want to be left alone with the maid, and she wanted them to take her with them. Vasili wanted to be alone. And Serena felt as though she were being torn in half. After lengthy discussions with Vanessa, they did manage to leave the day after the wedding, and as they took off in the plane Serena sat back in her seat with an enormous sigh.
“Tired?” He looked surprised and Serena laughed at him.
“Are you kidding? I'm ready to drop. I don't know how you do it.”
“Easy.” He grinned at her with his boyish grin, and pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small vial of pills, she saw a moment later. “I take whites.”
“Whites?” She looked startled as she glanced from him to the bottle and then back to his eyes. “You take pills?” He had never told her and he nodded.
“They allow me to keep going night and day. Want one?”
“No, thanks. I'll wait till Saint-Tropez and get some sleep.” But deep within she was shocked. She remembered suddenly what Teddy had told her, that Vasili's last wife had died of a heroin overdose.
“Don't look so worried, love.” He bent toward her with a kiss. “They won't kill me. They just keep me moving at a speed that I like.”
“But aren't they bad for you?”
“No.” He looked amused. “They don't do any harm. And if I take too many, I just take something to counteract it. Not to worry.” He suddenly sounded like a pharmacist and Serena was startled to realize that he took pills. She hadn't been aware of it before, and it underlined to her again how little she knew of him. At times she felt as though they had been together forever. At other times she felt as though she scarcely knew him at all. “For God's sake, Serena.” He looked at her expression again with obvious annoyance. “You look as though you've just discovered I'm an ax murderer. For chrissake …” He got out of his seat and walked to the front of the plane. He returned a few minutes later with half a bottle of wine for them both. “Or do you object to that too?”
“I didn't object to the other, I was just surprised.” She looked hurt. “You didn't tell me before.”
“Do I have to tell you everything?”
“You don't have to do a damn thing, Vasili.” She looked angry and declined the wine.
But he was looking at her more gently. “Yes, I do have to do something.”
“And what's that?” She still looked annoyed.
“I have to kiss you, that's what.” She grinned at him then, and a little while later the tension had worn off.
Their stay in Saint-Tropez was everything a honeymoon should be. They walked naked on their private beach, swam in the gentle swell of the Mediterranean, drove around the Maritime Alps in a Maserati, went to the casino in Monte Carlo, saw a few of Vasili's friends, and were mostly alone. They spent late mornings in bed, stayed up till all hours making love, and were only in the newspapers once, when one of the French papers made a fuss about their arrival at the Carlton for drinks: “Vasili Arbus and his new bride, honeymooning in Cannes … she was a princess and a model, now she's his queen.…”He read it to her the next morning over breakfast.
“How did they know that you're my queen?” He smiled happily at her.
“Someone must have squealed.”
“You know what I'd like to do next week?”
“What, my love?” She smiled at her husband. It was something very different than she had shared with Brad. But she was almost ten years older now. She felt very much a woman with Vasili, and she loved the heady feeling of being his wife.
“I'd like to go to Athens for a few days.” But her face clouded over. “Wouldn't you like that?”
“I ought to get back to Vanessa.”
“She'll be fine with Marianne.”
“That's not the same.” Vanessa was in a new environment and she wanted her mother. It had been hard enough to convince her that they really needed their one-week