I could now fully appreciate how lucky I’d been not to have been more involved with men during my lifetime. They simply were not worth the effort.
“I’m sorry, Thomas, but I’m busy Friday night. It’s our grand reopening when we start the Princess Arianna jewelry auction. You should come.”
“No thanks. Can I call you next week?”
“Sure. Absolutely.”
Whatever.
. . . and if something is not meant to be, no matter what you do, there’s nothing you can do to make it right.
S I X T Y - F I V E
Friday.
Ballantine & Company was massed with flowers. The new floors and windows gleamed in anticipation of tonight’s grand affair. All day, crowds continued to pass through the exhibition rooms looking at Princess Arianna’s jewelry.
I gathered up a couple of files, knocked on Bertram’s office door, and stepped inside, closing it behind me. He looked up.
“Excuse me, Bertram. Do you have a moment?”
“Of course. Have a seat.”
“There’s something I want to talk to you about and give to you.” I felt nervous. “In strictest confidence. Do I have your word?”
“You do.”
“When I was a young woman, Sir Cramner never wanted me to have to worry about my future. He knew how much I loved Ballantine & Company. He gave me a 15 percent ownership.”
Bertram’s mouth opened slightly. “You?”
I nodded and smiled. “Me. I’m KDK Trust.”
Bertram burst out laughing. “Does he . . .”
“He knows. But he doesn’t know I know. That’s why he’s pretended to be in love with me and asked me to marry him.”
“Oh, this is rich.”
“Very.” I looked down, and my hands were shaking slightly.
“What a bastard that man is.”
“He wrote the book. But the reason I’m telling you this, Bertram, is because you love the business and the house as much as I do. You’ve put your heart and soul into her, and you’re bringing her back from the dead. What you don’t know is that Owen’s empire is crumbling, and he won’t be able to maintain the façade much longer. He’s about to be forced into bankruptcy.”
Bertram looked stunned.
“And that’s not all.” I proceeded to tell him about the Carstairs forgeries, replicas, and reproductions.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious. You can’t imagine how shaky and shady things are. These men are desperate. But at least Ballantine & Company hasn’t been involved in any illegal activity, yet. So far, you’re not in any jeopardy. But as you can see, it’s just a matter of time, very little time.”
“This explains a lot,” Bertram said.
“Doesn’t it, though?” I answered. “At any rate, thanks to Sir Cramner and some good investment advice, I’m very secure, financially. I don’t need to depend on the KDK holding.” I opened one of the file folders and withdrew a bundle of papers. “I’m drawing this out terribly. I apologize, I know how busy you are. So I’ll cut it as short as possible. I’m giving you my shares, Bertram. You’ve earned them, and I know I can trust you to do the right thing. To continue and improve Sir Cramner’s vision. As soon as this is signed and notarized, you will become the sole trustee and beneficiary of KDK Trust.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. It’ll be up to you to let him know—or not—you’re the 15 percent owner.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’ve already told you why, and with the opening upon us in a few hours, it’s time to hand over the reins, and for me to step aside. Starting tonight, you will put your personal stamp on Ballantine & Company—it’s a whole new place, literally and figuratively.” I felt a great burden being lifted from my shoulders. “Sir Cramner is dead, long live Sir Bertram. I want you to walk into that auction room with a whole new sense of power. And propriety.”
“Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?”
“More sure than you can imagine. It’s making me as happy as it’s making you.”
“I admire your subtlety, Kick. It’s exquisite. There’s no way I can ever thank you enough.”
“You don’t have to. Let’s get your clerk in here and wrap this up, we all have a lot to do.”
Once Bertram and I had each signed, and the clerk had notarized the papers and been instructed to deliver the file immediately to Mr. Beauchamp at the bank, I stood up and offered my hand. “Congratulations.”
Bertram was too overcome to speak. And me? I felt wonderful. I’d done the right thing all round. Ballantine & Company was in the hands it should be in, and as a bonus, while I know the saying goes: Living well is the best revenge, well, the fact is, revenge itself can also be the best revenge.
The doors closed to the public at three o’clock in the afternoon to give the staff time to complete preparations for the evening’s VIP cocktail reception and first night of the two-day sale. We all changed into our formal evening wear, which we’d brought from home. I put on the same black gown I’d worn to all our openings for ten years— tailored, classic, unobtrusive. I was staff. Wallpaper.
“You look gorgeous,” Owen said, and kissed me. He was almost as skillful a liar as I was. He did look gorgeous in his black tie.
Arianna floated in at five o’clock like a goddess. Black kohl surrounded her scathing blue eyes. Her bright white Hervé Leger dress clung like mummy wrappings. We greeted each other with something like gracious condescension—she was sorry for me because she’d stolen my boyfriend. I was sorry for her because she had him.
At five-forty-five, Bertram stepped into the foyer and clapped his hands. The staff—experts, associates, auction assistants, cooks, and waiters—lined up, a well-dressed army, ready for inspection.
Was there a different bounce to his step? Oh yes.
At six o’clock the front door was opened and at eight o’clock sharp, Bertram gaveled the sale to life.
I returned to the showroom to help the Jewelry ladies break down the exhibit. All the safes were open as we worked busily, laughing and talking, transferring the pieces from glass display cases into the velvet-lined drawers of the rolling safes. I wandered around, visiting with them. Lending a hand. Unobtrusively switching the pieces I’d copied. Out of one pocket of my gown, into the other. Now you see them, now you don’t.
Bertram was about a quarter of the way into the sale, and so far, had tripled the estimate on every piece. I asked the doorman to call a taxi.
“Where are you going?” Owen materialized out of nowhere.
“I think I have food poisoning.”
“Do you want Michael to take you?”
I shook my head. “Not necessary. The taxi’s here. You go back in—call me in the morning.” I kissed his cheek.
“What about the reception?”
“Go and have a good time. You’ve earned it.”
“I’ll miss having you there.”
“Me too. Behave yourself.” I joked.
Owen closed the taxi door and gave the driver my address. We pulled away from the curb.
“Change of plan,” I said.
“Oh? Where to, miss?”
“Liverpool Street Station, please.” I never looked back.
Half an hour later we pulled up at the chaotic railroad terminal that serves as the connecting point for trains north to Norwich and Gatwick.
“Are you needing a porter, miss?”
“No thanks. I can handle it.”
I entered the terminal, found a ladies’ room, changed back into my business clothes, and left my suitcase, a brand-new one with no identification, in a temporary storage locker. Then I took the escalator down two flights to the Underground station and caught the next train back into town.
The post-sale reception at the Savoy would just be starting.
S I X T Y - S I X
By the time I got to Heathrow that night, th
e last flight to the Côte d’Azur was long gone. I got a good night’s sleep at the airport Marriott, and caught the first flight out Saturday morning. Before leaving, I placed two calls on a brand-new British cell phone bought specifically for this purpose, and when I got to the airport in Marseilles, I placed a third call from a pay phone using an untraceable card. Then, in the parking lot, I laid the cell phone under the front tire of my wagon and drove back and forth over it until it was crushed into an unrecognizable pancake of black plastic and little shiny silver things which I scattered across the lot with a couple of good soccer-style kicks.
That was that.
I drove as fast as I dared to the farm and immediately turned on the TV set. Since the explosion, television crews had become a fact of life at Ballantine & Company, and I knew today would be particularly busy with the second day of the auction.
I made a pot of coffee. It was just starting to come undone.
“Scotland Yard . . .” the pert young woman explained from in front of our building. It was Allison Porter, one of the SkyWord reporters. “. . . received an anonymous call early this morning from someone claiming that certain pieces of the Princess Arianna Jewelry Collection were missing. We have here with us Mr. Andrew Gardner, the director of jewelry for Ballantine & Company. Good morning, Mr. Gardner, welcome to SkyWord.”
“Thank you, Miss Porter.” Andrew was paler than usual, and his pointed, long upper lip was locked over the lower one, like a turtle’s.
“Is it true? Has there been a robbery?”
“I’m sorry to report yes. From what we’ve been able to determine, approximately a dozen pieces have been switched with replicas— very fine replicas, incidentally. Which is not to imply that we wouldn’t have caught them whether we’d received the call or not. We examine and reconfirm everything completely before and after every showing.”
“How much were they worth?”
“Their evaluations were in excess of 25 million pounds—that’s what we estimate they would have brought at auction, minimally. In reality, the bidding could have been double or triple that.”
“You mean they could be worth as much as 75 million pounds?” Andrew nodded. “It’s possible. Most of them were pieces with colored diamonds, very rare.”
Thank you, Mrs. Fullerton, for all your colored stones, especially all those oversize pink and yellow and green and pale, pale blue sapphires which your jeweler told you were colored diamonds and for which he no doubt charged you accordingly.
“What are you going to do? Will the auction be canceled?”
Andrew shook his head with as much conviction as he was capable of. “No. No. Nothing that drastic is required—this doesn’t affect the entire collection. Obviously, the counterfeit pieces have been pulled, and all the rest, as I’ve already said, are being carefully examined and recertified by our experts.”
“So the auction will proceed as scheduled?”
“Absolutely. Eight o’clock tonight.”
“Excuse me, one minute, Mr. Gardner.” She held up her hand and listened to a voice speaking into her earpiece. “I have some breaking news. Yes . . . Yes. . . .” She looked brightly into the camera. “I’ve just received word that the jewels have been recovered.”
Andrew’s eyebrows shot up. “What good news.”
“We’re going now to my colleague Mark Hallifax. Mark, are you there?”
“Yes, Allison, I’m here at the Dukes Hotel in St. James’s Place—just blocks from the Ballantine & Company auction rooms.” He was hard against the wall of the tight little courtyard at the hotel’s main entrance. Two police cars sat behind him, their blue lights spinning. Uniformed police officers stood at the front door controlling access. “There is another remarkable twist in this already intriguing story— we have it on very good word that Scotland Yard has just arrested Mr. Owen Brace, the chairman of the board of Brace Industries, which owns Ballantine & Company, among many other luxury goods companies, including the Panther Automobile Company here in England. Mr. Brace lives here at the Dukes, and they should be bringing him out any minute.”
I saw David de Menuil dart past the reporter, have a quick conversation with the bobbies, show his identification, and pass through the front door.
This was too good for coffee. I opened a bottle of Mumm’s Cordon Rouge 1995 and poured myself a glass, and then, although it was a perfect spring day, I built a fire in the kitchen. Once it was burning just right, I tossed all my fake papers and identifications into it.
“Do you know why Mr. Brace is being arrested?” Allison asked.
“The rumor, and keep in mind this is just a rumor, is that the stolen jewelry has been found in Mr. Brace’s car, a Panther Madrigan that he keeps in a private garage behind the hotel. According to our source, the jewels were rolled in a hotel towel and stashed in the trunk, beneath the spare tire, where the repair kit sits.”
“It sounds as though that could be done by anybody.”
“It’s my understanding that the garage is kept padlocked and only Mr. Brace has a key. Naturally, I’d assume he keeps the car itself locked as well. So it’s highly unlikely it could have been anyone else.”
“Sorry to break in,” said Allison, “but I’m just getting word that we have a crew at the Panther plant in Henley where Scotland Yard detectives have uncovered a warehouse of furniture pieces that are said to be copies? Something to do with Lady Melody Carstairs? Am I getting that right?”
“You are, Allison,” answered a reporter stationed in front of the shed that housed the phony Lady Melody collection. Police officers and detectives swarmed in the background. “From best I can gather, Scotland Yard received a call early this morning and the individual said they would find a warehouse on the distant grounds of the Panther factory, packed with identical copies of Lady Melody Carstairs’s furniture. Her estate is scheduled to be auctioned by Ballantine & Company in the next few weeks and according to the caller, these pieces were intended to be passed off as the real thing. If it’s true, that the entire estate has been copied with an intention to defraud, this would be an extremely serious offense.”
While I stirred the papers around in the fire, I watched Owen and David leave the hotel, escorted by Chief Inspector Thomas Curtis. Owen looked aggravated as hell. He got into the backseat of one of the police cars, and I knew David was telling him he was following directly.
By the time they’d left and the courtyard was empty, my past was ashes.
S I X T Y - S E V E N
six months later
“Kick,” Flaminia said. “Can you come this evening? Six o’clock? It’s just cocktails—it’s too hard to do dinner on Sunday night, everyone’s leaving for Paris, and it’s the cook’s night off.”
“Sure, I’d love to.”
“I’ve got a great man.”
“Un-huh.”
“No, really, I do.”
“Whatever.”
“Get done up.”
“I’m always done up.”
“Well, you know what I mean. Tonight’s dressy.”
“Right.”
I arrived at Flaminia’s a little after six and, as usual, there was no new man. But I hadn’t been expecting one. There’d been a few lame attempts over the summer to fix me up, but I’d learned my lesson: I was off men. Forever. I’d had enough men, sex, romance, whatever, to last me a lifetime.
Was I sorry for the fling with Owen? Not a bit. And now I saw it as a fling, nothing more. Would I fall into that “Is it love or is it sex?” trap again? The thought was laughable.
“You look exquisite,” Flaminia said. “That bracelet is magnificent.”
It was the Queen’s Pet, the only souvenir of my life of crime, other than my safe full of perfect diamonds. It seemed the ideal accessory for a cool autumn evening with black silk pajamas, a black cashmere shawl, and several strings of pearls.
“Thanks. You said to get done up.”
“Well, you certainly did. Have you ever seen a more spectacular fal
l?” Flaminia said. “This is without a doubt the most perfect October on record.”
The evenings had turned crisp, and the fields were moist and earthy, waiting for their next crops to be planted, and the sun had tilted in the sky so the light hit everything a little more cleanly.
I followed Flaminia into the kitchen and watched as she arranged a cheese platter. “I hope you like this new fellow. Can you believe it, I’ve completely forgotten his name.” She shuffled a stack of papers on the counter. “What did I do with my list? Bill must have it. Anyway, he’s a retired law professor or something. We just met him last week—totally charming. He’s just retired and moved here from England or Scotland or Ireland, somewhere like that. English-speaking at any rate. He’s staying up at Baumanière until he finds a place to buy. He’s very well-fixed.”
“I’d say so, if he’s living at Baumanière. Where’s his wife?”
Flaminia shrugged. “Dead. Gone. Who knows. No longer in the picture, at any rate.”
Bill Balfour came in. “A couple of guests have arrived—and I don’t know them.”
“Just tell them hello, darling. Offer them a drink.”
“You come. You’re much better at that.”
“I’ll be right there.” Flaminia shook her head. “Men are so hopeless. Do you mind finishing up? There are just a couple left to add.” She handed me the spatula. “And you’re so much more talented at this than I am anyway.”
“No problem.”
A man from England or Scotland or Ireland. I thought of Thomas. I’d thought a lot about him over the summer as I distilled my experience with Owen down to its earthy, physical, forgettable, essence. If I’d actually been looking for a man, a real man that I could share my life with, he’d been right there in front of me. But the fact is, I stopped looking once Owen walked in and took me over, lock, stock, and barrel. But if I’d been paying attention to my world from the waist up, I would have seen Thomas. We’d had so much in common—music, books, paintings, love of food and wine, early mornings. He was nice, and so was I. Boy, I really screwed that one up, didn’t I?
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