The bile had receded, but Allegra felt her knees weaken and her stomach churn. A powerful chill ran up her spine and neck to the top of her skull, and she broke out into a cold sweat. She had never been as terrified in her life.
'It's soundproofed,' Ram said from behind her, his breath on her neck, 'so no one will hear us playing, Allegra.' His powerful arms encircled her, and he squeezed her tightly.
She began to tremble, uncontrollably, and tears gathered in her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks, but she clutched her purse to her and pushed down her fear.
'Why, you're shaking, Allegra,' Ram said in a mocking voice. 'And I thought you were such a courageous young lady. Like all Americans. Fearless and brave.'
Allegra turned in his arms to face Ram and pressed herself against him. 'I was shaking with anticipation,' she said in a whisper. 'This room is so exciting, so . . . erotic.'
Ram looked momentarily surprised, not certain whether he should believe her or not. 'I'm glad you appreciate it,' he said. 'That will make everything so much easier for us both.'
His breath was on her face, and she could smell the heat his body emanated. He shoved himself against her hard, and she could feel his engorged manhood. Ram's lips parted slightly, and he bent his face to hers, intent upon kissing her.
In one swift motion Allegra whipped her clutch bag upward and swung it as hard as she could against his skull. There was a resounding thud, and beads flew in all directions from the impact.
Ram suddenly released her, his hands flying to his head. 'Laheen!' he cried out. 'Damn you!'
Allegra quickly backed away from him, almost falling onto the bed when she did so. As she righted herself, her hands scrabbled to open the handbag. She pulled out the revolver and pointed it at Ram, whose hands still partially covered his face as he clutched his skull.
'You whore!' he spat venomously, finally removing his hands and glaring at her. Then he saw the revolver she held aimed at him.
Allegra's hand trembled, and she dropped her handbag in order to use both hands to hold the gun. It still shook in her grip, but she kept it leveled on him.
'You're not going to use that,' Ram said nastily. 'You don't have any idea what you're doing.'
He lunged at her then, and Allegra pulled the trigger.
The roar of the explosion was so loud in the small room that her ears began ringing painfully. Time stood still, and she watched in horror as Ram stopped, seemingly frozen in place, his eyes wide, his arms outstretched toward her. Then a geyser of blood spurted from his neck, and she could hear a gurgle as he tried to speak.
He fell to the floor with a loud thump, and his entire body spasmed briefly before all movement abruptly ceased.
The room stank of cordite, and the only sound was that of Allegra's breathing. Her breath came in gasps, and her stomach lurched anew, the bile rising in her throat once again. She didn't move for long moments, staring down at the body, transfixed by what she'd done. Blood, what seemed like gallons of it, still poured from the wound in his throat.
He must be dead, she thought, and I killed him.
Finally, she leaned down and picked up her clutch bag, put the revolver in it, snapped it shut, then walked out of the closet. She turned and closed the door. Seeing the padlock that dangled on the wall, she closed the hasp, looped the padlock through it, and snapped it shut.
She looked around the room with fresh eyes, as if she had been gone from it for hours. Todd still lay slumped on the couch, breathing shallowly. She noticed Ram's cell phone on the console, and she calmly walked over and picked it up. She dialed 17, the number for the police, then told them to come to rue des Rosiers. She remembered the house number from her visit to Solomon Weiss. Another death I'm responsible for, she thought.
At last she noticed all the jewelry on the table. She gathered up the gold settings, the emeralds, and the photographs from the table and put them all back in the garbage bag where Ram had stored them. Then she searched for something to put the bag in. In the entry hall was a small closet, and in it she found a heavy nylon gym bag. After she managed to stuff the garbage bag and its contents into the bag, she zipped it shut.
CHAPTER 25
The party was held a week later, so Allegra and Todd could attend. The American Hospital in Paris had treated her for shock, and Todd had been held for observation for two days. Then the hours of police interrogation began, which were carried out with a civility that surprised them both. At that point Hilton Whitehead and his powerful friends had intervened on their behalf.
Allegra and Todd had finally arrived in New York on Whitehead's private Gulfstream V. They had spent many hours closeted in discussion with Hilton since their return, and they found themselves in his private suite aboard his floating palace while the party he'd planned was in progress.
'I still hope that something can be done about Princess Karima,' Allegra said. 'You've all but proved that she's funneling money to terrorist cells in the Middle East.'
Hilton nodded. 'Without the names and numbers you found, the investigation would never have started,' he said. 'We still have no hard proof, but at least now Interpol is involved.'
'It's outrageous,' Todd said. 'She's probably already sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Middle Eastern banks. I mean, Allegra saw the transfers.'
'Yes,' Hilton said with a nod, 'but she can claim that the money was going to her family. I tell you the woman is virtually untouchable.'
'There's no doubt that she was mixed up with Monsieur Lorrain at the auction house.' Allegra said. 'I think she may have wanted the ring for sentimental reasons, and like Ramtane Tadjer, she would stop at nothing to get it back. They linked her to the man they found dead in our hotel suite, didn't they?'
'The high-priced hustler? Her name was in his address book,' Hilton said, 'but they can't prove anything beyond that.'
'And Marcus Penhurst's death?' Allegra said.
'His body was found in an alley in the Marais,' Whitehead said. 'The police say he was cruising for sex, and his family wants the case hushed up.'
'I know she was involved somehow,' Allegra said. 'She and Marcus seemed thick as thieves to me when we visited.'
'But nobody can prove anything,' Todd said.
'Well, I think you'd both better try to forget about it,' Hilton said. 'You've nearly gotten yourselves killed and all because of me and that emerald.'
'Did Kitty ever get to see the ring?' Allegra asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'I let her see it. Though I probably shouldn't have.'
'Did you tell her that you'd bought it for her?' Todd asked.
'Yes,' he said again. 'And all hell broke loose when I told her I was going to return it to its rightful owner.'
'She didn't want to give it up,' Allegra said. She had met Kitty only briefly when they returned to New York, but she got the distinct feeling that Kitty was not the type of person to put much stock in concepts like rightful ownership.
'No way,' Hilton said.
'You'll probably be made an honorary knight,' Todd said.
'I doubt it,' he said. 'Nobody—and I mean nobody—is supposed to know that the emeralds were taken, much less that they were returned.'
'It's a shame,' Allegra said, 'because you've really done a heroic thing.'
'Thanks to you,' he said, grinning. 'You're the one who brought them all back in that little gym bag.'
'So now that the engagement party's going on, what are you going to tell the guests?' Todd asked. 'I mean, with Kitty gone.'
'Well, I'm sure not going to announce my engagement,' he said. 'I'll probably never see her again.'
'Do you miss her?' Allegra asked.
'Yes,' he said, nodding. He shrugged. 'You know, I always knew she was a kind of hustler. Hell, I am, too. Pulled myself up by my bootstraps like she did. Nothing wrong with that. But in the end she crossed a line. A kind of moral line as far as I'm concerned.'
There was a knock on the door. 'Who is it?' Hilton called out.
'Jason.'
'Come on in, Jason,' Hilton said.
The door opened, and Jason stepped into the suite. 'Oh, I hope I'm not interrupting.'
'No, I don't think so,' Hilton said, indicating a chair. 'Sit down.'
Jason eased himself into the chair and took a sip of the drink he was carrying with him.
'I had a talk with Jason here,' Hilton said. 'He told me all about your business and, incidentally, about what he'd done while you were gone.'
Jason's face reddened. 'I hope that I can make it up to you, Ally.'
'You already have,' she said. She looked back at Hilton. 'But what is it you've been discussing?'
'I know your business has been suffering, and I thought that I'd help you out. I really owe you.'
Allegra began shaking her head vigorously. 'No way,' she said. 'Stop right there. I appreciate your offer, but no thanks. Besides'—she looked at Todd and smiled—'I'm going to be opening a retail shop in a building that Todd's bought. He and I are going to be living there together.'
'Well, that's good news,' Hilton said. 'Congratulations to both of you.'
'Thanks,' Todd and Allegra said in unison.
Hilton looked over at Jason. 'It's exactly like you said it would be.'
Jason nodded. 'She's a hard case.'
Todd laughed. 'It's all I could do to get her to take up my offer of having a shop in the building.'
'Then I would like to make this evening's festivities a publicity party for the opening of the Atelier Sheridan in Soho. The hot new jewelry shop in Manhattan,' Hilton said. He held up his hands to stave off the protestations he could see that Allegra was about to make. 'Give me just a minute. The press is here, and you'd get a lot of advance publicity that wouldn't cost you a dime. Come on, Allegra. Let me do this for you.'
Allegra looked at him, then Todd, then Jason. 'Well, I don't know,' she said. 'The shop isn't even open yet, and ... I don't have a press kit or anything.'
'Yes, you do,' Jason said.
'What?' Allegra looked over at him.
'I hated to go behind your back again,' Jason said, 'but after Todd told me about your plans, I thought I would try to make things up to you. So I had a brochure printed and brought samples with me. Don't kill me, Ally. It's—'
'I'm not going to kill you,' she said. She got up and went over and kissed him on the cheek. 'Thank you,' she said. 'But you've got to promise to stop going behind my back.'
'I will,' Jason said with a laugh. 'I promise.'
'So,' Whitehead said as Allegra went back to her seat beside Todd, 'since you're going to be moving in together, maybe you'd like this to be your engagement party, too?'
Todd turned to Allegra, and she looked at him. He didn't say anything, but she knew what he wanted her to say. 'I. .. well... I guess we could do that. That is, if you really want to, Todd.'
He threw his arms around her. 'You know I do, Ally, and so do you.'
'Yes,' she said. 'I do.'
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If the first thing you did when you started this novel was flip to the back to check out the ending, I hope you'll reconsider if you've stumbled upon the acknowledgments and wait to read them. You'll have more fun that way. In any case, while this novel is entirely a work of fiction, its springboard was a bit of interesting history. Emeralds that purportedly had belonged to Queen Alexandra and were bequeathed to King Edward VIII, her grandson—who was later to become the Duke of Windsor when he gave up the throne to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson— were rumored for many years to have disappeared with the duke and duchess when they left England for a life in exile. Many people believed that the Duchess of Windsor had wheedled them out of the duke. More likely, some historians believe, Queen Alexandra's emeralds were distributed among female members of the family. Years later, the duchess's jewelry box was stolen while she and the duke were staying in the country with the Earl and Countess of Dudley, and rumors flew around London that Buckingham Palace was responsible for the robbery because they wanted Queen Alexandra's emeralds back. Whatever the case, at least thirty pieces of jewelry that had been reported stolen in the robbery—on which the insurance was collected by the Windsors—turned up at the sale of the duchess's jewels in Geneva in 1987 after her death. If the duke and duchess ever had the emeralds, which is doubtful, they never resurfaced, separately or collectively.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the late Lady Caroline Blackwood, whose fascinating book The Last of the Duchess (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995) first alerted me to the story of the missing jewels. She discussed them at some length in her study of the Duchess of Windsor's last days in Paris as a virtual prisoner of her powerful lawyer, Maitre Blum. In addition, the missing jewels and the rumors surrounding them are among the startling revelations about the life of the Duchess of Windsor in Charles Higham's book The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988). The remainder of my story is total fiction.
I would also like to thank Laura Lapachin and Stefan Friedemann of Ornamentum Jewelry Studio and Gallery in Hudson, New York, for their invaluable tutelage on jewelry making and design. I hope your shop flourishes. My gratitude also extends to jeweler David Gourgourinis and Ivo Stoykov of Mykonos, Greece, and Boca Raton, Florida, whose stories about the jewelry trade, intelligence, hospitality, and, above all, wit have been an inspiration.
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