I laid out the replicas of the queen’s jewels on the bathroom counter and carefully tucked each piece of the parure and the Lesser Stars of Africa brooch into individual Velcro-fastened pockets stitched all round the inside of a specially padded corset. Years ago, I’d designed and constructed a number of these foundations—bras, waist-cinchers that resembled back braces, girdles, and corsets—and they had served me well. I’d used them successfully to carry gems and currency between my vaults in London and Zurich, Provence, and Geneva. I’d never try to pass through airport security wearing finished pieces, but loose stones were undetectable and the undergarments were so ingeniously constructed and padded, a thorough body search would not give them away. In addition to which, they were comfortable. They added bulk to my figure, to be sure, but what possible difference could a few more pounds make at this point?
I cinched on the lacy black strapless affair. I’d wear it from now on.
“Kahlua café, Princesse?” the waiter asked.
“Please.” I wanted to ask for a double I was so exhilarated from driving myself into town, by myself, for the first time. I’d called Barnhardt to tell him I’d made it without a hitch. Black Diamond performed like a dream.
“Naturally. Call me if you want a ride home.”
I was at the café before the rest of Robert’s group and took my regular table. I made my marketing list for dinner—smoked salmon canapés, noisettes de veau, rösti with shallot sauce, fresh spinach, and burgundy. And the rest of the cake. I pulled out my book, which I’d become very tired of—I was ready for some sort of a grand adventure story—and sipped my café, which I’d become addicted to. Robert and Sebastian thundered into the square in their troika a quarter of an hour later.
Robert came directly to my table. “Please come join us,” he said. “You can’t sit and read your silly book all the time. It’s too boring.”
“It’s not boring at all and besides, I was just leaving for the market. I’m cooking tonight, remember?’
“You mean you’re going to do the cooking? Not your cook?”
“I don’t have a cook.”
“That’s insane. Come to my house for dinner.”
“No. Absolutely not. You don’t understand, Robert. I like to cook.”
“No, no. You need to take care of yourself. You must stay off your feet. I insist.”
“Robert . . . “
“That’s the final word on the subject. I will call for you at seven-thirty.”
“All right. If you insist. But I’ll drive myself.”
I wandered next door into the predinner bustle at Fannie’s. I wouldn’t have many more opportunities to visit this gastronomic wonderland and I wanted to remember every inch of it.
The charcuterie counter alone was worth the trip, with sausages and cheeses available only in Switzerland. I was trying to decide which combination to purchase when, right on cue, Lucy sidled up next to me.
“Aren’t these sausages gorgeous? I’ll take that schnitzel, please,” she said to the fellow.
We both watched him wrap it in white butcher paper and tie it with string. He handed it across the counter.
“I figured it out,” Lucy said, holding the sausage.
“Figured what out?”
“Where I know you from.”
“Back at that again?”
“Have you ever been to Portofino?”
My throat tightened a bit. “Dozens of times.”
“I knew it! You were at the gala last June with that movie star . . . oh, what’s his name?” The sausage wagged back and forth like a pendulum.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve been invited to the gala a number of times, but I’ve never been able to attend. Was this the one where the diamond was stolen?”
Lucy nodded. “Yes, the Millennium Star. Oh, darn. What’s that actor’s name? It’s right on the tip of my tongue. Michael Douglas.”
I started to laugh. “You think I was there with Michael Douglas? What about his wife? Catherine Zeta-Jones.”
“Oh! My God, you’re right.” Lucy’s mouth formed a perfect O.
“That’s who I’ve had you confused with all this time. Catherine Zeta-Jones. I am so embarrassed. You look exactly like her.”
“Like her mother, maybe.”
“No, no. You’re what Al calls a dish.”
“Lucy, may I tell you something? I’m not interested in Al.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. All women are interested in Al Richardson. He’s one of the richest men in the world. And I’ve heard that you’re down to your last centime and you’re in the market for a husband.” She wiggled her schnitzel at me. “Just stay out of my Al’s pockets and his pants.” And with that she jammed the sausage into her basket, turned on her heel, and left.
She was a case. But unfortunately, she was a smart case. She’d somehow come up with me and Portofino in the same sentence and that was not a good thing.
Tomorrow night couldn’t come fast enough.
F O R T Y - E I G H T
That evening, as Black Diamond trotted up the main drive to the porte cochère, I studied the carriage entrance to Schloss Constantin more carefully than I had when I’d been on foot. This was a new perspective. Before, Oscar had carried me in through the ground-floor service entrance. Tonight, a footman at the front door held my horse’s bridle while I dismounted.
“Where are you going to put her?” I asked, concerned. “I’ve grown so attached to this gorgeous beast, I’d like to take her inside with me. She is a very special girl.” I patted her shoulder.
“She’ll be right here at the front, madam. Did you bring her blanket?”
“It’s in the box.”
He lifted the top of the storage box that ran the width of the back of the sleigh and pulled out Black Diamond’s travel coat, a snappy black wool affair trimmed with red braid.
“What do you do when it’s a big party?”
“They go down into the stable yard. It’s covered and heated.” He smiled kindly. “Believe me, they are very comfortable.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Very sure. We should all be so well taken care of.”
Oscar greeted me—well, the words “greeted” and “Oscar” don’t really fit in the same phrase, except we were warming up to each other slightly. When he opened the door, I was practically knocked backward by a wave of music—Robert and a soprano singing some duet or other—that was so loud it was almost deafening. Evidently there were speakers hidden in all the walls of the house, and it was almost as though Robert were standing right next to me screaming in my ear at the top of his lungs. I love music, but this would give me a nervous breakdown.
“Good evening, Oscar,” I called over the noise. “Did you have a good day?”
“Okay.” He took my coat and I followed him toward the cloakroom but he caught the toe of his boot on the corner of the rug and tripped. He fell with such a thud, it sounded as though a bomb had gone off.
“Oscar!” I said, and helped him to his feet. “Are you all right?”
He frowned and nodded. “Why are you thinking about me? You’re the only one who’s thinking about me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. All of us need thinking about and looking after.”
“This way,” he said.
I followed him past the dining room—so Gothic, so packed with heavy, oppressive furniture I almost felt like crawling—and down the wide hallway into a library with dark wood paneling and bookshelves jammed with leather-bound volumes, an ornate carved stone fireplace and more overly large, overly carved, overly dark, dreary furniture. Thick, weighty brocade curtains were drawn across the windows. The drapes strained at their loops as though they, too, wanted to fall to their knees and collapse. A flat-screen television showed a performance of Constantin in Puccini’s Tosca.
Sebastian pressed the mute when I entered the room and the house fell wonderfully silent. He smiled and stepped toward me.
“Prince
sse,” he said and kissed me on either cheek.
“Good evening, Sebastian.” Just knowing he was the Palace Thief and that the queen’s jewels were, hopefully, somewhere in this house, made shivers of excitement ripple up my spine.
He was a very worthy adversary. There was no way he would let my accusation about his entering my home, and my calling him a thief, run him out of town. After all, I’m sure he reasoned, they were just lucky guesses. Sebastian might have looked and acted like a nancy boy, but he was as intrepid and brazen as I was. His smile contained assurance and possibly even a challenge.
Robert put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me with gusto. “Welcome. You look magnificent tonight, like a movie star,” he said. “If your sapphires were just slightly darker, they would be the same color as your eyes.” In fact, if I hadn’t had the contact lenses in, they would have been the same color as my eyes.
He was dressed in a red velvet smoking jacket with satin lapels and looked every inch the grandest of grand tenors. “What can I offer you to drink? Red wine? White wine? Champagne?”
I looked at his vodka martini longingly.
“Champagne, please.” It couldn’t possibly be as bad as the sweet Riesling the night before.
Robert went to the drinks table and held up a bottle of Dom Perignon. “Will this do?”
“Perfectly.”
The three of us sat in front of the fire, each man in his own easy chair at either side and me on the sofa in the center. I don’t care how pretty sofas look, or how they complete furniture arrangements, they are pure hell to sit on, particularly if you’re wearing a tight corset or, more importantly, if you want to participate in a conversation with any energy or credibility. A slouching person cannot make a point. The only time a sofa is of any use is when you’re sick and have on soft, warm pajamas, a lush cashmere blanket, a stack of fashion magazines, and can lie down for a nap. I sat as far toward the front edge of Robert’s sofa as I could without sliding off onto the floor.
“Tell me about your painting,” Sebastian said. “How are you coming along?” There was that look again—humor and defiance all in one. “Making lots of progress?”
Oh, dear. Maybe he was the one who broke in and saw that I hadn’t cracked a single tube of oil paint. Or maybe I was just becoming paranoid, seeing a burglar around every corner.
“Some. Thank you for asking.”
“What exactly do you paint?” asked Robert.
“Landscapes are what I’m most known for. I do the occasional portrait. I’m rather stuck at the moment, rather uninspired. I think it’s all the snow. The snow is white. The canvas is white.” I shrugged. “I’m sure the sun will come out one of these days. You have such an interesting face, Sebastian, perhaps you’d consider sitting for me? Tinka’s study is a perfect studio for painting. Have you ever been there?” I kept my eyes on his. Touché.
“We’ve been to her house a number of times. Do you remember that fondue party, Robert? Cheese fondue for dinner and chocolate for dessert. I thought we would explode. But I’ve never been in her study or bedroom. Have you, Robert?”
Robert shook his head. “It’s not that I haven’t tried.”
We all laughed.
A maid came in and passed a tray with hot cheese puffs. I put one on my plate and considered a second.
“Please help yourself,” Robert said. “You can tell from looking at me, this house is nothing like Alma’s. And there are many, many more where those came from.”
“Thank you.” I added two more. “Tell me, how long have you lived here?”
“Since the club opened twenty years ago,” Constantin answered. “I was one of the first members. My residence of record is in Milan—I keep a big house there and that’s where the world thinks I live. There are photographers and fans outside the gates all the time. God knows what they think they’re going to see, all the cars have blacked-out windows. In reality, I haven’t been inside my Milan house in years, my mother and my sister live there. I live full-time here in Mont-St.-Anges. It’s the only place on the planet I’ve been able to find that allows me to live a somewhat normal life. It’s amazing that George has been able to keep it such a secret all these years. But then, that’s the power of Naxos.”
“He is amazing.” I bit into the cheese puff, one of my favorite hors d’oeuvre. Ubiquitous and so simple to make, just a little circle of buttered toast, topped with a mixture of mayonnaise, grated onion, and shredded cheese, either Parmesan or Gruyère, and a sprinkle of salt. Tonight it was Gruyère, of course. A little dusting of paprika and then put in the broiler until bubbling and golden.
“And now that Sebastian’s here,” Robert continued, “it’s made my time at home all the more relaxing and healthful—he’s taken a lot of the day-to-day business-management burdens off my shoulders. I used to have to spend hours on the phone with my agent and my business manager and now Sebastian does a lot of that for me. I don’t know what I did without you.”
The men smiled at each other. It would be easy to leap to the obvious conclusion that they were lovers. But frankly, I wasn’t so sure, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t care. I was fascinated at how Sebastian had insinuated himself into such an insider caretaker role. He was after more than jewelry. He clearly intended to gain—or possibly already had gained—control over Robert’s significant assets. I just hoped he wasn’t putting ground-up glass in Robert’s food. And I realized that was a major difference between Sebastian and me. He was a thief who had happened to steal jewels and had now moved on to a different target. I was a jewel thief. In my opinion, that put him at the bottom of the food chain, ethics-wise.
“That’s wonderful,” I said. “I can imagine what a help that is.” I wanted to say to Robert, Have you lost your mind? Don’t you read the papers. Don’t you know people like you are sitting ducks for rip-off artists like him? You read about actors and singers and dancers every day who’ve been duped by their managers.
As I regarded Sebastian, I recalled Bernard Lafferty, the obsequious butler who had insinuated himself into every aspect of Doris Duke’s sorry life and ended up by killing her through benign neglect and then inheriting her entire estate. Lots of people felt sorry for her because that’s what she wanted. Poor Doris, so unhappy and so taken advantage of because she was so rich. I’m sorry, but we all make choices and make our own lives and it’s just so much easier not to be accountable, blame our sorry mess on someone else. Well, Robert was a grown-up and if he wanted to hand over financial control of his portfolio and business, that was his business.
“What is your background, Sebastian?” I leaned forward in anticipation.
I knew whatever he was going to answer, it was going to be good.
F O R T Y - N I N E
“Law and finance.”
If I’d had an olive in my mouth, I would have shot it across the room.
“I was director of international banking for Barclay’s for a number of years. And I read law at Oxford, years ago, of course. I retired from the bank, let me see, how long has it been, Robert? Almost two years now. But I consulted for them for a long time after that—I only retired completely a couple of weeks ago.”
His expression was so innocent and sincere, if I didn’t know his background was domestic service and thievery, I would have believed him, too.
“I imagine assisting Robert is much more exciting than banking.”
“Indeed.” He smiled.
“Do you travel a lot?” I asked Robert.
“Less and less these days,” he answered. “It’s getting harder and harder for me to keep my voice in shape. The older I get the more vulnerable I become to colds and sore throats. But I still do one or two major productions a year—always one at the Met and one at La Scala—and a number of concert dates. And I still record, of course. It’s extremely hard work. People don’t realize how heavy the performance burden is. They only know they’ve had their tickets for months and the tickets are extremely costly and hard to get. Th
ey aren’t interested that I’ve been on tour and I’m exhausted—and in fact, they shouldn’t have to be aware of that. They’ve paid for a show and I’m there to give it to them so every time I walk onto the stage, I am committed to giving the performance of my life. It’s just that sometimes it takes so much out of me, I think it may just be the last performance of my life.”
I smiled at him. “That’s why you are where you are.”
“You’re so very right. I’ve worked hard my entire career—I’ve always given a hundred and ten percent and I’ve made an effort not to be temperamental, although I don’t always succeed. But I love what I do. And no matter how exhausted I am, the second I fly over the ridge into this valley, it all falls away. I can put the whole world behind me and no one knows where I am. And more importantly, no one cares who I am.”
Oscar refreshed our drinks, and the girl with the cheese puffs returned. Robert and I each put three more on our plates. Sebastian took one.
“Robert,” he said, “you know what your doctor said.”
Robert waved him off. “Basta. You’re not my mother. I’ll eat what I want.”
Sebastian pursed his lips and looked away archly. I could tell he was biting his tongue not to give Robert a speech, or else he was working up to a big pout or throwing a big tantrum.
“I imagine that privacy is your greatest luxury,” I said, ignoring the little kerfuffle and putting another canapé in my own mouth.
“It is as underrated as fame is overrated. I’m grateful to my fans, God love them, but sometimes fame reaches a point where it takes on a life of its own. There are a few of us who draw crowds that need entire police forces to manage them. It’s ridiculous. I’m a singer, for heaven’s sake. I haven’t discovered a cure for cancer or performed any miracles. Do you ever watch golf on television?”
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