MOONLIGHT ON DIAMONDS (30 page)

“It is good, Ji?”
came a voice from the darkness.

“Are you still here?”
asked John surprised, trying to see where his driver was.

The man silently
stepped forward into the light that spilled from the temple. “Yes, I am still
here. I told you I would wait,” he answered good-naturedly, as a skinny,
walnut-colored hand opened in front of him. A man’s ruby ring winked up at him.
Even in the dim light John could tell it was a perfect blood red and weighed at
least ten carats. It looked somehow familiar.

Then he remembered.
The last time he had seen this jewel it had been kindling hot against
Veronica’s breasts. Now that the gem had been restored into its original
setting, he recognized it for what it was—The Fire of the Maharaja.

“The lady says to
give this to you. She says the man who owns this before, he is no longer
alive.”

John just stood there
staring.

“Take it. It is for
you, Ji,” urged the man with his toothless smile as he pressed the ruby into
John’s hand.

It was true. The
Italian businessman Veronica had stolen the ring from so many years ago had
since crashed his sports car on the Ponte Milvio in Rome, leaving no heirs
behind. The ring felt heavy and finely crafted in his palm. Slowly, he slipped
it onto his finger.

“She says to give you
this, too.” The driver handed him a note.

John took the paper
and turned toward the light to read it. It was written on elegant stationery
with the crest of the Royal Alpine Hotel in Lech at the top. The address and
phone number were printed on the bottom in dark blue ink.

According to the ancient lore of India, in order to bring
good luck, a gemstone must be given freely, never coveted, and never taken by
fraud or force.

By the way, do you like to ski?

- V

He didn’t like to
ski, but that was okay. Somehow John had a feeling they’d be spending most of
their time curled up by the fire telling Ghost stories as the snow floated down
outside the window of Veronica’s cozy chalet—that is, when they weren’t
otherwise occupied.

Nicholas Bezuhov
poured a glass of champagne for Jessica as she settled next to him on the fresh
green grass along the Thames. It was a fine day for the Henley Regatta. They
sipped champagne and watched the handsome young Oxford and Cambridge crew teams
straining in the sunlight as they rowed toward the finish line. British
aristocrats milled around the gaily striped pavilions that had been erected in
the Royal Enclosure, the ladies showing off their pretty hats and the gentlemen
in classic bow ties and straw boaters. Nicholas was also properly attired,
although the diamond pin stuck in his lapel was perhaps a bit more flashy than
those of his British counterparts. Jessica, however, fit right in. She wore a
wide-brimmed hat adorned with a becoming pale blue bow.

With lazy elegance he
pulled a little box from his breast pocket and presented it to the American
debutant. “For you,
slatkaya
.”

Her face flushed with
pleasure. “Oh, Nicholas, how exciting!”

She carefully opened
the black velvet box and her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as she
took in a beautifully designed bracelet of pink and yellow diamonds crafted
into exquisite little daisies on platinum stems.

“Nicky!”

“You like?” he asked,
pretending he didn’t know she was about to explode in a shuddering orgasm in
the middle of the genteel affair.

“Oh, Nicky!” she
gasped again.

Nicholas smiled. He
had sold the majority of Veronica’s hot collection and deposited the cash in
the bank, just as he’d promised he would. But a few small gems, here and there,
he had kept for himself. The bracelet now shimmering in the sunlight on the
debutante’s slender wrist had been made from some of those jewels. Whether she
was aware of it or not, Jessica had run part of the risk when the stones were
hidden in her car. It seemed only good sportsmanship to see to it that she
reaped at least a small reward.

“Oh, I just can’t
wait to show Mummy!” breathed the debutante.

“Please,
slatkaya
,” said Nicholas smiling
indulgently. “You are going to make a scene.”

“Oh,” Jessica flushed
slightly, and lowering her hand to her lap brought her voice down to a more
demure tone. “Of course. Forgive me, Nicholas.”

****

Delores Pigeon poured
out nice, piping hot cups of cocoa, sprinkling them with nutmeg before Antoine
thoughtfully carried the tray with its old-fashioned Wedgwood china and
home-baked cookies into the rose garden. The Welsh mists were burning off as
the sun peeked out and smiled over the charming little cottage garden that
overlooked the sea.

“You have settled in
a lovely place,” said Antoine as he pulled out a chair for her.

“Oh, I’m so pleased
you like it!” exclaimed Delores beaming. “And I’m so happy you brought your
nice friend Gaston,” she turned her smile on the good-looking young man dressed
in pinstripe pants and a tight white T-shirt stretched across his well-muscled
chest.

“Well, we had to go
to London anyway for the nineteenth-century Swedish antiques auction at
Christie’s, so I thought it would be best to bring the rest of your money to
you in person,” replied Antoine.

“Always so
thoughtful,” said Delores, pinching his cheek. “So how did I do?”

“We did better than
expected on the Puck. It turned out one of the Saudi princesses has this wild
thing for Katie Park, and when she found out she might be able to get her hands
on the Puck Diamond…well, let’s just say Daddy went all out to make his
princess happy.”

“Every girl deserves
such a good father,” glowed Delores.

Antoine leaned over,
placed a friendly hand on hers and put on a sympathetic face. “I know you
really were wanting to get the Hope, but I have to tell you, I think it would
have been a nightmare to sell.

“But, you know,”
Antoine changed to a more upbeat tone, “with all the other nice jewels you were
able to grab, I think we did even better than you would have with the Hope.”

Delores nodded
understandingly. Things certainly had not gone according to plan the night of
the Diamond Ball, but she hadn’t made it as far as she had in the jewel thief
racket without being able to think on her feet. So when the lights had gone out
and everyone was in a panic, what better time to grab as many handfuls of
jewelry as she could?

“And I’ll tell you
this, Granny,” said Antoine, lowering his voice and giving the rose bushes a
paranoid sweep with his eyes, “A lot of people think you’re a big heroine for
what you did.”

“Oh,” she blushed and
shook her hand at the boys, embarrassed at the compliment.

“No, no!” insisted
Antoine. “You are a heroine, really you are!”

Gaston nodded his
head in agreement.

“It was pure luck. I
just happened to be escaping out into the hallway right behind that nasty
Dornal Zagen, and I still had the cake cutter in my hand from serving up my
famous double chocolate sin cake…”

“Ah! I love that
cake!” gushed Antoine. Then realizing his rudeness, “I’m sorry to interrupt. I
just…I can’t even hear you talk about that cake. It’s so magnificent.”

“Anyway,” said
Delores with a sigh, “that Austrian has been causing trouble for everyone for
so long. It was such a relief when they locked him up, but then he breaks out
of prison!”

“I know,” Antoine
agreed, “good riddance to bad garbage.”

“That Veronica
Rossmore is such a pretty girl. I just thought what a shame it would be to see
that lovely milky-white throat cut.”

“Yes,” Antoine nodded
his head in a show of support.

Delores’ eyes lit up.
“Oh, I almost forgot! I have something for you. Now you just sit there and let
me get it.”

Delores scuttled inside
the cottage, returning a moment later with a pale blue afghan tied up in a big
white silk ribbon. “I crocheted this for you, for being so helpful and nice.”

Granny placed the
afghan in his lap.

“You know this is my
absolute favorite shade of robin’s-egg blue,” he turned to his partner, “isn’t
it, Gaston? Don’t I always point out how much I like this shade of blue?”

“You do!” agreed
Gaston.

Antoine turned and
looked Delores straight in the eyes. “I absolutely, positively, L-O-V-E, love
it!”

Granny’s heart glowed
with happiness. Everything had come out just right in the end.

****

Even the usually
unflappable Parisians couldn’t help turning their heads as Marguerite Gateaux
made her way into Au Chien Qui Fume, the fashionable Les Halles bistro. She sauntered
in on the arm of Placido Del Toro, the handsome young Spanish bullfighter who
had set the continent abuzz with his daring antics in the ring, and lately with
his sizzling hot romance with France’s favorite criminal, Maggie La Chatte.

The flaming-haired
star smiled as she slipped into a choice, burgundy leather banquette. Settling
in, she allowed Voltaire out of his Hermès carrying bag. The King Charles
spaniel was in good company. Lining the bistro walls were paintings of various
canine breeds smoking pipes or cigarettes in long, elegant holders. Behind
Marguerite, a boxer terrier dressed in a suit and cravat held a fat cigar
between his teeth, his bug eyes staring relentlessly at Placido. Fortunately,
the handsome bullfighter saw only her.

“Tonight, you will
let me take you back to Barcelona,” he said in a divinely low, masculine voice.

“Placido, you know my
new show opens at the Paris Opera tomorrow,” replied Marguerite as the waiter
poured her a glass of her favorite bordeaux.

“Give it up!” cried
the Spaniard dramatically. “Come home with me and become my wife!”

Maggie only laughed
and then playfully slipped off her red satin shoe and rubbed the tip of her toe
against his crotch. “Cher, you know I don’t want to get married.”

“You will kill yourself,”
complained the bullfighter, his brow darkening. “You cannot expect to escape
with your life after every fall like the one you took at the White House.”

“It was the
Smithsonian, chere, and let me tell you—that was no accident.” Her green eyes
glittered with feline intensity. “Someone didn’t want to compete with me.”

“That whole business
you certainly must stop,” he complained. “It’s crazy. You are crazy.”

“Certainly it’s no
more dangerous than chasing an angry bull around a ring?” she observed with an
arch of her brow.

“It is different,”
fumed her lover. “I am a man.”

Maggie only laughed
again and pushed her foot more deliberately against him, feeling his arousal.
She leaned across the table and whispered, “I can tell.”

Grabbing her foot
firmly in his strong hands, he placed it back on the floor. “I’m serious. How
can you have children if you are running around rooftops or falling off
high-wires?” he demanded.

“Don’t you worry
about me, mon petit chou,” she said leaning in to touch the tip of his nose with
her finger. “I have a little magical protection.” She raised her hand to her
stomach and gently rubbed the stone that nestled comfortably against her navel
fastened to the thin gold chain that encircled her waist.

When Marguerite had
snatched the Mogul Emerald from Senator Hayes’ DC townhouse, she had known it
was inscribed with powerful Islamic prayers. However, it was only after the
near fatal fall at the Diamond Ball that she realized just how powerful that
magic was. She had worn the gem that night carefully concealed beneath her
costume, hoping its fabled good luck would enable her to make off with the
Hope. Instead of assisting her theft, she now credited the emerald with saving
her life. As skillful as she was, she knew it was not her acrobatic genius that
had kept her from smashing her bones apart on the marble Smithsonian floor. It
had been some kind of supernatural intervention.

It wasn’t too hard to
understand why Zagen had tried to kill her that night. She couldn’t blame him
for wanting to get rid of the competition. After all, wasn’t she guilty of the
same thing? Of course, she hadn’t resorted to attempted murder, but she had
seen to it that a few notes were slipped under Veronica Rossmore’s door to
frighten the spirits away. It wasn’t that she disliked Veronica. Quite the
contrary. She had admired her ever since she spotted the fifteen-year-old
schoolgirl sporting the very hot Fire of the Maharaja along with tons of
costume jewelry and a trendy, punked-out mini dress at the Hippodrome, a fashionable
London nightclub, ten years earlier. No one else had guessed the massive ruby
was real, but Maggie’s trained eye had picked it up in an instant. That was a
girl after her own heart, Maggie had thought at the time. Being territorial by
nature, as her cat name implied, Marguerite had decided to stake out her claim
this time around in the hope Veronica would stay away.

As it turned out,
Maggie and her notes were nothing for Veronica to be afraid of compared to
Dornal Zagen. Fortunately for everyone, the Austrian would never be a problem
again.