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Sain-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, French Riviera

922

A balmy breeze laden with salt and surf trickled through the glass doors that had been thrown open. Party guests flowed in

and out of the villa in continuous waves, the women as gaily dressed as tropical fish in their pinks, silvers, and greens

while the men resorted to the tried-and-true blacks and whites of formal wear.

Jasper Truitt swirled the ice melting in his scotch as a bead of condensation rolled down the glass and plopped to the travertine

floor, narrowly missing his shoe. If only he were a fish. At least then he could jump into the Mediterranean for a cool-off

from the miserable heat and none of the stuffed shirts would spare him a second glance.

"Enjoying yourself, Mr. Truitt?" An elegant woman dressed in soft blue with silver hair framing her delicate face floated

over to him. A small fox terrier trotted obediently next to her.

"Very much indeed, Madame Rothschild," he replied with a small bow. "Your home is quite stunning."

Madame Rothschild smiled comfortably at her surroundings as if she had been accustomed to wealth all her life. Because she had. A member of the French banking Rothschild family, she was a collector of fine arts, fashion, parties, and homes dotted around the world. Including the posh Villa Ephrussi in which they now gathered.

"Do you enjoy fine art, Mr. Truitt?" she inquired as the six-piece orchestra shifted into a Louis Armstrong number.

"It catches my attention."

"Then you must return sometime and browse my collections when fewer people are ogling them and trying to estimate how much

I paid for each." She waved a dismissive hand. "As if one could place a price on art."

"I would be only too happy to return and examine these works to better understand their true value."

" Bon . In the meantime be sure to visit the stone garden. I just added a gargoyle that was saved from one of the churches in Amiens

during the war. He is quite fierce, and I adore him. Enjoy the show later."

"Thank you, Madame Rothschild. I will." Jasper offered another bow as his hostess departed to be swallowed into the swell

of her party guests. Each person grasping to touch even the hem of the famous Rothschild fortune. But for him there were rules

to follow. Protocol. An honor code. Strangers were preferable, galleries and exhibits top-notch, and passing acquaintances

acceptable, but one must never steal from a friend.

It was fashionable for coming-of-age gentlemen to partake in a tour of the Continent. Leaving behind the dreariness of England, a lad could experience gondola racing in Italy, bullfighting in Spain, the nightlife of Paris, and every other frivolity money could buy, all while tallying it up to a fine education in the ways of the world. His grandfather, that sly old sinner, had taken him on such a tour.

On the refined soil of England, the seventh Duke of Loxhill was a prominent figure among the nobility and would not acknowledge

the out-of-wedlock fruits of his notoriety, but across the Channel no one gave two gold crowns for the upper-crust rules of

respectability. In fact, the more notorious one was, the more welcomed they were. So off to Europe they went—Jasper, the bastard

son of a bastard; and his grandfather Duke. Duke introduced him to princes, queens, generals, master painters, novelists,

dancers, and every colorful character imaginable. It was indeed a great education.

Jasper reluctantly turned away from a gilded-framed Fragonard hanging on the wall. Duke had introduced him to Madame Rothschild

ten years ago, making her a personal friend. So despite the easy fifty thousand pounds he could collect from one of his discreet

buyers for the painting, rules were rules. That and if he was caught lifting one more item, he'd be sent right back to jail.

For years Jasper had slipped beneath the authorities' noses, earning himself the rather stylish moniker of Phantom, and not

once had they come close to catching him. Until a year ago when his trouser pocket caught on a doorknob and out spilled a

ruby necklace and three gold rings. Right in front of a police officer. The police wanted to make an example of the infamous

Phantom to discourage all would-be thieves, but Duke had stepped in, and with a few words, Jasper was a free man again.

While he couldn't deny his preference for freedom over a lifetime behind bars, it had chafed him raw to be forced to rely on another man's standing rather than his own. Ah, the complexities of being a thief with a sense of pride.

Of course, such pride didn't keep him from slipping off from time to time to pursue jobs—such as enjoying a stunning collection

of jewelry at a party on the French Riviera. One piece in particular.

"Mesdames et messieurs! Ladies and gentlemen!" A man dressed in a starched butler's livery stood in the indoor patio, a squared-off

space in the center of the villa with marble columns and arched spaces that greeted visitors upon arrival. Tipping up his

chin, he raised his voice to be heard over the din. "If you will all make your way to the garden, please. The show is about

to begin."

A flurry of excitement carried Jasper outside into the evening air, only a degree cooler than inside. The sun setting in the

west cast its last orange rays across the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean while washing the sky in pinks and purples,

smattered with stars. The lights glowing from inside the pink villa flooded out to mingle over the deep green grass and palm

leaves from which dangled hundreds of light strings. Down the center of the yard stretched a long rectangular basin of water

dotted by lily pads. Torches and lanterns had been placed to highlight the many gravel paths leading deeper into the perfumed

gardens of lavender and lemongrass.

"Jazz! Jazz!" A familiar voice called through the throng, followed by a sharp whistle. "Oy! Over here."

From the terrace Jasper made out a waving hand down by the water basin. Desmond Walsh. A degenerate second son of a viscount Jasper had met while serving together during the war. With Desmond's penchant for scotch, cards, and good music, they had become immediate friends.

Jasper zigzagged through the crowd and grinned at his old comrade. "Mond, how are you? Didn't expect to see you here."

"You know me. Wherever there's a party." Wearing an eager grin, Mond offered him a lazy salute with his left hand. His right

arm had been blown off at Verdun. "Heard a whiff of it from the gambling tables at Monte Carlo and had to come see the shindig

for myself."

"How did Lady Luck treat you?"

"Well enough at first." Mond patted his breast pocket where a formidable bulge pressed beneath the fine black jacket. "She's

a fickle mistress, though, and started batting her lashes at an Italian count before long, but I fully expect to entice her

back tomorrow night. Care to join me?"

"Perhaps."

Mond tilted his fair eyebrows with interest. "Unless you have your eye on something here."

Jasper swirled his scotch. The melting shards of ice pinged the glass. "Perhaps."

"Got a buyer yet?"

"I have a client," Jasper said evasively.

Another reason for their friendship. Mond was well-connected in aristocratic circles, and rich people loved nothing more than becoming richer and earning the jealousy of their peers. There was only so much money to go around, but artwork and treasures were an entirely separate level, and Jasper knew how to provide. During the war Mond had noticed Jasper's unique gift of acquiring goods for the soldiers—goods not even the quartermaster could finagle off the black market. Food tins, socks, cigarettes, photographs of dance hall girls in their scanties—Jasper knew how to get it all, and soon enough, for a small percentage of the cut, Mond began introducing him to generals and colonels, men who, outside the trenches, were referred to by titles.

Perhaps the greatest strength of their friendship was that Mond never raised an eyebrow when Jasper got the itch to try his

hand at a new prize, and on more than one occasion was there to aid in scratching it.

"All right, keep your secrets." Mond grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and sipped. "But know this, there's

chatter around the craps tables. A wealthy Prussian is searching for a valuable artifact that belongs to his family and has

been missing for sixty years. The reward is said to be substantial."

"I'll keep that in mind."

At the far end of the rectangular water basin, a small hill protruded with stone steps leading up to a rotunda. Torches ringed

the structure and highlighted the petite figure climbing the steps to stand within the circle of columns upholding the roof.

"Good evening, my friends," Madame Rothschild said. A megaphone was stationed in front of her so the audience lined along

the basin and closer to the house could hear. "I am very pleased you have joined me here tonight to celebrate beauty, art,

and life. After four horrible years of death and destruction, we must learn to live again."

As her speech carried on, Jasper sipped his drink and surveyed the crowd. Women outnumbered the men six to one. Men too old or too fresh-cheeked to fight. Those left of middling years were sparse and often accompanied by missing limbs, eye patches, blasted-off ears, or canes. At least, those were the visible scars. Jasper's hand trembled, nearly upsetting his glass.

Some scars were buried too deep to be seen. Unless one knew where to look. A man across the way had shoved both hands in his

pockets but couldn't stop his feet from twitching. Nerve shakes. Another fellow pressed his hand to his ear as the megaphone

droned on. Loud noises. Back home, people said these were the lucky men, the ones who still had their looks and all their

arms and legs. But what did they know?

He shook himself from that maudlin thinking. He'd survived; others hadn't, and that was simply that.

"...have gathered the world's finest collection of jewels in a rainbow of colors to celebrate all things that glitter,"

Madame Rothschild continued. "Many of the items you will see are on loan from private collections. However, take heart. Several

of the pieces are up for sale. The proceeds will go to a displaced children's hospital in Nice, so dig deep into your pockets,

gentlemen, and buy the ladies something pretty."

At her signal the orchestra dove into a classical piece by Debussy, and at the far end of the basin stepped a figure, moving

as if gliding atop the water. The crowd pressed forward with oohs and aahs. The woman was costumed as Marie Antoinette, the

infamous French queen, wearing a revealing caged skirt and a towering wig. Draped around her throat were enough diamonds and

sapphires to fund an entire country.

"This sapphire-and-diamond parure," Madame Rothschild said, "is thought to have been made for Empress Josephine and later

acquired by the House of Bourbon."

The model sashayed to the end of the basin where Jasper stood. She did not walk upon water as the crowd was made to believe, but on a thin layer of glass fitted over the top. Still, the illusion was quite something.

Smiling a pink smile, the model offered her hand. "Care to help a girl down?"

Mond shoved his glass into Jasper's hand, then leapt forward with gallant determination. "At your service, my queen."

By the time her slippered feet touched the ground, a new lady was paraded out on a whirl of Tchaikovsky. This one was dressed

in all white with a fur cape tied to her shoulders and sported a crown that looked like a diamond egg cracked open with pearls

rolling down the center. She carried a scepter of gleaming ivory topped by a ruby the size of a walnut and a matching ruby

brooch pinned to the center of her bodice. It was a miracle she didn't tip right over from the weight.

"And now we journey to Imperial Russia," Madame Rothschild said. "This crown was crafted for Catherine the Second, and the

scepter was used by the last Romanov czar, Nicholas II."

As the model neared the end of her walk, Mond was there with eager hand extended to graciously help her down to walk among

mortals on the ground. The string of jewels kept coming. Strands of creamy pearls, rich emeralds embedded in tiaras, icy sapphires

winking from earlobes, and blood-red rubies dripping from fingers, all encrusted with diamonds and more diamonds.

"What a feast, eh, old boy?" Mond grinned back at Jasper as he assisted a Bavarian beauty whose shortened dirndl left little

to the imagination, never mind the Dresden Green pinned to her corset.

Behind her floated Miss Britannia draped in the British flag and— Hullo, what was this beauty? It couldn't be. The Bagration Tiara was said to have been lost in Russia before the revolution, but here it was, complete with matching necklace, hair comb, and earrings dripping in pink spinels. The entire set sold to the right buyer could set him up nicely for years.

Jasper edged his way past Mond, ready to help this particular jewel, er, lady down from her walkway. A few delightful words

in her ear and they'd slip off to one of the darkened garden paths where it would be only too easy to slide the pieces off

one by one into his pocket. Of course, the lady would need to be distracted while this was going on, but who said the evening

had to be all work and no play?

As he raised his hand to her with his most charming smile, the music suddenly changed. Richard Wagner's "Ritt der Walküren."

A triumph of brass and galloping horse hooves and warrior shield maidens—and triumphant she was.

The model strode down the walk as if it were her field of victory. Her diaphanous gown slinked over her shoulders and came

to a V just above her navel before draping into a skirt that sliced open to reveal long legs laced up in sandals. Enormous

wings made of wire and downy white feathers extended from her back and trailed the ground at her feet. If the costume hadn't

sufficiently impressed the audience into stunned silence, a crown lifted straight from the brow of a Valkyrie adorned her

head. The crowd gasped in delight.

His intended prize.

"And now for our showstopper," Madame Rothschild continued, a bit breathless by this point. "The Valkyrie Tiara. First performed

in 876, Wagner's opera Der Ring des Nibelungen is the story born of Norse mythology where in the third act we are greeted with ‘The Ride of the Valkyries'—women who choose who lives and dies on the battlefield. The opera immediately sparked a fashion for all things Norse, including the treasure you see here before you."

Circling the model's head, the diamond bandeau sprouted two glittering wings shooting straight up—ethereal, majestic, and

terrifying—as the stones glimmered like fire. Slowing her pace so her hips swayed to each side in rhythm with her steps, she

glanced neither left nor right but seemed to take in her rapt audience all at once. Her deep red lips curved in pleasure,

her bobbed black hair glowing as dark as an onyx under the torchlight. Entranced, Jasper took a step closer and bumped the

tips of his shoes against the low basin wall.

"...comprised of 2,500 cushion-shaped, single-cut, circular-cut, rose-cut diamonds and set in a frame of gold and silver.

The en-tremblant diamond wings are constructed using wire-coiled springs so they move slightly when worn. Observe."

The model turned her head gently from side to side, encouraging the diamond wings to flutter and earning another impressed

aah from the crowd. Her smile broadened, one side of her lips tipping up just a bit farther than the other, prodding something

in the back of Jasper's mind. Like he'd seen that quirk before.

She was nearing the end of the walk. The audience grabbed at the tiny feathers that loosened from her wings and drifted through

the air. Grown men and women squealed with delight as they jumped and snatched for the fluffy bits, then waved them high in

the air when at last their treasure was caught. Indeed, the Valkyrie was the treasure of the event, and all eyes would linger

on the magnificent piece for the rest of the evening. Not that he was worried; he was rather good at lifting things right

from under the spotlight. It all came down to a matter of finesse.

The crowd pressed in around him, but he held his ground. A few more steps and he could take her hand, offer her a refreshing drink, then suggest a cooling walk among the secluded garden paths to—

The prodding in the back of his mind slammed into him full force.

It couldn't be.

The woman's tilted smile flashed over him to the next person but screeched back to him. He saw the recognition in her eyes

the same instant it hit him.

Yes. Yes, it could be.

It was .

His glass of watery scotch slipped from his hand and smashed on the gravel, sending shards of crystal tinkling over the smooth

pebbles. The people around him yelped and jostled away.

Or at least, he thought they did. Every quivering bit of his attention was centered on the woman before him. She blinked and

the shared look of disbelief disappeared. With another flash of her tilted smile, she whirled at the audience's resounding

applause for a second look and sashayed back the way she'd come.

A hand waved in front of his face. Mond.

"Seems you made an impression on the lady. As you did my shoe." Whipping the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, Mond

wiped specks of scotch from his shoes. He straightened and tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. "Who is she?"

Jasper rubbed at the heat dashing up the back of his neck.

"My wife."

He darted after her, following the trail of downy feathers as he moved away from the drag of guests clogging the main lawn as they clustered around the bejeweled models for closer inspections. He rushed down a parallel path that veered off behind a scrim of thick-leaved bushes and trees that sheltered a small squared space to showcase a single piece of art.

And there she stood, leaning her back against a marble pedestal with a Grecian hero perched atop. She looked exactly as she

did in his dreams, yet nothing at all like what he remembered. Her skin was still the milky color of alabaster, her legs long,

and her hair as black as midnight. The last time he'd seen her, those dark strands had brushed her waist after he'd pulled

the restrictive pins from her hair on their wedding night. He'd delighted in running his fingers through it to stroke the

soft skin hidden beneath. Now she sported one of those fashionable bobs all the women were raging over. On most women the

cut resembled a young boy who'd yet to grow into his chest hairs, but on her it was perfection. Shorter in the back and tapering

longer in the front to brush her jaw like a razor's edge.

All right, Truitt, my lad. You can play this one of two ways . First option: the long-lost husband still nursing a broken heart after waking up to find his wife had run out on him. Or

the second: cool and calm as if he barely remembers their whirlwind romance and has not spent the past four years searching

for her face in every crowd.

At the sound of his intrusion into her sanctuary, she turned her head in his direction.

"It's you." Her voice was collected with the barest hint of surprise. As if the world had not just stopped spinning and tossed

them on their heads.

Second option it was then.

Jasper slipped his hands in his pockets and affected a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder.

"Hello, Esme."

She turned fully around to face him in a graceful swirl of her sheer skirt.

"It's been a long time."

"Four years."

Her thin eyebrows lifted as if the passing of time caught her off guard. "Has it really been that long? My goodness...

Well, you certainly look swell. What a surprise to see you here tonight. Of all the places in all the world."

He moved farther into the private space where the scent of blooming jasmine hung heavy among the dark green leaves. "The world

is smaller than we typically think. After all, how could you explain this reunion?"

"Serendipitous good fortune." She smiled brightly as if to convince him to ignore the obvious topic thundering below their

flippant words. At last her smile dimmed and she sank her teeth into her lower lip in capitulation.

"I suppose this is as good a place as any to have it out. Darling, I am sorry for what happened, but you must admit it was

all rather rushed and we fumbled into a mistake. Commitment was never my strongest feature and surely you see by now that

my leaving was for the best."

He nodded, not in understanding or agreement but rather at finally confronting the unanswered questions haunting him. That morning after their wedding he had sat in a stupor for a good half hour wondering where his bride had vanished to. Realizing she hadn't merely popped out for tea and crumpets, he'd run—all right, more like stumbled due to the lingering effects of champagne—down the street shouting her name and asking every person he saw if they'd seen her, but most were still too sodded from their Armistice carousing to notice a runaway wife.

At first the constant whys had harangued him morning, noon, and night, but time had sanded away their cutting roughness, leaving

little scabs for him to pick at when the mood struck. A bottle of champagne often did the trick. Seeing Esme again ripped

off the old scabs, and out poured a hundred fresh whys with their stinging edges.

"Did it occur to you to mention that before we signed the marriage license, or did the notion seize you after our wedding

night?" The abrasive whys softened to a memory. A smile toyed with his lips. Several memories, in fact. "If I recall correctly,

you had no qualms about... ah, our time together."

She plucked at the hair curling near her cheek, covering the pink stain beneath. "Our time together was spent drunk on champagne.

Surely you see the folly in our overexcited actions, spurred on by youthful celebration. Really, darling, you should be thanking

me for saving us a lifetime of regrets."

"How do you know there would have been regrets? You left too early to find out."

"I had no choice. Better to have made a clean cut than drag out the inevitable. No hearts broken or tears shed."

In that she was probably right. Their marriage had ended before they could discover if there was anything true about it. Anything

worth fighting for. His heart may not have broken, but it had certainly been bruised by her cold disappearance. To say nothing

of his wounded pride.

"You might have left a note."

The last rays of the sun peeked through the bushes behind her and dusted her shoulders, setting the gauzy material of her

dress aglow like that of a Grecian goddess come to life.

"I am sorry about that, but I was terrified you would wake up and want to hash things out, and I simply couldn't allow it. Clean cut and all that."

"Yet you took our wedding photograph."

"A memento. For the lovely time we spent together, though I remember it mostly through a haze." She stepped closer to him.

The hem of her gown swayed over the tips of his shoes. She was quiet for a moment as she examined him, barely needing to look

up to meet his eyes due to her exaggerated height. "So your eyes are brown. I've often wondered."

Her gaze dropped to his mouth and for a second, he thought she might kiss him. Despite the desire it kindled in him, he dragged

his attention away from her lush, inviting lips to the wings atop her head and took half a step back.

"The first time we met you had long hair and wore a nurse's uniform," he said, collecting himself to business he had actually

come for. "Now look at you. Chic and crowned with diamonds. You've come a long way in four years. Or were you a princess in

disguise and neglected to tell me?"

She, too, took a step back into cool reserve. "Hardly royalty. With the war over I put aside my starched apron and rolled

bandages—you remember me telling you I was never very good at it to begin with?—and decided to try something new. I couldn't

go back to what I had been doing before the war." A brief shadow clouded her face but lifted just as quickly as she pressed

on with her story. "A few odd jobs here and there until I found something I'm rather good at, and it brought me here tonight.

Modeling precious jewels most women can only dream of. Such as this." She lifted her hands to either side of her head, indicating

the Valkyrie.

"It's a stunning piece. May I?"

She tilted her head forward so he could better see all the angles. The sun now dipped beneath the horizon, and the silver-and-gold metal no longer stood separate but melted together into a rosy hue that burned through the diamonds like pink fire. Beautiful, but not what he was looking for.

He tried another tack. "I imagine it's quite heavy."

"Then you would be wrong. It's certainly no heavier than that tin hat you wore in the trenches. You told me it weighed a ton."

"I was trying to impress you." It slipped out. He was finished with that line of thinking and had shut the door to carry on

with his intended purpose, but the heat pressed around them, heavy with memory and laden with the mingling scent of her perfume—an

intoxicating blend of orange blossoms. He kicked the mental door shut before the perfume wreaked havoc. "But a tin hat is

nowhere near as impressive as a winged crown."

She glanced around quickly, then slowly lifted the tiara from her head. "We're not supposed to remove these, but if you don't

tell, then I won't."

"Cross my heart." He made a quick X over his heart, then held out his hands to accept the tiara. As simple as that. His treasure

handed to him on a silver platter. He could turn on his heel, vault over the wall, and be off scot-free before she could utter

an alarm. Yet something in him resisted, and the door cracked open. It was too easy, and she was too near. After four years

of wondering why, he couldn't simply walk away, not as easily as she had, not yet.

"See the wings here?" She leaned forward, nearly touching her head to his to point to a red-painted nail at the wings. "The coiled-wire springs allow them to move as if in flight without adding any unnecessary weight." She carefully rotated the piece on his flat palms and pointed to where the thin wires had been attached to the headband.

"The craftsmanship sure is something, as is the myth behind it." Jasper tilted the tiara slightly to catch the light twinkling

from the electric bulbs strung through the trees. The yellow light glided along the headband's smooth metal backing, catching

slightly on the screws holding the wings in place, but not on the scrolled R that was supposed to be stamped just under the left wing. Blood throbbed in his head. The tiara was a fake.

"Cartier made a number of these back when they were all the rage, but the famous jewel house crafted the Valkyrie to be the

most exquisite of them all."

"Who was it crafted for?" He kept his voice neutral despite his entire plan having gone belly-up. Duke would not be pleased.

Where was the real Valkyrie?

Esme shrugged. "There's a rumor about it belonging to a posh aristocrat's mistress, an Italian opera singer, long before it

went to his bride, but who can untangle the affairs of the rich? Would you mind helping me take these off?" Tugging at the

straps over her shoulders that tied the wings on, she turned and presented her back to him. "The tiara may not be heavy, but

these certainly are. My back will be sore for a week."

Jasper reached for the strap only to remember he still held the tiara. Correction, the fake. He cursed silently. The only

option now was to start hunting again from scratch. Esme quickly plucked the tiara from his fingers and slipped it back on

her head.

"Is it straight?" she asked, feeling the diamond-encrusted band sitting crookedly across her brow.

He gently straightened it, careful not to let his fingertips linger too long anywhere near her face. There was no telling... Well, actually there was a telling of precisely what they would do so close to that smooth cheek. He snatched his hands back and indicated for her to turn around.

The straps were white leather made to blend into her barely-there gown. Three in total, one for each shoulder and a center

one that held them together to form a sturdy H. He unbuckled the center one first, then the shoulders, and helped ease the

massive feathers from her back.

Holy smokes! The pair of them had to weigh at least three stones.

"Ah, much better." She rubbed the back of her neck. The short black hairs bristled softly against her pale, exposed skin.

"It's a wonder you didn't topple backward." He draped the wings carefully over the statue, transforming the marble man into

Icarus.

"If I had, I would have played the part of a Valkyrie slain in battle. Keep it as part of my act." Smiling with amusement,

she stared up at the statue, idly twirling one of the feathers around her finger.

Her back was to him, and their tête-à-tête had dragged on long enough. Any longer and Madame Rothschild might wonder where

her showpiece had gone and come in search. Poor woman. She had no idea she'd been duped.

Why was there a fake circulating to begin with? And then there was Esme. His wife. How was he to go about that, and more precisely,

what did he want to do about seeing her again?

Boom!

Jasper ducked, throwing his arms over his head as red flares filled the night sky.

A cool hand touched him. A soft voice filled his ear. "Fireworks. Look!"

He glanced up to see bursts of red, white, and yellow. Not starbursts to cut charging soldiers in half, not artillery shells whistling down for explosion, but fireworks. Harmless, frivolous fireworks.

Slapping on a smile to cover his thundering heart, he straightened, but not before catching the sympathy in her eyes.

"Yes, fireworks," he said, pushing away her sympathy as he forced himself to watch the sparkling display over their heads.

There had been fireworks the night of the Armistice. Everyone in Paris went out to see them, including him and Esme, but it

hadn't been long before they could only see each other.

He turned to her. "Do you remember—"

She was gone.