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Poppi nodded. “Kamp Vaught in the Netherlands. They didn’t have a gas chamber, but they did have an execution site with mass graves. Haversham’s father and his cronies took the only thing those people had left. I watched ‘em do it, and when I reported it up the chain of command, I got cashiered out of the army for my trouble.”
Remembering her grandfather always served to steady her nerves. He had endowed her with so much, every bit of knowledge he’d learned from the backstreets of Belfast through the war that was supposed to end all wars, to becoming an unparalleled master thief, surpassing his abilities and allowing him to retire in comfort. Poppi had lived long enough to see her pick up the mantle of his cause and make it her own.
“Now, remember,” said Mia via their comm link. “Make sure you’re seen but not remembered. I’ve hacked into their video coverage. Try and keep your face turned away. Head for the ladies loo when they remove the necklace from the case and start to take it away. I’ll let you know when they’re in position, and you can roll the canister down the air duct.”
There wasn’t anything Claire could say without calling attention to herself by talking to no one. Best to get a mocktail and mingle. She smiled to herself. Who would have thought that the granddaughter of the horse master and chauffeur to Sir Godfrey Robbins would find herself among the social elite and nobility of London and be perfectly at home as she planned to snatch the Grenadine Necklace right from under their very noses.
Sir Godfrey was a venture capitalist known as much for his ruthlessness as his wealth. He had acquired a palatial estate outside the city of London that rivaled the famed Leeds Castle. Although Godfrey Manor wasn’t technically a castle, it was a magnificent manor house situated on over one hundred acres of finely manicured lawns, lush pastures, and glorious English gardens.
Claire had grown up as the poor church mouse cousin to Sir Godfrey’s daughter, the glorious Evangeline. Perfect, stunning, unobtainable and every bit as cruel and heartless as her father. Claire and Poppi had lived in a quaint carriage house located between the stables and the garage. As far as Claire was concerned, it had been the perfect childhood.
She glanced around at all the beautiful people—mingling, sipping champagne, delicately nibbling at passinghors d’oeuvres, and trying to convince themselves and each other that their being here tonight mattered. It didn’t. What mattered was their donations. The fundraiser was merely an elaborate and expensive thank you. Better they spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars on the actual cause than to placate the egos of those who ought to give because they could.
Her role required her to play the part—to be seen in all the right places with all the right people, while she plotted how to liberate their ill-gotten gains from them. Who’d have thought that the chubby tomboy who liked nothing better than to ride horses and run around in breeches, one of her grandfather’s sweaters that smelled of his pipe tobacco, and a pair of riding boots would be just as at home mingling with the rich folk her grandfather had despised. Claire didn’t despise them—not all of them. Most she sort of pitied as they were never tested to find what they were made of. She found freedom on the back of a horse. On the back of a horse, it didn’t matter if you were one of the haves or have nots. All that mattered was ability, nerves of steel, and the horse beneath you.
“Claire, right in front of you… there’s a photographer coming straight at you. If he gets a shot of you, he’s going to figure out you have the device. Get out of there,” whispered Mia in her ear.
Claire spun on her heel, intending to walk away. She needed to be clear of the photographer and to keep him from catching even a glimpse of her. She headed to stand by one of the pillars in the great hall to study the Grenadine Necklace—a stunning piece consisting of a four-strand diamond choker, held together by an exquisite, oval-shaped pink diamond from which a flawless white pear-shaped diamond hung. Claire didn’t even want to think about its monetary worth. What was important was that it had come into the hands of fascist dictator Mussolini, who had bestowed it on his mistress, Clara Petacci. Somehow Clara’s turncoat cousin, who had been among those on the firing squad as they riddled her body with bullets, had managed to extract it from the hidden pocket in the hem of her skirt before they’d hung her and her lover upside down for the crowd to see.
The necklace had never belonged to the Petacci family—not then, not now. Claire had tracked down a distant relative of the woman to whom it had once belonged and from whom it was taken when she was murdered trying to escape the Nazis via a small fishing boat out of Italy. The woman would never know who had restored the necklace to her family. But Claire would ensure not only that she received it, but also that she had the provenance to prove it rightfully belonged to her.
As she tried to duck behind the pillar in order to put it between her and the photographer, she clumsily ran into a tall, muscular man in an ill-fitting and probably rented tuxedo. He had to be close to six feet, six inches tall, and his shoulders looked like those of a flanker on a rugby team. Claire was fairly sure in some circumstances those shoulders could block out the sun. She was not a small-framed woman, nor had anyone ever described her as willowy. In fact, the most complimentary way to describe her figure was a true hourglass, but slightly larger on top. This guy in his rented tuxedo and cheap loafers made her feel petite and feminine.
Because of the difference in their height, Claire must have knocked into his arm, making his drink tumble out of his calloused hand and all down the front of her black and sequined halter gown. She pulled the dress away from her body.
“Here, let me help you with that,” he said in a deep baritone voice, as he stole a blatant glimpse down the front of her dress.
She let the damp gown fall back against her body where it molded to her curvaceous upper half. “I think you’ve done more than enough.”
“Hey, it was an accident, and you bumped into me, but in my opinion, it improved the fit of your gown.”
Claire looked him up and down. “As if I’d take fashion advice from you. Where did you rent that tux? Dolts Are Us?”
“If you’d like you can give it to me, and I’ll have it cleaned.”
“Did you seriously just ask me to take off my gown in a crowded room at a charity fundraiser?”
“I didn’t mean here. You can’t possibly think you’re so hot, I’d jump you in front of a bunch of high-class strangers.”
Maybe he hadn’t meant it that way, but it didn’t matter. The little girl who’d been having a wonderful time at the perfect Evangeline’s graduation garden party, didn’t consider the ramifications when she brought her hand back to slap him. All she could hear in that space of a heartbeat was Evangeline and her best friend, Gemma, talking about her.
“Honestly, Evangeline I don’t know how you put up with the little urchin—well, I guess she’s not really that little, is she?” Gemma laughed. Gemma was a bitch.
“I am beginning to believe that her grandfather must have something on Papa.” Evangeline always put the accent on the last syllable. “She is rather gauche, isn’t she?”
“Gauche doesn’t begin to cover it. The boarding school is going to have to order special uniforms to fit her. Maybe they’ll put her on a diet. Good god, have you seen how she eats?”
Evangeline laughed her bubbling, ultra-feminine laugh that actually didn’t bode well for anyone about whom she was thinking. “I swear, she’s never met a pastry or carb she didn’t like.”
Claire looked down at her hands, which bore the telltale traces of pastry flakes from the last of the meat pasty she’d just stuffed into her mouth, as well as the grease from the contents held within. With no napkin available, she flipped up the hem of her party dress and hastily wiped her hands off on the underside.
“Are we going to have to be nice to her in Switzerland?”
“I don’t know why he insisted she come to the same boarding school. I understand Papa feels some obligation to her grandfather, but honestly, couldn’t he just have sent her off to Ireland? They like horses there. But Papa wouldn’t listen, although he did finally give into my pleas that she not be in the same room with me. He managed to get you and I assigned to the same room.”
“Party Central,” trilled Gemma. “Let’s hope she gets the message and stays away. She could really bring down our standing. She’s fat, sloppy, and not very bright.”
“Not to mention she’s practically an orphan and was raised by my father’s chauffeur, that no account Irishman, who spends more time with my father’s horses and cars than he does poor Claire. She’ll never amount to anything. She really is a ragamuffin.”
