Ruth Wind - The Diamond Secret

Since I was one of only a handful of people who would recognize what the bag contained, I was convinced this was true.

The suitcase was an exact replica, which isn’t so weird—how many black, wheeled carry-on models are there, after all?

Where could it have gotten mixed-up? At security, the van, the security checkpoint? But I hadn’t paid attention. I’d been running late.

Inside I found a white box. Jewelry, I thought, opening it—after all, jewels were my stock in trade. Judging by the rest of the suitcase’s contents, the jewelry would be something understated. Probably gold, expensive.

It was expensive, all right.

Pillowed in the cotton batting was a jewel. A diamond. Katerina’s Blood.

Not only was it huge, it was very rare and storied, this jewel.

It was even cursed.

Dear Reader,

A couple of years ago, I had a chance to tour Scotland. It wasn’t one of those places I’d ached to visit my whole life long, but the chance arrived and I leapt upon it—I’m a travel bug and love to go almost anywhere.

And wouldn’t you know it? I fell madly in love—with the landscape, the culture, the people. I hardly knew at the time that Sylvie Montague was going to arrive in my life with her red leather miniskirts and talent for finding trouble, but arrive she did, driving a hot Alfa Romeo along twisting roads through tiny villages, with a skill only her Formula One father could have taught her.

Along with Sylvie came her unrequited love, and a devastatingly sexy European who may or may not be a bad guy. Sylvie’s stuck with him, anyway, and how she gets herself out of trouble was a blast to write. I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

I love to hear from readers. Write to me via e-mail at ruthwind@gmail.com. Or visit my Web site at www.barbarasamuel.com.

May the wind be ever at your back!

Ruth

www.millsandboon.co.uk

is the award-winning author of both contemporary and historical romance novels. She lives in the mountains of the Southwest with her two growing sons and many animals in a hundred-year-old house the town blacksmith built. The only hobby she has since she started writing is tending the ancient garden of irises, lilies and lavender beyond her office window, and she says she can think of no more satisfying way to spend a life than growing children, books and flowers. Ruth Wind also writes women’s fiction under the name Barbara Samuel. You can visit her Web site at www.barbarasamuel.com.

Thanks to Alan McPhaetor for the good company and good information

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Few objects on earth can inflame the lusts of man as certain jewels will. They contain the one beauty that never fades or dies or changes—they embody power, sex, money. A single jewel, small enough to cradle in the palm of your hand, can be equal to the worth of a third world nation. They’re eternal, undying, mysterious, storied.

And nothing can bring out the evils of man like the lust to possess a particular jewel….

—Sylvie Montague, addressing Estate Jewelers International

Ayr, Scotland

There’s always a man, isn’t there, when things are about to hit the fan? In my case, there were three. One I’d loved a very long time. One had betrayed me. And one swept me into a drama I only half wished to escape.

The adventure began when I opened my suitcase in a hotel on the west coast of Scotland and learned that that somewhere over the Atlantic, someone had switched bags with me. Instead of two dozen pairs of (expensive!) thongs and a pair of red leather pants, I found a diamond.

A very large diamond.

Large and legendary, so infamous that I could not, for a long space of breaths, do anything but stare at the spectacular beauty of it, tucked in cotton batting by some unknown person.

I picked it up knowing two things. One: it was no accident that I, jewel expert Sylvie Montague, should be holding in her hand 80-something karats of medieval diamond.

Two: it was undoubtedly stolen.

Standing in a hotel room that smelled of the sea, I held the jewel in my hand, breathless, and tried to think when the bags could have been switched. I’d carried mine on the plane from San Francisco and shoved it into the very last remaining space in the overhead compartment. I couldn’t think of anyone opening the bin before the end of the flight, when I’d opened it myself and pulled my suitcase out.

But somewhere, someone had switched it. In my grasp was a diamond I had certainly not packed. My hands shook as I held it up to the light. My heart pounded.

It was unmistakable.

Katerina’s Blood.

Oh my God.

In the treatise on gems by Buddhabhatta (Finot, “Les Lapidaires Indiens,” Paris, 1896) we read: A diamond, a part of which is the color of blood or spotted with red, would quickly bring death to the wearer, even if he were the Master of Death.

—Folklore of Diamonds

Three hours earlier

The flight from San Francisco to Glasgow was a miserable one. Not that there’s any such thing as a good transcontinental flight. They’re always too long, too boring, too cramped and not even the luxury of my own back-of-the-seat movies does much to alleviate the agony of sitting still for that long.

The only decent thing about the whole flight was a guy across the aisle. Dark hair, cut close to his head, a little shadow of beard, a sharply cut mouth with full lips. I pegged him as Continental, and then spent some of the long, boring time trying to figure out why. The sweater, perhaps—a wool turtleneck. His clean, long hands. The shape of his mouth, which looked like it might shape words with long, rolling r’s. French, maybe.

At the end of a flight like that, all you want is to get off the freaking plane. It felt good to just walk down the concourse pulling my bag, stretching out the cramped muscles, shaking off the thickness of over-breathed air. I had checked no luggage, so made straight for the car rental counter, mentally crossing my fingers that my father had come through for me.

When I said my name, “Sylvie Montague,” the buzz-cut, redheaded youth behind the counter blinked.

“Aye,” he said, his eyes widening. “It’s all set up. I’ve got it right here.” With a gesture of reverence, he handed me the keys to an Alfa Romeo Spider.

Great car. Fast, elegant, very European. My father had come through for me. I grinned and slapped the keys in my pocket. “Thanks.”

“Are you related to him?” the youth asked. “To Gordon Montague, I mean.”

“Mmm. My father.”

“He’s the greatest racer ever.”

“Thanks. I’ll tell him.” When I turned around, I nearly slammed into a burly man right behind me. With a balding head of gingery hair and pale freckles across his forehead and nose, his ruddy cheeks made him look as if he were about to have a heart attack on the spot. I forgave him the glare he leveled on me.

“Sorry,” I said.

He grumbled something and shoved by me.

The car was in the parking lot, taut and silver, worthy of the admiring stroke I gave her sleek rear. I opened the driver door and was stripping off my coat when the beautiful—Frenchman?—from the plane walked by.