The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [36]
Their eyes met as she took it from him and whispered, “Thank you.” And then she hurried back along the corridor, urging the others along in front of her, aware of Grigori Solovsky’s speculative glance following them every inch of the way.
Paris
Leyla Kazahn was enjoying the rare luxury of a day alone at her Paris home on the Ile St-Louis. It was cold and gray with a threat of snow but she welcomed the chance to breathe clean fresh air after the stuffy overcrowded salons and hot, smoky photographic studios where she spent most of her time. She was wearing a violet shearling jacket, jeans, and boots, and with her long dark hair pulled back and no makeup, she looked like a different girl from the sleek model of the Paris catwalks and fashion magazines. Only her extraordinary eyes, almond-shaped and a blazing blue, betrayed her identity.
When she was just seventeen, she had been discovered by an agent browsing in Barney’s. He had whisked her to the city’s grandest photographer, who had insisted on taking pictures of her there and then, a simple unadorned schoolgirl in a T-shirt and jeans. He had emphasized her delicate mixture of the East and the West, and before she knew it Vogue was commissioning pictures. Instead of going on to study at the Sorbonne, Leyla had a calender booked a year ahead with modeling assignments. Of course now she had to live in Europe, but right from the beginning she had insisted on keeping two months free every year, because even though she was happy in her spacious Paris apartment, the place that held her heart, her home, and her family, with all its timeless traditions, was Istanbul.
She had chosen to live on the Ile St-Louis because it was just like a tiny moated village in the very heart of Paris; it was exactly eight hundred yards long, it had only eight streets, and everybody knew everybody else. And even though her face was a famous one, nobody bothered her. To her neighbors and the other insulaires, or islanders, she was just “Leyla.”
As she walked along the Quai de Béthune, the watery light from the Seine softened the façades of the seventeenth-century mansions to pale blue-gray; seabirds wheeled overhead and a barge slid silently under the graceful arch of the Pont-Marie, but Leyla didn’t notice the beauty around her. Normally she could not resist Bertillon’s wild strawberry ice cream, but today she passed by without even a second glance; she picked up some yogurt from Lecomte’s crèmerie without a word and dropped off her fine linen sheets at old Madame Parraud’s hand laundry on Rue la Regrettier, with only a quick “bonjour.” The assistant at Monsieur Turpins’ Fruits de France shook his head resignedly as he noticed her worried frown; Mademoiselle Leyla’s mind was obviously on more important matters than merely passing the time of day.
Leyla hurried back along the Quai de Béthune still thinking about the news report she had seen on television last night. They had said it was like an international convention at the Hotel Richemond with reporters from all over the world, and she had sat frozen with fear while they described the history of the jewel, the rumors surrounding the mysterious “Lady,” and the speculation as to the identity of the secret buyer. They had shown glimpses of a handsome young Soviet diplomat and a stern-eyed American from the State Department in Washington, hurrying unsmiling from the sale room. “No jewel in history has ever caused such a furor,” they said, and Leyla’s heart had sunk.
“Who would have thought it?” she had whispered to herself. “Who would ever have imagined that this would happen?”
Of course she and Anna had known the old reason for secrecy, but they had treated it lightly. It was just an old story, so much time had passed, so much water under the bridge, things were different now…. How could there possibly be any real danger? When they had sold the diamond at auction without any fuss or scandal, they had