Claim the Crown

by Carla Neggers

  He liked them, Ashley and David. They were good people. He had done well. And the money hadn’t spoiled them. Then, looking up, he saw the smile he’d watched transform over the years, from a toothless, drooling grin of a baby to the impish smile of a child to the awkward smile of a gangly adolescent, and now to this, the sparkling smile of a confident woman.

  And the jewels. He saw the tiara and the choker, glittering atop her head and around the glowing skin of her slender neck.

  They looked as if they belonged on Ashley. But Barky had always known they would.

  He picked up the magazine and with steady, callused hands opened to the inside article.

  “Achh,” he muttered in disgust when he saw the picture of himself. He’d never liked having his picture taken, for this very reason.

  For thirty years, he’d dreaded this moment. Known, one day, it would come.

  Others would see Ashley. The jewels. Himself. And they would have to act. Like him, they now had no choice.

  5

  The phones at Touchstone Communications had begun to ring. Reporters called. Photographers, magazine editors, advertisers, single men, quacks—they wanted Ashley for everything from endorsing a new line of eye makeup to modeling swimsuits in Bermuda to having dinner on Saturday night. She finally gave up on trying to get any work done and went home.

  Nothing, she thought, ever seemed to penetrate the quietly regal streets of Beacon Hill. Even the flats, closer to Storrow Drive and the river, gave off the air of being wholly immune to the goings-on in the rest of Boston—or, for that matter, the world. Ashley had always loved this part of the city. When she’d been a student at Boston University, she used to like to wander the narrow streets of Beacon Hill, especially in the evening, when she could peek into the brightly lit windows. She had never been jealous of how the people lived inside the understated town houses. She hadn’t desperately wanted to have what they had. She had simply been curious.

  She groaned when she saw the group of reporters gathered on her steps. Cameras began clicking, and they fired a flurry of questions at her.

  “Ms. Wakefield, a few minutes....”

  “Tell us how you feel about being a mystery heiress. Haven’t you wondered who made you rich?”

  “Were those jewels real?”

  “Any ideas who your secret benefactor is?”

  “What about your family? What do they think?”

  Pasting a smile on her face, Ashley dug out her keys and waltzed past them with apologies and assurances that anything she’d had to say was already in the pages of You.

  She gave them a dazzling smile as she unlocked her door. “And if you all aren’t off my steps in five minutes, I’ll be forced to call the police. Have a pleasant evening.”

  Grumbling, she trudged upstairs.

  In keeping with the period of the house, the furnishings of her duplex were generally high style, many of them English as well as American antiques. She had recently begun to collect art: a Winslow Homer seascape hung above the marble fireplace. Ever since she’d bought it at her first art auction, Evan Parrington had been harassing Ashley to invest in a security system for her apartment. So far she had resisted.

  She wondered if all this publicity would change that. Would she have to get an unlisted number? Invest in alarms, new and tougher locks? Maybe even move?

  She decided she wouldn’t think about all that right now and, fixing herself a cup of tea, headed up to her rooftop deck to try to get some work done. She’d always had an enviable ability to concentrate; she’d call on it now.

  But soon the telephone was ringing, and she dashed down the steep stairs to her study to answer it.

  “May I speak with Ashley Wakefield, please?”

  The voice was female, the accent distinctively Texas. Hurriedly, Ashley said, “Speaking.”

  “My name’s Sarah Balaton. L..I’m from Houston. Miss Wakefield, I’m not one to beat around the bush. I saw the piece in You today, and I’m afraid..I’m afraid the tiara and choker you were wearing can’t possibly belong to you. They’re Balaton family pieces.”

  Ashley sank into a chair. “What?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything,” Sarah Balaton went on quickly. “Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to cause a fuss. The jewels disappeared before you were even born. They’re of tremendous sentimental value to my family, and—well, I’d just like to investigate possible means of getting them back. Would you be interested in selling them?”

  Ashley’s head began to throb. This was her worst nightmare come true. I have to talk to Barky and David, she thought. “You can imagine this has come as a great surprise.” She tried to keep her tone even. “I had no idea the tiara and choker had been stolen—”

  “I didn’t say stolen, Ms. Wakefield. I don’t know what happened to them. I just know my family would never have sold them or given them away.”

  “Then what are the other possibilities?”

  “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter,” Sarah Balaton was getting flustered. “As I said, I’m not interested in making any accusations. Antique jewelry of imprecise origins appears on the market all the time; usually it’s impossible to prove anything. Do you think I could see the pieces?”

  “I’ll have to discuss this with my attorney—”

  “I was hoping we could avoid lawyers. Ms. Wakefield, you strike me as a fair and generous person, one who would right an injustice if you could. I think I can prove to your satisfaction that whoever sold you the tiara and the choker had no right to. Could we start there and go on from that point?”

  Ashley hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “I’ll need some time to think this over. Can you come to Boston?”

  “Of course—I’d be happy to.”

  “Give me the weekend. I’ll call you Monday.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to call you.”

  “All right.” Ashley suddenly found herself gulping for air. She needed to end the conversation...quickly. And to think. Lord, she needed to think! “You understand I’m not making any promises.”

  “I understand. And I’ll be in touch.”

  * * *

  Houston was hot and oppressively humid, no hint of winter in the sticky air, but inside the Crockett Industries mirrored-glass headquarters high above Greenway Plaza, it was a comfortable seventy-two degrees. On the thirty-fourth floor, Sarah Balaton, vice president of finance, unlocked the bottom right-hand drawer of her rosewood desk. She withdrew a burgundy leather scrapbook and laid it on her slate blotter, next to that week’s edition of You.

  Her hands were trembling. Every breath was painful. What had she expected Ashley Wakefield to say? Here, take the jewels. No. Nothing was ever that simple.

  She opened the scrapbook. Pasted on the first page was a black-and-white publicity glossy of a legend. The cheekbones were prominent, stunning, the eyes heavy lashed and intense, the smile at once elegant, innocent, mischievous.

  When people remembered Judith Land, they remembered her smile.

  The photograph had been taken when the actress was just twenty-one and already famous, a woman with the wit of Katharine Hepburn, the ice of Grace Kelly, the fire of Marilyn Monroe.

  Stiffening her hands to still their incessant trembling, Sarah flipped several pages, to the center of the scrapbook, then back a page. At the top left corner was a small clipping from a short-lived Paris gossip magazine. It was a photograph, in black-and-white, of two women at a Christmas ball in Vienna, two friends, two heiresses, one a famous actress, the other a neophyte journalist.

  Judith Land and Lillian Parker.

  They were dressed in the most expensive, the most stylish gowns of the day, and they were smiling, not gay smiles, not carefree smiles, but the smiles of two young women who had suddenly found themselves launched into adulthood. Poised, certain, not so innocent.

  In what the caption said, in French, was a stroke of sheer audacity, Judith Land was wearing a tiara, her shining dark
hair woven into the complicated pattern of diamonds and pearls. On her alabaster neck was a matching choker, its center a large, perfect ruby.

  Sarah positioned the cover of You next to the rare Paris photograph.

  The pieces were the same. She would stake her life on it.

  She shut the scrapbook in her desk and took the elevator three flights up, to the offices of the president and chief executive officer of Crockett Industries. Andrew Balaton. Her father. His position with the company should have been an asset for his only child, but it wasn’t. Andrew Balaton believed a woman born to wealth, beauty and social status—such as his daughter—shouldn’t involve herself in the messy world of corporate empires.

  But Sarah was determined to prove him wrong and to dispel his stubborn prejudice. She sensed that, deep down, her father wanted her to succeed in business and was secretly pleased with all she had accomplished while he had stood back, observing, offering no help. What Sarah Balaton had done, she had done on her own merits. One day she hoped her father would congratulate her on her hard work, dedication and honesty.

  Nothing, she thought, was going to stop her from reaching that day, when her father would notice her for her abilities. Nothing. Not her love life, not the prejudices toward her looks and sex, not the gossip about her relationship with Andrew Balaton, not even her disgust with the waste, mismanagement and corruption she saw every day in business. She believed a principled, intelligent and committed person could excel.

  Throughout Texas, however, Sarah was known more for being a beautiful and seductive heiress than a savvy businesswoman. Golden haired and golden eyed, she had a tiny waist and full, heavy breasts that she rarely showed off to any perceived advantage. She wore high collars and buttoned all but the top button of her crisp shirts. In business, big breasts were not an asset.

  Andrew Balaton greeted his daughter warmly and invited her to sit on the long black leather couch facing the length of his large office. Darker in skin tone, hair and eyes than Sarah, he had her flawless skin that, despite his sixty-five years, was virtually without wrinkles. He was wiry, physically fit from daily exercise sessions, never overweight. His fine hands were manicured every week. Since he’d divorced his third wife twelve years ago, he’d had many women. Some were younger than his daughter.

  Sarah tucked her ankles to one side, in an attempt to appear demure. Her father sat in a matching chair. “You work very hard, Sarah,” he said. His deep voice was quiet, emotionless. Thirty years ago, when he’d fled his native Hungary as a dispossessed count, he’d anglicized his name from András, and now he retained his aristocratic formality, but little of his Hungarian accent. He smiled. “Too hard.”

  She lowered her eyes. They’d had this conversation before—too many times. She did work hard. She wanted to. And, as she pointed out ceaselessly, she worked no harder than he did. She was following in her father’s footsteps. But Andrew Balaton refused to see it that way, at least not yet. Now he could see his daughter only as violating the precise code of ethics under which he operated. He was an aristocratic man, bound by form and duty, and all the pain he had witnessed, all he himself had experienced, had not shaken him free from the external rules that guided him. He never lost his temper, he never cursed, he never cried. And he no longer loved.

  “Why did you want to see me?” he asked.

  She handed him her copy of You. “I wondered if you’d seen this.”

  He looked at the smiling face of Ashley Wakefield and shrugged. “Is she a friend of yours?”

  “No—we’ve never met.” She leaned forward slightly. “Father, don’t you recognize the jewels she’s wearing?”

  “I don’t, no.” He handed the magazine back to her. “Do you?”

  She uncrossed her ankles and pushed back her hair. Fidgety moves. She was annoyed with herself, but maintained direct eye contact with her father. “I’m positive they’re the tiara and choker from the Balaton collection.”

  Andrew Balaton rubbed one finger across his mouth, then sighed, as he always did when he was disappointed in her. “Oh, Sarah, I’ve told you: the Balaton jewels are a myth.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. I am the last Count András Balaton. If anyone would know, it’s I.”

  She looked away. “I see.”

  Her words were barely audible. In 1956, following the failed Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union’s domination of its national affairs, her father had fled the country of his birth. He was a handsome, educated aristocrat, but utterly penniless. He had escaped with nothing but his not inconsiderable pride.

  Now, thirty years later, he was one of the most powerful men in the country.

  Last winter, the last remaining Balatons—Sarah and her father—had received a letter from a Hungarian historian. The Communist government was restoring Balaton Castle as a center for tourism, and the historian wanted to know if the surviving Balatons might know the whereabouts of the famed collection of Balaton jewels. The government was interested in securing them for a museum at the castle. The historian had enclosed a photograph of an eighteenth-century portrait of a Balaton countess wearing the tiara and choker and said he was collecting detailed descriptions of the rest of the missing collection.

  Andrew had not bothered to write back. As he told Sarah, the Communists had stolen the Balaton Castle and lands, and even if he knew the whereabouts of the jewels, he wouldn’t tell them. But he had never seen the so-called Balaton collection, and he didn’t believe it existed. His ancestor, he maintained, had borrowed the tiara and choker from a friend.

  For her part, Sarah hadn’t mentioned the scrap-book—or her opinion that the jewels Judith Land had worn at the Christmas ball in Vienna in 1956 were the same jewels worn by the countess in the 1798 portrait.

  She didn’t want her father to know about her obsession with his first wife. Judith Land had been the love of his life, and she had destroyed any chance for his personal happiness. As a teenager, Sarah had begun the scrapbook. If she understood Judith Land, she felt, she might understand her father, and learn how to win his approval.

  “Sarah.”

  She looked up at the unexpected sad, melodic note in her father’s quiet voice. But his face was rigid, and he didn’t smile.

  “Sarah, where you’re treading, you will find only pain. I have put the past behind me. I suggest you respect and believe that.”

  They were the gentlest words her father had ever spoken to her. “It might be too late.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.

  She didn’t hesitate. “I’ve already talked to Ashley Wakefield.”

  Andrew Balaton stood looking out at the Houston skyline, in his opinion the most beautiful of any in the world. With tremendous effort, he had dismissed his daughter with an affectionate kiss on the cheek. He wanted to flog her. Such a fool she was! But so tenderhearted, so devoted to him. He loved her in a thousand ways, but he had difficulty articulating any of them. She was his daughter—his flesh. He had watched her grow into a woman, and now he wanted her to be happy, a woman of strength and compassion. He admired her for her achievements. And yet every day he fought the urge to protect her from the agonies of life. In his mind, he accepted that she had to experience pain in order to grow. In his heart, he wanted nothing of cruelty ever to touch her—especially, he thought, the cruelty and pain and horror of his own past. That part of him, that agony, was his alone. She had no right to it.

  Behind him, his door opened softly, and he turned to acknowledge with a nod the presence of the blond man who had entered his office. His name was Giles Smith. Not tall, he was bulky, muscular, surprisingly quick—a professional at providing security for people in such sensitive, lucrative positions as Andrew Balaton. He stood at attention, like a Marine.

  “Good evening, Giles.”

  “Sir.”

  “Thank you for coming. I would like you to fly up to Massachusetts this evening and perform a little service for me.”

  “Si
r?”

  Andrew pushed his own copy of You across his desk. Giles picked it up and glanced at Ashley Wakefield. Andrew smiled. “She’s quite attractive, isn’t she?”

  Giles said nothing. Andrew had known he wouldn’t. In addition to being very good at what he did, Giles knew and accepted his place.

  “The tiara and choker she’s wearing don’t belong to her, and they could cause a great deal of unnecessary anguish for myself and my daughter.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Andrew turned back to the window. “I want them.”

  6

  Jeremy Carruthers rang the doorbell of Elaine and MacGregor Stevens’s house tucked into the terraced hills of elite Point Loma, just minutes from downtown San Diego. It was late Friday afternoon, and still warm. Jeremy had been fidgety all day, ever since Mac had nearly collapsed in his office and then left early. It wasn’t like Mac. It just didn’t fit. And Jeremy was worried...or at least curious.

  Elaine Stevens opened the door a crack. When she saw Jeremy, she pulled the door open wide and smiled. “Jeremy! What a lovely surprise. Come in.”

  “Thanks.” He stepped into the small foyer, where Elaine always had a vase of fresh flowers. Today’s were roses. “Mac home?”

  “Why, no.” She looked surprised, but continued to rub a pink cream into her hands. She was a tall woman with ash-blond hair and strong, chiseled features—the rock in Mac’s life. As always, she was neatly but casually dressed; she loathed uncomfortable clothes. “Didn’t he tell you? He left for Honolulu this afternoon.”

  Jeremy shook his head. Mac had said nothing of the kind, not even to his secretary. And that wasn’t like the cofounder of Carruthers and Stevens and the man Jeremy had known and admired since he was six years old.