What Happened That Night: The page-turning holiday read by the No. 1 bestselling author

by O'Flanagan, Sheila

  ‘I’m sure my father will pull things out of the fire,’ Bey told him. ‘According to my mum, he’s single minded.’

  ‘Like you?’ Will grinned.

  ‘I’m nothing like him,’ she said quickly. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘But you are single minded,’ he said. ‘All work and no play, that’s you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘People say that about you,’ Will said. ‘That gemstones are your life. That there’s no room for anything else.’

  ‘I would have said the same about Clara,’ retorted Bey. ‘But there she is, moving to the other side of the world to support her husband.’

  ‘Would you do the same?’ asked Will.

  ‘It’s not likely to be an option.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I love my job far too much to give it up for a man,’ she said.

  ‘Has there ever been anyone important to you?’ he asked when she didn’t answer. ‘I know you’ve brought men to our events from time to time, but I’ve never seen you with the same one twice.’

  Only you. She didn’t say the words out loud, but she couldn’t help thinking them.

  Instead she smiled and said, ‘Unlike men, the diamonds linger,’ which was her favourite line ever. She hadn’t thought much of the Bond movie the song had come from, but she had the track on one of her playlists.

  ‘Oh, Bey!’ Will couldn’t help laughing. ‘There are times when I really do love you.’

  ‘And there are times when you drive me to distraction,’ she said, and got up from the table, leaving him to pay the bill.

  With Clara heading off to New Zealand, Bey took over the design of the pink diamond necklace for the Contessa. She put her original thoughts of candyfloss out of her mind and spent her days sitting at her desk filling her notebook with pencil drawings, and her nights in her room at the house she still shared studying them, refining them, then balling up the paper and throwing it across the room. None of her drawings captured the essence of the woman’s dynamism, charm and heritage.

  She spent a lot of time on Google before she came upon stills from a 1954 movie called The Barefoot Contessa , which starred Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart. The one that caught her attention was Ava wearing a pink dress and a diamond necklace. Bey suddenly saw a way in which she could incorporate the pink diamonds Will had found into a modern lavaliere – a pendant suspended from a necklace – that would look wonderful on the Contessa. As the images came to her, her pencil flew over the pages and she sketched outlines and details without stopping, finally confident that she was on the right lines.

  It was her phone ringing that finally pulled her away from her work. As it was Lola, she answered straight away.

  ‘Two bits of news for you,’ said her mother. ‘Shirley’s getting married and Astrid Warren has just got engaged.’

  ‘Shirley’s getting married!’ exclaimed Bey, putting the phone on loudspeaker so she could continue to shade one of her drawings. ‘I didn’t even know she was seeing anyone.’

  ‘She hasn’t known Ian that long, but she’s utterly besotted,’ said Lola. ‘And I’m delighted for her.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Bey. ‘I hope she’s ecstatically happy. As for Astrid – isn’t she quite young to be getting engaged?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Lola. ‘But she’s been going out with Jordan Hunt for the last year. He’s the son of Kelvin Hunt, your dad’s horse trainer.’

  ‘The only time I watch a horse race is the Grand National,’ said Bey. ‘And any time I’ve ever been in a sweep or backed a horse, it’s usually fallen at the first fence.’

  ‘You went to the polo last year, didn’t you?’

  It had been a day sponsored by Van Aelten and Schaap and Cox Financial, the company owned by Callista Murdoch’s father. Callista had presented the prizes. She’d looked stunning in a floral Stella McCartney dress and wedge shoes, her only jewellery her wedding and engagement rings.

  ‘That’s totally different,’ said Bey. ‘Not that I had a clue what was going on anyhow. But the trophy looked great.’ She’d worked on the design of it with Iolanda.

  ‘I’m sure Astrid would love polo,’ said Lola. ‘All that glamour.’

  ‘It’s not always glamorous.’ Bey remembered stepping into some horse dung and ruining her shoes. It had been her own fault; she’d been watching Will and Callista laughing and joking with Gerritt van Aelten and hadn’t been paying attention to where she was going. ‘However, I’m sure you’re right. Astrid would love it. How did you hear about her engagement?’

  ‘It was in the papers, of course,’ said Lola. ‘Her ring is an Adele.’

  ‘The latest is the Pansy, isn’t it?’ recalled Bey.

  ‘Yes, but Astrid is sporting a Snowdrop.’

  ‘That was always your favourite.’

  ‘I’d still like to own one,’ admitted Lola. ‘But I’ve better things to spend my money on.’

  ‘I can get you a discount on a Van Aelten and Schaap ring,’ Bey reminded her. ‘Even with that, though, they’re blindingly expensive and I know it’s not the same as your very own Snowdrop. Anyhow, Shirley is more important. When did she get engaged? When is she getting married?’

  ‘Oh, they didn’t bother getting engaged,’ said Lola. ‘They’re just going ahead and getting married as soon as possible. She’ll be sending out the invites shortly and she wanted to know if there was a name to put on yours.’

  ‘Has she lost her mind or something?’ Bey was puzzled. ‘My name is my name.’

  ‘For your plus-one, you idiot,’ said her mother. ‘Who d’you want to bring with you?’

  ‘Oh, just “plus one” will be fine,’ said Bey. ‘Not that there is a plus-one at the moment. So it might just be me.’

  ‘Right,’ said Lola.

  ‘Will Terry be coming with you?’ asked Bey.

  Lola was no longer seeing Des, who hadn’t been as protected as he thought from the financial crisis and whose properties had been repossessed and sold off. Des himself had moved to the UK for a year to take advantage of the more lenient bankruptcy laws there, before emigrating to South Africa. Lola hadn’t heard from him since. Bey knew that her mother had been upset by the breakdown of the relationship, but more upset by the fact that Des hadn’t told her of his plans until the day before he left.

  ‘I’m clearly not a good judge of men,’ she’d said over the phone, and the echo of her father’s words had caused Bey to catch her breath.

  ‘Of course you are,’ she’d said. ‘After all, you held out against marrying him.’

  ‘I seem to be better at not being married,’ agreed Lola. ‘Oh well, back to the drawing board.’

  Some time later she’d begun seeing Terry O’Gorman, an architect who’d worked on an office block her company managed. Bey had now met him a couple of times and had confessed to Lola that she much preferred him to Des. There was a quiet thoughtfulness in Terry that had been missing in Des and that Bey thought suited her mother much better.

  ‘Of course he’ll be coming,’ said Lola.

  ‘Not thinking about issuing invites yourself?’ Bey teased.

  ‘Terry is lovely, but I’ve lasted this long without getting married and I’m not going to change the habit of a lifetime.’

  ‘Is it because of me?’ asked Bey. ‘Do you not want to hurt my feelings because I’m still stuck on the shelf?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ retorted her mother. ‘I care about your feelings, but not that much.’

  Bey laughed.

  ‘Honestly,’ said Lola. ‘If I wanted to marry someone, I would. But I don’t. I’m happier doing my own thing, knowing I can close my door at night and the only person I have to think about is myself.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Bey.

  ‘Just because I’ve turned out that way doesn’t mean you have to,’ said Lola.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Bey groaned. ‘I knew the moment the words were out of my mouth that I was opening a Pandora�
�s box. All I meant was that I like closing my door at night and only thinking about myself too.’

  ‘You’re a lot younger than me,’ said Lola. ‘You deserve a chance.’

  ‘So do you. So does Terry,’ said Bey. ‘If the right one for me comes along, I’ll let you know. But you have to trust me when I say that I’m perfectly happy.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘On another subject . . .’ Bey looked at her drawing and then erased a line and redrew it. ‘Have you heard anything about Warren’s being in financial trouble?’

  ‘No!’ Lola sounded shocked. ‘Are they? Have you heard something?’

  ‘Just a comment one of the people here made,’ said Bey. ‘That they’ve lost their cachet.’

  ‘I know they struggled during the recession,’ said Lola. ‘But I’m sure your dad knows what he’s doing. Adele would go crackers if she thought there was a problem.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Bey put her completed drawing on her desk.

  ‘If there really was a problem, Philip would have to give up his horses. I’m not sure how Astrid’s prospective father-in-law would feel about that! Or her husband-to-be, either.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be much of a marriage if it couldn’t withstand a bit of pressure,’ said Bey.

  ‘I very much doubt Astrid Warren has ever been under pressure in her life,’ Lola said.

  ‘How do we know?’ said Bey. ‘Maybe she lives a very pressurised existence. Although,’ she added, ‘I seriously doubt it. She thinks she’s a cut above everyone.’

  ‘Takes after Adele so,’ said Lola.

  ‘You don’t like her one little bit, do you?’

  ‘Ah, I’m being silly,’ Lola said. ‘I’m dredging up my past feelings, which is bloody ridiculous because I only met her once when I was going out with your dad. Though in fairness, once was enough to finish us off.’

  Bey chuckled.

  ‘Anyhow, the past is the past,’ said Lola. ‘I gave too much of my emotional energy to trying to do the right thing as far as the Warrens were concerned, and only succeeded in making life far more complicated than it needed to be.’

  ‘Have you seen Dad at all over the past few years, even on the street?’ asked Bey. ‘You work quite close by after all.’

  ‘Never,’ said Lola. ‘But then he probably goes to flash places for his lunch while I have a sandwich at my desk. Different worlds, Bey. Different worlds.’

  And yet I’m in that world now, Bey thought, after she’d ended the call. The world of the rich and happy people. Because most of them were happy, she decided. At least once they had a diamond around their neck. Or on their finger.

  She looked at her own hand. She wore a ring on her engagement finger, a small Van Alten and Schaap garnet in a simple bezel setting. She’d bought it to celebrate her promotion. She reckoned it would be the only ring she’d ever wear on that finger.

  She couldn’t understand why her mother was so keen for her to find someone to share her life with. Lola’s own career had been derailed by Bey’s arrival. Yet she seemed to think that Bey herself should be looking for love rather than professional success. Which only goes to prove, Bey murmured to herself, that mothers are experts in the ‘do as I say and not as I do’ department. As far as Bey was concerned, Lola was going to be disappointed. She had the job she’d always wanted. And no man in the world could compete with a flawless gemstone.

  Lola was thinking about Bey’s work–life balance too. She could never quite get a handle on her daughter’s attitude towards men. She herself had always seen them as a distraction from her ambition. Until Philip Warren, she’d never gone out with anyone who came close to making her think that marriage was a viable option. And even then she’d turned him down. So she couldn’t blame Bey for apparently thinking the same way. And yet Bey kept a distance between her and her boyfriends that Lola had never done. She seemed to regard them as an inconvenience to be endured rather than an important part of her life.

  Lola wanted desperately to believe that her daughter’s attitude had nothing to do with the night of her abduction, but she was terribly afraid it might. And that made her feel guiltier than ever. Because she’d made Bey go to Cleevaun House that Christmas, and she’d done it for all the wrong reasons. Which meant that the person she loved most in the world was still suffering because of her bad decisions, and that was something she found very hard to bear.

  Chapter 28

  Moonstone: a stone with a silver-white reflection

  A few days after the Contessa had approved the design for her pink diamond lavaliere, Bey sat at her desk and studied the Adele collections on the Warren website. Her conversation with Will had ignited her interest in her father’s company and she wanted to see their newest designs. The latest collection, the Pansy, so far consisted of an amethyst ring. It was pretty, thought Bey as she looked at it critically, but she couldn’t help feeling that the setting was a little dated. And the previous collection, the lapis lazuli Hyacinth, though extravagant, wasn’t very beautiful. The more recent designs lacked the elegance of the stunning Snowdrop, which was Bey’s favourite just as it had been Lola’s. It was hard to judge the stones from the website photographs, but perhaps Will was right about those too. Maybe Philip wasn’t willing to buy the very best any more. She felt sure that the Warrens had changed their designer – both David Hayes and Norman Jacobs had created showy pieces, but there had been a cohesion about them that was certainly missing from the Hyacinth and Pansy ranges. It was boastful to think that the necklace she’d designed for the Contessa would be more beautiful than a classic Adele one, but Bey couldn’t help feeling that it was. And as she sat there staring at the screen, she felt a jolt of pride in her work, and satisfaction that it stood up against anything the Warrens had come up with.

  There was a tap at her door and Will himself walked in. Bey quickly closed her browser and motioned him to a chair on the other side of the desk. As he sat down, he looked around the office, noticing that the pictures and drawings on Clara’s large mood board had now been replaced by Bey’s own.

  ‘The Contessa was on the phone to me,’ said Will. ‘She thanked me again for finding the stones and said that she thought the necklace was going to be the most beautiful thing she’s ever had made.’

  ‘She hasn’t seen the finished product yet,’ said Bey.

  ‘No false modesty,’ lectured Will. ‘Everyone here thinks it looks amazing. And it’s not boasting to admit that it is.’

  Sometimes, thought Bey, it was as though Will Murdoch could step into her mind. She clamped down on the sudden unwanted thought that it would be wonderful if he could step into her bed.

  ‘It’ll definitely be amazing,’ she said, and he grinned.

  ‘The Contessa is already murmuring about rings and bracelets,’ he said. ‘Although it was tricky enough to get fancy diamonds of that quality to start with. But I’ll keep an eye out for her and you keep the thought in the background that she might want complementary pieces.’

  Bey nodded. She liked creating sets of jewellery, although whenever she went to Van Aelten and Schaap events now, she enjoyed mixing and matching her favourites, wearing vintage and contemporary at the same time.

  ‘Anyhow, I’m here because thanks to the Contessa, we might have another private commission,’ said Will.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The proper aristocracy this time.’ Will paused. ‘It’s the Duquesa de Olvera y Montecalmón.’

  ‘And who might she be when she’s at home?’ enquired Bey.

  ‘She’s a friend of the Contessa,’ said Will. ‘Her family is one of the oldest in Spain. There are a couple of brothers who run the estates in both Spain and Argentina, where they also have land, but she herself is involved in the media – she owns a TV production company. She doesn’t generally use her title, so she’s just known as Isabella Olvera to the likes of you and me.’

  ‘And she’s looking for what?’ asked Bey.

  ‘She’s getting
married next year,’ Will explained. ‘The family has a collection of jewellery, but some was lost during the civil war in the thirties, including a tiara that Isabella’s great-grandmother wore for her own wedding. She’d like a replica made – or at least an interpretation of the original. She only has one photo where her great-grandmother is wearing it, but there are also some family portraits that include it. I thought you’d be particularly keen as it incorporates sapphires, and I know you’re a sapphire fan.’

  Bey’s fingers went involuntarily to the Bluebells in her ears, which she still wore regularly.

  ‘So is she going to send us copies of the photo and the portraits?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Will. ‘She wants us to go there and see them for ourselves.’

  ‘Where?’ Bey called up her diary. ‘Does she have an office in London?’

  ‘No,’ said Will. ‘Her house in Cádiz.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘You’re dealing with the big time now,’ he said with a smile. ‘She’ll be spending a lot of money on the tiara, so if she wants us to go to her, we will.’

  ‘Us?’ Bey frowned. ‘Who is us?’

  ‘You and me, of course,’ replied Will. ‘I need to talk about the stones and you’ll need to see the design.’

  Bey had worked hard to cultivate a warm and friendly relationship with Will as a colleague by shutting her more personal feelings into the locked room in her head. She felt that she’d succeeded. But the idea of travelling to Spain alone with him was deeply unsettling.

  ‘I talked about going to Cádiz when I worked with the Jurados in Córdoba,’ she said as she opened a bottle of water on her desk and took a sip. ‘But I never got around to it.’

  ‘I haven’t been either,’ confessed Will. ‘But it’ll be fun, don’t you think?’

  ‘Perhaps Callista would like to come too?’ She made the suggestion as blandly as she could.

  ‘Huh?’ Will looked at her in astonishment. ‘This is a business trip, not a holiday.’