Unforgettable

by Joan Johnston

  Unforgettable

  A Bitter Creek Novel

  Joan Johnston

  Copyright 2014 Joan Mertens Johnston, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Joan Mertens Johnston, Inc.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition

  Licensing Notes

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  Cover by Nancy November Sloane. November – Sloane. Squarespace.com

  Contents

  Unforgettable

  Invincible Excerpt

  The Cowboy Excerpt

  The Texan Excerpt

  The Loner Excerpt

  The Next Mrs. Blackthorne Excerpt

  The Rivals Excerpt

  Shattered Excerpt

  About Joan Johnston

  Unforgettable

  Chapter One

  Lydia felt groggy. She groaned as she stretched out on the luxurious hotel bed. She tried shoving the exquisitely soft Egyptian cotton sheets aside with her feet, but they were tangled in something that felt even more like silk. Which was when Lydia realized she was still wearing her ball gown.

  She shoved herself upright and stared down at the wrinkled powder-blue silk, then gasped and put her hands to her throat in search of the priceless pearl necklace she’d worn to last night’s masked charity ball at the Boscolo Exedra Roma, a magnificent five-star hotel in Rome.

  It wasn’t there.

  The fabulous teardrop-shaped pearl, called the Ghost of Ali Pasha, had been worn over the centuries by sultans and queens, by kings and princesses. It had been given to her mother, Bella, Duchess of Blackthorne, by her father, billionaire banker Jonathan “Bull” Benedict, on the day of Lydia’s birth.

  Where had it gone?

  Lydia’s heart began to race, and the copper taste of fear rose in her throat as she frantically searched the bedding for the missing necklace. Perhaps the clasp had come undone. She jumped out of bed and teetered dizzily. She grabbed her head and groaned again. How many lemon drop martinis had she drunk last night?

  She could only remember having two. So why was she feeling so dizzy and sick to her stomach? Why had she fallen asleep in her dress? And where, oh where, had she put the Ghost of Ali Pasha?

  “Mother’s going to kill me!” Especially since Lydia hadn’t gotten permission to borrow the necklace in the first place.

  She stumbled over her strappy heels, which lay on the floor beside the bed, and accidentally knocked everything off the end table. She dropped to her knees and desperately picked through the debris.

  A crumpled Kleenex. A bottle of Delicious Red fingernail polish. She remembered chipping a fingernail and needing to repair it last night before the ball. The room key card. Her Kate Spade clutch purse, which was barely big enough for a few hundred euros, a tube of Raving Red lipstick and her iPhone.

  No necklace.

  She struggled to her feet and stumbled barefoot to the bathroom, tossing cosmetics around on the dressing table. Her head pounded at the clatter of glass against marble. The lingering, musky smell of Paloma Picasso perfume made her nauseous. She found a pair of diamond earrings and an emerald bracelet, but no pearl necklace.

  She staggered out into the sitting room of her elegant suite on the Piazza Trinita dei Monti, at the top of the Spanish Steps, holding on to the antique furniture as she went, her gaze leaping from surface to surface. She threw the flowered pillows off the sofa, then yanked off the cushions to see if the necklace might have fallen behind or beneath them.

  Nothing.

  Lydia’s moan became a wail of despair. How could she have been so careless? Her eldest brother, Oliver, Earl of Courtland, had arranged for her to receive the necklace from the vault at Blackthorne Abbey near London where her mother’s precious jewels were stored. She’d promised him that the priceless necklace would be kept in the Hotel Hassler safe every moment it wasn’t around her neck.

  How was she going to explain her actions to her mother—and to Oliver, who’d trusted her to act responsibly—if she couldn’t find the Ghost? She knew for a fact that her father had spent $25 million on the precious jewels—diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds—that provided a frame for the enormous, irreplaceable teardrop pearl that was the centerpiece of the necklace.

  She’d received $50 million in a trust fund this past year when she’d turned twenty-five, but she’d invested the money with the Castle Foundation, founded by her four older brothers to do good works. All she had left was a quarterly allowance. How would she ever make amends for the loss?

  Oliver had told her that if she could get permission from their mother to borrow the Ghost, he would make the necessary arrangements to get the necklace to Rome. Lydia had been so sure the duchess would say “No” that she’d never asked. She’d simply told Oliver she had permission. And he’d believed her.

  She could never have imagined the disaster that had occurred. Never imagined that the necklace would disappear from around her neck without a trace. Lydia groaned like a dying animal. She idolized her eldest brother. Oliver was going to hate her. Far worse, he was never going to trust her again.

  Lydia turned in a circle in the elegant sitting room, with its marble arches and panoramic views of the Eternal City visible through the tall, brocade-curtained windows. “Where is it?” she cried. “Where could it be?”

  She felt a sudden burst of hope as a thought came to mind. Maybe she’d dropped the necklace off at the hotel safe on the way up to her room. That made perfect sense. She grabbed the phone and called the front desk. A glance at the sun shining in from the balcony through the open curtains told her it must be almost noon. She never slept that late. How much had she drunk?

  She remembered having a wonderful time at the masked ball, especially since her mask and costume allowed her to elude the titled gentleman her father wanted her to marry. There was nothing essentially wrong with Harold Delaford, Earl of Sumpter, son and heir of the Marquess of Tenby. He was nice. He practically doted on her. And he was determinedly courting her.

  But kissing Harold was like kissing a leather-bound book. There was simply no thrill. There had been no challenge in making Harold—he disliked being called Harry—fall in love with her. He’d been besotted at first glance, as so many men were.

  Lydia couldn’t help the fact that she’d been genetically blessed with both beauty and brains. She had her mother’s violet eyes, ivory complexion, and lush figure and her father’s black hair, strong chin, and mathematical genius. She had the added bonus of being British royalty as Lady Lydia, daughter of the Duchess of Blackthorne. Lord Delaford expected her to be seen on his arm, but not heard, like some fragile Victorian doll, kept on the shelf, admired but not touched.

  She wanted more. She didn’t know what, exactly. She yearned for passion. For adventure. For a life that was challenging an
d romantic and full of surprises. Was that so much to ask? She’d spent most of her life in one British or European boarding school after another, since she managed to get herself thrown out on a regular basis for some mischief. But that was the extent of her brushes with bedlam.

  She’d been creating her own excitement for the past six months by emulating the work Oliver did. Not that he knew she’d discovered his secret. Oliver spent his spare time discreetly retrieving stolen artifacts and returning them to their rightful owners. He was currently in Argentina seeking a Russian triptych stolen by the Nazis. She was on a similar quest here in Rome but having considerably less success.

  “This is Lydia Benedict,” she said when the hotel receptionist answered the phone. “Can you check your records to see whether I returned anything to the safe late last night?”

  “I’ll check for you, Lady Lydia,” a voice replied in Italian.

  Lydia hadn’t even realized she was speaking Italian. That was the problem with being multi-lingual. “Thank you,” she said in British-accented English. She’d probably dropped the necklace off before she’d come upstairs. Surely she had. That was why it wasn’t around her neck. It was lying in its black velvet box in the hotel safe.

  “You last signed for your box at seventeen hundred hours four minutes, my lady.”

  Lydia sank onto the sofa, losing her balance when she landed on the low, hard frame, rather than the cushions, which she’d tossed onto the floor. She remembered retrieving the necklace from the safe around 5:00 p.m. the previous evening and coming upstairs to dress for the ball. “Is there any chance I might not have signed in when I gave an item to you for safekeeping?” she asked hopefully.

  “No chance at all, Miss Benedict.”

  “Grazi,” she said as she disconnected the phone. “No no no no no no no no,” she muttered. “This can’t be happening.”

  But it was. It had.

  What was she going to do? She couldn’t bear to see the look on her mother’s face the next time she saw her, or on Oliver’s face at the next quarterly meeting of the Castle Foundation.

  What about Mother’s feelings when she discovers the Ghost is missing? The Ghost was a love gift from Father. She’ll be devastated at its loss.

  Sometimes it was difficult to imagine her mother having feelings. Or being in love. The Duchess of Blackthorne was always so cool and composed, even around her children. Especially around her children. Except, as the youngest of five and the only girl, Lydia knew it was all an act. She’d seen her mother weeping bitterly. She’d seen the forlorn look on the duchess’s face after one of Bull and Bella’s many violent arguments before their separation ten years ago.

  Lydia was sure her mother still loved her father. Otherwise she wouldn’t have cried such hopeless tears over their separation. Lydia shuddered when she remembered what had happened when she’d tried to comfort her mother.

  It hadn’t been easy reaching out to the duchess. She’d always been a distant mother. Lydia had come home to Blackthorne Abby from boarding school in Switzerland for a short vacation and had barely seen her parents during the visit. She’d always yearned to be closer to her mother, and she couldn’t help wanting to comfort someone in as much pain as her mother seemed to be.

  Lydia had barely laid a hand on her mother’s shoulder when the duchess whipped around and confronted her with an angry look. The duchess already had her mouth open to chastise the intruder when she realized it was Lydia. “Oh.”

  That was all her mother said. Not “I could use a hug” or “Come here, sweetheart” or “Thank you for caring.” What she’d finally said was, “I need to be alone.”

  Alone with her pain. That was how Lydia imagined her mother had lived the past ten years without her father, alone at Blackthorne Abbey, the hereditary castle of the Dukes of Blackthorne in Kent, about an hour south of London. All alone. Except for all the paramours, of course, whose arm would be entwined with hers at whatever social or charity event her parents were inevitably both attending somewhere in the world.

  Her father was no better. Equally distant. Equally remote from his children. He spent most of his time at the Paris office of his banking empire. Both parents had flaunted their lovers over the past ten years, creating great tabloid fodder and making Lydia’s life at boarding school a nightmare—until she confronted the gossips with acid remarks about their own genealogy. That shut them up. At least until her parents’ next flagrant public misbehavior.

  Many times Lydia had wished Bella and Bull would just get a divorce and be done with it. The gossips said her father refused to divorce her mother because he would be forced to split his fortune with her if they did. Lydia didn’t for a moment think that was the reason they were still married. It was as obvious as the pain on both their faces that they were still deeply in love with each other. She often wondered what it was that had torn them apart and whether the breach could ever be mended.

  Lydia felt her throat clogging with emotion. She was sorry to have lost her mother’s necklace, but even more than her mother’s censure, she dreaded the consequences Oliver might face for having given her the necklace in the first place. There had to be some way to figure out how and when the Ghost had disappeared.

  “Of course!” she said, lurching from the sofa toward the bedroom and the pile of stuff she’d left on the floor beside the bed.

  Lydia located her iPhone and punched in a number that connected her with her mother’s executive assistant, Emily Sheldon. Emily was in her early thirties, a slender woman with a homely face—that sounded cruel to say, but it was the absolute truth—warm brown eyes, a kind heart and a large, poverty-stricken family she seemed to be single-handedly supporting, both emotionally and financially.

  Lydia had to tell someone what had happened. Emily had been Lydia’s confidante more than once during the past three years since the young woman had become the duchess’s assistant, and never once had she revealed any of the secrets Lydia had shared.

  “Emily?” she choked out when the phone was answered.

  “Lady Lydia? Is that you?” Emily asked.

  Lydia struggled to hold back a sob. “I’m in trouble, Emily!”

  “Where are you, Lydia? Are you all right? Do you need help?”

  Lydia could tell Emily was upset because she’d forgotten the “Lady” she always inserted before “Lydia.” Emily was a stickler for the proprieties, even though neither Lydia, nor any of her siblings, cared whether they were addressed by their British titles. “No one can help,” Lydia said at last.

  “Let me call Lord Oliver—”

  “Not Oliver!” Lydia cried. “I don’t want him to know what’s happened.” Not until she had no other choice.

  “Calm down,” Emily said. “I won’t contact Lord Oliver, if you don’t want me to. Tell me where you are.”

  “Rome.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “Not exactly,” Lydia replied.

  Emily’s British accent was clipped as she asked, “Are you in danger, my lady? Or not?”

  Lydia half sobbed, half laughed and said, “Only from Mother. She’s going to kill me when she finds out what I’ve done.”

  “The duchess loves you, Lady Lydia. There’s nothing you can do that she won’t forgive.”

  “Really?” Lydia said. “What do you think she’ll say when she finds out I’ve lost the Ghost?”

  Emily gasped.

  There was no other sound from the other end of the line. At last Lydia said, “Emily? Are you still there?”

  “What happened?” Emily asked, her voice surprisingly calm.

  “I told Oliver I had Mother’s permission to borrow the necklace, so he arranged to have it delivered to me in Rome. I wore it to a charity ball last night. Sometime during the night, the Ghost disappeared.”

  “From the hotel safe?” Emily asked.

  “I didn’t put it back in the safe.”

  “Oh, Lady Lydia.”

  Lydia heard the disapproval in the othe
r woman’s voice and said defensively, “When I got back to my hotel—” She realized she didn’t know exactly when or even how she’d gotten back to her hotel room. That was a mystery she was going to have to unravel. It seemed safer, more honest, to simply say, “I never returned it to the safe.”

  “How long has the necklace been missing?”

  “I don’t know. I just woke up—it’s a little after noon here in Rome—and discovered it wasn’t around my neck or in the room or in the hotel safe. I couldn’t believe it at first. I’ve been looking everywhere for what seems like hours. It isn’t here.”

  “Please let me call Lord Oliver.”

  “No! Please, please, Emily. Don’t tell Oliver. He thought I had permission to borrow the necklace. He’ll get in trouble, too. I don’t want him to know I lost it like this. He said I could keep it for ten days. There’s another charity event coming up, and he said I could wear it for both. There’s still time for me to find the Ghost before I’m supposed to return it. Once I find it, I can apologize to Mother, and to Oliver, for being so careless, but not until then.”

  Once again, Lydia heard silence on the other end of the line. She didn’t know where to turn if Emily couldn’t help her. She held her breath waiting for her mother’s capable assistant to come up with a solution to her dilemma.

  At last Emily said, “I’m going to call someone to come and help you find the necklace. His name is Sam Warren. He’s a private investigator from America, from Dallas, Texas, to be precise. He’s the very best, Lydia. He should be there by tomorrow morning. Don’t worry. If Sam can’t find the Ghost, it can’t be found.

  “But it has to be found!”

  Emily gave a shaky laugh. “What I meant to say is that Mr. Warren will find it. He’s never failed on a mission your mother has given him yet.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Emily!” Lydia felt almost giddy with relief. “Let me know when his flight is arriving here in Rome, and I’ll go meet it.”