‘Also, is there anything he’d want you to have? Anything special that you’d like to keep to remember him by?’ Martina asked. ‘You have a very small window of time to let yourself into his house before anyone else goes there.’
Delphine swallowed what felt like a tennis ball in her throat, her eyes burning as she pushed her pain from her mind, knowing she had to stay strong, had to focus.
The sapphire. He wanted me to have the sapphire.
She stood, suddenly filled with fear as she realised what she had to do. If anything happened to her, if Giovanni ever discovered what she’d done, she’d need something of value. Florian wanted her to have the sapphire—he’d told her it was for her, and she knew he’d want to do anything necessary to keep their unborn child safe.
Delphine summoned a strength she hadn’t even realised she was capable of and reached for her dressing gown, turning to Martina.
‘Can you drive?’
Delphine would have been lost without Martina. She’d become so much more to her than just a lady-in-waiting: she was her confidante, her friend; as close to her as a sister or mother even. She would never have been able to turn to her own mother, but Martina was there for her no matter what, and tonight she’d proven that there was truly nothing she couldn’t trust her with. But there was one thing, despite it all, that she chose to keep secret from even Martina.
They sat outside Florian’s house, Martina behind the wheel and Delphine in the passenger seat. Driving there, they’d takenthe long way so they didn’t have to pass by the scene of the accident, and she’d managed to keep her composure the entire journey there, but now that they’d arrived, it was almost impossible.
‘Will all his staff be asleep?’ Martina asked.
‘He only has day staff,’ she replied. ‘He liked to have the house to himself at night, to enjoy the privacy.’
‘Then go quickly,’ Martina said. ‘I’ll wait here, but you never know when the police might come. Get in and out as quickly as you can.’
Delphine nodded, took a deep breath and then got out of the car. She let herself through the gates and ran up the long driveway, her breathing shallow as she stopped at the front door and took the key from her pocket. Florian had tied a small piece of ribbon to the end, part of his desire to present it to her as a gift, and she thought then of the times she’d sneaked around to his property to enjoy the solitude, waiting for him to come home, ready to surprise him when he did.
She wiped at her eyes with her knuckles and stepped into the house, listening out before closing the door behind her to make sure that no one else was there. Every movement she made sounded loud to her ears, so she kicked off her shoes and walked barefoot in an effort to seem even quieter.
Delphine walked down the hallway to Florian’s office, nudging open the door to find his lamp still on. She turned, half expecting him to saunter back in with a brandy in his hand, or to be sitting in the big leather chair, his feet up on the desk as he made his way through a stack of paperwork.
But, of course, the room was silent. She was the only one there. There was no Florian waiting with his easy smile, holding out his hand to her to clasp, setting down his papers and making her feel as if there were truly no one more important than her.
She took a deep breath, balling her fists and digging her nails into her palms.I’m here to do a job. Find it and go.
Delphine crossed the room and took one of the paintings off the wall to reveal his hidden safe, which she’d opened before for Florian when he’d needed her to retrieve something. She carefully recited the correct turns in her mind, before opening it. Inside, she found cash, his passport and other documents, and the tiara. It was only there because he’d kept it at home for her to look at—he’d intended for her to choose which sapphire she wanted that very weekend. All of the other items in his collection were kept elsewhere, other than some of the paintings that he’d chosen to hang in the house, with many pieces held by Andreas, his godfather and most trusted curator.
She took out the box, carefully took out the tiara, and stared down at it in her hands. Even though she knew she was the only person in the house, she still found herself looking over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to catch her. She knew she had nothing to feel guilty about; Florian had intended this for her—he had made it clear that she was to choose any sapphire she liked for her ring—but still, she was uneasy taking it now that he was gone.
She carried it to his desk and sat down, gazing at the tiara. The former queen of Italy was here in Switzerland, separated from her husband as Delphine was from hers, the same woman who’d once worn the prized sapphires during her husband’s short reign as king, and hers as queen consort. They’d once rubbed shoulders at the same soirees, moved in the same circles, with Giovanni always eager to elevate his family’s standing in society. If only she’d known then that her queen was as deeply unhappy as she, most likely living in the same type of loveless marriage, despite their four children.
Delphine took a sharp letter knife from the desk and began to prise her favourite sapphire out. She’d spent hours lookingat them all, lying in bed against Florian’s chest and turning the tiara over in her hands, her fingers playing across each stone. Many of them were identical in appearance, but there were two on each side that were slightly different; more oval where the others were round, and larger in size. She turned the tiara and slid the knife beneath the sapphire, wiggling it back and forth, worried the pressure she was using might damage it or even break the stone. It was loose but still not falling out, and she tried again, this time managing to slip and slice the tip of her finger. Blood dripped almost immediately but she didn’t stop, wedging the knife harder until the sapphire finally fell out.
Delphine used the edge of her dressing gown to wrap around her bleeding finger, thankful that she hadn’t left any evidence of her wound on Florian’s desk, and placed the sapphire in her pocket. Then, having replaced the tiara in its box, she turned to put it back in the safe, before something stopped her, her fingers tightening against it.
This was for our children. My sapphire was to be reunited with it one day, to restore it to its glory. It is nothing without all the sapphires.
Delphine stood in the middle of the room, wrestling with her thoughts, before lowering the tiara and searching the room for a bag, placing the tiara in it when she found one. Then she went back to the safe and took out a small amount of money, just in case she needed it for their child, before closing it and restoring the painting to its position. Once she was certain the painting was straight and that there was no evidence she’d been there, Delphine hurried upstairs to Florian’s quarters. All she wanted to do was fall into his four-poster bed and sob into the pillow, to roll around in his sheets and smell his scent, to remember him and all the nights they’d spent there together.
But she didn’t have long to do what she needed to do.
Delphine ran to his wardrobe and took out a cashmere jersey, holding it to her face and inhaling. Tears filled her eyes; it was Florian. His unmistakable, woodsy cologne clung to the fibres, and she quickly put it in her bag before turning to leave. She’d left nothing that she needed to collect at his home, nothing she needed returned to her, and so she forced herself to walk from the bedroom without looking back, to go down the elegant staircase and put her shoes back on without looking into his office one last time.
Delphine’s hand hovered around the front doorknob as she indulged in one final gaze at the home she’d likely never set foot in again; the house that was to have been her new marital home, the place they would have raised their child, and which Tommaso and Isabella would have been welcomed into, with Florian as their doting stepfather.
She swallowed her pain and locked the door, hurrying back down the driveway and finding Martina sitting exactly where she’d left her, her hands still planted on the steering wheel, knuckles visibly white.
‘I’m sorry I took so long,’ Delphine said, as she sat down and closed the door.
‘Do you have what you need?’
She nodded. ‘I do. But we need to make one more stop before we go home.’
