Power of a Woman (2 page)

So young, she thought, I was so young then. But already the mother of three: Nigel, born when I was just seventeen, and the twins, Gideon and Miles, when I was nineteen.

A smile animated her face as images of her children leapt into her mind unbidden. Three 12 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

towheaded little boys, each with eyes as blue as speedwells. Grown men now. And she was still young herself, only forty-six, but a grandmother for the past two years, thanks to Nigel.

Stevie laughed inwardly. How often she was mistaken for her sons’ sister, much to Nigel’s chagrin. He did not like it; the twins, on the other hand, gleefully encouraged this deception whenever they could. They were incorrigible, loved to pass her off as their sibling to those who were unsuspecting of the truth, and they were usually successful at their mischievous little game.

Gideon and Miles were proud of her youthful looks, slender figure, energy, and vitality. Nigel felt just the opposite. It seemed to her that everything about her was an irritant to him. A small frown furrowed her smooth brow as Nigel’s presence nudged itself into her mind. Swiftly, she pushed aside the flicker of dismay that flew to the surface.

She loved her eldest son, but she had always known he had a lot of his grandfather in him. And Bruce Jardine had never been one of her favorites, although as the years had passed, he had behaved decently toward her. Most especially after Alfreda’s death. But as long as her mother-in-law had been alive, that awful contention had persisted, at least as far as Alfreda was concerned.

A small sigh escaped her and she turned her head, looked toward the fire, her mind sliding back in time as she remembered Alfreda and Bruce as they were then….

Power of a Woman / 13

Four years after she and Ralph had been married, his sister, Alicia, had died of leukemia. The elder Jardines had been forced to reconsider the situation and effect a compromise, in order to come to terms with them. Ralph and she were the parents of their only grandchildren, their heirs, three boys who one day would follow in their grandfather’s and father’s footsteps, running Jardine and Company of London, the Crown Jewellers.

Eventually she and Ralph had succumbed to his parents’ conciliatory overtures, albeit somewhat reluctantly, and certainly with a great deal of trepida-tion. They had accepted the proffered olive branch.

As it turned out, they were forever fighting off interference from the senior Jardines, who tried, without success, to take over the rearing of the boys.

Their great escape had been the trips to Yorkshire to stay at Aysgarth End, the farmhouse on the moors above the Dales, where they had fled with the children whenever they had been able to get away.

Large, rambling, in constant need of repairs, it was, nevertheless, their blessed haven, a little bit of heaven on earth, the place they really called home.

They liked their apartment in Kensington; it was spacious and comfortable, ideal for rearing a growing young family. For some reason Aysgarth End meant so much more to them emotionally. Stevie had never really been able to fathom what it 14 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

was
exactly
that made the farm so special, except that it was full of love and laughter. And a special kind of joy.

She still believed, as she had all those years ago, that this joy sprang from Ralph’s natural goodness, his genuine spirituality. He was truly a pure man, the only one she had ever known, filled with kindness and compassion, and he had had such an understanding heart.

That absolute joy in each other and their children had flourished at Aysgarth End until the day Ralph had died. He had been only thirty-four. Too young, by far.

She had become a widow at twenty-three.

And it was then that her troubles had begun.

Of course it was her parents-in-law who were the troublemakers. Endeavoring to brush her aside, ignoring her terrible grief and the enormous sense of loss she was experiencing, they had tried to wrest the children away from her. Foolishly so. They did not have a leg to stand on. She was the perfect mother, exemplary, without blemish, and untouched by any kind of scandal or wrongdoing.

Ralph’s best friend, James Allerton, had also been his solicitor, and with Ralph’s death he had become Stevie’s legal representative. It was to James that she had turned when her in-laws had started to make their moves.

At a meeting with the Jardines, James had almost, but not quite, laughed in their faces, and Power of a Woman / 15

had told them to go to hell, in more polite terms, of course. Not only was the law of the land on her side, there was the matter of Ralph’s will. In it he had made his feelings for her abundantly clear. He had reiterated his love and admiration of her, not to mention his confidence in her ability to rear their sons. He had left her everything he owned, and in so doing had ensured her financial security. He had also made her entirely independent of his parents.

The trusts he had inherited from his grandparents he had passed on to his three sons; he had named his wife as the administrator of the trusts and exec-utrix of his will.

As James so succinctly pointed out to the Jardines, Stevie was holding all the cards and she had a winning hand. They slunk away, defeated; for once they had been outmaneuvered.

It was her resentment of the Jardines, and her anger at them, that had served her so well in 1973.

Especially the anger. She had turned it around, made it work to her advantage; it had also fueled her determination to keep her sons close at all times.

Although she did not know it at that moment, the anger had kindled her ambition as well, and eventually it would spur her on to do things she had never dreamed possible. At the back of her mind a plan was developing, a plan that would make her indispensable to Bruce Jardine, and ensure her control of her children

16 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

until they were old enough to fend for themselves.

That year, beset as she was with problems and crushed by grief, the plan did not come to flower.

But the seed had been sown.

Stevie was a pragmatist at heart. She never forgot that one day her sons would inherit the family business, and that they must be properly educated and prepared for this. Founded in 1787 by one Alistair Jardine, a Scottish silversmith who had made his way to London and opened a shop there, Jardine’s had always been run by a Jardine.

And so in 1974, as she began to recover from Ralph’s death and regain her equilibrium, she had contacted his parents. Her main purpose was to affect a rapprochement, which she eventually was able to do with the help of James Allerton; but it was an uneasy truce at best. Alfreda seemed determined to upset her, or cause trouble, and whenever her mother-in-law could make her life difficult, she did.

Nonetheless, Stevie realized that her sons must come to know their grandparents, most especially their grandfather, who was the key to their future.

It would be Bruce who would train them, lead them through the labyrinths of the family business, so that when he retired they could take over.

Jardine’s had been the Crown Jewellers since Queen Victoria’s day. It was important that her sons understood their inheritance, the great jewelry company that would be theirs one day, Power of a Woman / 17

and the family dynasty into which they had been born.

The ringing of the telephone made her start, and, as she reached for it, Stevie was pulled back into the present.

“Hello?”

“I’d like to speak to Mrs. Jardine, please.”

“This is she.”

“Hello, Stevie, it’s Matt Wilson.”

Taken by surprise, she exclaimed, “Hello, Matt!

And where are you calling from?” She glanced at her watch; it was five-thirty. “Not Paris, surely? It’s very late at night there.”

He laughed, and said, “No, I’m in Los Angeles.

With
Monsieur
. We arrived yesterday to see a client.

He would like to speak with you. I’ll put him on.”

“Thank you, Matt.”

A moment later André Birron was at the other end of the wire. “Stephanie, my Stephanie,
comment
vas-tu?
”

“I’m wonderful, André,” Stevie said, smiling with pleasure on hearing his voice. At seventy-five, André Birron was considered to be one of the greatest jewelers, perhaps even
the
greatest jeweler, in the world. Known as the
grand seigneur
of the jewelry business, he had been her lifelong friend. He had always been there for her whenever she had needed him.

“It is a pleasure to hear your voice, Stephanie,” he went on, “and it will be an even greater plea-18 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

sure to see you. I am coming to New York in about ten days. For the Sotheby’s auction. You plan to be there, I am certain of that.”

“I do. And I hope you’ll have time for dinner, André. Or lunch.”

“Whichever, or both,
ma chérie
.” There was a small pause before the Frenchman asked, “You are going to bid on the White Empress, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you would. You have always wanted to own it.” He chuckled. “You have dreamed about it, Stephanie.”

“Salivated, actually,” she responded, laughing with him. “And how well you know me, André. But listen, who wouldn’t want to own it? I consider the White Empress to be one of the most beautiful diamonds in the world.”

“You are correct; however,
I
shall not bid on it, Stephanie. Out of deference to you, really. If I bid, I would only escalate the price exorbitantly, and there will be enough people doing that. And, of course, I do not have the love for this diamond that you do, although I can admire its beauty. Yes, it is a diamond you and only you should own.”

“Thank you for letting me know you’re not going to participate. I expect the bidding to go sky high.

Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I do. The stone has not been on the market since the fifties, and so obviously there is a great deal of interest in it. That is the reason I telephoned you, Stephanie,
ma petite
, to inform you Power of a Woman / 19

we shall not be bidding against each other, competing. But it will be my great honor to escort you to the auction, if you will permit me to do so.”

“I’d love it, André, thank you.”

“And after the auction we shall dine together, and it will be a grand celebration.”

She laughed a soft, light laugh. “We’ll be celebrat-ing only if I get the White Empress, my dear old friend.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that you will, Stephanie.”

A
LTHOUGH SHE KNEW EVERYTHING THERE WAS TO

know about her favorite diamond, Stevie could not resist taking the Sotheby’s catalogue out of her briefcase after she had said good-bye to André Birron and hung up.

Flipping open the catalogue, she quickly found the page where the White Empress was featured, and gazed for a moment or two at the photograph of the gem. The picture was excellent, but even so it did not do justice to the magnificent stone.

The White Empress
. Stevie repeated the name to herself. It certainly deserved to be called that. It was so named because it was graded D-flawless and was therefore perfect. And as such it was colorless—pure white, brilliantly, blindingly white—hence the first portion of its name. Because it was extremely rare and very beautiful, and also categorized as a
grand
stone, the title of Empress had been chosen to complete its name.

22 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

Automatically, Stevie’s eyes shifted to the left-hand page of the catalogue, and she scanned the text. Yet again she was reminded that the White Empress had started out as a 427-carat diamond of exceptionally fine color, and that it had been found in 1954 at the Premier Mines in South Africa.

This piece of rough was subsequently sold in 1956 to Harry Winston, the renowned American jeweler, as part of an eight-million-four-hundred-thousand-dollar parcel.

The largest stone Winston cut from this piece was a 128.25-carat D-flawless pear-shaped diamond, and it was this stone that retained the original name of White Empress. Harry Winston had the stone set as a pendant on an exquisite diamond necklace, designed specially, and then he had sold it that same year to a European industrialist.

Now, after forty years in the hands of one family, it was finally back on the market. Sotheby’s would put it on the auction block at their auction rooms on York Avenue in New York at the beginning of December.

Stevie’s eyes lingered on the photograph for a short while longer before she finally closed the catalogue and returned it to her briefcase. Her thoughts settled on André. Though he was not bidding on the stone, there were many others who
would
be bidding, and automatically the price would be driven up, as it usually was at these big auctions for important items.

Power of a Woman / 23

It could skyrocket, she thought, sitting back in the chair, frowning. No, it
would
skyrocket. There was no doubt in her mind about that; she made the decision to stay in the bidding no matter what, since she was determined to acquire the stone whatever it cost.

Seven-figure numbers jumped around in her head.

Six million dollars, seven million dollars…no, too low. Eight million, she speculated, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Still too low, she decided.

Suddenly she was convinced the stone would be sold in the eight-figure category. Ten million, she said under her breath. Could it go as high as that?

At this moment Stevie knew that if she had to, she would pay that amount for the stone. She craved it, not for herself, of course, but for Jardine’s in New York, which she had founded.

Once she owned the stone, she would hold on to it for a year or two, displaying it at exhibitions, making it the centerpiece of the store’s permanent collection. She had no intention of cleaving it—cutting it—into several stones, or disposing of it immediately. It was quite obvious to her that the White Empress was a great investment, and in a variety of ways, not the least of which was the publicity the diamond would engender for Jardine’s.