The Bulgari Connection Read Online Free

the good North light with cigar smoke as was his habit, and doubted the wisdom of the jewels not being in the bank, couldn’t Walter work from a photograph? But Lady Juliet had said authenticity was so important, lights should not be hidden in bushels, jewels could not be forever in vaults or they lost their magic, what was the point of having these things if the world didn’t know about it, and so on. What was he afraid of? That Walter would run off with them? Slip the matching earrings into his pocket? Walter was too poetic a soul to run off with anything. He was an artist, everyone knew artists were above material things.
    Which they obviously believed in their naivety, since Walter was being paid only £1800 to do the portrait – well, actually to do the two – and the Randoms assumed that was generous, and that they were doing him a kindness, employing and trusting a comparative unknown in the first place, introducing him to those levels of society where artists got more like £18,000 for a single fashionable portrait, than £1800 for a pair, which worked out at £300 a week for six weeks work. He would rather paint landscapes when it came to it: the weather kept changing and the light with it, but at least the landscape sat still.
    â€˜So you want to be introduced to the woman in the corner in the crushed velvet dress,’ said Lady Juliet, ever happy to oblige. The jewels in her necklace glittered and glanced where they caught the light: the thing seemed magically, beautifully alive; he hoped he had got the intensity of it on the canvas: paint and brush could do only so much. But on the whole he was pleased. The copy, he thought, had been minimally better than the original: he had really got his hand in on the precious stones second time round, but he was the only one who would notice that. Only one in a hundred ever really noticed anything.
    â€˜You only have ten minutes before the auction begins,’ said Lady Juliet. ‘I’m going to want you to go on stage and talk to them a little about art, and be altogether as languid and beautiful as you can, not that you have to try. They’ll think you’re photogenic and have a future and prices will triple. But do by all means talk to Grace first. I need her in a good mood. Barley gave her a good settlement, at least three million, and probably more, none of us like talking large figures in the press or they take us for fat cats, and I do so hate being called fat, even though I know I am. Little Children, Everywhere need women like Grace. The wretched of the earth could do with some of everyone’s alimony. This is the growth area, the future lies in this world of multiple divorces, multiple remarriages. Not just money to charity on death, but on divorce, too, an intrinsic part of any settlement. We all live far too well, with our champagne and our canapés, don’t you think? But what’s to be done? The world is what it is. All we can do is change our little corner of it.’
    And so Walter Wells was introduced to Grace Salt at the Randoms’ charity do. There was the same difference between their ages as there was between Doris and Barley. Twenty-six years separated Grace and Walter, twenty-six years separated Doris and Barley.
    Walter saw a woman with sad, dark, glowing eyes and a gentle, surprised expression, as if she was seeing the world for the first time. It was the same look a baby has, when it’s about twelve months old, and has learned that in order to walk and run you have to develop an indifference to sharp corners. He thought she was perhaps about forty: older than he was at any rate but who was counting? Her dress was in crushed deep crimson velvet, a texture and colour he longed to get on canvas. She wore it buttoned up to the neck and its long sleeves ended in sedate cuffs, as if she needed what small protection from the world even fabric could bring her. She wore no jewellery, other than