A Sudden Change of Heart by Barbara Taylor Bradford Read Free Book Online

exactly the same way about her.
    She was thinking about Laura; she was looking forward to having dinner with her that night. Laura was the only family she had except for Natasha. Her parents were dead; Aunt Fleur was dead; her husband was ostensibly dead, since they were long divorced. Momentarily, his face danced before her eyes, but she pushed it away. She didnot want to think about him now; it would spoil her evening.
    On their walk from the museum, she and Laura had planned the weekend. It was going to be fun. Natasha was as excited as she was about Laura’s unexpected sojourn in Paris, and without Doug in tow for a change. Not that she minded Doug, he was all right. But having Laura to themselves was a very special bonus.
    “Is there something troubling you, Claire?” Hercule asked, cutting into her thoughts.
    Turning to look at him, Claire exclaimed, “No, of course not, Hercule! Why do you think there is?”
    “You’ve been very quiet on our drive across Paris,” he remarked, touching her arm. “And I have to confess to you, I was most forcibly struck by your appearance this afternoon. You’ve lost weight, Claire. You’re like a … a waif.”
    “No, wafer thin!” she shot back, laughing, pleased with her play on words. “Remember what the Duchess of Windsor said: You can never be too rich or too thin.”
    “But
you
are
too
thin.”
    “I’ll confess, Hercule, I’ve been on a diet. I want to be slender and chic for your New Year’s Eve party.”
    “You are a lovely young woman; all this dieting is not necessary. Starving, starving, starving, and all for a size four dress.
Mon Dieu,
you could slip through the eye of a needle.”
    “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,” she murmured, smiling at him, grasping one of his hands. “I first heard those lines from the Bible in that oldTyrone Power movie with Gene Tierney, Anne Baxter, and Clifton Webb.”
    “The Razor’s Edge,”
he said. “How could I forget it? Ever. I have seen it a hundred times with you.”
    “Not quite a hundred,” she laughed. “But we’re getting there, and I’m fine, Hercule, really I am. Actually, I’m as fit as a fiddle. A bit overworked, that’s all. But, listen, I want to talk to you about the Renoir. If it’s not been sold, Laura might well be interested. For one of her clients. I know she has her heart set on a Matisse and a Bonnard if she can find them, but why not a Renoir as well? She has several big collectors as clients.”
    “I know she does, and that is an excellent idea, Claire. I have a feeling that the painting is still hanging in my friend’s house. I am sure she would have told me if she had sold it.” He gave her the benefit of a wide smile and nodded his head, looking pleased. “I shall tell the countess there is the possibility of a sale.”

3      
    “I t’s going to be like old times this weekend,” Laura said. “The way it was when I was studying at the Sorbonne, and you’d just arrived here with a husband and a baby. We really had a ball in those days, didn’t we?”
    Claire laughed. “Yes, we did. And some baby she is today! Fourteen going on forty, taller than both of us and into makeup, clothes, and boys. You’ll get a shock when you see her, Laura. She’s really sprung up in the last couple of months.”
    Laura nodded, settled back against the chair, and took a sip of her champagne.
    The two women were sitting in Laura’s room at the hotel, lingering over their drinks before dinner. In the half hour they had spent greeting each other effusively and discussing the Renoir, the weather had turned nasty. By the time they had been ready to go to Benoît, one of their favorite bistros, it was snowing hard and, according to the doorman, an icy wind had blown up. And so they had agreed it would be much wiser to stay at the hotel and have room service.
    “What do you feel like eating?” Laura now asked,