Wiles of a Stranger

Wiles of a Stranger by Joan Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Wiles of a Stranger by Joan Smith Read Free Book Online
Authors: Joan Smith
Tags: Regency Romance
cluster at the front set in such a manner that no individual stone showed to best advantage. Today they would be set differently, the larger stones having more importance in the design.
    “May I try on your necklace, Lucien?” Mrs. Beaudel asked archly.
    “I would like to see it on you,” he agreed at once. “Diamonds look much better on a pretty lady.”
    Her husband fastened it around her neck, smiling at her excitement. “I wish I could give it to you,” he said.
    “You can wear it any time you want, Aunt Stella,” Lucien assured her.
    “That would not be quite the thing, Lucien. People would talk,” his uncle explained. I surmised he had learned that fact by experience. People were talking—the servant at the inn, for instance.
    “The earrings to go with it,” Mrs. Beaudel demanded, reaching out her hand to him, and using the tone more usually employed for servants.
    Another drawer was opened, and large pendant ear buckles handed to her. She put them on herself, in front of a mirror that was on the far wall. She had a lamp moved to illuminate the image in the mirror, and a very lovely image it was too. Her eyes glowed as strongly as any of the gems. She adored wearing them, to cock her head this way and that, and see the diamond drops jiggle against her white skin. She fingered the necklace, lovingly, while Lucien admired her, both orally and with his eyes. She coveted those jewels, and it was strange she should be prodding Beaudel to sell them. Of course she could not wear them without causing gossip.
    I was curious to return to the unmounted stones, to see just what it was my father stood accused of stealing. I don’t know what I had in mind—to see they were only paste, or crystals faceted to look like diamonds perhaps. “How do you know these stones are imperfect, Mr. Beaudel?” I asked, playing the amateur. “You said if they had no flaws, they would be worth more. They don’t seem to have any flaws.”
    “They cannot be seen by the naked eye,” he told me.
    “You use one of those eyeglass things, do you?”
    “A loupe,” he informed me, nodding his head. “I have one about here somewhere.”
    “Could I take a peek through it? I have never used one of them,” I lied, with a beguiling smile.
    He glanced to see his wife was still being entertained by Lucien before rooting through a drawer for his loupe. That action told me he was no real jewel connoisseur. My father’s loupe was never more than an arm’s length away, usually in his pocket.
    I was careful not to display any expertise with the instrument. I let Beaudel show me how to use it. He chattered on with some unnecessary information. “They tell me the north light is best. I daresay you will see nothing by lamplight.”
    I saw that the stone, roughly three and a half carats, which he handed to me, had been badly cut, and had a flaw so large that it tended to make the stone virtually worthless. “I see a black mark in it, a sort of line,” was all I said.
    “The larger ones are all flawed, but the diamond would look well in a ring or a brooch for all that. A diamond is always worth something. Here, try this one. The smaller ones are unflawed.”
    He let me examine three or four, making sure to get the last back in his hands before letting me touch another. As he said, the large ones were flawed, the small ones perfect. It seemed pointless to go on, but I accepted the last one he selected for me.
    The word “carat,” as it pertains to precious stones, is an indication of weight, not size. A carat indicates two hundred milligrams of weight. The stone he handed me was about the size a one-carat stone should be, but its weight in my hand felt less than half of what I expected. One comes to recognize what a diamond should weigh, when she has been handling them all her life. I inhaled sharply, but he did not appear to notice. With the greatest curiosity, I held the stone under my eye, but it was a mere formality. Even before I did so,

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