The Gentleman Jewel Thief Read online

  Marvelous!

  “I plan to display the jewel at the ball, Friday next. I’ve hired half the British army to guard them,” Hope said with a smug scoff, “but it will make quite the splash, the jewel, don’t you think? Oh, do make plans to attend, Lord Harclay. ‘The Jewel of the Sun King: An Evening at Versailles’—really, how could you resist?”

  Harclay let out a well-practiced sigh of resignation. “Perhaps,” he replied. “I’ve a busy season ahead, you see; I make no promises. And my valet, he’s been unwell, and I can’t very well attend in the nude . . .”

  But Mr. Hope smiled beatifically at Harclay’s excuses, knowing he had won over the reluctant earl; as if he knew he had been the first to pique Lord Harclay’s interest in a very, very long time.

  Two

  Duchess Street, near Cavendish Square

  Lady Violet Rutledge arrived at Mr. Thomas Hope’s ball early, at the host’s request. Indeed, a bit too early; upon entrance into Hope Mansion’s soaring hall, she realized that she, Auntie George, and her cousin, Lady Sophia Blaise, were Mr. Hope’s very first guests.

  Together the three ladies gawked at the grandeur that surrounded them as they shed their spencers and accepted tiny coupes of champagne from a footman dressed in a towering powdered wig and white satin breeches. Hope had, as usual, taken the Versailles theme quite seriously: fragrant white lilies with blooms as large as dinner plates covered every available surface, and from some corner of the house Violet could hear an opera singer warming up a particularly piercing voice. Hope’s parties were many things, thought Violet, but certainly never dull.

  As she, Auntie, and Sophia climbed the grand staircase, Violet remembered with a small smile the previous year’s ball. Dressed as a rather voluptuous Lucrezia Borgia, Violet had taken a near-fatal tumble down these very same steps, only to land in the outstretched arms of Pope Alexander VI—Mr. Hope had cunningly replicated the pontiff’s crooked nose with bread dough and a pair of buttons.

  Truth be told, Hope’s infamous balls were a rare opportunity for Violet to steal away for a carefree evening of dancing and, if she were honest, shameless flirtation. The burdens of her everyday life—an ailing father, the viperish gossip surrounding her unmarried state—seemed to evaporate in the perfumed air of Mr. Hope’s ballroom.

  A shiver of excitement coursed up her spine as they entered the grand space, a trio of gilt chandeliers glowing dimly from above. Something was going to happen tonight, something exciting: she could feel it, a thrilling spark in the center of her chest.

  Musicians were setting up in a corner; Violet noticed even they were in costume, complete with satin bows and hideous white makeup. A long table covered in sumptuous silk linens stood against a far wall of tall windows and was set with the contents of Mr. Hope’s celebrated cellar of rare brown liquors.

  “This is dangerous,” Auntie George whispered. “The lighting, the music, the brandy—it’s altogether too romantic. An ogre would look handsome in this light. Promise me you’ll stay out of trouble. No, not you, Violet, it’s too late for you. But Sophia . . . ”

  Auntie George turned pointedly to her daughter, eyes narrowed in warning.

  “I promise,” Sophia quickly replied. Perhaps a bit too quickly, for Auntie reached out and pinched her ear.

  Sophia’s cheeks flamed. The poor dear trembled with anxiety; it was her first season and she had yet to master the butterflies that inevitably filled her belly at every event. Violet reached out and took her hand, giving it a good squeeze. Sophia managed a small smile.

  “You’re the loveliest nymph this side of the Styx,” Violet whispered, setting the sleeve of her water goddess costume to rights. What a nymph had to do with the Sun King and his jewels, Violet hadn’t the slightest clue; but Sophia loved the idea, and Violet thought the gauze appropriately scandalous.

  “I know I say this every night,” Violet continued, head bent to Sophia’s, “but you’ve nothing to fear. You are lovely and far wittier than anyone else in that ballroom. If you find you are frightened, just imagine whomever you’re talking to is in the nude. That’ll put a smile on your lips, make no mistake.”

  Sophia’s shoulders relaxed as she let out a little scoff. “An old trick of yours, sweet cousin?”

  “It works wonders; you’ll see.”

  Sophia glanced over Violet’s head. “Mr. Hope hired an awful lot of footmen. Do you think their pistols are part of the costume?”

  Violet turned to see a phalanx of satin-clad, broad-shouldered men enter the ballroom. They did not look at all like footmen; they wore dark, inscrutable expressions, and a few were missing teeth. Beneath their shiny, ill-fitting waistcoats, Violet could indeed make out the imprint of pistols—and rather large ones at that.

  “Dear me, I should hope not,” Violet replied. “How eccentric, even for Mr. Hope.”

  At that very moment the man himself came into view, striding into the ballroom behind his pistol-wielding servants.

  “Good heavens,” Violet murmured.

  Beside her, Auntie George let out a low whistle. “How extraordinary!”

  Mr. Hope was coiffed and stuffed and powdered into a towering likeness of the Sun King, Louis XIV, complete with gilded staff and a long, curly black wig. He even sported a pair of red-heeled shoes fastened with diamond-encrusted bows. On his brow rested a gleaming coronet set with sapphires the size of grapes that, Violet mused, were very likely genuine.

  “Mademoiselles,” Mr. Hope said, grimacing as his staff impaled his foot. “Bienvenue à Versailles. I was hoping you’d be the first to arrive.”

  “Mr. Hope,” Violet said as Hope kissed her outstretched hand. “Your costume is nothing short of—er, epic. However do you manage to keep your neck straight with that wig on your head? It must weigh more than I do.”

  Hope swayed his head, the wig swaying along with it, and smiled. “Ghastly headache I’ve got, but it’s worth it for the drama, don’t you think?” He turned to Violet’s cousin. “And Lady Sophia! You are a vision,” he said, swallowing her whole with his dark eyes. He took her hand and pressed his lips to it, lingering a moment longer than was proper.

  Sophia appeared happy, her face very pink, at his compliment. “Thank you, Mr. Hope,” she said.

  “A nymph, I presume? What a marvelous conceit. A goddess of the wood and of the hunt. The Sun King was a great hunter and would have delighted in such a creature. We go together, you and I.”

  By now, Hope was not only swallowing her cousin with his eyes but devouring her. Violet’s narrowed gaze slid from Sophia to Hope and back again. It occurred to her that Sophia was not nervous; no, she was excited, thrumming not with dread but with anticipation.

  Were she and Mr. Hope somehow acquainted, and not in the polite sense of the word? Though the tension between them was palpable, the very idea of them together was preposterous. Sophia was as quietly ambitious a debutante as any, and had set her sights on shackling a titled bachelor in possession of various crests and, hopefully, a castle. Violet couldn’t blame her; having grown up in the tumult of genteel poverty, Sophia was wise to seek the stability, and profitability, of such a match.

  Mr. Hope—well, Hope was a banker, a tradesman, and a foreigner besides; darkly handsome, too. He was, in short, everything that kept Auntie George awake at night; everything that should send a hopeful debutante like Sophia running for the proverbial hills.

  And yet here they were, the banker and the debutante, blushing and flirting and smiling at each other, softly.

  “Well”—Auntie George cleared her throat, looking anywhere but at the couple ogling each other—“what lovely decorations.”

  As if waking from a spell, Mr. Hope blinked and pressed one last kiss onto Sophia’s hand. He rose with some reluctance, his satin costume rustling as he drew to his full height and motioned to one of his gap-toothed entourage.

  “Surely you have be
en wondering why I selected tonight’s theme, ‘The Jewels of the Sun King,’” he began.

  “I have,” Violet replied, “and I wondered to which jewels the title referred, His Majesty’s diamonds or his—”

  “Genius!” Sophia said. “A genius theme, surely!”

  He returned her compliment with a sheepish smile. “Why, thank you, Lady Sophia.”

  A beat of heated silence passed between them.

  Again Auntie George cleared her throat. “Your theme, Mr. Hope?”

  “Oh, yes!” he said. He turned to his guard-cum-courtier, who held out a box lacquered in black. Mr. Hope took the box in his hands and turned back to Lady Violet, his eyes dancing with excitement.

  At once Violet’s heart began to throb. Hope’s box was the same size and shape of that which had held her mother’s jewels, pearl necklaces and emerald brooches and bracelets of the finest jade beads. Over the years such priceless family treasures had been discreetly sold piece by piece, to cover the estate’s mounting debts—debts she had only recently managed to pay off through her careful management of the family’s investments. Violet was left with virtually nothing but her mother’s simple gold wedding band, a tiny thing she now wore on a chain around her neck. It was her most treasured possession.

  But here was Mr. Hope, proffering what was sure to be a jewel the size of a teacup. It made Violet dizzy, and not in a lovely, light-headed way.

  “I have here in my hands a most precious jewel,” Mr. Hope said gravely. “A priceless jewel, first worn by the great shahs of the Mughal court, and then by the kings of France. Louis the Sun King wore it pinned to a ribbon around his neck; Marie-Antoinette—yes, the very one!—is rumored to have smuggled it in her bodice on an ill-fated escape attempt from Paris.”

  Slowly, with great care, Mr. Hope unlatched the clasp on the box. Violet thought she might be sick with anticipation.

  “Ladies,” Mr. Hope continued, “I present to you le bleu de France, the French Blue.”

  Violet wished to remind Hope that she was perfectly capable of understanding French (though her powers of speech were quite dreadful), and that it would please her very much if he would stop flaunting his flawless command of the language; but as soon as her eyes landed on the glittering stone the breath left her body and she stood mute, transfixed.

  For there, nestled in a puddle of fine velvet, was an enormous diamond, cut in an oblong circle roughly the size of a fig. It winked at once blue, then gray; Violet could even detect flashes of red and deep purple in its facets.

  “My salts!” Auntie George cried. “Someone get my smelling salts!”

  The diamond was beautiful, blindingly so. It was possessed of a gravity, a strange seduction, that made her want to reach out and touch it. To think King Louis XIV had once held this diamond in his royal fingertips! How dazzling he must have been, dressed in ermine and cloth of gold, the French Blue slung about his neck. To which ceremonies had he worn it? To which assemblies and balls and illicit, athletic couplings, conducted in the shadowy halls of Versailles, had the diamond been witness?

  Really, the mind boggled.

  “It’s beautiful,” Violet said breathily.

  The banker positively beamed. “My pièce de résistance, as they say.”

  “Indeed,” Violet replied, gaze transfixed on the jewel. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Even our own king, poor devil, doesn’t have diamonds like this.”

  “It would be a great honor,” Hope said, focusing his gaze on Violet, “if you, as one of my first clients and a dear friend, would do me the honor of displaying the French Blue to my guests and wear it about your neck this evening. I do believe it’s the same shade of blue as your eyes.”

  Violet gaped at her host as if he’d just laid her flat on her back with a blow to the nose. Instinctively she fingered the gold band that hung from the chain about her neck. “I couldn’t possibly,” she said, eyes never leaving the gem. “Though it is lovely, the loveliest I’ve seen—”

  Mr. Hope waved away her words. Another of his sinister men approached, bearing a second box. Mr. Hope opened it and produced a collar of exquisite diamonds, ropes of them dangling in various lengths from a single necklace.

  The banker must have caught them staring, for he smiled and said, “On loan, from one of my—ah, associates. I thought it would be a perfect accompaniment to the French Blue.”

  No doubt by “associate,” Hope meant some enormously wealthy Italian duke or an equally foolish Romanov. Perhaps even the prince regent; Mr. Hope was possessed of a wide and influential circle of such “associates,” with whom he traded priceless antiques, exotic African pelts, and extravagant jewelry worthy of a tsarina.

  Violet watched as Mr. Hope effortlessly affixed the French Blue to the collar of diamonds as if he handled such treasures every day, perhaps over tea. He then turned to face her, the necklace strung about his fingers like the silken fibers of a spider’s web.

  “May I?” he said.

  Violet gulped, tucking the ring into the folds of her costume. “You may indeed, Mr. Hope,” she replied and turned away from him, patting her hair to ensure it remained coiffed close to her head.

  She gasped when he slid the necklace about her throat. The diamonds felt cold against her skin, electrifyingly so; she shivered visibly and at once he drew back.

  “Are you all right, Lady Violet?”

  “Yes, quite. What a thrill to wear the Sun King’s diamond, truly,” she said and shivered again. For a moment she wondered if this was what it felt like to be Diane de Poitiers, that infamously decorated mistress of Henri II; or perhaps Catherine the Great, cloaked in diamonds on the throne of her Winter Palace.

  Violet stiffened her spine, squared her shoulders. It was a thrill, an honor, to have a small piece of such exalted history hanging from her neck.

  The jewel nested in the small, tender indentation between her collarbones. It was heavy, though not so cold now, having warmed to her flesh. If she moved her head just so, she could catch flashes of extravagant brilliance as the molten light of the ballroom reflected off its surface.

  She turned to face her audience, and by their stunned faces concluded the diamond was, indeed, the same shade of blue-gray as her eyes.

  “Well, then,” she said, feeling suddenly light-headed. “More champagne?”

  Three

  “Remember, Avery, this very spot,” Harclay said, pulling on his gloves. “I’ve the oddest premonition the evening shall end early.”

  “Very well, my lord.” Avery shut the carriage door. “We shan’t move, nary an inch.”

  “Good. Always such a crush, getting out of these things.”

  He took a deep, vigorous breath as he made his way up the front steps. It was a fine night, a very fine night indeed, a clear night sky above, and the spring air soft and cool against his skin. Harclay couldn’t remember a finer night, not in all his days; for tonight he felt thrillingly, achingly alive. His every sense tingled; his blood coursed hot and ready through his veins. Since his meeting with Hope some days before, Harclay’s mood had been effervescent, joyful even—and now, at last, the time had come.

  With no little satisfaction he noted he’d arrived at just the right moment and in just the right costume: Hope’s guests were just getting in their cups, and the mood was light, jovial, as if the heady anticipation of the night’s event had not yet worn off. Like half of those in attendance, Harclay was vaguely attired as a French courtier, with powdered hair and the most enthusiastically patterned jacket his valet could find. Even with purple paisley swirling about his breast, Harclay was hardly distinguishable from the other unfortunately attired gentlemen in the room.

  The stage, it seemed, was set.

  A footman appeared out of the ether and passed him a goblet of what looked to be claret. Harclay sniffed it and to his surprise discovered it was brandy. Rascal, that Mr.
Hope, disguising his liquors as wine; rascal, and genius.

  Before ascending the heavily carpeted staircase to the ballroom, Harclay allowed himself a few breaths to savor the moment. Sipping his brandy—Mr. Hope’s selection was always damnably good—Harclay allowed himself a moment to be lost in thought. He hated to steal from the man, truly, he did. Hope was an odd fellow, surely, but a good one, an intriguing one, and Harclay might think twice before robbing him if it weren’t for the man’s million-pound fortune.

  The diamond—well, it was a drop in the bucket, really, and far too great a temptation for Harclay to resist. Besides, he’d return the gem to Hope in due time, once Harclay concocted a scheme as daring, as brilliantly ludicrous, as the one he was to set in motion tonight.

  Making his way at last toward the ballroom, the earl found himself in a jolly enough mood to converse with a circle of pimpled debutantes and their perspiring mamas. Music floated through the hall, and in a nearby drawing room he caught a glimpse of a famous prima donna performing an aria. The crowd was growing, hundreds and hundreds of flushed faces, and Harclay followed it into the two-story ballroom, the roar of conversation echoing off its tall, coffered ceiling. With a secret smile he glanced at the trio of monumental windows that lined the back of the space, their ink-black panes reflecting the quiver of a thousand candles.

  An audible hush trailed in his wake as those he passed began to recognize him. He caught a snippet or two that made him grin:

  “The Earl of Harclay . . . they say he deflowered an entire village in Sicily. Yes, the nuns, too!”

  “He’s never lost a bet. Man won ten thousand off the Duke of Kent—twice!”

  “It’s said he wagered his palace up in Oxfordshire on a bet that a certain gentleman could not seduce a certain lady.”