The Necklace of Love

Chapter One ~ 1839-1

Chapter One ~ 1839Kezia, looking out of the window, saw a smart phaeton coming down the drive and gave a cry of delight.

She ran along the passage and down the beautifully carved oak staircase into the hall.

She flung open the door just as her brother pulled his horses to a standstill.

“Perry!” she exclaimed. “I was not expecting you. How exciting!”

Sir Peregrine Falcon handed his reins to a groom and stepped down from the phaeton.

As he reached the steps leading up to the front door, his sister ran down them and flung her arms round his neck.

“It’s so wonderful you are back!” she exclaimed.

“You are ruining my cravat,” her brother protested, but he was smiling.

They walked arm in arm into the hall together.

“But why have you come home?” she asked. “What has happened? You said you would not be returning for weeks.”

“I have some news that I think will please you,” Perry replied, “but first I would like something to drink.”

Kezia hesitated.

“I am afraid there is only some claret, which I was keeping for your return, or a bottle of cider.”

“Cider will do me very well,” Perry replied, “and we will most certainly need to keep the claret.”

She looked at him in surprise, but he did not explain and she ran to the kitchen quarters.

Humber, the old butler who had served her father faithfully for more than forty years before he died, was sitting in the pantry.

He was polishing the silver and his leg, which was stiff with arthritis, was propped up on a stool.

“Sir Peregrine is back!” Kezia called out excitedly. “And he wants a glass of cider. Don’t move, just tell me where the bottle is.”

“It’s just at the top of the cellar, Miss Kezia, where it keeps nice and cool,” Humber replied.

He did not attempt to move to fetch it himself.

If his Master had returned home, it meant he would have to wait at dinner and he could move only with difficulty.

Kezia ran to the cellar door, opened it and found, as Humber had told her, that there were several bottles of homemade cider brewed by one of the more enterprising farmers on the estate.

She took the nearest bottle and carried it down, knowing that her brother would have gone into the library, which was the room that they used when they were alone.

It had at one time been very impressive, but now the curtains were faded, the chairs needed repairing and the carpet was threadbare in several places.

Because her father had always kept a grog tray in a corner of the library with drink on it for anyone who needed it, Peregrine, when he had come into the Baronetcy, had continued the habit.

Now there were no decanters or bottles on the grog tray, only two or three glasses, so that there was plenty of room for Kezia to put the bottle of cider down on the tray.

Her brother then pulled out the cork.

“The roads were incredibly dusty today,” he related, “but I managed the journey in three hours, which I consider to be close to a record!”

“Is that counting your stop for luncheon,” Kezia asked, “or are you hungry?”

She looked at him anxiously, thinking that there was little in the house and Humber’s wife, Betsy, who did the cooking, would be resting.

“No, I had something to eat,” Perry replied, “and I deducted that from the time I left London until I reached here. To be truthful in exactly three hours, sixteen minutes and a few seconds.”

Kezia laughed.

“No wonder you feel proud.”

“I have something more important to be proud of,” Perry said.

Kezia looked at him questioningly, wondering what had happened and feeling a little apprehensive.

Life had been so difficult lately.

They were so hard up that she was always afraid that her brother, whom she loved very dearly, would marry for wealth rather than because he was in love.

Although he was an impoverished Baronet, it would not be difficult considering how handsome he was.

He was very much in demand simply because he was charming, good mannered and contributed considerably to the gaiety of every party he attended.

He was indeed an outstanding rider, so that men liked him, while the women became infatuated with him.

Even so Kezia appreciated how humiliating it must be for him that his friends were all richer than he was.

While he accepted a great deal of hospitality, it was completely impossible for him to return it.

In the past some of his closest friends had come to stay, but he could not provide them with beautiful women to entertain them nor the horses they would ride when their host had large stables.

Kezia was therefore alone week after week and month after month in the attractive but dilapidated black and white house that had been in the Falcon family for several generations.

It had been there since the Falcons had moved from Cornwall where the family had started, because Surrey was much closer to London.

They had found Surrey more amusing than living, as Kezia’s father had once said, ‘at the very end of the world’.

Nevertheless Kezia had always felt that, as her name was Cornish, she really belonged there.

As she waited for her brother to explain why he had come home so unexpectedly, she looked very lovely.

Her gown, which she had made herself, had been washed until it had lost a great deal of its colour and, because she had worn it for several years, it had also become too tight over her curved breasts.

But that did not detract in any way from the gold in her hair with its red tints that caught the sunshine streaming in through the library windows.

Her eyes, which were green, seemed also to catch the sunlight as she waited to hear what Perry had to tell her.

He drank half a glass of the cider before he declared,

“Now hold your breath! I think I have sold the necklace!”

Kezia gave a little gasp and then she cried,

“Are you really sure? Are you going to get what you have beeb asking for it?”

“I am practically certain that, when the Marquis sees it, he will not only buy it but pay exactly the sum I want.”

“The Marquis?” Kezia questioned.

Perry took another sip of cider before he responded,

“The Marquis de Bayeux.”

“French,” Kezia murmured.

“Norman,” her brother corrected her.

“But how do you know him and how did you manage to tell him about the necklace?”

“I first met the Marquis over a year ago when he was buying horses at Tattersalls,” Perry explained. “I have seen him on and off at Race Meetings, as he often visits England. Then two days ago, one of my friends, Harry Perceval – you remember Harry?”

“Yes, of course,” Kezia answered.

“Well, Harry brought him to White’s Club and, as he entered, I heard somebody behind me say, ‘I saw Bayeux in Bond Street today buying diamonds for a beautiful creature, who was already weighted down with them’!”

Perry paused.

“It was then it struck me that he might be just the person we were looking for.”

Kezia clasped her hands together.

“Oh, Perry, I do hope you are right. We need the money so desperately and, as you have said so often, it would be foolish for us to accept the ridiculously small sum that the jewellers have already offered us.”

“If the Marquis comes up to scratch,” Perry said, “it will certainly have been worthwhile waiting for the right man to come along even though it has been extremely uncomfortable at times.”

He looked round the room, taking in at a glance how shabby everything was.

Then he turned to look at his sister.

“It is you who has suffered the worst,” he said frankly, “and I swear, Kezia, I will make it up to you. You shall come to London, have pretty gowns and we will arrange for one of our relations to present you to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.”

“It sounds wonderful!” Kezia replied. “At the same time I think I would rather have a decent horse to ride than a grand gown to dance in!”

“You shall have both,” Perry answered. “But now, as the Marquis is arriving in two days’ time, you have to disappear.”

Kezia looked at her brother in astonishment.

“What do you mean – disappear?”

“What I say,” Perry replied.

“But – I don’t – understand.”

“Well, Monsieur le Marquis is not only a very wealthy man and owns a great deal of property in Normandy and I believe that his Château is magnificent. But he also has a house in Paris, which is as notorious as he is himself!”

“He is notorious for what?” Kezia asked.

Perry hesitated for a moment.

Then he said,

“For running after women. He has broken more hearts than Casanova and is such a Don Juan that no woman is safe with him!”

“So that is why you will not let me see him.”

“Exactly,” Perry answered her. “You are too young, too innocent and much too pretty!”

Kezia laughed.

“How can you be so ridiculous? If the Marquis has, as you say, pursued lovely women in France, he is not likely to look at me.”

“I see your point,” Perry admitted, “But he is dangerous.”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Kezia pointed out.

“It is not only what the Marquis will do,” Perry said, “but Harry was telling me that he possesses some strange charisma about him that makes women throw themselves at his feet. According to Harry he has only to look at them and they behave like lunatics!”

Kezia laughed again.

“I don’t believe a word of it. Even if the Marquis did look at me, which is very unlikely, he sounds the sort of man who would frighten me. So I would be too busy running away from him to do anything so foolish as to fall in love with him!”

“You cannot be certain of that,” Perry replied, “so you must understand that you must go away for the two days he is here.”

“And who is going to look after him?” Kezia asked.

“It is not only him.”

“He is bringing someone else?”

“He is and I call it impertinent and almost an insult, but I can hardly object.”

“What are you saying?” Kezia asked her, feeling rather confused at the sudden turn of events.

“The Marquis left a note for me at White’s Club to say that he would be arriving here on Thursday and bringing with him a certain Madame de Salres.”

“Who is she?”

“She is his current – ”

Here Perry stopped, realising that what he had been just about to say would have been indiscreet.

After a poignant pause he went on,

“I understand that she is a – very close friend.”

“What you are saying is that she is in love with him,” Kezia said. “Well, that makes it quite clear that he will not notice me and I am sure, if the Marquis is interested enough to bring a lady friend with him, he is definitely enamoured of her.”

“That is very likely true,” Perry agreed reluctantly. “At the same time he has no right to bring her into the house when you are present.”

“But, you have said, I will not be here,” Kezia remarked logically. “You obviously did not tell him I would be acting as hostess.”

Perry put down his empty glass.

“There is no use in arguing about it,” he said firmly. “You must stay away. Perhaps you could stay with some friends or with the Vicar in the village.”

“Surely the Vicar would think it very strange if I ask him if I can stay with him because you are entertaining a man who you don’t approve of?” Kezia said. “And you know that we cannot say that we are selling the necklace or it might be picked up by the newspapers.”

Perry frowned.

“Oh, stop making difficulties, there must be somewhere you can go!”

“And what do you think will happen if I do?” Kezia asked. “You know who we have in the house, old Humber, whose rheumatics are so bad he can only just shuffle into the dining room.”

She paused to catch his breath and then went on,

“While Betsy is a good cook, she cannot manage anything complicated and certainly not a dish that would be palatable to a Frenchman.”

Perry was listening with a frown between his eyes, but he did not interrupt as Kezia went on,

“You know that Mrs. Jones comes in from the village for two hours every day, but she could not manage the beds without me and she forgets what she is supposed to do unless I remind her constantly.”

Kezia paused and Perry said irritably,

“Well, try to find somebody else.”

“And train them in two days? You know that is impossible!”