Page 4 of Not His Usual Style (Diamonds of London #10)

“No.” She shook her head. “That is where I draw the line. I refuse to marry a rich man just so you can use his coin to fund your gambling habit.” With that, she moved toward the door. “We are leaving this house tonight at seven o’clock promptly for the rout. Make certain you are ready.”

Then she exited the study while her chest shook with annoyance and a bit of anger.

Yes, she wanted the freedom to choose the man she would marry.

He would need to be extraordinary and not fit into the usual ton mold.

She didn’t want to be dictated to or ordered about, neither did she want to be treated as if she were an item to be collected—which often happened due to her looks—because men thought she hadn’t a brain in her head.

Marriage should be a partnership with equal footing, ideas, and decisions.

Did such a man exist in her world? Only time would tell, but she would not—in fact she would never entertain—the acceptance of a man with a vice like gambling as her father suffered from. It destroyed more than it helped.

Dawson House

Grosvenor’s Square

Mayfair, London

Tori nodded and smiled at the people in the group she chatted with.

There was a mix of both ladies and gentlemen, but their conversation was far from stimulating.

Instead, it consisted of gossip about some of the attendees as well as the weather and the fact that the autumn chill was rapidly approaching.

Why could they not talk about the horrible way veteran soldiers were still treated by the government and the populace?

Why could they not discuss possible solutions to that or the rampant abandonment of unwanted children?

Or how to solve the huge disparity between the rich and poor?

Or how someone should create a way to teach reading and writing to more people than the rich or the males.

For an ignorant population was one easily controlled.

Did anyone care about those topics?

Her father might have his faults, but he had been adamant that she have a chance to be educated and learn a few languages. With a soft smile, she bounced her gaze to him. He held court amidst a knot of men around his own age, laughing as they swapped stories from their youth.

At least he was happy and mingling.

After murmuring an excuse, Tori broke away from the group but not without a few of the men offering either protests or wishing to fetch her a punch or champagne, which she politely declined.

She’d seen how their glances had lingered on her bosom instead of her face, and that meant they weren’t worthy of her attention.

Besides, once the conversation turned dull, her mind started wandering and she needed something more thought-provoking to entertain her.

Those thoughts led her away from the drawing room and down the stairs to the lower level.

Perhaps she’d poke through her host’s study or library to investigate his bookshelves.

Finally deciding on the library, she sneaked inside the room and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim illumination brought forth by one candle that guttered in a silver holder on a table.

Clearly, this room wasn’t meant to be used during the rout, and the solitude suited her just fine.

Sometimes, being around crowds and people grated on her nerves.

The sudden silence in this room after the noise from the drawing room was a most welcome relief.

Scents of leather, old books, and lingering pipe smoke teased her nose.

Those sorts of smells brought her comfort and soothed her frazzled nerves.

As she strolled in front of the shelves of books, she drew a gloved fingertip along some of the spines.

By and large, the reading material was as dull as the conversation upstairs, but then, she suspected that was the fate of most ton libraries.

No one wanted to have even a whisper of scandal about them.

Cowards.

As she drifted to the last shelf, she despaired of ever finding anything of interest, but she climbed the treads of a wooden ladder, and on one of the top shelves there was an interesting carved wooden box that depicted renderings of the Fates complete with fruit trees and scrollwork.

Truly a beautiful piece and at least fifty years old, and since curiosity got the better of her, Tori propped the box onto the tread of the ladder above her then raised the lid.

“Oh, goodness!” Her whispered exclamation sounded overly loud in the space, and she quickly threw a glance at the still-closed door. “How did you come to be here?”

Inside, resting on a length of crumpled and faded black velvet was the most gaudy but impressive diamond necklace set in silver she had ever seen.

A large, teardrop-shaped diamond featured prominently at the front, flanked by several round and square cut diamonds on either side.

The gems sparkled like mad in the dim illumination, looking for all the world like preserved pieces of ice shining on a backdrop of darkened heavens, and from the construction of the piece, it could easily double as a tiara.

“Merciful heavens.”

But as she gawked at the diamonds, excitement twisted down her spine, for she recognized the craftsmanship and the baroque style of the piece.

And what was more, she knew this particular piece, for it had been written about in many newspapers and periodicals over the years.

There was intense speculation around the jeweler and collector communities that many pieces which had belonged to Marie Antoinette had gone missing following her execution.

Whether they were stolen by her contemporaries or smuggled away by servants, no one knew, but here she was, holding one of the missing pieces in her hand.

How did it come to be here in Lord Dawson’s library?

Had he bought it at an underground auction, or had he stolen it?

She couldn’t say, but it certainly didn’t belong here, and as she turned the box this way and that, even in the low light she could see that the stones were genuine.

“Dear God, this needs to be returned to France.” Just holding such a thing in her hand knowing of the provenance of the piece and the woman to whom it belonged was awe-inspiring.

“I am literally holding a piece of history.” And what was more, it was quite a famous piece mentioned in the paper a few nights ago, for the necklace had been stolen from a jeweler in Mayfair, where it was being repaired and cleaned for auction.

The truth about how Lord Dawson had come by it wasn’t mentioned, but the blurb in the paper did say that Bow Street was hunting down clues regarding the theft from the jeweler’s shop, not what Lord Dawson had gotten up to.In that moment, she made a decision that would no doubt change the course of her entire life.

After removing the necklace from the velvet, she returned the box to where she’d found it, then swiftly climbed down the ladder, went so far as to even move the ladder so no one would suspect the box had been moved.

What to do now? With a glance about the library, her gaze went to the double French doors at the rear, which led to the back gardens, and from there she could either escape into the shadow-drenched square or go ‘round the house to the front and either summon her father’s carriage or hire a hack.

Yet with thousands of pounds worth of diamonds clutched in her hand, that probably would spell disaster.

She frowned. Above everything, she needed to rescue the necklace and somehow see it back to the royal family of Louis XVI. Though the hows of doing just that escaped her at the moment, she was determined to see it through.

Then the unmistakable click of the door latch echoed through her consciousness, and she gasped as her heartbeat accelerated. Dear Lord, first things first. She needed to hide! But where?