Radiance (Diamonds of the First Water #3)

Chapter One

R adiance Diamond thought nothing in her young life would compare to the displays and inventions she’d seen the previous summer at the Great Exhibition, or the Grand International Exhibition, depending upon which newspaper one read. The impression made upon her of the various wonderful items produced by the nations of the world had been so huge, she’d been sorely tested as to which path to take.

Ultimately, after multiple visits to the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, it was the fine jewelry that called her to return more than to the paintings or the sculptures or even the weaving, for all of which she had an aptitude.

Radiance had decided to dedicate herself to jewelry-making.

Indeed, almost the moment she’d arrived back at her family’s home on Piccadilly, she had made arrangements to set herself up a place to study and work. Thus, Radiance transformed her eldest sister’s former bedroom, empty since Clarity had moved out years earlier upon marrying.

With a spacious table, a comfortable chair, and good lamps, Radiance read books, studied illustrations, and tried her hand at designing jewelry.

Her parents had encouraged this new interest, believing all their children should follow wherever their minds and passions took them. Moreover, with Lord and Lady Diamond’s generous support, she had everything at her disposal, including a lapidary’s mill and a tripoli stone for polishing, a pair of magnifying spectacles, and some semi-precious stones with which she could practice gem cutting, as well as carving wax and tools for making molds.

After a few months of diligence, she had secured herself a place in a master jeweler’s establishment in the Hatton Garden area, the very heart of London’s jewelry-making community.

In Mr. Bonwit’s Greville Street shop, she showed the jeweler what she accomplished on her own.

“You have an eye for this,” he told her after she showed him her designs. “But whether you can bring your creation to fruition is another matter. If you will allow me and my apprentice to make your jewelry, we will do so gladly.”

“I wish to learn,” she’d asserted.

Thus, under Mr. Bonwit’s tutelage, she learned how to tame gold and silver to match her designs and how to fashion rough gems into glittering jewels. Whenever she had a plan in mind, carefully drawn, she went to the workroom behind his shop and spent hours perfecting her skills.

He let her don a heavy apron and work alongside him, learning not only to cut gems on the lap’s mill, or scaif as Mr. Bonwit called it, but to work with the noble metals, hammering them into intricate designs, creating wax molds that were then cast in molten gold and silver. Lately, she’d learned the delicate art of filigree.

She knew she was like a pet to Mr. Bonwit — an oddity whom he liked to show off . Occasionally, he brought customers into the workshop. “This is Lady Radiance, an earl’s daughter, come to learn from me.”

Nevertheless , she took her instruction seriously.

“I wish to learn niello,” she told him, having been impressed by a manchette bracelet she’d seen with a likeness of the Queen and the Prince of Wales.

Mr. Bonwit frowned. “It is not as simple as setting a stone in gold or silver.”

“I know,” Radiance said. She wanted to know how to use the black mixture of sulphur, copper, silver, and lead to create unique black designs fired onto silver.

“Don’t tell me I should have apprenticed myself to S. H. & D. Gass, who made those pieces I saw at the exhibition.”

Mr. Bonwit’s furrowed brow deepened. “ I shall teach you the art of niello,” he said. “But you must walk before you run.”

Radiance hid her smile. She intended to learn everything and started soaking up his knowledge as a flower took in sunlight.

Yet her interests led her further than making jewelry. She was fascinated by the gemstones she’d seen, particularly those in the Great Exhibition’s India exhibit. Almost as talked about as the famed Koh-i-Noor, or “Mountain of Light,” which people had lined up to see, was the Darya-i-Noor, or “Sea of Light,” a massive pink diamond surrounded by ten smaller diamonds set in an armlet.

Radiance had spent many minutes sketching it while hearing other viewers exclaim over its gaudy setting.

In its own display area, apart from all the other jewelry, was the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond, which had belonged to Queen Victoria ever since Her Majesty became the ruler of India. The year before the Great Exhibition, it had been ceremonially presented to her by the eleven-year-old King of India, although the boy and the Queen were separated by thousands of miles.

When Radiance first saw the diamond, exhibited in what looked for all the world like a bird cage, she was not impressed. Supposedly, the display was really an elaborate safe. If one attempted to open the cage, the diamond, along with the other two smaller diamonds that had been part of the armlet worn by the orphaned king, would drop into a secure compartment below.

Unfortunately, the Koh-i-Noor was displayed poorly. Radiance could see at once that it was an imperfect diamond and, to her western sensibilities of beauty, cut badly.

“It’s large but not at all a shining ‘Mountain of Light’,” she said to her best friend Diana.

Almost unanimously, the public expressed their disappointment in the “egg-shaped lump of glass,” as one newspaper called it.

The next time Radiance went to the Crystal Palace, the diamond had been moved into a secure tent and shown more openly, surrounded by six gas lamps and twelve small mirrors. The Queen, Prince Albert, and their two oldest sons had gone to the reopening, hoping to sway public opinion.

Most deemed it only mildly improved and even blamed the diamond for the nearly unbearably hot temperature inside the tent. Thus, it was still unpopular.

“Slightly improved,” Radiance had said to her mother, who accompanied her to see the Koh-i-Noor for the second time. However, it wasn’t a sparkling first-water diamond, and she would swear she could see yellow flaws.

Although smaller in size, the Hope Diamond, also exhibited at the Crystal Palace, was far lovelier to Radiance’s eye. “The blue shimmer is remarkable.”

“Isn’t it, though?” agreed her mother. “Almost as rich a blue as the rest of our family’s eyes,” Lady Diamond added. She and Radiance were the only two who shared the same verdant-green eyes and rich red hair from her Grandmother Chimes’s side of the family.

“Let’s look at some rubies and emeralds to better match our features, shall we?” Radiance suggested, and they had done so. Going around the Great Exhibition with her mother was one of her fondest recollections. Although watching her youngest sister queue up to use a public toilet — “Because it’s a novelty,” Bri had declared excitedly — was another memorable moment.

On a breezy, rainy spring day, the sunny summer exhibition of the year before was merely a distant memory. Seated at the table in her private workspace, Radiance read over her notes from months earlier, written during Mr. Lockwood’s lecture at the Royal Polytechnic Institution.

Despite how stern and disinterested the geologist had been months earlier, not responding to her playful glance, she couldn’t help but appreciate the information he’d imparted, albeit on the shallow side due to the mixed audience — men and women who were not particularly science-minded. She’d watched the newspapers for a more in-depth lecture but hadn’t seen one until recently.

Since it was being held at the Geological Society in Somerset House, Radiance was certain the lecture would be both comprehensive and to the point. The former seventeenth-century palace on the Strand had been rebuilt to house governmental offices as well as various artistic and scientific societies.

Unfortunately, she could not attend except as a guest of a member either of the Geological Society or one of the other societies that made up the north wing of Somerset House. And thus, after spending the prior week finding such a person, she strolled along the Strand with Lord Benedict Woolley, a friend of her brother-in-law, Lord Hollidge. Her maid, Sarah, had been left behind in the carriage with an exciting penny dreadful.

Up the grand stairs to one of the lecture halls, she walked beside Lord Woolley, whom she’d only met once previously at a dinner party thrown by her eldest sister, Clarity. He was stocky, self-assured, and a little loud, but he had been only too happy to do her this favor .

“Anything for my friend. After all, Hollidge married your sister, so your family must be good folks. Why, if I married you, he and I would be family. Wot wot .”

Hoping he didn’t get any ideas as to her having an interest in him, Radiance kept her conversation solidly on the day’s topic of the earth’s hardest substance.

“Not my usual line of interest,” Lord Woolley said after she mentioned how a good cut could change a gemstone entirely. “I am a member of the Royal Society that meets next door to the Geological Society because of my fascination with the small animal populations.”

“Truly?” she asked.

“Yes, indeed. Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, birds.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Rabbits.”

“You said rabbits twice,” she pointed out.

“Did I?” he asked before grinning at her.

“Mm,” she replied and directed her attention to the still-empty front of the lecture hall.

“Maybe that’s because they are the most prevalent due to their mating habits. Coupling all the time,” Lord Woolley outrageously began . “Procreating quickly and often. Breeding like ... like rabbits,” he finished before loudly laughing.

Radiance sighed, positive his discourse was improper for her ears. Besides, Mr. Lockwood had entered, a little late, through a door at the front of the room and was even then looking up toward the source of the hilarity.

For the briefest instant, their eyes met. Radiance was thrilled to see her imagination had not embellished the geologist’s attractive face and figure. He was, as she’d remembered, exceedingly handsome, with his broad shoulders filling out his frock coat and his long legs shown to muscular perfection under his tan trousers.

Moreover, by his long glance, Radiance was certain he recalled seeing her previously. Then his gaze moved on to Lord Woolley, still laughing over nothing. Mr. Lockwood scowled slightly.

“Will you hush, please,” Radiance hissed, embarrassed to be associated with the man while he was braying.

“I offer my apologies, dear lady,” Lord Woolley said, sounding suitably chastised. “I intended no harm or offense.” He withdrew a hinged, silver snuff box, opened it, and sniffed a pinch of tobacco into each nostril.

About to turn away when he closed it with a snap, she spied an engraving on its top. It was the Crystal Palace, complete with flags flying.

She softened, thinking of the favor he’d done her by taking time out of his own life to attend the lecture.

“That’s quite all right,” Radiance assured him. “I simply don’t want to miss anything Professor Lockwood has to say.” In the lecture announcement, she’d read he was now teaching at King’s College, directly next to Somerset House. “I greatly admire your snuff box, by the way, as I adored the Great Exhibition beyond all events I have ever attended.”

She smiled at Lord Woolley, stopping short of leaning on his arm or batting her lashes, yet still seeing the instant he took the hint. Despite having a shelf full of mementos from the exhibit, she was thrilled when he handed it to her.

“Take it, please. It is an honor to give it to you, Lady Radiance.” He twirled his sandy-brown moustache while she examined the gift in her palm.

“Thank you, my lord.” She slid it into the small hidden pocket of her skirt’s waistband. Sighing happily at how life seemed to work out for the best, Radiance turned her attention once more to the present.

Opening her satchel, she drew out a clothbound notebook, her pen, and her inelegant but portable pewter inkwell.

“It appears you are serious,” Lord Woolley said.

“Indeed, I am. I have a keen interest in diamonds and gemstones, both precious and semi-precious, in their natural state, as well as after they’ve been turned into jewelry.”

“I see.” He paused. “And why?”

“Why what?” she asked, realizing she was already doodling a design onto the blank page under where she’d written “2 nd lecture by Mr. E. Lockwood, April 28, 1852.”

“Why are you interested in such things?” Lord Woolley asked. “I fail to understand how it can benefit you, nor what you would do with the knowledge. As the daughter of one lord and, potentially, the future wife of another.”

Radiance considered. “Why are you interested in small animals?”

His placid face broke into a smile. “That is a simple answer. I enjoy hunting, and thus I need to know how the population of foxes is doing. And the animal life is symbiotic. Do you know what that means?”

She narrowed her gaze. “Of course I do.” Counseling herself to ignore his condescension, she said, “In other words, you want to make sure the animals are healthy in order for you to kill them. Is that right?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding a tad confused. “Strange when you put it that way.”

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Mr. Lockwood began. Then his gaze fell upon Radiance, making her sit up straighter, and he added, “and lady.”

This engendered muffled laughter, with many heads — all male — turning her way. She didn’t particularly mind the attention, nor had she realized until that instant that she was the only female present.

Lifting her chin, Radiance fixed Mr. Lockwood with the most imperial stare she’d learned from her mother. While she still thought him a rum duke, she wouldn’t tolerate being made sport of. Not while the master jeweler Mr. Bonwit had called her talented .

After a moment, Mr. Lockwood blinked and looked down at his notes.

“Today, I shall speak to you about diamonds,” he said, “starting with that which has come to be called the Hope Diamond. A nice enough name for an extraordinary stone. I hope you don’t mind if I begin with a history of this magnificent gem since I know only some of you belong to the Geological Society. The rest of you, I assume, are laymen.”

He glanced at her again. “And laywoman.”

Radiance spoke without thinking. “I assure you, Mr. Lockwood, I am not uneducated nor an amateur, so you may remove me from such classification.”

The entire audience fell silent, and Mr. Lockwood, too. Then he cleared his throat.

“And do you have any objection to my beginning with a history, or do you perhaps wish to dive in and dazzle us with your own knowledge?”

She felt her cheeks warm. He was mocking her when all she wanted was to take in what he could teach and, of course, get a close look at the Hope Diamond. Radiance believed Mr. Lockwood would show them the actual gem, for she’d read a newspaper account of him doing that very thing the year before, delighting his audience. But it wouldn’t happen until the end of his lecture. Thus, she certainly would not let him drive her away.

“I am content for you to proceed,” she said, before adding, “without patronizing your avid listeners, not even the female ones.”

Again, silence descended upon the auditorium.