Radiance (Diamonds of the First Water #3)

Chapter Five

O nce more in the Lockwoods’ blue and gold drawing room, Radiance selected a glass of sherry from a tray and waited, knowing Mr. Lockwood’s interest had been piqued. As predicted, he approached as soon as he saw her standing with Diana and her dining escort, Lord Chippens.

Upon seeing his determined expression, she took a step toward him, wishing they could speak privately.

“Lady Radiance,” he began, “will you now explain your mysterious visit to my home?”

Upon hearing Diana’s barely audible gasp, Radiance knew she ought to have moved even farther away. The man acted as if he didn’t even notice anyone else around them.

With a quick verbal parry to his idiotic remark, she sought to remove the image of her being on his doorstep from the minds of those who had overheard.

“I sent my footman to your door, sir, in order to ask when your next lecture would be held and where. Hardly a mystery.”

She shrugged dismissively, as he deserved. “You can provide the information now if you wish, so we may all be kept apprised of your fascinating talks.” Radiance gestured around to include the others and to lessen any hint of impropriety.

Finally, his eyes took in the others, and she saw the dawning realization that he’d put her reputation in peril.

“Yes!” he said loudly. “I am sorry to have missed you. I mean, missed your footman . I was out.”

At his stilted tone, Radiance turned to Diana, hoping she was otherwise engaged in conversation, but her friend’s eyebrows were raised with interest. She turned to glare at Mr. Lockwood. He would have to do better.

“I was out at a place,” he continued lamely. “At ... my club.”

“Which club do you belong to?” asked Lord Chippens with mild curiosity, obviously also overhearing the conversation.

Drats! Radiance hoped Mr. Lockwood had a good answer.

“You wouldn’t know it,” he assured him. “Not White’s or Boodle’s or any of those. Just a small establishment. A place where ... where geologists gather.”

“I had no idea there was such a place,” Lord Chippens said. Nor did Radiance think there truly was one.

“We don’t have many members,” Mr. Lockwood continued in what, to her, was clearly a prevarication, “and we like it that way.”

“What is its name?” Lord Chippens asked.

Radiance nearly groaned on Mr. Lockwood’s behalf, for his lordship was like a foxhound on a vixen’s scent.

“I am not at liberty to tell you unless you are a geologist,” Mr. Lockwood said somberly. “Are you, in fact, a studier of the earth? Do you know the differences among igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock?”

Lord Chippens appeared startled. “Why, no.”

“I didn’t think so,” Mr. Lockwood said, his tone supercilious indeed. And now Radiance wished to tug the carpet of arrogance out from under him.

“But I do,” she said. “I won’t bore everyone here with the differences, but does that afford me entrance to your club?”

“My apologies,” he said. “Men only.”

Radiance had expected as much. “Maybe when I am a famous geologist,” she teased, “then I shall change that rule or start my own club.”

Unexpectedly, Lord Chippens laughed heartily. “A famous female geologist!” he said when he could speak. “ And a club allowing women. What next? Flying elephants?”

Although Mr. Lockwood’s expression indicated he thought Lord Chippens a tedious dolt, he could not possibly feel the insult on her behalf. And she did feel it quite keenly.

Whirling upon the still cackling Lord Chippens, Radiance demanded, “Do you know why the Hope Diamond is blue?”

His face reddened. “No,” he confessed. “Why should I? Why should you , for that matter? What use is it?”

“What use?” she repeated, incredulous. Glancing at Diana and Mr. Lockwood, Radiance couldn’t credit the question. “What is the use of knowing the earth is round or how far away the stars are or that the ocean is salty? What use is a Shakespearean sonnet or knowing that flowers need sunlight? In other words, my lord, what use is knowledge? Sometimes it is simply for the knowing. Sometimes the knowledge can be put to practice. And other times, it is merely to keep one’s brain from turning to mush and oozing out of one’s ears.”

With that, she stared at his left ear as if expecting to see the mush of which she’d spoken.

Mr. Lockwood’s satisfied smile indicated he understood her set-down and approved of it, even when Chippens unthinkingly put his hand up to his ear. Diana, too, was grinning behind her glass of sherry.

Finally, Lord Chippens mumbled an excuse and wandered away, probably to scrape his pride together in a horse bucket. And Radiance calmed her temper and decided to return to civility.

“Have you two been introduced?”

When her petite, brown-haired friend shook her head, Radiance said, “This is Mr. Lockwood.” Then she turned to him. “Miss Stepney is my dear friend.”

“I am honored to make your acquaintance,” he said. And Radiance hoped the geologist was finished with his faux pas for the evening. It seemed he might be when he added, “Your father, Mr. Stepney, has a reputation for a discerning eye as a collector of exquisite art.”

As Radiance relaxed, still wondering how they would speak privately about the Hope Diamond, he leaned forward, staring at Diana’s necklace, a silver chain holding a highly polished brown stone with a long history in her friend’s family.

He gestured to her throat. “A curiously ugly pendant for a young woman to wear.”

Mortified gasps, hers and Diana’s, met his words. Radiance would gladly throttle him if she could, especially when she saw tears well in her friend’s eyes.

“My grandmother gave it to me,” Diana said, her lower lip trembling, “just before she shed her mortal coils. It is a toadstone, and she vowed it would keep me safe.”

If the man knew any sense of decency, he would now drop the matter.

“What a strangely twisted promise,” Edward said. “The correct term is bufonite , bufo being the Latin word for toad. Toads are poisonous and thus, as the story goes, the toadstone from a ... ,” he chuckled, “from a live, elderly toad’s head, harvested by putting said toad on a piece of ... of ...” He dissolved into laughter before shaking his head, trying to rein in his mirth.

Radiance curled her fingers into fists. She and Diana shared twin expressions of dismay, which he seemed to take for disbelief because he continued his lecture.

“You could only harvest the stone from the toad’s head by putting the living toad on a piece of red cloth. A magical red cloth!” He chuckled again at the absurdity. “Wearing it near one’s skin purportedly has the power of an antidote to poison!”

He sipped his brandy calmly. If he was waiting for them to smile or laugh, he would have a long wait. Diana had been an accident-prone child, and whether coincidence or not, the gift of the mythological toadstone had much improved her outlook, if not her balance.

With confidence of its protection, Diana seemed to have stopped tripping and falling.

Mr. Lockwood, apparently wanting some reaction, said, “Don’t you see how ludicrous it is, even if it were a stone from a toad’s head? However, it is no more that than it is a piece of shiny dung, which it resembles.” He pointed to the pendant. “And it cannot protect you from any ill happenstances any more than it can save you from poison.”

Radiance rolled her eyes. Yet with Diana looking downright distraught, she had to stop him.

“Regardless of your opinion, sir, on its efficacy or beauty, the stone is cherished by Miss Stepney and her family.”

He nodded, seeming to understand. “Was your grandmother from Oxfordshire, by chance?”

Diana’s eyes widened. “Why, yes!”

“I had a feeling,” he said. “Because your toadstone is really a fossilized tooth.”

This time, Radiance did smack her own forehead with her gloved hand.

“A tooth!” Diana snatched the pendant lying upon her chest and craned her neck to look down at it.

All Radiance could do was shake her head to deter him, but he plunged onward.

“Yes. From an extinct fish of the genus Lepidotes . Basically, a very scaly carp-like fish about a foot long from thousands of years ago. Many of their fossilized teeth have been found in Oxfordshire sediment, which is why I surmised your grandmother’s area of residence.”

Diana’s lips formed an O , then with her face flushing red, she clamped a hand over her mouth and hurried away.

Mr. Lockwood watched her go, looking acutely puzzled by her reaction.

“How odd,” he said.

Radiance sighed deeply. “Not really, sir. My friend was apt to accidental falls, and her grandmother gave her the toadstone to keep her safe.”

“But it cannot do that,” he protested. “Surely, she should know the truth, especially if she is going to wear such a thing around her neck like a savage. Besides, it reminded me of one of my cat’s messes on the rug when my housekeeper forgets to let him out into the back garden. A woman of your intelligence, you must have known what it was.”

Radiance sighed again, half appreciating his compliment while wishing he hadn’t felt the need to drive Diana to tears.

“Things are not always what they seem, sir.” Radiance thought of the Hope Diamond again, but it would have to wait. “In the case of my friend’s belief in the stone — it was not such a bad thing. I must go find her and make sure she is not unduly suffering.”

“Better she should wear spectacles,” he called after her.

The evening was not yet over, but Diana had left after excusing herself to Mrs. Lockwood. Radiance had thought her friend admirable in claiming a headache rather than denouncing their hostess’s son as a ninnyhammer.

A dunce of a man to whom she would try once again to tell what she thought she had seen at his lecture.

Unfortunately, after watching Diana leave, Mrs. Lockwood remained by Radiance’s side, and thus, when she approached Mr. Lockwood again, his mother was at her elbow.

“Edward, have you spoken with your Aunt Gertie yet? She just bumped in to me in the hall and said she hadn’t realized you were here.”

“Then you have your answer,” he said. “I have not spoken to her yet, or she would have known I was here. Although how she could have missed seeing her only nephew over the dining room table is beyond me.”

“Impertinence!” his mother exclaimed. “And before this nice young lady, too. That won’t win over Lady Radiance. If you can be rude to your own mother, then you shall be rude to a wife.”

A wife! Radiance peered at him more closely, despite feeling a little embarrassed. Was he on the lookout for a life partner? While she thought him heavenly to look at and admired his mind, his manner of plain-speaking to the point of rudeness and his disregard for civility were hardly desirable. She ought to keep her hat set at Lord John Castille whom she’d met at the first ball of the Season. A viscount with all the social graces, an excellent dancer, and a man who’d plainly shown an interest in her in return.

But Lord Castille was not present, and Mr. Lockwood now looked peevish.

“Mother,” he warned.

Perhaps realizing she had gone too far, Mrs. Lockwood made a face of contrition. After all, the man wasn’t a child to be reprimanded in front of a guest. Mrs. Lockwood might be able to wrap her husband around her finger from what Radiance had seen that evening, but one didn’t usually hold the same sway with one’s offspring.

“Come with me, please, Edward,” Mrs. Lockwood said more politely. “And we shall try to soothe your elderly Aunt Gertrude. Otherwise, she may cut us out of her will.”

“Mother,” he said again, yet with less heat. “Stop teasing, or people will think you to be on the edge of poverty, and Father will not appreciate such an insult to his financial acumen. Besides, Aunt Gertie is a kind soul who would never cut anyone out of anything. Not even a cut indirect.”

His mother did, in fact, turn to Lady Radiance.

“Truly, I am speaking in jest. My sister-in-law has a touch of the gout. She was the one seated to my husband’s right. Currently, she has taken the chair by the hearth, and if my son has any sense, he’ll go greet her and admire the large, ugly stone around her neck.”

Radiance saw his interest grow. Perhaps he intended to insult another female’s beloved necklace that evening.

“What type of stone?” he asked with a childlike curiosity before glancing at Radiance. “Would you care to meet my father’s eldest sister and see what gemstone she’s sporting this evening?”

“Yes, of course,” she said.

Mrs. Lockwood presented a satisfied smile.

“Then I shall leave you two young people to make the visit,” she said. “After all, I have other guests with whom I’ve barely spoken half a sentence.”