“Please wait here,” said our guide, allowing himself a slight smile of amused sympathy at my trepidation as we approached a new suite. “You may sit down.” And suddenly, he was gone.
So there we were, standing in a breathtaking set of rooms with walls trimmed in so much sun-reflecting gold that the effect was like being inside a jewel box. The big, tall windows were framed in stunning deep fuchsia-pink draperies. Throughout the room were golden tables and pedestals for black-and-gold urns, and some black-and-gold cabinetry, and various other works of art; and gold standing lamps with pale shades on golden branching arms like gilded trees. Here, instead of red carpeting, there was beautiful parquet flooring and antique carpets in delicate soft tones of pink and blue. The soaring ceiling was a radiant gold that had a gigantic sparkling crystal chandelier.
Gingerly, I parked myself at the edge of a gorgeous fuchsia sofa, whose pillows had gold tassels that matched the tassels on the dramatic draperies. Jeremy sat beside me and we gazed out of the attractive windows, which gave such a peaceful view of the splendid grounds, with their ancient leafy trees and the milkyblue sky. I felt as if I ought to be wearing a white powdered wig and a fancy dress with crinolines.
I smoothed my hair and my dress carefully, and had just begun to calm down when I heard the distinct sound of approaching footsteps.
“God, I bet it’s him,” I whispered, stricken. “You know, I never did learn to curtsey.”
“Too late now,” Jeremy said in a low voice, as the door opened—and the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom walked in.
And, he had his mother with him.
I gulped. However, I discovered that I am enough of an American to admire but not genuflect to royalty. Even if I knew how to curtsey according to protocol, I don’t believe I would have done it. I just couldn’t. I mean, you simply can’t ignore an entire revolution. That’s what happens when a Connecticut Yankee like me ends up in Queen Elizabeth’s court.
Did I imagine it, or did the Queen’s eyes note my insubordination and was she, as they say, “unamused”? Prince Charles seemed unruffled, and he just moved things along, speaking graciously.
“On behalf of our mutual friends in Port St. Francis, we wish to thank you for your good works,” Prince Charles said, looking each of us directly in the eye. He went on to speak in a calm, modulated tone; and I must say that Jeremy handled himself beautifully, managing to nod and respond intelligently to even the most ordinary questions, such as, “And how has the weather been in Cornwall?”
As for me, I think I managed to answer every question the Prince directed at me. Jeremy says I did fine. But the whole time I couldn’t help wondering what the Queen was thinking. Her gaze was alert and attentive, and occasionally she nodded, yet she hadn’t spoken a word.
Finally, Charles said with a twinkle in his eyes, “The Legacy Society has asked our advice on a gift for you.”
This seemed to be the Queen’s moment, for she snapped her fingers in the direction of the doorway, and I wondered what palace flunky was awaiting her orders outside the door to this room.
I didn’t have to wonder long. On those beautiful, royal floors I suddenly heard the pitter-patter of paws echoing in the room, and a moment later a beautiful black long-haired field spaniel with dark, silky long ears and a round, highly intelligent head came bouncing into the room toward us; then, rather regally, he stopped a foot away and sat down, with only his wagging tail indicating anything other than royal reserve.
“He’s been highly trained,” was what Prince Charles said.
Then the Queen spoke.
“He shall be called,” she said firmly, “Sir Francis.”
Chapter Forty-Three
“Speaking of smugglers,” Jeremy said unexpectedly, “I have a little something to mark the end of this case with.”
We were sitting by the pool in Great-Aunt Penelope’s villa in Antibes. September is, after all, a lovely month to be here. The sun was still shining warmly, and the pool reflected the puffy clouds in the serene blue-and-white sky of Matisse. Sailboats were gliding peaceably across the Mediterranean Sea, which sparkled in the soft yellow sunlight.
Aunt Pen’s villa was a peach-colored affair with bright blue shutters at the windows, and a wrought-iron balcony that ran along the entire second floor. Jasmine and honeysuckle vines twined against the wall. I gazed up at this pleasant sight while we lounged in steamer chairs on a patio flanked by big terracotta pots containing blooming flowers. The air was filled with the heady scent of all these plantings, and I sighed deeply and contentedly.
Jeremy rose, went inside the house, and returned with two brandy snifters and a familiar black bottle, still coated with Celtic dust. “You’ve gotta be kidding,” I said, fascinated. “We can’t actually drink that old Napoleon madeira . . . can we?”
“Well, we could sell it at auction,” Jeremy answered, sitting down next to me. “But that’s just money, my girl. If we did that, we’d never, ever know what this stuff tastes like. Now, wouldn’t a fine historian like yourself owe it to Napoleon, and to the hands that made this wine, to sample it?”
How could I resist that? “Okay,” I whispered. “Open it.”
With remarkable reverence, Jeremy carefully removed the black, waxy seal. Then he opened the bottle just as he’d been instructed by a wine expert he’d consulted in Cannes. I watched in awe as, after centuries of waiting in that cave for us, the bottle opened with a small, dignified pop!
A second later, we heard a car crunching in the gravel drive. Then it came to a stop alongside the vintage blue Dragonetta that Aunt Pen had bequeathed to me. Presently, I heard the unmistakable, hearty voice of Rollo calling out, “Halloo! Anybody home?”
“Good God, hide the madeira!” Jeremy groaned, but Rollo had already come around the side of the house, and he now appeared on the patio.
“Heard all about the grand finale of our latest case out in Cornwall!” he said jovially, taking a seat. “Thought we might drink a well-deserved toast to another job well done.”
Jeremy was still trying to hide the bottle, but I reminded him, “Don’t forget, the Celts believe in the luck of the number three.”
“Right,” said Jeremy. “You, me and the dog.”
“Get a third glass,” I advised. And we poured it, and I would tell you all about it, except for an odd thing that happened just as we were sipping our madeira.
Sir Francis, our royal spaniel, had been lying indolently on the warm stone patio, with his silky black ears and tail neatly laid out, and his beautiful paws posed regally in front of him. He was ohso-elegant, and perhaps even a bit of a snob, having rather disinterestedly allowed Rollo to enter and even to pet him.
But suddenly, Sir Francis raised his head alertly. I thought of what Prince Charles had said about this dog’s elite training. It now appeared that Sir Francis considered himself a staff member of the firm of Nichols & Laidley, for he got up and trotted over to the door, and looked back at us quite significantly.
And then, Sir Francis barked.
Apparently, we had a new visitor.
But, that’s a tale yet to be told . . .
THE END
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Catch up with Penny and Jeremy in the other “Rather” novels!
A RATHER LOVELY INHERITANCE is where it all began, when an American art historian—Penny Nichols—meets British lawyer Jeremy Laidley, in London at the reading of Great-Aunt Penelope’s will. Penny also meets Rollo, a ne’er-do-well relative, and other “vultures” in the family tree who want to keep the loot all to themselves. Who can she trust? Bickering and bantering all the way, Penny and Jeremy team up to uncover family secrets on a chase from London to Paris, Cannes, Antibes and Rome. If you’ve ever dreamed of having the perfect apartment, auto, wardrobe and loved one to jaunt around the French Riviera with, then go for the ride!
A RATHER CURIOUS ENGAGEMENT follows Penny and Jeremy as they become real partners, in love and in work.
They decide to sock away their inheritance, except for one splurge—a vintage yacht that they win at auction on the Côte d’Azur. This soon leads to their first official “engagement”—a new mystery to solve that leads them to the world of Beethoven. Meanwhile, Jeremy’s ex-wife is trying to steal him back. Can Penny and Jeremy’s relationship survive the test? If you want to know what it’s like to cruise the Mediterranean on a yacht, and visit Lake Como, Nice and Corsica, then climb aboard!
A RATHER CHARMING INVITATION finds Penny and Jeremy trying to plan their wedding while balancing the demands of Jeremy’s English family, and Penny’s mysterious French relatives, who invite the couple to an ancient ancestral château near the fragrant perfume fields of Grasse. When a family heirloom loaned to Penny and Jeremy for the wedding goes missing, they must solve the theft before it’s time to say “I do.” If you’ve ever experienced a family tug-of-war while planning a wedding, or if you just love the idea of travelling to Provence, Paris, Lake Geneva and Monte Carlo with the one you love, well . . . here’s your invitation!
READERS GUIDE
A Rather Remarkable Homecoming
C.A. Belmond
A CONVERATION WITH C.A. BELMOND
Q. In this fourth novel of your “Rather” series, A Rather Remarkable Homecoming , Penny and Jeremy’s new adventure takes place at her grandmother’s house by the sea in Cornwall, England. What made you choose this setting?
A. Actually, the seeds for this novel were planted back in the very first book of the series—A Rather Lovely Inheritance—when my American heroine, Penny Nichols, is summoned to England for the reading of her Great-Aunt Penelope’s last will and testament. On her flight to London, Penny tells us that she’d been to England only once before, long ago during a childhood summer visit to Grandmother Beryl’s house-by-the-sea in Cornwall. This is where Penny met her glamorous Great-Aunt Penelope, for whom she was named, and she also met a boy named Jeremy whom she really liked and connected with. In A Rather Lovely Inheritance the adult Penny is reunited with Jeremy, and together they must solve a family mystery that brings them to Paris, the French Riviera, Italy . . . but Penny never gets a chance to return to Cornwall. Yet all along, through the first, second and third “Rather” novels, the memory of the childhood summer at Grandmother Beryl’s house lingers vividly in Penny’s mind.
So somehow I always knew that I—and Penny and Jeremy—had to go back to explore Cornwall again. Now in this new book, A Rather Remarkable Homecoming, it just seemed right and natural that the time has come for Penny and Jeremy to return to that important place where they first met.
Q.. Most people can really relate to the deep connections and powerful memories of a grandparent’s home. Why do you suppose a grandmother’s house has so much resonance?
A. I imagine it’s because our earliest childhood memories often revolve around grandparents. Going to see them is a bit of an adventure for a kid, like the Thanksgiving Song that Penny sings, “Over the river and through the wood . . .” Everything looms large in our memory—the backyard seems boundless, the rooms strange and enormous, and our elders sometimes tend to be more indulgent than our parents. The occasion when you visit a grandparent is usually a holiday, like Christmas or summertime, so there is a festive atmosphere about it. The world of adults seems odd and mysterious, and as a kid you scamper about like a squirrel, climbing trees and existing in a world apart from the grown-ups.
Then, when you yourself grow up, these childhood memories can lie dormant for years. But the moment you go back to revisit Grandma’s place—even if your grandmother no longer lives there—you can be surprised by the powerful impact the house still harbors. It’s not just that you’re going through the scrapbook memories of childhood; the place now takes on a symbolic importance as well. As you walk around exploring your own past, the terrain is at once both familiar and strange.
Q. But Penny doesn’t go back to Cornwall simply out of nostalgia; it turns out that her grandmother’s house, and indeed the entire village of Port St. Francis, is in peril of being demolished, so the locals hire Penny and Jeremy to solve the case.
This new assignment seems to come from Prince Charles himself! What made you decide to make this royal personage a player in this novel?
A. Well, Prince Charles is the Duke of Cornwall, and he has for many years been deeply and passionately involved in protecting the English countryside for future generations. So he was just the perfect new “client” for Penny and Jeremy! I really loved the idea of Penny and Jeremy being given a rather royal and noble task to perform, just like the knights of Camelot going off on a special mission. Cornwall is, after all, the birthplace of King Arthur and the knights of the round table, who were all willing to fight bravely against formidable enemies and nearly impossible odds. Penny and Jeremy have certainly had to slay quite a few “dragons” before, while working on a case, and this one’s no exception!
Q. Does the town of Port St. Francis really exist in Cornwall, England?
A. No, there is no actual town called Port St. Francis in Cornwall. But although this is a fictional place, it’s very much based on a real coastal area. I had in mind a composite of the various fishing villages perched above harbors on the northern coast of Cornwall. In the novel, Penny is pretty specific about where it is, when she tells us that Port St. Francis is “not as far east as the castle town of Tintagel, but not as far west as fancy Padstow with its trendy gourmet restaurants.”
Q. What prompted you to create the Shakespeare connection to the story?
A. That was a really fun element to play with. Whenever you delve into English history, sooner or later the Bard figures in. I discovered that the Shakespeare element in my story tied toget her a lot of the “supporting” characters—Simon Thorne who is an elderly actor that befriended Penny in the first “Rather” novel; Prince Charles and his quest to protect the natural world; and all the eccentric locals like Harriet and Colin—in a manner that allowed everyone to interact in their own quirky way. I don’t want to spoil the surprise here, but the twists and turns that occur when Penny and Jeremy pursue the history of Grandmother Beryl’s house are really what propel the story. As in life, you often find the answers in the least likely place you expect.
Q. In addition to the regular characters in Penny and Jeremy’s world, you introduce some fascinating new characters in this novel, some historical and some modern. Where do they all come from?
A. The supporting characters that Penny and Jeremy meet, and the historical ones that they investigate, all seem to “grow” naturally right out of their physical locale. So in this novel, I couldn’t help seeing a bird-watching English earl and a Shakespearean actor and a TV chef just springing out of the Cornish landscape like wild, indigenous plants and mythological creatures. In my previous novels, I just “saw” a German count in his castle on the lake for A Rather Curious Engagement; and in A Rather Charming Invitation I couldn’t help imagining the French perfume-makers in that lavender-and-rose-and-jasmine world of Grasse, where the world’s greatest fragrances come from.
Q. There are other dazzling locales in this novel. What made you decide to set some scenes of A Rather Remarkable Homecoming in the Portuguese island of Madeira?
A. Madeira is such a very mystical place, where, in Columbus’ time, seamen that were blown off course accidentally landed their ships on Madeira, sometimes telling strange tales of a New World to explore across the Atlantic Ocean. In a sense, Penny and Jeremy get temporarily “blown off course” in solving their case, so they must map a new direction. Also, in this novel, the juxtaposition of Madeira with Cornwall represents the love affair between the historical characters of Paloma, the tempestuous opera singer, and Prescott, the dashing smuggler. Cornwall is such a rugged, masculine place, and Madeira contrasts so nicely with its warmth and tropical lushness representing the feminine side of the story. The moment that Penny and Jeremy arrive in Madeira in pursuit of clues to the case, you just know that you’re in another world, and tha
t the story is ready to take a very different turn.
Q. Speaking of love affairs, Penny Nichols and Jeremy Laidley have just returned from their honeymoon, and it’s clear that they are a highly compatible couple, whose mutual affection and playful banter have caused reviewers to dub them “a modern-day version of Dashiell Hammet’s Nick-and-Nora and Agatha Christie’s Tommy-and-Tuppence”. When you began the series, did you plan to create a sleuthing team?
A. Yes and no. Actually, it all began with Penny’s vintage auto, which I call a Dragonetta. Long before I’d written a word of the first novel in the series, I imagined an attractive couple in a beautiful vintage 1930s convertible, tootling along the corniche roads of the French Riviera. I wondered, “Who are they, and what are they doing here?” I toyed with the idea of jumping right in and writing about this married couple, but something made me put the idea aside to simmer for a few months.
So, while I had this “couple-in-a-car” image tucked into the back of my mind, I went to work on what I thought was a completely different idea: a sort of Henry James story of an American girl working and living abroad, seeing Paris and London and Monte Carlo and Rome for the first time, living modestly until her whole life is turned upside down by an unexpected inheritance. I knew that my heroine, Penny Nichols, would be what I call a “sincere seeker”: someone who starts out struggling, and you root for her because, on the one hand she’s earnest and idealistic, but she’s also very human and down-to-earth, and she’s nobody’s fool, so she’s funny and self-aware. As I followed Penny through her first adventure in A Rather Lovely Inheritance, I just naturally came upon her English hero, Jeremy Laidley, who’s a perfect match for her. Over time they decide to pool their resources and create their brand-new investigative business called “Nichols & Laidley”.
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