Might as well begin with Hors d'oeuvre

Hors d'oeuvre Perile’

 

All in all it had been the most charming of social occasions. He congratulated himself as he watched the gorgeous young thing in the perfectly lovely green French cut satin dress swish her way up the cobblestone path, heading back to the large manor house where the party was still in full swing. He stood up from the bench, seat still warm from where she had been sitting next to him, and continued to watch as he smiled in pleasant recollection of the evening so far…..

 

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Préalable

 

He had purposefully arrived late, giving his fellow guests plenty of time to enjoy their cocktails, wine and champagne. He was delighted to see that the group had indeed unknowingly followed his plan by freely imbibing! The great hall was positively buzzing with a score of overly happy couples chatting away. In the ballroom, half as many were gaily dancing, presenting a delightful montage of crisp black tuxes and colourfully dyed, rustling gowns and long fluttering dresses. And everywhere was the sparkling of jewels, some extravagantly large, and many expensively small, flickering and sparkling merrily from various points of interest from the rather fetching figures of the many pretty females who wore them.

 

 

He looked around, pulling back his tux jackets sleeves so his wrists were free, unencumbered for when the time came to put his hands to work. It happily did not take long for that to happen.

 

 

He soon spied a group of 2 males and 3 ladies chatting merrily by the huge oak fireplace. The large fire It contained, added an entertaining crackling scene as he approached. A passing waiter held a tray of drinks in his hand, and he had snatched one off, carrying it over to the group. He stood on the fringe, listening in for a minute to acquire the lay of the land. He soon joined in, telling a joke along the lines of their topic of conversation. He made his French accent even thicker, knowing how the English Ladies seemed to swoon when he employed it. He was soon one of the group, a waiting wolf amongst the curelessly bleating, well-dressed sheep. The waiter came around again, and he had set his glass ( untouched) on an oak coffee table, and helped pass them around. As he handed one of the ladies her drink, he had tripped a little, placing his hand upon the wrist she held at her bosom to steady himself, looking her in the eyes as she took the offered drink in her other hand, concerned that he had hurt himself. He apologised profusely at his clumsiness, then stepped back as she giggling accepted. He retrieved his glass and offered a toast. As they all raised their glasses and drank, he took his leave and scurried off. He looked back, the group was still chatting away happily, and the lady he had handed a glass of champagne to, was not yet noticing that her amazingly bright emerald and pearl bracelet had vanished from her gloved wrist.

 

He meandered over to the Ballroom, stopping to watch the few couples lingering as they awaited the next dance. The Orchestra was tuning up, preparing for a cotillion, something he fancied, a great dance for someone of his unique abilities to make a few “acquisitions”. As the music began he watched with interest the 60 or so guests that began the dance. In the vibrantly swirling mass he managed to pick out quite a few enchanting baubles worn by the gaily bedecked females. He bided his time, and when an opening presented itself, he inserted himself and joined in with the dancers as they moved in the tempo of the spirited music switching partners frequently. In a fast few minutes of the music, as he found himself partnered with 20 or so pretty females, some of them, by design, more than once.

 

It was from this select few that he managed to part from their persons a total of: 4 gemmed bracelets, half as many cocktail rings, and a dazzling ruby pendent and its chain of sparkling diamond chips! The dance ended all too soon, in his opinion, for the pickings had been altogether too easy, and there were more than a few with pretty jewels he would have liked to have held in his arms. As the boke off, he accepted an even dozen feminine hands gratefully thanking him for the dance( lifting a 3rd ring in the process!)

 

He then left the ballroom, walking backwards as he watched over the dissembling guests for any signs of discontent. It all appeared normal with them, no one as of yet realizing that some of them had been “pickpocketed.” He stopped and retrieved his drink from a table, still watching the ballroom, scanning the exits in case he needed to make a quick retreat.

 

 

When he turned back around he almost collided with an older lady with her long hair piled up and held up by a glittering tiara, who had been standing behind him. Her still quite perky figure was fetchingly clad in a long slithering dress of deep purple silk, with a brite glossy sash of deeper purple satin wrapped around her waist and tied in the back with a smart bow held by a rhinestone clip.

 

 

On the cuff, he asked her if she was free to dance. She delightfully was, and accepting his offer, held out her gloved hand. Sitting down his glass with a flourish, he took that hand with its well ringed fingers, into his and led her off. She elegantly picked up her dress with her other hand, and as she did he had a few seconds to admire and appraise the ladies dazzling “affichage de bijoux”. The new dance was a waltze, something he excelled at. And she allowed him to lead her, dancing about with the other couples, as he gracefully twirled her around. He would have preferred a tango, for her necklace, a collar of diamonds in a lace pattern, was quite valuable. But he made do with the waltz, managing to lift her equally dazzling brooch from the front of the wide shiny purple satin sash tied around her waist. The music ended, and he kissed her hand as she curtsied, giving him the opportunity to slip a glittering cocktail ring off from one of her long fingers. He then led her off the floor, offering to go get her a drink (with the intention of not coming back) but she had other plans….

 

 

Now, as they had danced, he had half listened to her prattle on about her niece, a lonesome soul who had recently had had her engagement broken off, for his attention focused mostly on the task of acquiring his pretty partners jewels! So instead of being able to make his escape by going off for drinks, he found his arm taken by the lady in purple silk and led him off to an area set aside as a sitting lounge for the ladies (the men’s smoking chamber being upstairs). It was there that they came upon a small, lithely shaped creature with loose sheets of long ginger coloured hair falling along her shoulders and back. She was sitting by herself, drinking a cocktail, her third by the number of empty glasses sitting upon the table at her arm. She was encased in a long slinking pretty French gown of green satin that fell quite nicely along her well-endowed figure, before pooling around at the feet of her matching satin high heels.

 

 

Her Auntie introduced them, and the niece offered her hand in cheerful greeting. She didn’t seem appear that she was in despair over her broken engagement atoll, he thought as he took her gloved hand, holding down her fingers as he curtly bowed and kissed the hands glossy gloved back side. He looked down upon the niece, she was wearing a choker of diamonds around her throat, and long dangling waterfall earrings cascading down from her ears. A long diamond pin was attached to the v in the “Décolletage” of her gown. Her gloved hands were free of rings and bracelets. But still, all in all, a quite vexing package indeed!

 

 

The Aunt, meanwhile, was arranging for them to dance. The Niece did seemed coyly reluctant at first, like she was thinking of a way out of it. But when the orchestra started to tune up for the next dance, a obviously a welcomed foxtrot, He poured on the charm, and broke through her resistance. And he gallantly gave her his hand and lifted her from her seat, to the squealing delight of the lady’s aunt in the deep purple silk dress. He nodded to the Auntie as he led her niece off, his eyes traveling back to his fetching partner’s throat. The diamond choker that encircled it would be a welcomed addition to this evening’s cueillette’!

 

 

She was a brilliant dancer, surprisingly spirited and nimbly quick. Thus he was unable to find an opening to acquire the lass’s sparkling trinket that adorned her throat. So he waited for his opportunity, figuring the next dance should be a slow one. He was right on the money and invited her join him in the slow dance he had anticipated. She most willing went into his arms, giving herself up to him 100 percent. At one point she looked up into his eyes, a look that told him she was falling to his charms. He cupped his hands to her face, lifting her head so it tilted up at him, and as she sighed deeply, he stroked his fingers through her hair, while slickly, and without shame, relieving her ears of their stunningly dangling diamond earrings in the process.

 

 

He was immensely pleased with himself upon his daring acquisition, and as the music faded off, he thought that that would be the end of things, and he prepare to take his immediate leave of the premises. But she apparently had garnered other thoughts, asking him if he wished to take a stroll with her outside in the extended gardens that surrounded the sprawling old estate proper. He looked down sweetly upon her, his eyes soaking in her gorgeously sparkling necklace which still was a vex for him, and told her sweetly he would like nothing more. As he followed her wonderfully swishing figure towards the double doors leading to a cement patio, he liberated a bottle of wine and two glasses from a servant’s cart. He followed her out onto the wide patio and down the sweeping steps that led into the hedged, proper English gardens below.

 

 

She led him to an old stone bench in a quite secluded corner, and alcove almost boxed in by a thick hedgerow. He couldn’t have picked a better spot himself, and he smiled, for fortune appeared to be with him that evening, “fortune semblait être avec lui ce soir-là” ! She motioned him to sit next to her, and he smiled, opening the wine, and pouring it. Handing her a glass he slipped in next to her. He prepared to falsely lead the damsel into believing he was falling under her spell, and as she did, taking the opportunity to relive this little one of her remaining jewels!

 

 

She snuggled up against him, her quite warm figure a pleasure to experience. She started to chatter, almost nervously, definitely coyly, as he noticed the pulsating rhythm of her heart beating into his side, she was certainly excited about something. She rather impishly told him a rather delightful little tale about an antique postcard that her aunt had in the library. A youth was sitting on a bench next to a pretty girl, a book on his with the title” The Jungle Book”. He was asking the damsel if she liked Kipling? She was looking up at him mischievously, why “I don’t know, you naughty boy, I’ve never kippled!”

 

 

He chuckled at this, pulling out a handkerchief form his pocket to wipe some imagined thing off her dress. She looked down at the spot( nothing had been there) and he used the distraction to finish slipping off the necklace whose clasp he had flicked open as she had told the punch line of her story.

 

Placing The necklace into a vest pocket, where it rested with the some of the other jewels he had purloined earlier that evening, including this one’s earrings. He now focused on her long glittery diamond pin.

 

 

He stood and refilled their glass’s for a third time( he had been spilling most of his out in a rose bush behind the bench as they had sat). He regained his seat, placing an arm around her, and she laid her hand upon his chest, burrowing in. She was becoming quite intoxicated and he knew the time was as ripe as it was becoming short. He laid his other hand on her lap, and she shivered as he murmured some French sayings in her ear,(including his favourite ” La nuit tous les chats sont gris.”)

 

 

He took advantage of the opening and feeling upwards cupped the pin as it hung down, feeling its clasp with his long nimble fingers, he waited. At that point she looked up into his eyes and slipped her hand around his waist. It was while she did this that he popped open the clasp, and slipped off the diamonded pin from the unwary girls rather scintillating gown.

 

 

He held onto the pin behind her back as they hugged. He could still feel the deliciousness of her heart beating rapidly, and knew his was also, but not for the reason she was thinking. He now had all her jewels, and as his eyes were focused on her glittering pin that he was admiring in his hand that held it above her back, , his mind was on escape.

 

 

Finally the wine had its desired effect upon the pretty, naively innocent, niece. With a wistful sigh, she rose, straightening her gown as she elegantly made her apologies, she needed to visit the ladies parlour to powder her nose. She sheepishly asked if he would wait. He rose an told her he would wait until the end of time( or for as long as he was in her sight). She hugged him, throwing her entire squirming being behind it.

 

 

They parted and she tuned and pertly swished off, her gown delightfully moving along her figure, brightly iridescent, as she swayed her way back down the moonlit path.

 

 

He rubbed a finger along his thin moustache as he enjoyed the show she was putting on. He had entirely beguiled that one he mused. It wasn’t until she gained the porch stair way that he moved. He turned away, and made his way down the path heading off out of the gardens. Gloating over how he had managed to pluck her ripe figure of all its valuable ornaments.. His hand automatically went into his vest pocket to finger his haul. Suddenly his whole demander changed, the pocket was empty! He quickly felt along his body, all of his pockets here empty. Pipe, Pouch, silver lighter, billfold and gold pocket watch, even the ruby pin from his knotted cravat, as well as all of the ladies jewels he had been removing with such panache all evening, all were gone, all without him ever feeling a thing!

 

 

He relieved he had been picked clean, obviously by the young niece! and turning he looked back spying that said niece standing at the top of the cement patio’s stairway watching him, catching his eye, she raised a finger, scolding him like one would an errant child, before turning with a purposeful, flaunting with a swirling of her green satin gown, and disappearing inside with a an air of obviously self-pleasure. Who was this child, with fingers even more nimble than the great Arsene’ Lupin?, he thought cockily.

 

 

He raised an imaginary glass to the closing door as the last of her fluttering gown slipped through it. Checkmate on me, my lady, he thought, Smiling whimsically as he turned away and stole away into the night. But still, he could not help but wonder, was she going keep those jewels to all to herself and let him take the blame?

 

 

He turned a corner of a hedge path and stopped immediately. Staring straight ahead, in his astonishment, he thought drolly to himself, if he had to start a new meal, might as well begin with Hors d'oeuvre. For there, at the end of the path, stooping over as she smelled a rose from a bush located by an exit, was a jewelled vision of pure loveliness.

 

 

Her hair was elegantly held back by a gloved hand with a wrist and fingers sparkling with a frenzy of coloures, said moon having had just now peeked from the cloud where it had been hiding.

 

 

He walked up to her, softly on the pads of his feet. She wasn’t to know that there was now someone else on the path behind her until his hands were in position to strike….

 

 

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Perile watched as the nice Frenchman walked off. He had ben ever so charming, couldn’t apologize enough for starling her as he had. He had taken her hand, kissing it as he had asked her name. He than gave him hers, thanking her for the honour that was his to give it. Arsene he announced with a flourish as he bowed to her. She has shivered, how so she loved the romantic sounding French language.

 

 

He soon turned a corner and was lost out of site. Perile stood there dazed for a full 3 minutes, her mind wondering. Her satin gloved hand which she had been holding upon her ample bosom, now moved up to her throat to take care of an itch. Suddenly she froze, finding her neck bare, she looked down, her diamond and ruby pendeant was no longer dangling down the glossy front of her eal gown. She bent under the rose bush to look for it, pulling up on the lower branches, as she did, she saw with a gasp that her large gemmed cocktail ring was also gone from her index finger. It was not until sometime later that she membered it was the vey hand and finger the charming Frenchman had ever so elegantly kissed!

 

Done