Summary

An impoverished 17-year-old Frenchwoman, a professional pianist, is betrothed to a much older man. The much older man is an extremely wealthy Marquis, whose home is a castle in Brittany, located on the ocean. The Marquis has been married three times to women of some renown, all of whom have died. His most recent wife died only three months before he became engagement to the Frenchwoman. The engagement ring is set with a fire opal the size of a pigeon's egg, which had been; his mother's, his grandmother's, and his great grandmother's. The ring had once been a gift to his family from Catherine de Medici. All of his previous brides have worn the ring. The Marquis's wedding gift to the French woman is his grandmother's two-inch wide choker of rubies which was created after the French Revolution, as a gesture...