Annis stopped with the teacup partway to her mouth and put it down. “Isn’t that risky?”
“Not if we are careful and sensible about it. I thought I’d take it to Rundle and Bridge. They’re the jewelers to the Crown, after all, not just some shady fence in St. Giles. They are very discreet.”
“I suppose so,” she said reluctantly. “What do you think they could tell us?”
“I’m not sure, perhaps nothing at all, but it chafes me not to know more about this fellow. Don’t you want to know?”
She smiled tremulously and blinked. “Yes, I suppose—” She took a breath. “Yes, I would very much like to know who my father was.”
“Good. I’ll take it to the jewelers when I get a chance. Don’t worry. I’ll be discreet, as well.”
While Annis was preoccupied with the decorator, he got the ring out of the safe and examined it. The raised and flattened top was a plain and unadorned oval, as if it should have been engraved as a signet ring or was perhaps the base upon which a setting for a large jewel could have been put but hadn’t. Either way, it seemed a strange, unfinished piece.
Popping it in his waistcoat pocket, he took himself off to the jewelers. He wanted to buy Annis another piece of jewelry anyway, and it seemed to him that if anyone could tell him about this piece it was a professional jeweler. If he was very lucky, the man might even recognize the ring.
Entering the store of Rundle and Bridge in Ludgate Hill, he perused the various displays quietly until the current customer being served by Mr. Phillip Rundle left the shop.
Mr. Rundle tidied away the trays he had taken out for the previous customer and said with a welcoming smile, “How may I help you, sir?”
“Well, two things,” said Emrys, stepping up to the counter. “Firstly, I’d like a necklace for my wife. Perhaps something in pearls and rubies?”
The next twenty minutes were spent reviewing what the man had for sale. Not finding exactly what Emrys had in mind, Rundle resorted to sketching out his ideas based on Emrys’s imperfect description. They finally arrived at something that he wanted, and it was agreed that the piece would be ready in a month. Well pleased, Emrys then withdrew the ring from his pocket and held it out in his palm. “I wonder if you could tell me something about this?”
Rundle took it from him and, inserting his eyeglass, examined it closely. “It’s a men’s signet locket ring, sir.” Using his thumbnail, delicately he pushed on the side of the oval and a lid sprang up revealing a cavity beneath.
“Good heavens!” said Emrys, bending over the ring. The jeweler handed it back to him, and he noticed that there was something lining the oval cavity,a piece of paper? Deciding to examine that in private, he closed the lid with a tiny click and then used his thumbnail to try to open it again. Finding the tiny depression, it clicked up again, and he shut it quickly. “A signet ring, you say? But it’s not carved.”
“No, it would normally have been, but this one, for whatever reason, wasn’t.”
“Are they common?”
“Signet rings are very common sir, naturally, but ones combined with lockets or compartments to store relics are not, no. Where did you get it if you don’t mind my asking?”
“It’s an odd piece I found in my father’s things,” he replied, giving the man the story he’d decided upon earlier. “Do you have any idea how old it might be?”
“The style is very plain. Let me see if there is a maker’s mark on it.” He held his hand out and Emrys gave it back reluctantly. The jeweler examined it further with his eyeglass, turning it over and checking all angles. “No, there is nothing. However, I am confident this is solid gold by the weight of it and the soft sheen. I would estimate its value at one hundred pounds or thereabouts.”
He handed it back and Emrys pocketed it. Valuable, but not overly so. Not sufficiently valuable as to provoke someone to murder, surely? But then one hundred pounds to some might be a fortune. “Thank you for your help.”
“Thank you for your business, sir. To which address should I send the finished necklace?”
Emrys gave his direction and promised payment forthwith. Dropping by the bank on the way home to execute the payment for the necklace, he was itching to get home and check what was in the ring. But he really needed to show it to Annis—it was her ring.
To his frustration, she wasn’t home when he got back, having gone shopping with the decorator for furnishings. Several hours later, however, Annis arrived home, coming into the nursery where he was playing Waterloo on the floor with the children and a large collection of toy soldiers. He was playing Napoleon, and Lizzie was Wellington, supported by her Cavalry Commander the Earl of Uxbridge, played by Ewen (with some help from Emrys), and Charlie as Blucher in charge of the Prussian forces.
The game was abandoned when Annis produced several swatches of colors and drawings over which the girls poured when asked their preferences as to furnishings for the nursery and schoolroom. Ewen being as uninterested in this as Emrys, continued to crawl round the floor moving horses about, and Emrys encouraged him. Mrs. Green appeared, followed rapidly by the tea tray, and Annis gathered up the swatches and drawings and repaired with Emrys to their bedchamber to wash and change her gown.
“I thought perhaps we could take the children to see the animals at the tower on Friday. What do you think?” she asked, plunging a cloth into the bowl of water and sponging her face and neck. She had removed her gown with his help and was standing in her chemise, which was highly distracting. He resisted the temptation to fondle her breasts from behind. If he started down that track, they would never get to the ring.
“I think it is a splendid notion,” he said, sitting on the bed and watching her appreciatively as she bent over the bowl. He was fascinated with her breasts it was true, but her bottom heldits own attraction, too. Dragging his eyes upward, he caught her looking at him looking. She smiled, flushing faintly. “Emrys, you didn’t hear a word I said then, did you?”
“What? You were talking about taking the children to the tower and I said it was a splendid notion.”
“After that!”
“Oh. No. Your bottom is rather distracting. Come and put it down here,” he said, patting the coverlet beside him. “I went to the jeweler.” He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat as she came and sat beside him.
“Oh. Did you discover anything?”
