Rotating the band to admire each stone, he remarked, “I don’t think I’ve seen a ring like this before, with every jewel a different color. It’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“In England, yes. It’s an acrostic ring, a new fashion from Paris. Each gemstone represents a letter, so that taken together they spell out a secret message.”
“That’s clever.” Jonathan had always been impressed by how much thought she put into her pieces. Never content ‘just’ to make a pretty trinket, she was constantly seeking out new techniques and innovations. “How do I decipher the message?”
“Nothing tricky—it’s just the initial of each stone. The first one is?—”
“Don’t tell me!” he bid her. “I want to solve it myself.”
“Oh!” She made an apologetic face. “I fear you’ll find it difficult, since you won’t be familiar with several of them.”
“I may be familiar. Let’s see…a green stone comes first. Is it an emerald?”
“No.” Her eyes danced. “Do you give up?”
“Never!” He gave a lopsided grin. “But do give me just the first answer, please.”
“Chalcedony.”
“Kal-se-what? Never would have reckoned that one. Is the first letter K or C?”
“It’s C.”
“Very well, next we have something blue. Sapphire?”
“No! Shall I tell you?”
Sighing, he nodded.
“Lapis lazuli.”
“Ah! Yes, now I recognize it. C—L. All right, now an iridescent green, or perhaps blue. Looks familiar, but…what is it?”
“An opal.”
“No! Aren’t opals white?”
She laughed. “It is white, if you look closely. But I wanted it to complement the other stones, so I chose one with lots of fire—that’s the shimmery blue-green that you see.”
“Huh. So we have C—L—O, and then comes another green one—though a bit of a bluer green—still, I shall guess emerald!”
“It’s vesuvianite—first discovered on Mount Vesuvius, you may be interested to know.”
“Indeed I am! By Jove, was I there just last month? Italy seems a lifetime ago.” He shook his head to clear it. “At any rate, that makes C—L—O—V, and yet another green stone comes next, so tell me it’s not an emerald.”
“But it is.”
“Well, I’ll be! And is this one beside it a sapphire?”
“Right again!”
“Only one more to go, then: C—L—O—V—E—S, and…oh, no! Has the last stone fallen out?”
“Actually, I never set it,” she admitted with a sheepish air. “I couldn’t, because I didn’t know what stone to use. But now I do. Would you like to see it as well? It will take a few minutes.”
“Of course I want to see it!” Enjoying himself, he rolled his eyes at her. “I cannot leave without solving the puzzle.”
She laughed as she moved to her workbench, where she opened a drawer and pulled out three large, very unusually shaped keys. Then she walked across the workshop to a tall, dark, equally unusual cabinet. It looked ancient and fancy and seemed to be made of…
