“Good morning,” Leticia said. “We have a question about custom work. Small work. Precise.”
“You have come to the right place,” the jeweler said.
Leticia met Gabriel’s eye. They did not speak the word raven. Not yet.
They would ask about cutters who could set a diamond within a diamond, the kind of work that demanded patience and pride. They would ask to see the books that named those hands. And if the books were tidy and dull, they would ask to see the drawer beneath the ledger, the one that held the orders a gentleman preferred not to advertise.
Outside, bells struck the quarter hour. Leticia thought of the brooch sitting enfolded in its cloth and felt the pull of two loyalties. She did not look away from it. She placed them side by side in her mind and found there was room.
“Shall we begin?” she said.
Gabriel nodded. “Please.”
The jeweler lifted a loupe and invited them closer. The glass caught the light. The morning moved on.
They were halfway through questions about cutters who could set a diamond within a diamond when the bell over the shop door chimed. Felix stepped in, hat still in his hand, a thin sheaf of papers tucked under his arm.
“I knew I’d find you here,” he said, low enough not to carry past the counter. He glanced once at the jeweler, back to Gabriel. “TheGazette archivist came through faster than I hoped.”
Gabriel straightened. “And?”
Felix laid one folded sheet on the glass between them, the print faint from age. “A notice for a private sale held four years ago. Included a necklace of ‘uncommon restraint, clasped with a token stone in diamond form.’ The seller’s name is obscured, intentionally, I think. But the buyer of record…”
He tapped the line. Leticia leaned closer.
“I know that name,” she said.
“You should,” Felix replied. “They were at the masquerade.”
The jeweler returned with a tray, smiling as though nothing in the world could be urgent. Felix stepped back, letting the lead rest like a spark waiting for the right breath.
“Shall we wrap this up?” Gabriel said quietly.
Leticia nodded, her mind already reaching ahead to the next question.
Chapter Twenty
The air outsidethe jeweler’s felt sharper, as though the sunlight had thinned while they were inside. Gabriel, Leticia, and Felix moved away from the shop front before speaking. Felix glanced over his shoulder once, then passed a folded sheet to Gabriel.
“The Gazette notice,” he said. “Private sale in Bath, four years ago. Necklace described as ‘uncommon restraint, clasped with a token stone in diamond form.’ The buyer was Mrs. Celeste Harcourt.”
Leticia stopped mid-step. “Mrs. Penstone’s cousin.”
“The same,” Felix said. “It confirms her account. Harcourt bought it several years before lending it to Penstone for the masquerade.”
They walked on, the street busy with late-morning errands. A fishmonger’s boy hurried past with a basket, the tang of the sea clinging to him, while a woman with a string bag of apples stepped aside to let them pass. Leticia kept pace beside Gabriel, aware of his steady presence at her shoulder and the folded paper in his hand like a burden waiting to be set down.
“She must value Mrs. Penstone greatly to lend her such a piece,” Leticia said. “Or trust her beyond reason.”
“Trust can be misplaced,” Gabriel replied. “We’ll know more when we speak to her.”
Felix gave a short, dry smile. “Finding the notice took longer than it should. The archivist at the Gazette keeps his shelves in order but hides half the drawers behind an ‘Out to be Cleaned’ sign. I bribed him with two muffinsfrom Barrington’s table.”
Leticia raised a brow. “I thought you were running on official business.”
“I was,” Felix said. “It just happens that official business sometimes requires baked goods.”
The exchange loosened the tightness in her chest, though only for a moment. The necklace, the clasp, the raven, each step forward drew them deeper into a story without an ending.
