Not a raven. Not a diamond. A rose. Simple, unguarded, human.
“It was part of a set,” Turnbull added.
Her breath caught. “A set?”
“It was part of a private estate sale. A lovely collection, though each piece was different. Most had hidden marks. A rose, a harp, a stag. Some romantic tradition, I imagine.”
Leticia’s lips parted, but no words came.
“Do you know which estate?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even and calm.
“Lady Templeton,” he said with easy confidence. “She had an extensive collection of etched stones similar to this one. Her ladyship passed some years ago. Her solicitor handled the sale. That brooch came to me through a small auction, held just a week before the Morton estate’s first dispersal, if memory serves. The rose caught attention for its beauty, that was all.” He smiled faintly. “No secrets tucked behind that one.”
She thanked him, took the cleaner, and stepped back into the street with the morning sun low behind her. The air was crisp, the town quiet. Her feet found the familiar rhythm homeward.
It was 8:06 when she stepped through the front door.
*
The house wasquiet, the kind of quiet that pressed in rather than settled. Ashcombe Hall did not sleep. It waited.
Gabriel moved through the corridor with his trousers tucked into worn boots, waistcoat unbuttoned, sleeves rolled. He’d been up since before the sky turned gray. Tea had gone cold beside him. The library fire had died sometime after four.
He hadn’t meant to wander, but the silence had made him restless.
He passed the study, ignored the front drawing room, and found himself in the main hall, long and shadowed, lit only by the faint bleed of early morning through the high windows. The portraits lined the wall in silent procession.
His gaze swept over familiar faces. Lords and ladies of Ash’s past. The uncle who’d raised him. And farther down, a canvas that had once meant little, a study of three young people in Vienna. It had been painted in haste, commissioned by someone who cared more for fashion than fidelity.
And yet.
He slowed.
His Uncle Robbie stood in the middle with Lady Margaret on one side. Her pearl necklace caught the light even in oils.
His gaze shifted.
Another, younger woman with darker hair and almond-shaped eyes stood on his uncle’s other side. She wore no necklace. But the shape of her mouth was familiar.
A smile crept across his face, Leticia’s mother.
And there, pinned to her gown, half-lost in the shadows of the paint, but glinting somehow despite it—
The brooch.
He stepped closer.
Even in oils, the center gem shimmered. The artist had rendered it too well, perhaps an indulgence. Gabriel leaned in, brow furrowed, following the way the light pooled around the diamonds, the subtle shading at the clasp.
He didn’t see a mark. Of course, he didn’t.
But something in him recoiled.
He stepped back. Crossed his arms. Tried to shrug it off.
It could be a coincidence. A family trinket. A resemblance. But instinct didn’t work on evidence. Instinct worked on the skin, the breath, the way his gut drew tight when things didn’t align.
And something didn’t align.
