Reaching for her jewelry box, Nora pulled open the drawer that was too small to hold anything more than the single ring that rested inside. She lifted it carefully between her fingers, watching the firelight shimmer across the deep blue sapphire at its center whilst the surrounding diamonds scattered pale sparks throughout the darkened room.
Time had not diminished its beauty in the slightest. If anything, time had sharpened it into something painfully lovely. And disturbingly familiar.
Papa hadn’t chosen the bracelet deliberately to resemble the ring. That was absurd. Having seen it only once three years prior, it was highly unlikely he’d spared a single thought for Mr. Lyndon’s gift whilst selecting his. The resemblance was coincidence and nothing more.
Yet Nora couldn’t rid herself of the ugly possibility curling stubbornly at the edges of her thoughts. The ring was the physical embodiment of the trust she needed to place in Papa’s wisdom, and the bracelet was its twin. A cousin at the very least.
Carrying both pieces with her, Nora crossed to the bed and sat on the edge of the coverlet.
For all her anger toward Mr. Lyndon—and the bitterness and humiliation attached to this ring—she had never managed to throw the thing away. Papa would call that weakness. Worse still, sentimentality. A sensible woman ought to have cast the ring into the dust heap years ago and thanked the heavens she’d escaped before greater damage was done.
Yet every time Nora had tried to do so, something inside her recoiled. Not because she still cherished the man who’d given it to her. At least she didn’t think so, for the sharp grief attached to that old heartbreak had long since dulled into something quieter and more difficult to name. Whether those moments had been real or fake, Nora didn’t have the strength to destroy the only evidence that they had happened.
Turning it this way and that, she watched the gem sparkle in the lamplight, the shades of blue shifting with every turn. A bit of paste and glass, yet the thing was beautiful. Remarkable, really.
Lifting the bracelet, those sapphires flashed brilliantly as she held the two pieces near one another, ready to see the stark difference between the fake and the genuine. Yet sitting there upon the edge of her bed with both pieces glittering side by side, Nora could detect no difference at all. The stones looked identical. The same rich depths. The same brilliant shimmer. Even the way the gold contrasted with the blue seemed strangely alike.
A crease formed between Nora’s brows as she tilted the ring closer to the lamp. Surely Papa’s jeweler wouldn’t have selected paste stones for the bracelet, but if someone placed it and thering before her and asked her to identify the counterfeit, she wouldn’t know which to choose. Indeed, the ring would look at home in any jeweler’s window on Bond Street.
But that was absurd. Papa had been certain—not merely suspicious or doubtful but certain. Virgil Eden could appraise gemstones, paintings, investments, and people alike with terrifying accuracy. He built his entire life upon recognizing worth where others failed to see it, and Nora trusted his opinion on such matters intrinsically.
Lowering her hands, she rested them on the bedcover. Outside, somewhere far below the windows, a carriage rattled through the sleeping square before fading once more into silence.
There had to be some explanation. Perhaps good paste mimicked sapphires better than Nora realized. And there was a stark difference in size between the sapphires in the ring compared to the bracelet, which might make it more difficult for the naked eye to perceive the discrepancies. No doubt, any jeweler in London could spot the fake at ten paces.
Nora remained motionless upon the edge of the bed with the bracelet and ring resting side by side whilst the fire burned low, and long after the lamps had dimmed, she stared into the darkness whilst questions turned restlessly about her mind.
Chapter 28
Nora Eden was an absurd creature. Utterly, completely absurd. She knew it with the same painful certainty one knows the sun will rise in the morning. But the small sensible portion of her mind could simply not hold the vast power of her ridiculousness at bay.
A woman of thirty ought to exert better control over her imagination than this, but like a loose thread, Nora could not leave her ponderings be. A little tug here, a little tug there, and she found herself standing inside a tiny jeweler’s shop tucked between a tobacconist and a coffee shop far removed from any respectable establishment her family and friends might frequent.
This was a ridiculous whim that would be swiftly corrected with a single look from the jeweler’s trained eye: the ring was false as false could be. Nora tightened her fingers around her reticule as she watched the fellow examine the engagement ring, the jeweler’s loupe held up to his eye as he studied the sapphire.
The place smelled faintly of metal polish and dust warmed by sunlight. Glass cases crowded the little showroom, displaying brooches, watch chains, mourning rings, and lockets atop faded velvet. Nothing gleamed with the dazzling extravagance of thefashionable jewelers Papa patronized, nor did any attendants hover nearby with champagne and polished compliments.
Nora knew the piece was fake. This whole situation was utter madness. She ought to march straight back out the door and apologize to her father (in spirit) for doubting him at all. The very fact she had carried the ring all the way here merely because lamplight and imagination had gotten the better of her made her feel like a child—
“‘Tis a beautiful piece,” said Mr. Johanson, turning the ring this way and that. “Those are very fine stones, miss. Very fine, indeed. Good color. Excellent clarity, too.”
Heat surged through the shop, stealing away Nora’s breath as she stared at the ring in his hand.
The jeweler lowered the ring and gave her an assessing look. “I fear it’s too impressive for my establishment, miss. But if you are interested in selling it, I could direct you toward several reputable jewelers better suited to handling such things.”
Selling it. The notion horrified her enough to jolt her back into motion at last.
“No,” Nora said quickly, reaching for the ring with unsteady fingers. “I shan’t be selling it.”
Mr. Johanson surrendered it at once, and she tucked the ring carefully back into its case and the case into her reticule, before fleeing through the door. Nora squeezed the bag as the street outside pressed in upon her at once, too bright and too loud after the close, dusty stillness of the shop. Carts rattled past and pedestrians brushed by as a newsboy called out headlines from the corner.
The ring was real? What sort of fortune hunter gave a woman an expensive ring and never asked for it back? And what sort of fortune hunter married a tailor’s daughter?
Her steps faltered, and Nora fixed her attention upon the omnibus lumbering past. Surely a man scheming after herdowry would not abandon a costly sapphire and diamond ring simply because the scheme failed. He would reclaim it somehow. Yet it had remained in her possession, shut away in its little drawer, after Mr. Lyndon had vanished.
A real ring. A wife without fortune. A man who chased wealth in certain, unknown circumstances. The thoughts slid about in her mind like cards on a polished table, refusing to form the set she required. It was a rum hand dealt years ago.
Familiar streets unfolded around her, and coal smoke drifted faintly overhead, softening the pale blue sky, whilst telegraph wires stretched across the streets in dark lines that bobbed faintly whenever the wind stirred them. Clerks hurried past with leather cases tucked beneath their arms whilst fashionable ladies stepped carefully around muddy wheels and damp gutters. Carriages clogged the wider streets in uneven lines as drivers shouted at one another over the nickers of their horses and the rumble of wheels upon stone, and shop windows shimmered in the morning sunlight, displaying everything from French ribbons to silver tea services.
