“An opal.”
“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. “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 this one beside it is 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.”
He raised his brows at this cryptic statement. “May I see it?”
“If you’re willing to wait a few minutes.”
Now he was downright confused. What did he have to wait for? He crossed his arms. “I cannot leave without solving the puzzle.”
“Very well, then,” she said with a laugh.
She moved to her workbench, where she opened a drawer and pulled out three large, very unusually shaped keys. Then she crossed the workshop to a tall, dark, equally unusual cabinet. It looked ancient and fancy and seemed to be made of…
“Is that cabinet made of iron?”
“Yes, indeed. It may look like a cabinet, but it’s a safe.”
He drew near to touch the cold metal. “It must weigh a ton.”
“I’d hazard it weighs even more—I cannot imagine trying to move it. I’m told it’s been sitting right in this spot since the early days of Charles the Second.”
Jonathan quickly calculated in his head. “A hundred and fifty years, give or take?”
“Um-hmm.”
She ran her fingers along some decorative pieces whilst he looked on curiously. By the time she finished, he’d worked out that she was finding concealed release mechanisms. Once she’d activated them all, three keyholes appeared.
“The keys have to be used in a certain order,” she explained as she raised the first of them. Completing the sequence took another minute or two. “And then...” There was a loud click. She pulled a hidden lever, and the door swung open. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” he echoed, peeping over her shoulder. The safe was filled with orderly stacks of boxes and trays fashioned from wood, leather, and velvet.
She reached inside to remove a long, thin black leather box. “These are my colored stones,” she said, in answer to his unasked question. Beneath the flap cover lay a single neat row of small paper packets. She selected one, opened the precisely folded paper, and placed the contents in his hand.
“It’s beautiful.” He marveled at the large red heart-shaped gem. “Ruby?” he guessed.
“Correct. It’s flawless, so it deserves to be made into something very special. I’ve been working on a pendant design.” She plucked it from his palm, her fingers flying as she refolded the paper around it in a complicated pattern. Even having seen her do it, Jonathan doubted he could make such a parcel from a plain rectangle of paper.
She replaced the packet and flipped through a dozen or more. On the fronts, Jonathan glimpsed nonsensical numbers in tiny, precise handwriting. With a smile and a nod, she finally pulled one out and unfolded it, revealing a much smaller polished stone of opaque green.
“It’s jade,” she told him, tipping the smooth domed oval into his palm. “A perfect cabochon—and just the right size to serve as the last stone in my ring.”
