It was better here than outside, where he’d have to watch Alice lounging on the picnic blanket alongside Sebastian Bell.
Sam Bartholomew, he silently corrected himself. Everything about the man was a fraud, from his name to his surgically corrected nose. He tamped down his frustration and went back to chipping away at the mortar between the bricks. The interior of the cooking area was coated with creosote, the oily black sludge from years of wood-burning fires. Outside, Sebastian looked fresh as a daisy, while Jack was smudged with soot and sweat. It was tempting to flop down next to Alice on the blanket and draw her into a big, sweaty hug. A man was supposed to get dirty . . . not submit to facials, manicures, and wear everyday clothes that required dry-cleaning.
He focused on the next layer of bricks, angling his chisel carefully because this section had an extra-thick layer of mortar. Taps with the mallet slowly chipped the soot-blackened mortar away, revealing the smooth beige mortar that hadn’t seen daylight in over three hundred years. He rocked the brick free of the mortar and carefully set it with the other bricks.
A chunk of the remaining mortar fell into a cavity beneath the brick he had just removed. That was odd. The bricks were uniform in size, so they should have been snug. A cavity like this made no sense, so it was probably deliberate. It was about the size of a deck of cards. He yanked off his gloves to scoopout crumbles of mortar from the hollow. It was brittle, dry, and grainy . . . but there was something smooth inside the cavity.
He stirred his fingers around until he grasped the cold and smooth object. He lifted it out and swiped away the grit.
In the palm of his hand lay a heavy gold signet ring.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alice took the mysterious ring Jack found to an expert. Daisy Tucker had a fine eye for antique jewelry and managed the gift shop at the Tucker Inn located in downtown Williamsburg. The three-room gallery was much more than a mere “gift shop.” One room specialized in authentic colonial antiques, another in high-end gifts and clothing, and the final room sold estate jewelry.
“It’s clearly a signet ring,” Daisy said from her position behind the jewelry counter.
Alice nodded. “It had to have been hidden in that fireplace since the Roost was first built. It was beneath the lintel stone, and whoever put it there never wanted it to be found.”
Daisy scrutinized the heavy, masculine ring with a jeweler’s loupe for a better view of the coat of arms pressed into the flat bezel of the ring. In olden days, a coat of arms identified the wearer’s family lineage and their loyalty with tiny symbolic markings. The coat of arms on this ring featured six tiny acorns in a half-circle above the rearing stag. The shank of the ring was etched with a scalloped shell pattern.
“Do you know what the acorns mean?” Alice asked.
“I have no idea, but they keep track of these things in England,” Daisy replied. “The College of Arms in London is the official authority for issuing coats of arms and tracking related symbols. It’s our first place to check.”
Alice hoped to find a quick answer at the College of Arms website, but quickly ran out of gas. According to the website, there were thousands of English family crests dating back to the twelfth century, and identifying a crest usually required the help of a specialist. A search could be initiated by submitting a series of photographs and paying a deposit.
Alice was used to leaning on specialists for research like this. She placed the ring on a velvet pad to take several photographs from all angles. After uploading them to the website, she paid a deposit with her credit card and hit send to initiate the search.
“Do you know how long it will take to get an answer?” Daisy asked once Alice returned the ring to her purse.
“About two weeks,” she said. “Why are you looking so strange?”
Daisy bit her lip and paced before the case of Victorian cameo brooches. “Well,” she said reluctantly, “I know Jack bought the Roost from Kingsley in some sort of underhanded deal, but I don’t think it included the contents of the Roost, did it?”
Alice blanched at the implied audacity of the statement. The deal happened because the Tuckers hadn’t been honest about their finances, and Jack kept them all out of court by agreeing toa quick settlement instead of seeking criminal charges. Alice was probably the least confrontational person in the state of Virginia, but she wasn’t going to let Daisy claim this ring.
“It cost Jack sixty thousand dollars to pay off the mortgage Kingsley hid from him. He is entitled to everything on those five acres, including the ring. Jack plays hardball, and you’ll poke a sleeping dragon if you push this.”
Daisy giggled and gave Alice’s shoulder a friendly nudge. “Don’t mind me,” Daisy said. “No respectable Southern woman can resist making a play for a bit of heirloom jewelry. Forget I said anything.”
Alice was still thinking about the incident as she prepared dinner at her townhouse for Jack. She’d made chicken salad sandwiches with the crusts cut off because they were his favorite. The spinach salad came from her own backyard, with freshly picked spinach leaves, red onions, and a little raspberry vinaigrette dressing.
He probably wouldn’t notice that the blue hobnail drinking glasses perfectly coordinated with the Spode dishes. What man would? She didn’t care. This was going to be one of the last evening meals she would make for Jack, and she wanted it to be perfect. He would be leaving for Japan at the end of the week, and she’d probably never see him again.
Therat-a-tat-tatat the door banished her gloomy thoughts. She fairly skipped to the door and flung it open. Jack greeted her with one of those devilish smiles and a heart-stopping kiss. She was grinning by the time he lifted his head.
“What smells so good?”
“Blueberry pie, but I’ve got chicken salad sandwiches and a spinach salad first.”
He kissed her again. “Sounds great.”
As expected, he didn’t comment on the table layout or compliment the linen napkins she took out of storage. He devoured the meal like a hungry wolf, but that was fine. She liked a man with a healthy appetite.
He was still shoveling down the blueberry pie when she set the gold signet ring on the table. “I’ve sent a request to London to ask for identification of this family crest,” she said. “The answer might take a couple of weeks to get here.”
When she warned Jack that Daisy suggested the ring might belong to the Tuckers, he shoved the ring onto his finger. “She’ll have to pry it off me. That woman has a lot of nerve.”
