And Christina began to wonder whether this project was meant to save her marriage – or bury it.
‘I’ve always told everyone what remarkable potential you have,’ Penelope said suddenly, her voice warm with what might havebeen affection. ‘Despite your ... origins.’
Christina flinched. Was that how Penelope saw her? Eleven years of deciphering which fork to use, of absorbing the unspoken rules that came as naturally as breathing to people like Penelope, of sanding down her rough edges trying to make herself smooth enough to fit into their world. And this was what she had to show for it? Patronizing kindness from someone who would never – could never – see her as an equal. No matter how perfectly she performed the role, she would always be the charity case who’d married well, the stray who’d been successfully house-trained.
She looked at Penelope’s perfectly composed face, that expression of benevolent superiority. Why had she tried so hard to become someone like Penelope – someone who could dismiss another person with such casual cruelty while believing herself kind?
For the first time in years, Christina remembered who she’d been before she’d started apologizing for her existence. And she wondered why she’d ever thought that person wasn’t good enough.
‘You’re too kind,’ Christina said, wondering if Penelope had ever truly been her friend at all, simply an audience for her own magnanimity, or a new client for her design business.
A new home would not solve her marriage problems. She needed to understand what had caused Hamish to withdraw from her, to understand why the foundations were shaking, not paper over the cracks.
Humphrey cleared his throat. ‘Do you have a key, so I can get in and take a proper gander?’
Christina’s phone buzzed. Ernest, no doubt, wondering about his precious forgery timetable. She looked around the perfect drawing room, at Penelope’s satisfied smile, at Humphrey’s expectant expression and felt the weight of choices pressingdown on her like the lid of a very expensive coffin.
‘Actually,’ she said, rising from her chair with sudden decision, ‘I really must be somewhere else right now. I’ll call Humphrey about the key.’
Penelope’s face brightened with the triumph of someone who believed she’d organised a breakthrough. ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re being sensible about this. Humphrey really is the best. He’ll transform Chase Lodge into something extraordinary’
But Christina was already mentally elsewhere, her fingers itching to get back to the loving cup. Something which truly deserved to be called extraordinary.
Her heart hammering, Christina pushed through the workshop door, breathing in silver polish and possibility.
Her fingers trembling, she fitted the jeweller’s loupe to her eye and leaned over the cup’s base. Under magnification, the hallmarks revealed themselves with crystalline precision. The lion passant stood proud despite its age. The Leopard’s head bore the distinctive crown that marked it as pre-1821 London silver, and there – clear as daylight now – was the Gothicithat confirmed it was dated 1744.
But it was the maker’s mark that made her heart skid.PLsat clearly in a distinctive rectangular punch; but this wasn’t just any Paul de Lamerie mark. Cross-referencing with her battered copy of Jackson’sSilver & Gold Marks, she traced the evolution of his registered marks through his extraordinary career. This stamp dated from his most celebrated period, when his workshop on Gerrard Street was producing pieces for the greatest names in Georgian society.
The book fell open at a familiar passage about Lamerie’s clientele – aristocrats, politicians, nouveau riche merchants desperate for status. His work graced the tables of dukes and earls, and court favourites. Each piece a statement of wealthand taste, an investment in a social currency then passed down through generations.
Christina right sided the cup, her fingertips already exploring the surface as her expert eyes searched for details. The rococo decoration felt familiar under her touch, but there was something else – tiny engravings that registered more clearly under her fingers than her eyes. She traced them, feeling the work of a genius, then leaned closer with the loupe to decipher what her hands revealed. There, nestled among a spray of acanthus leaves: a thistle, no larger than her fingernail but perfectly formed. She gasped, then spun the cup around and dipped her head to examine the other side. Hidden in the swirling patterns, she found a rose entwined with oak sprigs. These weren’t random decorative elements – they were symbols loaded with political meaning. The thistle for Scotland, the rose and oak for the ancient emblems of Jacobite loyalty.
With shaky fingers, she lifted the lid from the cup. Her breath misted the gilded interior as she leaned closer, the loupe’s metal rim digging into her eye socket. She heard her own heartbeat drumming in her ears.
There, scratched into the gold in script so fine it was almost invisible, hidden where no casual observer would ever think to look, was a line of words. Christina’s hand shook as she angled the cup toward the light, the engravings emerging like secrets rising to the surface.
Her throat went dry as she read:Slàinte mhòr don Phrionnsa.
The workshop seemed to spin around her: could that be Gaelic? She picked up her phone, her fingers fumbling as she taped the words in to translate. The screen glowed back at her, and her heart skipped a beat.Great health to the Prince.
Bonnie Prince Charlie. The Young Pretender, whose doomed attempt to reclaim his grandfather’sthrone had ended in the slaughter at the battle of Culloden.
Everything clicked into place. Someone commissioned this cup in 1744, just as Jacobite hopes were rising toward their final, fatal gamble a year later. Hamish’s ancestors were from Scotland – wealthy enough to afford Paul de Lamerie’s finest work, brave enough to declare their loyalty in precious metal. They must have ordered this piece as both a ceremonial object and a political manifesto. Perhaps a Highland lord, answering the prince’s call, smuggled the cup north from London to Scotland in his baggage train.
The family would have hidden it away after Culloden and the brutal suppression that followed. Too dangerous to display under the savage anti-Jacobite laws, too precious to destroy, the cup passed through the generations. Rumours replaced knowledge, then silence replaced the rumours, until finally, the family possessed only a tarnished cup.
Christina ran her hands over her face. If she was right, the historical importance alone would make it priceless. But add the exceptional craftsmanship, the rarity of such pieces surviving ... she could hardly believe her own estimates of value.
Five to seven million pounds.
Possibly more at a specialist auction where collectors and museums would fight for the privilege of ownership. It would cause a sensation – newspaper headlines, scholarly articles, documentary crews descending on the estate like locusts. The art world would go mad for it.
Here she sat, Tina from Glasgow, looked down upon by the family whose aristocratic pretensions couldn’t quite mask their genteel decline. And she held in her hands the key to their financial salvation – enough money to restore the estate, buy another house for her own family, pay off whatever debts Hugo had accumulated in his steady drinking career, and finance Lady Flora’s care where she belonged, in her own home.
She thought about Hamish, imagining him working in theManor’s library, probably bent over some Tudor manuscript, oblivious to the revolution sitting less than a mile away.
Taking a steadying breath, she picked up her phone with trembling fingers. This was the conversation she had started twice before, circling like a courtier seeking an audience, only to bow out before reaching the throne. Not this time. This time she had something that would change everything. The loving cup – worth a fortune, and she would be the bearer of the marvellous news. Ernest would be thrilled, grateful even. When she told him what she’d discovered, surely all talk of ‘the Great Matter’ would stop. The family fortune would be restored, they would welcome her with open arms at last, and Hamish would remember why he married the canny Glaswegian girl with a love of silverware. A heady rush of certainty surged through her. Everything was about to be different. Everything was about to be wonderful.
