“Yes, of course.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of notes.
She stared. “No, I didn’t mean you should give me money. I wanted to ask you to get some for me. Papa left money in trust for me, but it’ll take some time for the lawyers to release it. In the meantime I’ll need money.”
He looked rather taken aback. And intrigued. “How do you mean to do that?” He did not put his money away.
“I want you to sell some jewels for me.” She took out the rolled fabric and showed him the jewels she had unpicked, hoping they would be enough.
He bent over the fabric, fascinated. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Which piece do you mean?”
“This.” He seized the fabric and lifted it so it unrolled. She managed to catch the loose jewels before they fell to the floor.
“It is!” he exclaimed. “It’s a petticoat!”
She snatched it out of his hands.
“So you were smuggling after all,” he said. “I’m marrying a beautiful jewel smuggler.”
“I was not smuggling,” she snapped, bundling the petticoat up in embarrassment. “I carried them sewn into my petticoat for fear of thieves.”
“Some people would call Customs and Excise officers and the taxes they enforce a kind of thieving, but we won’t quibble.” He observed the remaining lumps and bumps still sewn into the petticoat. “Would these be one of the reasons Count Anton is pursuing you?”
“No! They are all my own jewels. None of them belong to the royal house of Zindaria—and you need not look at me like that, they don’t.”
“I was simply thinking how indignation makes your eyes sparkle brighter than any emeralds.”
She decided to ignore that. He was a master of distraction.
“These are all jewels Papa or Rupert gave me: for my betrothal, for my wedding, for birthdays and other occasions. My husband was always very clear and specific about which things belonged to me personally, which were family jewels, and which belonged to the crown. I have brought only those which belong to me, personally. These pearls, for instance, Papa gave me for my sixteenth birthday. I wore them at my wedding.”
“Then you are most certainly not going to sell them.”
She looked at him in frustration. Only this afternoon he had promised not to ride roughshod over her decisions and now, here he was arguing with her. “They are mine to sell.”
“And what if you have a daughter?”
She stared at him in surprise. “I won’t.” She’d had one child in nine years of marriage, and now she was entering a paper marriage. How did he imagine she would have another child?
He set his jaw stubbornly. “You might. But even if you don’t, when Nicky takes a bride, wouldn’t you like him to give her his mother’s pearls to wear at her wedding? Or if one day he has a daughter going to her first grown-up party, wouldn’t she feel special wearing her granny’s pearls?”
She hesitated. She hadn’t thought of Nicky wanting any of her jewels. She’d only thought of them as her funds to start a new life. “Why do you care?”
He shrugged and looked away. “It’s just that I know that women can be sentimental about things. Like that tiara of yours. It matters to you that it belonged to your mother.”
“Yes, it does.”
“So you wouldn’t think of selling that.”
She laughed. “No, I wouldn’t, but not for the reason you imagine.”
“Why not?”
“Because the diamonds in my mother’s tiara are paste.”
His jaw dropped.
“I told you my mother was from a very distinguished, very poor family—all the jewels were paste in the end. But they are very good quality paste and will fool all but an expert.” She grinned. “As Mama used to say: ‘We are, after all, royalty; if my jewels are to be paste they must be the finest paste in Europe.’”
