By late afternoon, Lady Eastbury returned. They took another cup of tea to please her. She listened while they repeated the next day’s order and approved the plan once more, adding a slight adjustment to remind them she could.
When it was time, Gabriel rose. He had an appointment of his own and the habit of keeping it. Lady Eastbury saw him to the door, told him she would expect him for breakfast at half past eight if he arrived early, and that he would get a plate even if he did not. Hethanked her with his usual quiet courtesy.
Leticia walked with him to the front step. The air had cooled with the autumn afternoon. He looked out across the street as if testing the evening, turned back to her.
“Until tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow,” she answered.
He did not reach for her hand in the open doorway. He did not need to. The look they exchanged held more promise than touch could have managed. He went down the steps and set off along the pavement with an easy stride. She stood where she was until he reached the corner. He paused there and lifted his hand the smallest degree. He went on and was lost to the turn.
She climbed the stairs to her room and crossed to the window. From there, she could see the corner and the bit of pavement beyond. She set her hand to the frame and leaned into the view. She had not meant to do it. She did it anyway. She watched the place where he had gone out of sight and felt her heart lean after him with more certainty than she had allowed herself before. She was close to an answer. Not a distant one, a near one.
She had only days left to give him that answer. Not many. Enough to be honest.
She let the curtain fall back into place and turned toward the dressing table. The late light struck the glass and threw a small gold square onto the wood. The box lay where she had left it, neat, ordinary, wrapped in soft cloth inside. Her mother’s brooch belonged to a life that had once looked simple. It might belong to a different story than the one she had told herself. The thought came and stood its ground.
She pushed the idea aside, not banished, not settled, set aside so the rest of the evening could sit without wobbling. She sat at the table and smoothed the cloth there as if smoothing a page that had picked up a crease and would soon be read. The room sounded like itself: a small sound from the street, a faint clink from the kitchen below, theclock on the mantel keeping an even count.
Tomorrow would be full. There would be answers to ask for and questions to hold back. There would be Barrington at nine and the matter of polish at Turnbull and Sons. There would be the quiet place in the garden she could carry with her. There would be the memory of a kiss that did not ask twice.
She drew a breath that reached all the way down. She opened the latch.
Chapter Twenty-Six
She sat beforeshe knew she had to. The bed gave beneath her, the box still open at her side, but all she saw was the brooch. All she could feel was its weight resting against her lifeline.
She had never asked where it came from. Her mother had pressed it into her hand on a summer afternoon after a fitting, no ceremony, no story. Only, “It suits you better than it ever suited me.”
She’d kept it hidden. Not because she knew it was dangerous, not even because her aunt would disapprove, but because… because it had felt like a secret. And now she couldn’t decide if that made her mother clever or cruel.
A raven in a diamond.
Her fingers closed around it. Not tightly. She didn’t dare. She’d seen a sketch once in Gabriel’s papers. She hadn’t understood it then. She hadn’t needed to.
She did now.
What if she’d been wearing it at the museum?
The thought landed like a blow. The air thinned. Her chest refused the next breath. She stood abruptly, carried the brooch to the small writing desk by the window, and set it down beneath the light. Her hands shook only a little, but it was enough to rattle the lid as she closed the box around it.
She didn’t lock it.
She didn’t dare.
A knock at her door would undo her. Her aunt’s voice would crackthe illusion she was still building, that this could be nothing and that the mark was a coincidence. That her mother…
She stowed the box in the back of her desk drawer as she pressed her hand to her brow.
Her mother must have known. She was too precise not to. Too careful. That brooch had been chosen. Given. Protected. Not by accident.
But if Aunt Margaret knew, she’d ask why it was given to Leticia. Why it had been kept quiet. Why Leticia had waited until now to even look for the truth.
And worse still, if Gabriel saw it. The panic rose without warning. Not fury. Not even shame.
Loss.
The sudden, suffocating terror that he would turn from her. That he would think she was part of it. That the kisses he’d given her, the ones she hadn’t let herself dream about, would be the last.
