Page 92 of The Boxing Baroness

Sin smiled at that monumental oversight. “No, you didn’t mention that.”

“Do you want to see it?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” She snorted. “At least I don’t have to worry about you blackmailing me. The locket is on the dresser inside that enamel box.”

The box in question was lovely and looked costly as well as very old, although Sin was no expert on such matters.

He lifted the lid, momentarily startled at the size of the locket. It had the look of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The ruby on the front—if it was genuine—would be worth a fortune.

“I can’t believe Barnabas didn’t strip it and sell the jewels,” she said.

That had been Sin’s thought, too.

He pushed the small catch and the locket popped open. The miniature was the work of a master, the rendering so lifelike that you almost expected the woman to be breathing.

Sin opened the built-in frame, which was hinged opposite to the hinge that closed the locket. Running along the bottom righthand curve of the miniature was the name C. Horneman.

Sin hadn’t heard of him, but then the only miniatures he knew much about were the dozen or so that hung in the gallery at Wortham. Most of those were several hundred years old. If this was indeed Marianne’s mother—and the resemblance was clear—then the painter was a contemporary.

He looked up to find her watching him.

“She looks like me, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, the same shape of eyes and face.” And also the same lovely, pearly skin, which the painter had captured with a slight flush. “Did Barnabas say where the other miniature was?”

She frowned. “What other miniature?”

He walked over to her chair and dropped to his haunches. “See here—” He opened the frame around her mother’s picture.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you could do that.” She glanced up at him. “Do you think it would damage the picture to take it out?”

“I shouldn’t think so.” He took his pen knife from his pocket and handed it to her.

The miniature popped out easily.

“It’s thicker than I thought,” she said, turning the tiny painting over in her palm and lifting it closer to her face. “It looks like ivory.”

Sin glanced from the miniature to the wide-open locket. “Look, Marianne. There’s another inscription behind it.” He squinted, struggling to read the small writing without his reading glasses. “Can you read it?”

“Tu es le gardien de mon coeur. D.,” Marianne read aloud.

You are the keeper of my heart. D.

She looked from the locket to Sin. “Is she D? Or N?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “but the presence of two inscriptions indicates the miniature was part of a pair.”

Marianne stared down at the picture, her expression blank.

Sin had questions, dozens of them, but she looked so very vulnerable and tired that he didn’t have the heart to ask them.

“Come, why don’t you lie down,” he said, gently taking the heavy necklace from her unresisting hand and returning it to the dresser.

She scowled up at him when he offered his arm to help her up.

“I’m fine—you heard the doctor say that himself earlier—after I told you that I was fine and that you were not to send for him,” she added.