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Anthony signaled the jeweller, and the ring was lifted carefully from its cushion.
“A moment, Your Grace...” the jeweller said. “...for the fitting.” He took Leonora’s hand and slid the ring onto her finger, turning it once. “A touch loose, My Lady. A day or two in the workshop will see to it.”
Anthony nodded. “That is acceptable.”
The jeweller made to remove it again, and Leonora found herself looking down at her own hand a moment longer, the sapphire catching the lamplight, small and dark and oddly convincing against her skin.
It was only a ring. It was only a ring chosen for a lie they were both telling for entirely practical reasons.
She was not certain why her chest had gone the slightest bit tight over it.
He slipped it free of her finger, and Leonora felt the loss of it rather more than she expected to, a small, foolish weight she had not known she was carrying until it was gone.
“Send it to Glenhaven the moment it is ready,” Anthony said.
“Of course, Your Grace.”
They stepped back out onto the street a few minutes later, the transaction concluded with considerably less ceremony than Leonora had anticipated for an object apparently significant enough to require her personal opinion. The afternoon had grown no warmer, the sky no less grey, and yet something about the last hour had left her feeling strangely unsettled in a manner she could not entirely blame on the cold.
“Well,” Anthony said. “That is done, at least.”
“Yes.” Leonora pulled her cloak more securely about her shoulders. “I suppose it is.”
“I know it is inconveniencing but again, you need not wear it a moment longer than my grandmother’s presence requires.”
Leonora dropped a small curtsy and smiled. “I shall see you back at Glenhaven, then, Your Grace.”
He inclined his head, and Leonora turned then to leave. She walked on alone, grateful to put a little distance between herself and the strange, unsettled feeling still sitting in her chest. There was her mother’s trail to think of instead, the jeweller two streets over she had not yet called upon, the question of whether anyone in this city still remembered a woman who had vanished from it years ago.
That was the search that mattered. That was the thing worth the ache in her feet and the cold creeping under her cloak.
It had nothing at all to do with a sapphire ring, or the foreign, unwelcome weight of having worn it, however briefly, however falsely.
She told herself this quite firmly, and did not entirely believe it.
CHAPTER TEN
“Now, this one...” Marian said. “...is the reason I no longer trust a calico cat to keep a secret.”
Leonora looked up from her needlework, glad of any excuse to set it down. She was hopeless with a needle and thread, always had been, and the piece in her lap looked less like a handkerchief and more like something that had survived a skirmish. “A secret, Your Grace?”
“Watch her.” Marian nodded toward the striped, orange and white creature curled on the windowsill, tail twitching. “That is Fortune, and Fortune, my dear, is almost certainly not a tom, whatever the stable boy insists.”
“How can you tell, if I may ask?”
“Because a calico is nearly always a female. It has been remarked upon for as long as anyone has kept cats, though no one has ever quite explained why. My own grandmother swore it was a rule of nature stricter than any entail. A tom born with that coat is rare.” Marian’s eyes crinkled with satisfaction. “The stable boy insists Fortune is a tom because he named her before he looked properly, and now he is too proud to admit his error. So he calls her a tom, I call her Fortune and we are both perfectly content to disagree.”
Leonora laughed, surprising herself with how easily it came. “That seems a very sensible arrangement.”
“It is the only kind worth having.” Marian reached to stroke the cat’s ear, and Fortune allowed it with the air of a creature granting a favor. “Cats do not waste time arguing over what cannot be changed. People could learn a great deal from them, if people were not so determined to be right about everything.”
“I shall try to remember that the next time I am determined to be right about something.”
“Oh, you will fail,” Marian said comfortably. “But it is a fine intention all the same.” She nodded toward another of the cats, a sleek black creature stretched along the back of the sofa. “That one is Bonaparte, and he is the reason I no longer allow the footmen to leave the study door open. He has a great fondness for knocking things from the mantel and watching them fall, purely, I am convinced, to see whether I will scold him for it. Cats are terrible flatterers of themselves. They believe every mischief they commit is a kind of gift to the household.”
“Perhaps he simply enjoys your company enough to want your attention, however he must earn it.”
Marian clicked her tongue. “Do not defend him to me, Leonora. You have not had to replace three inkwells this month alone.” But Marian was smiling as she said it, and Bonaparte, entirely unbothered by the accusation, yawned and resettled himself more comfortably.
