Chapter Twenty-Six
She sat before she 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 crack the 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.
She crossed to the bed, sat again, and tried to breathe in even rhythm.
It was still just a brooch.
It had not changed.
But dear god, she had.
*
She didn’t sleep. Not in the way that mattered.
At some point in the night, she lay down fully dressed, the brooch locked in its velvet box, the box sealed in the drawer beneath her stockings. But her thoughts never slowed. They circled. They clung.
Her mother’s face would not come without the brooch. She tried to imagine what Gabriel might say. Would he demand answers, or worse, stop asking altogether?
The moonlight shifted across the floorboards. Once, she rose and stood at the window, as if she might find certainty in the darkness beyond the streetlamps.
But there was nothing to be done.
Until morning.
She remembered the errand her aunt had mentioned in passing, the clasp on her necklace, the need for a proper cleaner, the familiar name: Turnbull & Sons. The kind of shop that opened at dawn and closed before luncheon.
Leticia left a note with the maid just before six, her script tidy despite the tremor in her hand. She dressed plainly but carefully, choosing her simplest walking cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. If Aunt Margaret stirred and found her gone, she’d only think her prompt.
Not hiding or chasing something. Just a task, early and innocent.
By the time the street lamps dimmed, Leticia was already halfway to Cross Street.
*
Leticia arrived just as he unlocked the front doors, her gloved hand tightening around the handle of her reticule.
“Lady Salisbury,” Mr. Turnbull said with a deferential nod. “You’re early.”
“My aunt asked me to fetch some cleaner for her necklace,” she replied, careful to keep her voice light. “She wants to wear it today, and the clasp has dulled.”
He smiled and gestured her inside. “Of course. Just a moment. I keep it in the back. Please, make yourself comfortable while I fetch it.”
The bell above the door gave a soft chime as it shut behind her. She moved past the display case of rings and came to a stand of brooches near the window. They were delicate pieces, many antique. She scanned them absently and abruptly paused.
Letica stared at a brooch nearly identical to hers.
A circle of diamonds. A dark stone in the center. Not exactly like hers, but close enough to steal her breath.
When Mr. Turnbull returned with a small bottle wrapped in paper, she stepped aside but didn’t move away.
“That brooch,” she said, nodding toward the case. “The one with the sapphire.”
“Ah, yes. A fine piece,” he said, stepping around the counter. “Would you like to see it?”
“If you don’t mind.”
He opened the case and lifted the brooch with a velvet cloth, holding it carefully. “There’s a bit of a secret to this one,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Hold it to the light just so, and you’ll see.”
He angled it toward the windowpane, letting the light strike the gold backing.
Leticia leaned in. There, glinting faintly beneath the clasp, was an engraving.
Not a raven. Not a diamond. A rose. Simple, unguarded, human.
“It was part of a set,” Turnbull added.
Her breath caught. “A set?”
“It was part of a private estate sale. A lovely collection, though each piece was different. Most had hidden marks. A rose, a harp, a stag. Some romantic tradition, I imagine.”
Leticia’s lips parted, but no words came.
“Do you know which estate?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even and calm.
“Lady Templeton,” he said with easy confidence.
“She had an extensive collection of etched stones similar to this one. Her ladyship passed some years ago. Her solicitor handled the sale. That brooch came to me through a small auction, held just a week before the Morton estate’s first dispersal, if memory serves.
The rose caught attention for its beauty, that was all.
” He smiled faintly. “No secrets tucked behind that one.”
She thanked him, took the cleaner, and stepped back into the street with the morning sun low behind her. The air was crisp, the town quiet. Her feet found the familiar rhythm homeward.
It was 8:06 when she stepped through the front door.
*
The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that pressed in rather than settled. Ashcombe Hall did not sleep. It waited.
Gabriel moved through the corridor with his trousers tucked into worn boots, waistcoat unbuttoned, sleeves rolled. He’d been up since before the sky turned gray. Tea had gone cold beside him. The library fire had died sometime after four.
He hadn’t meant to wander, but the silence had made him restless.
He passed the study, ignored the front drawing room, and found himself in the main hall, long and shadowed, lit only by the faint bleed of early morning through the high windows. The portraits lined the wall in silent procession.
His gaze swept over familiar faces. Lords and ladies of Ash’s past. The uncle who’d raised him. And farther down, a canvas that had once meant little, a study of three young people in Vienna. It had been painted in haste, commissioned by someone who cared more for fashion than fidelity.
And yet.
He slowed.
His Uncle Robbie stood in the middle with Lady Margaret on one side. Her pearl necklace caught the light even in oils.
His gaze shifted.
Another, younger woman with darker hair and almond-shaped eyes stood on his uncle’s other side. She wore no necklace. But the shape of her mouth was familiar.
A smile crept across his face, Leticia’s mother.
And there, pinned to her gown, half-lost in the shadows of the paint, but glinting somehow despite it—
The brooch.
He stepped closer.
Even in oils, the center gem shimmered. The artist had rendered it too well, perhaps an indulgence. Gabriel leaned in, brow furrowed, following the way the light pooled around the diamonds, the subtle shading at the clasp.
He didn’t see a mark. Of course, he didn’t.
But something in him recoiled.
He stepped back. Crossed his arms. Tried to shrug it off.
It could be a coincidence. A family trinket. A resemblance. But instinct didn’t work on evidence. Instinct worked on the skin, the breath, the way his gut drew tight when things didn’t align.
And something didn’t align.
He left the hall without looking back.
*
Leticia stepped into the morning room just after eight. The maid had taken her cloak as well as the bottle from Turnbull’s. Aunt Margaret’s voice filtered in from the dining room, cheerful and equally as sharp.
She hadn’t meant to be so quick, but she hadn’t lingered. She was home. On time. Composed.
At 8:14, the bell at the front gave a soft chime.
The door opened.
Leticia turned just as Gabriel entered the morning room, coat still unbuttoned, a hint of wind clinging to his hair.
“You’re early,” she said, her voice low.
“So are you.”
He didn’t ask where she’d been. She didn’t offer.
He came closer.
“I wanted to see you before Barrington arrived,” he said.
Leticia glanced around the room. “You have succeeded.”
A silence followed, brief but full.
“I thought of you this morning,” he said quietly. “I wondered if you’d slept.”
“I didn’t.”
His eyes searched hers, but only for a moment. Slowly, carefully, he reached for her hand.
He lifted it to his lips, not rushed, not showy. His mouth brushed the inside of her wrist, just above the glove’s edge.
Her breath faltered.
“I’ll be at your side today,” he murmured. “Whatever it brings.”
Leticia didn’t speak. But her fingers curled lightly around his, holding them there just a moment longer.
From the hallway, Aunt Margaret’s voice rose. “Gabriel, do come in, we’ve just sat down!”
He released her hand with a last touch and stepped away, the moment closing shut behind him like a page turned.
Leticia followed.