Chapter Fourteen
Cecilia woke to unfamiliar surroundings.
For a long, disorienting moment, she did not know where she was.
The ceiling above her was painted with delicate pastoral scenes—shepherdesses and lambs, improbable flowers in impossible colours.
The bed beneath her was soft—far softer than anything she had slept on in years—and the sheets smelled of lavender and something else… something expensive.
Then memory returned, flooding through her like sunlight through a parted curtain.
The ball. The silver dress. Sebastian’s hand in hers. His voice asking her to dance. The announcement, the applause.
The lost pearl.
She sat up abruptly, her heart tightening with renewed anxiety. Her mother’s necklace lay on the dressing table, one pearl missing, the gap visible even from across the room.
She had to find it. She had to search the ballroom, the terrace, every inch of ground she had crossed. The pearl could not simply have vanished.
She threw back the covers and rose, ignoring the protests of muscles stiff from the previous night’s exertions. The clock on the mantel showed half past eight—later than she usually slept, though hardly unreasonable given the hour she had finally fallen into bed.
A day dress had been laid out for her—not grey, she noticed with a small shock. Soft blue, simply cut but well-made, clearly borrowed from someone’s wardrobe. Helena’s doing, no doubt. Helena thought of everything.
Cecilia dressed quickly, her fingers fumbling at the buttons in her haste. She did not trouble with elaborate arrangements for her hair—she merely pinned it back from her face in a practical style that would not hinder her search.
The pearl. She had to find the pearl.
She was reaching for the door when a knock sounded from the other side.
“Miss Ashwood?” Helena’s voice—calm, composed. “Are you awake?”
Cecilia opened the door to find her standing in the corridor, a tea tray balanced in her hands.
“I was about to go and search for the pearl,” Cecilia said at once.
“I thought you might be. That is why I brought tea.” Helena moved past her into the room and set the tray on a small table near the window. “You should eat first—and we should discuss our approach.”
“Approach?”
“The ballroom is being cleaned already. If the pearl fell there, a maid may have found it—or swept it away without noticing. We ought to speak to the housekeeper before you begin crawling about on the floor.”
It was sensible, practically delivered. Cecilia wanted to protest—wanted to rush downstairs and begin searching immediately—but she recognised the wisdom in Helena’s reasoning.
“Very well.” She sat, accepting the cup of tea Helena poured. “But quickly. I cannot bear waiting.”
“I understand.” Helena settled opposite her, cup in hand. “How do you feel—aside from your concern about the pearl?”
It was a question Cecilia had not permitted herself to consider. She had been too intent upon the necklace to examine anything else.
“I do not know,” she said at last. “None of it feels real. The ball, the engagement… the fact that I am sitting here in a borrowed dress, drinking tea in a guest room at Fairholme Park, instead of moving quietly about Thornfield, doing my duties and trying not to be noticed.”
“It is real. I assure you.”
“My mind knows it. My heart is still catching up.” She took a grateful sip of tea. “Is the Duke awake? Sebastian?”
“He has been up for hours, I believe. The Dowager told me he came to speak with her late last night—I informed her about the missing pearl, and she passed the news to him.” Helena’s expression gentled.
“He was walking the grounds at dawn. Searching, I suspect—for the pearl. He asked the groundskeeper to have the terrace examined at first light. He seemed quite determined.”
Something loosened in Cecilia’s chest—a knot she had not known was there. Sebastian was searching for her pearl. He understood its meaning. He was trying to help.
“He is a good man,” she said quietly.
“He is. Better than most realise.” Helena set down her teacup. “Now, finish your breakfast, and we will go speak with the housekeeper about the ballroom. If the pearl is anywhere in this house, we will find it.”
***
The housekeeper was a formidable woman named Mrs Crawford, with iron-grey hair and an expression that suggested she had seen everything and was impressed by none of it.
“A pearl,” she repeated, when Cecilia had explained the situation. “From a necklace. Lost sometime during the ball.”
“Yes. It is… it was my mother’s. One of the few things I have left of her.” Cecilia loathed the pleading note that crept into her voice, but she could not help it. “If there is any chance it was found during the cleaning—”
“I shall ask the maids. Had any of them discovered a loose pearl, they would have brought it to me.” Mrs Crawford’s expression softened almost imperceptibly.
“You are welcome to search the ballroom yourself, Miss Ashwood. The cleaning is nearly finished, but I can have the staff delay the final polishing until you have looked.”
“Thank you. I am very grateful.”
The ballroom, in daylight, was a different creature entirely.
Without candlelight or music or the swirl of dancers, it was merely a vast room with very high ceilings and a faint, weary air of aftermath.
The flowers drooped in their vases; a few crushed petals and abandoned dance cards lingered in the corners, the last traces of the night’s festivities.
The enchantment had faded, leaving only the prosaic remains of celebration.
Cecilia moved through the room methodically, examining every inch of floor with desperate care.
She searched the places where she had stood, where she had danced, where she had received congratulations.
She went down on her hands and knees to peer beneath furniture, ignoring the curious glances of the maids who were waiting to resume their work.
Nothing. The pearl was not here.
“Perhaps the terrace,” Helena suggested at last, when Cecilia straightened, her knees aching and her heart sinking. “I believe you were outside for some time.”
“Yes. The terrace.”
They made their way through the French doors onto the stone terrace where Cecilia had stood with Sebastian just hours before.
In daylight, it was less romantic—just a stretch of weathered stone overlooking a garden settling toward winter—yet Cecilia remembered the stars, the cold air, the warmth of Sebastian’s hands.
She had been wearing the pearls then. She had felt them at her throat as she stood beside him beneath the night sky. The pearl might have fallen here—might be lodged between stones, hidden in some narrow crevice, waiting to be found.
She dropped to her knees again, ignoring the damp seeping through her She dropped to her knees once more, heedless of the damp seeping through her borrowed gown. Her fingers traced the edges of the flagstones, probed the gaps between them, searched every shadow and fissure.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“It is not here,” she said at last, sinking back on her heels. Her voice emerged thick and strained with tears she was fighting not to shed. “It is gone. I have lost it.”
“We do not yet know that—”
“I have searched everywhere. The ballroom, the terrace—every place I remember standing. If it were here, I should have found it.” She pressed her hands to her face, struggling for composure.
“It was my mother’s… the last piece of her I possessed.
And I lost it because I was too busy being happy to notice—”
“Cecilia.”
The voice was not Helena’s.
She looked up to find Sebastian standing in the doorway, his expression taut with concern. He was dressed for the outdoors—boots, a heavy coat—and there was mud on his trousers, as though he had been walking the grounds.
“Helena,” he said, without looking away from Cecilia, “would you give us a moment?”
Helena withdrew silently, pulling the French doors closed behind her.
Sebastian crossed the terrace to where Cecilia was.
“I have been searching since dawn,” he said. “The groundskeeper and I covered the entire terrace, the paths, and the areas where we walked. I had hoped—” He stopped, shook his head. “I have not found it yet.”
She swallowed. “Then it is gone.”
“No.” His reply was quiet, but firm. “I will not stop looking.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The pale morning light lay across the flagstones; somewhere in the garden, a bird called, thin and wistful.
When he spoke again, his tone was different—gentler, almost reverent.
“She wore them often, did she not?”
Cecilia looked at him, startled—then nodded, tears spilling over despite herself.
“Yes,” she whispered. “She wore them when she played the pianoforte… in the evenings, when my father read. She used to sing—she had the softest voice. And she believed in me—always. She said women were not incapable, merely… less permitted.”
“She sounds like a very wise woman.”
“She was.” Cecilia drew a breath that trembled. “She died when I was twelve. Those pearls were… part of her. And now—”
His hand rose and brushed a tear from her cheek—not dramatic, simply tender.
“They are part of you,” he said quietly. “All that she taught you—all she was—none of that is lost because a single pearl has slipped free.”
Her eyes closed. “I know. But it… matters.”
“Yes.” His voice softened further. “It does.”
He hesitated—then added, almost as if admitting a confidence:
“I keep my father’s pocket-watch in my desk. It has not worked in years, yet I cannot bring myself to have it mended. The last time it ticked… he was alive.” A faint breath. “We are not rational creatures where love is concerned.”
She looked at him—truly looked—and something inside her eased.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “For not making me feel foolish.”
“You are not foolish,” he said. He squeezed her hands. “Now. Let us be practical. Where else might the pearl have fallen? When did you last notice the necklace was whole?”