The Earl's London Bride

by Lauren Royal

  “Oh, many things.” She jumped up to sit beside him, sifting through the jewels until she found an oval, coral-colored cameo and handed it to him shyly.

  He smiled down at it. Set into a braided gold bezel, the intricate carving was a profile of a beautiful young woman. She wore a little necklace of twisted gold wire with a tiny diamond pendant attached.

  Colin narrowed his eyes and looked more closely. “She looks like you,” he suddenly realized, and she giggled.

  “Papa said the same thing. I didn’t hold with that at the time, but then Mama agreed, and others, and I finally decided she must be me after all. Although I swear I hadn’t intended to carve a likeness of myself. See, her hair is loose, and I never used to wear my hair that way.”

  “Yet you’ve worn it loose since the fire. Why did you change it?”

  “I never learned how to plait it myself.” She thought a minute, frowning. “It seems to fit my life now; I feel like a different person.” She shrugged. “I wore it plaited for practical reasons—I couldn’t work with it billowing about, getting in the way. And I haven’t made much jewelry the last few months, have I?”

  “No, you surely haven’t,” he agreed with a wry smile. “I fancy it loose, anyway.”

  “Do you really?”

  Colin cleared his throat. Now, why had he said that? “She truly looks like you now, at any rate,” he rushed to say, hoping to gloss over the thoughtless remark. He held the cameo between a finger and thumb, glancing back and forth between Amy and her likeness. The resemblance was unmistakable. “May I have it?” he asked, surprising himself.

  Amy beamed. “Oh, yes, I would love for you to have it! And anything else you want,” she added, gesturing at the pile on the bed.

  He laughed at that, pleased with her generosity, for he didn’t know what he’d have said had she refused him.

  He really wanted the cameo.

  “No, this will do nicely. I thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The underlying warmth in her voice enchanted him. She seemed genuinely happy to give him the trinket. He wondered if she had any idea how much it meant to him.

  The cameo was but one piece from a virtual treasure trove of jewelry. Looking over the pile on the bed, mentally adding it to the amount littering the floor and left in the trunk, he came to the conclusion the trunk had been nearly full. Why, it was a cache any pirate wouldn’t hesitate to kill for!

  He shook his head, chiding himself for not realizing the contents of the trunk, and at the same time amazed at her deft concealment of it. The more he learned about her, the more he admired her. She had a streak of self-preservation that ran deep.

  He set aside the cameo and sifted through the jewelry on the bed until something caught his eye—a brooch in the shape of a bow, encrusted with tiny rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. “This is a pretty piece. Did you make it also?”

  Amy nodded. “There are many similar pieces here. Galants, they’re called, and very popular. I think we could all make them in our sleep.” She smiled at the memory. “Shall I give it to Kendra, do you think? And we should choose something for Jason and Ford, too.” Her face lit up at the idea. “Everyone was so kind to me—why didn’t I think of this before?”

  “Because you would have shocked us silly.” When she laughed, Colin joined in. “Regardless, it’s not necessary,” he assured her. Chances were Amy would be living off this jewelry in the months and years to come; she shouldn’t be giving things away.

  “I want to do it.” She dropped to the floor, already delving into the trunk for the perfect gifts.

  “No.” He put a hand on her arm.

  She shook it off. “I insist.” Gems flashed as she rummaged around, her attention wholly focused on the jewelry. “It was a terrible lack of manners on my part; I must thank them for their hospitality.”

  He gave up. She rivaled the Chases for stubbornness; he’d give her that.

  After much searching and good-natured bickering, they settled on an aigrette for Ford. Of all the brothers, he liked to dandy-up a bit, and the fancy pin would make a smart statement on his hat.

  Jason was another story. Amy insisted on giving him a large pocket watch with an enamelled face and an open-work lid set with one enormous oval sapphire and eight smaller ones.

  “It’s too much,” Colin protested. “Besides, he has a pocket watch.”

  “I’ve seen it. It’s small and has no lid. The Marquess of Cainewood should pull out an impressive watch to check the time. Papa had someone just like Jason in mind when he made this.”

  “Here’s a nice, large watch.” Colin pointed out a likely specimen with a solid, simply engraved lid.

  “No. I want him to have this one. He opened up his home to me, Colin—”

  “I didn’t leave him much of a choice,” he interrupted wryly.

  “That doesn’t signify. He was perfectly wonderful to me, and this is the least I can do. Besides, Robert made that one. I want him to have one my father made.”

  “Robert?”

  “Robert Stanley. Our apprentice.”

  “Your apprentice?” Twisting his ring, he had a sudden vision of an insolent blunt-featured young man leaning against the archway to Goldsmith & Son’s back room. “You mean the red-haired fellow?”

  She shot him an appraising glance. “You remember him?”

  Distrustful pale blue eyes. He remembered, all right.

  That settled it. Not only was Amy intractable, but Colin didn’t want anyone in his family to own anything made by that apprentice. He felt uneasy just thinking about the man.

  Amy was already wrapping up the remaining jewelry. He set the pocket watch with their other choices and began to help her. “Whatever happened to him? Do you know?”

  “Who?”

  “The apprentice. Robert.” He disliked even saying his name.

  Her hands stilled for a moment. “I have no idea. He went off to help fight the fire, and I never saw him again.” She toyed with a flannel square. “I was supposed to marry him.”

  “Were you, now?” No wonder Robert had acted so hostile. An imagined scenario popped into Colin’s mind, of Amy kissing the freckled, carrot-topped apprentice. It made him sick in his gut, and the question came out of his mouth before he could catch himself. “Do you love him?”

  “No.” Amy tensed visibly as she folded the flannel around a bracelet. “My father arranged the marriage when I was born. It had taken my parents many years to have a child, and he suspected they’d never have another. Lacking a son, he needed someone to run the shop, and he’d known the Stanleys forever.” She moved to the trunk to set the bracelet inside, then returned to the bed. “My betrothal papers burned in the fire. It was the only good thing that came of it.”

  Colin released his breath, which he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Just because he couldn’t have Amy didn’t mean he wanted some dolt like Robert to get her.

  Yet she had to marry…all girls had to marry. “Isn’t he still expecting you to wed him?”

  “That matters not.” She slipped a topaz ring on her finger and pulled it off again. “I would never have wed him of my own free will.”

  “What of the church records?” he reminded her. “He may think to use those to hold you to the betrothal.”

  She shrugged, still gazing at the ring. “We were betrothed during the Commonwealth.”

  Colin nodded. The Puritans considered marriage solely a matter between the couple and the state, not a pledge before God. During Cromwell’s rule, weddings had been performed by a Justice of the Peace, and betrothals had taken place without ceremony.

  He lifted a torsade of pearls. “Still, you must wed, Amy. With these jewels you could buy a title—”

  “And marry a nobleman?” The topaz ring fell from her hand to the bed, and her eyes burned into his. “No. I’d never be able to reestablish Goldsmith and Sons.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t.” Absently, he fingered the heavy twisted
ropes of pearls. “But you’ll be in France, not London.”

  “I’ll open a shop there. Not right away, but eventually.”

  “But you’re a—”

  “No buts, Colin.” She smiled at her use of his words, then turned serious. “Yes, I’m a girl. But I’m also a jeweler, and I promised my father I wouldn’t let Goldsmith and Sons die with me. No, it was more than a promise—a vow. And our last real conversation.”

  Colin could see the subject was closed. Consumed by disturbing thoughts, he toyed with the necklace, admiring the way the creamy colors matched and the pearl sizes graduated along the strands. The little clicks of the pearls sounded loud in the silence.

  “This must be worth a fortune,” he said at last.

  She nodded her head. “Pearls have doubled in price in my lifetime, and they’re still rising. Would you like it? The clasp is beautiful, but I don’t know who made it, so it has no particular value to me.”

  Colin glanced at the clasp, delicate filigree encrusted with sapphires and diamonds. He wanted nothing except the cameo. “I wouldn’t dream of taking this from you. I know King Charles and his cronies drape themselves in such jewels, but no man in my family would be caught dead wearing ropes of pearls.”

  He couldn’t give it to Priscilla—he’d never feel right giving her anything he’d taken from Amy.

  “Besides, you’ll need to sell it to open your shop. Such an undertaking will be quite expensive—”

  She shrugged. “I have the gold.”

  “The gold?”

  “In the bottom.” She waved at the trunk. “My family has been accumulating coins forever. It was”—she hesitated—“a secret. There. Now you know.” Her sudden disarming smile enchanted him. “It’s why my father never worried when business fell off during the Commonwealth. There are a few gold bars as well—for fabrication, you understand. We never melted coins.”

  Surreptitiously, he hoped, Colin nudged aside some of the jewelry in the trunk, revealing a pile of gold coins, many of them old and pitted; he glimpsed one dated 1537. Gauging the thickness of the trunk’s walls, he came to the conclusion there was a fortune in gold coins there. A vast, unbelievable fortune.

  He was shocked speechless. Why, Amy was rich! Richer even than Priscilla, or at the very least richer than Priscilla would be until the death of her very healthy father.

  His gaze swept to Amy wrapping her jewelry, calmly making a pile of white-blanketed bundles, surrounded by gold, diamonds…riches beyond his comprehension. But what he felt for her had nothing to do with wealth or position, and everything to do with the way just looking at her made his whole body feel warm…

  Stop. He clamped down on the thoughts, cast them aside. They were emotional. Dangerous.

  He resumed helping her, full speed. The trunk should be locked and hidden. Although he’d been raised surrounded by beautiful, expensive things, because of the war his family had never had much in the way of coinage. This much gold, exposed, made him uncomfortable.

  They placed the last pieces on top, and Amy retrieved the fitted tray and set it in place with a flourish. Then she reached for a small wooden casket that she’d apparently tossed halfway under the bed.

  “The stones,” she said, in answer to his unasked question. She flipped open the box’s cover to reveal neat rows of paper packets. Pulling one out, she opened the precisely folded paper and placed the contents in his hand.

  He marveled at the two loose, matched gems. “Diamonds?” he guessed.

  “Yes. Waiting to be made into something wonderful. Earrings, perhaps.” She took back the diamonds, her fingers flying as she refolded the paper in a complicated pattern. Even having seen her do it, Colin doubted he could make such a packet from a plain rectangle of paper.

  Amy slipped the packet back and pulled out another, opening it to reveal hundreds of tiny diamonds. “Melee, they’re called,” she explained. “About five carats worth, averaging fifty stones to the carat.” The pile of stones glimmered in their paper, and Colin leaned forward to look. Instead of handing them to him, though, she refolded the packet. “If they spilled, we’d never find them all in this carpet,” she explained apologetically.

  She replaced the packet and flipped through a dozen or more. On the fronts, Colin glimpsed nonsensical numbers in tiny, precise handwriting. With a smile and a nod, she finally pulled out one and unfolded it, revealing an enormous blood-red ruby.

  Spellbinding, it shone with a life of its own. Colin was no gem connoisseur, but he was certain he’d never beheld such perfection before. He reached for it.

  “My father was working on a design for this when he”—she swallowed hard—“when he died. He meant to make it the centerpiece of a necklace. There are twenty carats of matched diamonds in here that he’d planned to set with it.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Colin responded gently. He examined the ruby, holding it up to the light before setting it back on the paper in her palm. “These gems must be worth an enormous amount.” His vision clouded as he tried to imagine how one young woman could have so much in her possession.

  “I’ll warrant they’re valuable,” she admitted, “although I never think about it, really. You cannot easily use them to buy anything, like the gold.” She folded the paper and returned it to the box. “They were always just there. Some of them have been in my family, waiting for the perfect mounting, for more than a hundred years.”

  Removing another packet, she spilled the contents into Colin’s open hand.

  He walked to the window, moving his palm so the twenty-odd diamonds shimmered in the light reflected off the snow outside. “They sparkle so…” he murmured. A myriad of subtly different colors, they ranged from a pure clear-white to a light but distinct yellow.

  “About half a carat each. Not well-matched. They’d end up in different pieces.”

  He closed his fist around the glittering stones. “They’re beautiful. I can hardly credit…Amy, there’s so much here.” He frowned in puzzlement. “Your family…you had so much. Yet you lived above your shop…”

  She came closer, holding out the paper. He tipped the diamonds into it, a dazzling waterfall of costly gems.

  “We weren’t—I’m not—aristocratic. No one expected us to live lavishly. If people had known what we had, it would have been stolen.” She folded the packet and returned it to the box, closing the lid.

  “But—”

  “We lived very nicely.” She smiled at his confusion. “I had the best clothes, and we always had a maid and housekeeper. We ate well, and we never had to prepare meals or clean up after ourselves. Mama collected things—pretty, useless things—figurines and vases that made her smile. We had books, we went to the theater—the gold was security, so we never had to worry. It was collected over so many generations that I feel as though it’s not mine, really…almost like I hold it in safekeeping for someone else.” She walked to the trunk and set the box inside.

  “But it is yours, Amy. It’s all yours.”

  Silently she knelt by the trunk to close and lock it, then joined him again at the window. They both gazed at the snow drifting down. The storm was dwindling, and this would probably be the last night they’d ever be together.

  “You’re right,” she said softly. “It is all mine. But in the last two years I’ve learned that what counts are the people you have around you. Money isn’t important.”

  “It is if you don’t have it,” he returned bitterly, thinking about his struggles to get the estate into shape and restore his home, delaying his marriage plans.

  “I’d trade it all—every bit of it,” she whispered, “to have my parents again.”

  He felt a twisting sensation in his chest. She was right, of course. Turning to her, he took her face between his palms and tilted it to meet her eyes. “I know,” he whispered back. “I know you would.”

  The chamber was quiet. The snow fell inaudibly outside the window; the crackling fire and their breathing were the only sounds. Her eyes deepened
in color as he gazed into them, and he bent his head to meet her lips.

  Amy felt her torn spirits mending in his embrace. His mouth was slow and gentle. His hands crept from her cheeks down the sides of her neck, to her shoulders and around to her back, where she felt their warm imprints pressing her securely against him.

  A long, dreamy, melting time later they broke the kiss, and Amy laid her head on his chest. Beneath her ear, his heart beat strong and steady. He stroked her hair with unhurried movements and twisted it in his fingers.

  Her gaze drifted to the jewelry that sparkled on the bed. The galant, the aigrette, the pocket watch…the cameo. The thought of him owning it made her skin tingle.

  Would he treasure it? Years from now, would he look at it and remember the connection they’d shared? She hoped so. If he felt even a shred of the emotion she did, she suspected he’d remember it all his life, for she was certain she would.

  “You said you wouldn’t kiss me again,” she reminded him, feeling a bit woozy.

  “I know,” he said, his voice laced with something—resignation? “But it’s just a kiss, is it not?”

  It was just a kiss. And though kisses were all she’d ever get from Colin Chase, she would take them, and gladly. How wrong could that be, after all? Once she got to France, who knew if she’d ever be kissed again?

  “I owe you a dinner,” she reminded him, pulling away with a grin. “Are you willing to try my very first stew?”

  “With a side dish of pickled snails?” he asked, grinning back mischievously.

  She groaned and headed out of the bedchamber.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  WITH A HUM of satisfaction, Amy moved her bishop diagonally across the chessboard toward Colin’s king.

  “Check,” she announced.

  Colin was hard put to keep a smile off his face. After two complete games, it was clear Amy was the thoughtful tactician, while his style was fast and aggressive. But he’d put his mind to this match, planning his moves far in advance. He knew exactly what would happen from here on out.