"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. At your shop…I wished I could unplait it."
"Did you really?"
Colin cleared his throat. Now, why had he let that slip? "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 flushed with pleasure. "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 captivated 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, berating himself for not realizing the contents of the trunk, and at the same time amazed at her skill in hiding 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 the hell out of us." 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 man leaning against the archway to Goldsmith & Son's back room. "You mean that 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 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 man. 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. 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…a woman had to marry. "Isn't he still expecting you to wed him?"
"It doesn't signify." 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 involving 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 & 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—"
"No buts, Colin." She smiled at her use of his words, then turned serious. "Yes, I'm female. And a jeweler. I promised my father I wouldn't let Goldsmith & Sons die with me. No, it was more than a promise—a vow. And our last real conversation."
It was a ridiculous plan.
It was…none of his business.
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…" He couldn't believe he was about to say this—to lend credence to her ludicrous plans. "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 the blood course through his veins. His need for her was illogical, emotional…
Dangerous. It didn't bear thinking about.
He resumed helping her, full speed. The trunk should be locked and hidden. Although he'd been raised surrounded by beautiful, expensive things, after the war started his family had never had much in the way of liquid assets. 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 long, black leather box that she'd apparently tossed halfway under the bed.
"The stones," she said, in answer to his unasked question. She flipped open a flap cover to reveal a single neat row 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 flap.
"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.