Page 37 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

E mrys had been giving some thought to trying to uncover the identity of Annis’s assailant.

While everything had been quiet on that front, he was not so sanguine as to think the issue had gone away.

He wanted to know who the damned devil was and do something concrete to protect her from any future attacks.

Assuming she hadn’t killed the man, and he refused to accept that she had.

She had certainly injured him, but he refused to think of his Annis as a murderess.

In any case, even if she had killed the man, there might be others connected to him who would still come after her. The mystery needed to be solved.

Over breakfast that morning he said, “I’ve been thinking—your father’s ring is the only clue we have to his identity and that of your assailant. I’d like to take it to a jeweler, see if they can shed any light on it. What do you think?”

Annis stopped with the teacup partway to her mouth and put it down. “Isn’t that risky?”

“Not if we are careful and sensible about it. I thought I’d take it to Rundle and Bridge. They’re the jewelers to the Crown, after all, not just some shady fence in St. Giles. They are very discreet.”

“I suppose so,” she said reluctantly. “What do you think they could tell us?”

“I’m not sure, perhaps nothing at all, but it chafes me not to know more about this fellow. Don’t you want to know?”

She smiled tremulously and blinked. “Yes, I suppose—” She took a breath. “Yes, I would very much like to know who my father was.”

“Good. I’ll take it to the jewelers when I get a chance. Don’t worry. I’ll be discreet, as well.”

While Annis was preoccupied with the decorator, he got the ring out of the safe and examined it.

The raised and flattened top was a plain and unadorned oval, as if it should have been engraved as a signet ring or was perhaps the base upon which a setting for a large jewel could have been put but hadn’t.

Either way, it seemed a strange, unfinished piece.

Popping it in his waistcoat pocket, he took himself off to the jewelers. He wanted to buy Annis another piece of jewelry anyway, and it seemed to him that if anyone could tell him about this piece it was a professional jeweler. If he was very lucky, the man might even recognize the ring.

Entering the store of Rundle and Bridge in Ludgate Hill, he perused the various displays quietly until the current customer being served by Mr. Phillip Rundle left the shop.

Mr. Rundle tidied away the trays he had taken out for the previous customer and said with a welcoming smile, “How may I help you, sir?”

“Well, two things,” said Emrys, stepping up to the counter. “Firstly, I’d like a necklace for my wife. Perhaps something in pearls and rubies?”

The next twenty minutes were spent reviewing what the man had for sale.

Not finding exactly what Emrys had in mind, Rundle resorted to sketching out his ideas based on Emrys’s imperfect description.

They finally arrived at something that he wanted, and it was agreed that the piece would be ready in a month.

Well pleased, Emrys then withdrew the ring from his pocket and held it out in his palm.

“I wonder if you could tell me something about this?”

Rundle took it from him and, inserting his eyeglass, examined it closely. “It’s a men’s signet locket ring, sir.” Using his thumbnail, delicately he pushed on the side of the oval and a lid sprang up revealing a cavity beneath.

“Good heavens!” said Emrys, bending over the ring.

The jeweler handed it back to him, and he noticed that there was something lining the oval cavity, a piece of paper ?

Deciding to examine that in private, he closed the lid with a tiny click and then used his thumbnail to try to open it again.

Finding the tiny depression, it clicked up again, and he shut it quickly.

“A signet ring, you say? But it’s not carved. ”

“No, it would normally have been, but this one, for whatever reason, wasn’t.”

“Are they common?”

“Signet rings are very common sir, naturally, but ones combined with lockets or compartments to store relics are not, no. Where did you get it if you don’t mind my asking?”

“It’s an odd piece I found in my father’s things,” he replied, giving the man the story he’d decided upon earlier. “Do you have any idea how old it might be?”

“The style is very plain. Let me see if there is a maker’s mark on it.

” He held his hand out and Emrys gave it back reluctantly.

The jeweler examined it further with his eyeglass, turning it over and checking all angles.

“No, there is nothing. However, I am confident this is solid gold by the weight of it and the soft sheen. I would estimate its value at one hundred pounds or thereabouts.”

He handed it back and Emrys pocketed it. Valuable, but not overly so. Not sufficiently valuable as to provoke someone to murder, surely? But then one hundred pounds to some might be a fortune. “Thank you for your help.”

“Thank you for your business, sir. To which address should I send the finished necklace?”

Emrys gave his direction and promised payment forthwith. Dropping by the bank on the way home to execute the payment for the necklace, he was itching to get home and check what was in the ring. But he really needed to show it to Annis—it was her ring.

To his frustration, she wasn’t home when he got back, having gone shopping with the decorator for furnishings.

Several hours later, however, Annis arrived home, coming into the nursery where he was playing Waterloo on the floor with the children and a large collection of toy soldiers.

He was playing Napoleon, and Lizzie was Wellington, supported by her Cavalry Commander the Earl of Uxbridge, played by Ewen (with some help from Emrys), and Charlie as Blucher in charge of the Prussian forces.

The game was abandoned when Annis produced several swatches of colors and drawings over which the girls poured when asked their preferences as to furnishings for the nursery and schoolroom.

Ewen being as uninterested in this as Emrys, continued to crawl round the floor moving horses about, and Emrys encouraged him.

Mrs. Green appeared, followed rapidly by the tea tray, and Annis gathered up the swatches and drawings and repaired with Emrys to their bedchamber to wash and change her gown.

“I thought perhaps we could take the children to see the animals at the tower on Friday. What do you think?” she asked, plunging a cloth into the bowl of water and sponging her face and neck.

She had removed her gown with his help and was standing in her chemise, which was highly distracting.

He resisted the temptation to fondle her breasts from behind.

If he started down that track, they would never get to the ring.

“I think it is a splendid notion,” he said, sitting on the bed and watching her appreciatively as she bent over the bowl.

He was fascinated with her breasts it was true, but her bottom held its own attraction, too.

Dragging his eyes upward, he caught her looking at him looking.

She smiled, flushing faintly. “Emrys, you didn’t hear a word I said then, did you? ”

“What? You were talking about taking the children to the tower and I said it was a splendid notion.”

“After that!”

“Oh. No. Your bottom is rather distracting. Come and put it down here,” he said, patting the coverlet beside him. “I went to the jeweler.” He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat as she came and sat beside him.

“Oh. Did you discover anything?”

“Yes, he showed me this.” He clicked the lid with his thumbnail, and she gasped in shock as it flicked open.

“How could I not have found that in all these years?” she asked, peering at it, fascinated.

He shrugged. “It’s well made, and the seam is difficult to see. More to the point, there is something inside it. I haven’t looked—it is your ring, and you should be the one to see what it is.” He held the ring out on his palm.

She took it gingerly and, using her nail, extracted the tiny, folded slip of paper from the cavity. She unfolded it with visibly shaking fingers and Emrys had to restrain himself from seizing it from her and unfolding it himself, so anxious was he to see what was written on it.

She finally had it open and smoothed out. Written in a spidery hand were the words:

St. Michael’s, Monkton Combe, 7th January1790

Annis stared at the piece of paper her heart racing.

“This is Mama’s writing.” She traced it with her fingertip. What did Mama say about the ring when she gave it to me? “This is for you; he would have wanted you to have it.” Did she mean for me to find the piece of paper? Almost certainly, but she died before she could tell me it was there...

“What does it mean?” asked Emrys. “Do you have any idea?”

“I might,” she said cautiously. She licked her suddenly dry lips. Could it? “My birthday is on the 12th of August 1790,” she said, looking up at him to see if he made the same connection she did.

“Could this be the date and location of your parents’ marriage?”

“I don’t know. It might be.” She swallowed, tears stinging her eyes. She raised a hand to her mouth to try to suppress them.

He slid an arm round her waist and kissed her hair. “Don’t cry. This is good news, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been so accustomed to thinking I was—”

“Illegitimate.” His voice was calm, no judgement in it.

She nodded. “You knew? And you married me anyway?”

“Given the deliberate holes in the story you told me of your past, I guessed that may have been the case, but you didn’t confirm it, and I didn’t ask.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to know,” he said with a rueful expression. “But now it seems we may have been wrong.”

“I don’t know. I hardly dare to hope. But if it’s true, why didn’t Mama tell me?”

“You mean your aunt?”

“You guessed that, too?”

“It was sort of obvious,” he said with a wry smile.

“I lied to you,” she said hollowly.

“Not exactly. You thought she was your aunt for a long time, after all.”

“Yes, until she was dying and she told me the truth. Or part of it, but not the whole. I can’t fathom why not. Why would she let me think I was bastard-born?”

“We may never know the answer to that.” He rubbed her arm comfortingly, and she leaned against him, suddenly feeling worn out. It was such a relief to tell him the whole truth as she knew it.

“But we should be able to discover the identity of your sire with this.” He said holding up the precious slip of paper. “Go and pack, and we will leave at once. Unless you would rather wait until morning?”

“No. No let us go at once. But what of the children?”

“We will leave them with Mrs. Green, I think. Time is of the essence now that we have this much information. Are you equal to riding? It will be quicker than traveling by coach.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good.” He kissed her, grinning.

“You’re excited about this!”

“Ecstatic! I’ve been worried sick about who might still be after you. This way I will know what to do to protect you and where the threat is coming from, and maybe even why.”

She flung her arms round his neck and kissed him, just barely swallowing the words that wanted to burst out about how much she loved him. “Thank you,” she choked out instead.

He rose, heading for the door. “I’ll see to the horses and let Mrs. Green and the children know. You pack and then pen a note to the duchess and ask her to pop in and check on the children while we’re gone.”

*

Two hours later they were mounted and heading out of London.

Charlie had clung a bit when informed they were going to be away for a couple of days, but when Lizzie told her to buck up, she suppressed the tears and tried to be brave, which got Emrys in the chest. He gave each of his children a big hug in farewell and left them in Mrs. Green’s capable hands. The woman was truly a treasure.

By his calculations, they had four hours of daylight left. With any luck, they would reach Reading tonight, which would leave them eight, perhaps ten hours of riding tomorrow. They would stay with his grandmother in Bath tomorrow night.