Part 5 (2/2)
Tanner rubbed at his forehead. ”We'll be accompanied by Lady Lydia Daughtry, the Duke of Ashurst's sister as well as Baron Justin Wilde, if he agrees. A small party, but we'll try to make it a merry one.” He looked up at Harburton once more. ”Nothing more. Understood, Thomas?”
”Understood, Your Grace. And Jasmine will be that pleased. Said she and Lady Lydia hit it off a treat last night. But, then, my Jasmine is so easy to love, isn't she? I heard the Bad Baron was back. You were friends with him once, yes?”
”I am honored to consider the baron my friend, yes.” Tanner looked at the velvet cases one last time. ”There will be no mention of the past, Thomas, is that clear?”
”Wouldn't be so cra.s.s, Your Grace. Besides, wouldn't want him shooting me in the back like he did that poor fellow he killed.”
Tanner raised a hand to call back the estate manager and correct him, but then realized he was so grateful the man was leaving that he didn't want to do anything to prolong the farewell.
”One way or another, the man has to go,” he muttered to himself, stacking the velvet cases one on top of the other. ”An allowance, something. Whatever it takes...”
”Talking to yourself, old sport? Not a good sign, that,” Justin Wilde said from the doorway.
”Justin, come in,” Tanner said, getting to his feet. ”Was n.o.body at the door, to announce you?”
”As I know who I am, I felt I could manage to announce myself. That your cousin I pa.s.sed in the foyer? The man has the look of a frightened rabbit, or he did once I announced my name.”
”Yes, my second cousin and estate manager, Thomas Harburton. Jasmine's father. I had all these boxes spread out on the desktop when he was here. Said I might have my jeweler look at the pieces. Clean them, check the stones, the clasps, that sort of thing. The man didn't even blink.”
Justin reached inside his waistcoat and pulled out a jewelers loupe. Leave it to Justin to own his own. ”Perhaps because he's innocent. Perhaps because I was incorrect in my a.s.sessment of last evening. Or,” he added, opening one of the velvet cases, ”perhaps he's less the buffoon than he looks. Lined up on the desktop, you say? I don't think I can award you any points for subtlety, old friend.”
”It was a bit cow handed, wasn't it?”
”Far be it from me to comment on the obvious. Although I believe I'll make an exception concerning that plaster stuck to your handsome face. You should have feinted to your right before you turned. But perhaps your fears for the lady clouded your instincts.”
Tanner sat down, his eyes hard on his friend. ”How?”
”How? Oh, how. I was there, of course.” He opened the case and put the loupe to his eye, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his handsome features in order to hold the thing tight. ”Garnets.” He put down the case. ”Hardly worth the effort to steal them. But pretty enough.”
”The b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l with the garnets. You were there, in the gardens?”
”It seemed the most logical place. After all, Molton was obviously looking for some sort of confrontation. If I was gone, had deserted the field as it were, who did that leave?”
”Me.” Tanner got to his feet. ”I think I could do with a gla.s.s of wine. Would you care for one?”
”At this early hour? Of course, I would. I would have made myself known to you, Tanner, but you seemed to be deep in conversation with the Lady Lydia, so that I was loath to interrupt. For a man who says he lays no claim to the lady, you seemed rather...intent. At any rate, Molton and his trained monkeys showed up just as I had decided I should be no friend at all if I did not give you and the lovely lady some privacy. Happily, I hadn't gone yet, and was about to announce myself when Molton went on the attack. That was a wisty castor you placed on his phizz, as my coachman would say.”
Tanner handed him a gla.s.s of wine, and took a sip from his own gla.s.s. ”I left him there with his nose pouring blood. Molton. And left the the whip as well, now that I think of it. You, ah, you didn't do anything, did you?”
”Did I confront the man who would have horsewhipped my friend, you mean? The b.u.mbling, stumbling, yet dangerous creature who would bring two well-born thugs with him to face one defenseless man? A pig of a fool who would frighten a woman such as the lovely Lady Lydia, with his only wound a slight rearranging of his nose? Tanner. Do you really want me to answer that?”
Tanner shook his head, then chuckled under his breath. ”No, I don't think I do.”
”Good choice,” Justin said, raising his wine gla.s.s in a mocking toast. ”So, when are we leaving for Malvern Hall?”
”You listen at keyholes now, as well?”
Justin smiled. ”I confess it. I may have been on the other side of that door longer than politeness dictates, only hastening back down the hallway to the foyer once I was convinced you weren't going to wring that idiot's neck. Although I rather like that appellation he gifted me with. The bad baron. But I'm hardly that. Encroaching mushroom, isn't he?”
”My father did cause his injury all those years ago,” Tanner said. ”And, according to Thomas, he and my father grew very close over the course of my father's final illness.”
”You weren't there?”
”I was on the peninsula. My father left no last letters to me. Not that I expected any. We weren't very compatible, and when I took myself and my seed off to be killed by some Froggie-my father's words, not mine-we became permanently estranged. I can believe he might have seen a marriage between Jasmine and myself as a way to roll the Harburton estate in with ours. But I highly doubt the marriage was his last wish. Those the emeralds?”
He stepped closer to Justin as the baron lifted the necklace and used the loupe to inspect the center stone, then moved his inspection to the smaller stones.
”Well?”
”Let me just say that I wouldn't hope to use this piece to secure a loan, were I you.”
”Gla.s.s,” Tanner said, looking at the necklace Justin held up in front of them both. The thing glittered wildly in the sun. A beautiful piece. He could vaguely remember seeing it around his late mother's neck. ”And you're sure?”
Justin let the necklace slide over his palm and back onto the desktop. ”Once, in my salad days, I gifted a woman with what I believed to be a rather stunning diamond necklace. A farewell present, as it were.”
He held up the jewelers loupe. ”The woman, who I agree had to live by her wits-her beauty had begun to fade, you understand-immediately pulled one of these from her bosom, examined the stones, and then tossed the necklace back in my face. You can imagine my embarra.s.sment. I was so dreadfully naive.”
”You'd been duped?”
”Oh, most definitely and decidedly duped. And, as I hoped my future might be fairly well littered with lovely women and parting gifts, I decided there and then to be educated on the matter of jewels. But back to the stones. I would suggest you have someone else verify my conclusion, but yes, gla.s.s. Quite good gla.s.s, but gla.s.s just the same.”
”d.a.m.n. I imagine the rest are equally fake.” He slipped off his ring and laid it on the desktop.
Justin opened another case, extracted a set of dainty diamond earrings. Then the pearls, which he, after excusing his rather primitive but, he a.s.sured Tanner, infallible method, rubbed against his teeth. The sapphire brooch. The light blue stones, the name of which Tanner couldn't remember, had never cared enough to learn. More fool him, as it turned out.
”The garnets are real. As I said, barely worth the effort of copying them,” Justin said at last, picking up the signet ring. ”I'm sorry, Tanner.”
”And the ring?”
”Difficult to duplicate a moonstone, especially one of this size. I'd say it's genuine. Tanner, these stones could have been replaced at any time. Last week, last year. A dozen or more years ago. Yours wouldn't be the first family to have resorted to switching out stones and replacing them with gla.s.s. We all have to live in these perilous times. And you said Harburton didn't object when you said you might take them to Bond Street?”
”Didn't turn a hair,” Tanner said, slipping the signet ring back on his finger. ”You were in London the last year of my mother's life. Do you remember the Malvern diamonds? An impressive ma.s.s of stones she loved with all her heart? Necklace, bracelet, those long, dangling earbobs. A brooch as well, as I recall, and some pins for the hair. Prinney was so struck by it he offered to purchase the entire set, but we knew he'd never be good for the payment. Besides, my father said the center stone in the necklace is our legacy, our pride. That's what he called it. The Malvern Pride.”
”I remember. A collar, that's what such heavy, old-fas.h.i.+oned pieces are called. With a center stone the size of a goose egg. A stone that large and distinctive would be difficult to sell, Tanner. Not without someone taking notice. Your father wouldn't have wanted that sort of talk making its way around Mayfair, for one thing, yet no country jeweler could possibly afford to buy it.”
”Unless the stones were replaced a long time ago, which you said is also possible. One or two p.a.w.ned and replaced at a time, over the course of years, even decades. There's really no way to know, is there?”
”Do you still want my company at Malvern Hall? You might be happier not knowing if the Pride is real or not.”
Tanner shook himself out of his unhappy thoughts. ”I'm not inviting you just so you can screw that d.a.m.n fool thing to your eye.”
”No, of course not. You're also inviting me to a.s.sure yourself that, until you're healed at least, I won't tumble into trouble here in town when you're not here to haul me out of it by offering up yourself instead.”
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