Chapter 6

Once more, Atlas's base impulses had kicked him in the arse. At five years of age, he'd brought a cat home because it had been mewling piteously and had shred all his clothes trying to make a bed of his wardrobe. Then, of course, he'd enlisted in the army when he discovered he could do so without paying a commission. The only time he'd not paid for his impulses was at Waterloo. A wound was a mere ha'penny. He should have paid in pounds with his life. He hadn't, though.

Now he'd returned to battle. This foe unseen, his ally the woman creeping down the pavement at his side. Usually she seemed a tigress, but currently, she appeared more like that kitten who had shredded his clothing—meek and mewling with hidden sharp claws. She'd pulled her cloak low, hiding her face, and she clutched an expensive valise she refused to hand off to him.

As with the kitten and enlisting, he'd acted on impulse—to save her. But unlike those moments, he felt no impending dread. Helping her was the bone-right thing to do. He might sacrifice his bachelorhood to the cause, but he wasn't using it to begin with. No loss. Only gain.

"I'm a bit worried, Lord Atlas," she said.

"Oh?" he peeked down at the top of her cloaked head. "I would never have guessed."

If she caught his sarcasm, she ignored it. "Some of the pieces are not in the best condition. But they are from the best jeweler in all of London. I promise I did naught to break them, but?—"

"And who is the best jeweler in London?"

"A one Mr. Foggy. Or so my father-in-law says. So Everette, my husband, said." She held the edge of her hood up to shield her face as she turned to look up at him. Red silken tendrils framed her face, and her green eyes were mere shadows behind the blue velvet.

"They are mistaken. He's a charlatan. The best jeweler in London is my sister-in-law's family, the Framptons."

"What? All of them?"

"Something like that. The daughters learned their trade from the father. They'll be right interested to see your pieces if they were made by Foggy." He pointed across the street. "There's the shop. Let's go." He slipped his arm through hers and escorted her across the busy street.

The light, warm touch of their arms wound together felt like a hint of summer on a day rolling from autumn into winter—so full of light and life. Could his steps take any more bounce? Likely not, but he also could not contain it.

"Is Mr. Foggy's shop nearby?" Her gaze swept left and right, and not out of caution for careening carts and horses.

He opened the door beneath the Frampton Son's sign swinging in the wind. "I've no idea."

The door banged shut behind them, and she pushed her hood back off her head. "Holy Hepplewhite. Everything's so… sparkly." Her voice had slipped into that rougher register again, and it kicked off a little flutter in his chest. The shop could blind a person, everything gleaming glass and, behind that, a rainbow of glittering gems. Gold and silver, emerald and ruby. Shattered diamond light sparkled on the candle-flickering ceiling. Only one customer inhabited the shop, monopolizing the attention of the woman working behind the counter.

"Come on, then. Let me introduce you." He pulled her toward the counter at the back of the shop and the two women there, one on either side of it. The woman behind the counter had white-blonde hair and a regal bearing. She didn't even stoop as she inspected the clasp of a bracelet. Atlas had met her twice, both times when she'd been visiting her sister at Briarcliff. Then, she'd been known as Miss Posey Frampton. Now he must call her Duchess of Crestmore. Though the papers called her the Duchess of Diamonds, mocked her for working in a shop though she'd married a duke, mocked the duke for marrying so low.

Her Grace did not appear bothered by the talk, though. She seemed tall and sure behind her counter, holding the broken bracelet nearer the light. She exchanged words with the customer before the customer left her trinket on the counter and left the shop.

Mrs. Bronwen curled her arm through his once more, tugged until he leaned lower. "I've heard rumors about her, of course. But to see it with my own eyes." She rubbed at them. "Impossible."

"Very much possible. I'll introduce you." He lifted a hand in the air. "Your Grace!"

The Duchess of Crestmore looked up from the bracelet she still inspected. "Oh. Oh! Lord Atlas! How unexpected."

"For me as well. Didn't expect you here. Not since you married."

The duchess grinned and ran a hand gently up and down the fine grain on the top of the counter. "I've not been behind this counter in over a month, actually. But my mother has been ill this week, and we'd have had to close the shop otherwise." She trotted out from behind the counter. "Is my sister well?"

"Fiona was fine when I was with her a week ago."

"For your brother's wedding, yes?"

Atlas nodded. "And I've come here because another wedding is soon to follow."

The duchess's hand floated to her chest. "Who?"

"Me," Mrs. Bronwen said, "and Lord Atlas."

The duchess gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "Oh, excuse me. I shouldn't gasp. It's not duchess-like, and I'm doing my best to be duchess-like."

Mrs. Bronwen stiffened, but before Atlas could peek at her to discern what had troubled her so, a man sauntered out of a door at the back of the shop.

"You are a duchess, Posey," the man said. "Whatever you're like is how a duchess should be." The man had a mop of yellow hair and amused glint in his eye. Atlas had met him once before too. The Duke of Crestmore had arrived at Briarcliff rumpled and clearly besotted with his not-yet-duchess. Though before they'd returned to London, they'd been engaged.

And they were terribly in love. Like most everyone around him, it seemed. He'd been falling in love so regularly, quite made a habit out of it, but those who'd never done it a day in their lives before had suddenly become spectacularly proficient. An excellent thing, for his family to find such joy. Such certain joy, too. Unlike him, they did not have to go searching for it every day. They merely woke up and clutched it in their arms.

Lord. Was he feeling… maudlin? Enough of that.

Atlas sketched a bow to the duke and duchess. "May I introduce my betrothed, Mrs. Clara Bronwen." Difficult to use the word when he'd never thought he'd marry to begin with.

"You work mighty quick," Crestmore said, eyeing them with a raised brow.

"Or perhaps you work slow," Clara quipped.

The duchess squeezed her husband's forearm and chuckled. "You've no idea. Slower than diamonds forming beneath the earth." She gave the duke a sizzling look then returned her attention to Atlas and Mrs. Bronwen. "I am delighted to learn of your impending nuptials, but what brings you to my shop?"

Mrs. Bronwen held up her valise. "Lord Atlas thinks you might be interested in purchasing a few of my pieces."

The duchess's face pinched a bit. "We specialize in fixing broken sets and designing and selling our own. I don't think?—"

"The jewels are quite fine." Mrs. Bronwen took a halting, rushed step forward. "I do not care if you melt down the settings and do what you please with the gems. Make them anew."

Atlas pointed at the bag. "She tells me Foggy made most of them. You might take some joy from melting down his creations. I know your family has no love for the man."

"Frampton Family Rule Number One," the duke said with a chuckle, "scorn Mr. Foggy."

Mrs. Bronwen shoved the valise toward the duchess. "Just have a look, will you? Or"—she glanced at the duke—"if it is beneath you, I understand."

The duchess sniffed as her gaze softened. She reached for the bag. "Beneath me? Foggy is beneath me. But helping a friend is not." She retreated behind the counter and opened the valise, reached in, and pulled out a small box. "I'll inspect the lot of them. Look around if you like." She looked up, setting a pair of magnifying spectacles on her nose. "Perhaps you'll find a ring to give your new lady, Lord Atlas, to replace these. I'm happy to trade if you'd like."

Atlas didn't wince. Barely. The duchess knew his family's circumstances, knew they were more likely to sell jewelry than to buy it. What she didn't know was the marriage he was entering into was not the kind to be sealed with precious gifts chosen through painstaking thought and hours of deliberation. They gifted one another those things they most needed. Nothing less. Nothing more.

He pulled Mrs. Bronwen to a nearby case. "Does it pain you to sell it?"

"No." She tried to look at the jewels, but she kept looking over her shoulder at the intent duchess and Crestmore lounging against the wall behind her, a half smile on his lips. "They're real. I'd read about them in the papers, but I do not think I quite believed they existed. The duke who married a jeweler's daughter."

"They're just people in the end. No matter the titles or wealth. Or lack thereof."

She snorted. "Those things do matter." Her voice small, devoid of both the practiced polish and the rough, earthy quality. Blank. Finally, her gaze settled on a gem in the case—some swirly, milky type of stone hiding pinks and blues and purples, an entire sunset shattered and sheltered inside.

"Odd-looking thing," Atlas said. "Wonder what it's called."

"You don't know?"

"Don't have much opportunity to ponder over gems."

"It's an opal." She chuckled. "Imagine, a journeyman's daughter telling a marquess's brother something like that."

"Do you ever think of yourself as anything other than a journeyman's daughter?" She'd said it several times, as if she could only ever be one thing. But wasn't she a chameleon? Wasn't she capable of anything? So far, he'd seen it be so. Like that opal, she contained a multitude of colors.

She opened her mouth, closed it, then sauntered off to view another case.

Lost in the opal's milky swirl, he found it difficult to follow her to the case of emeralds where she stood, bent over for a closer look. But he joined her. His always-too-tight jacket seemed to shrink, and his constant noose of a cravat strangled him more than usual. He rolled his shoulders, pulled at the strip of linen.

"When will you leave, Lord Atlas?"

Atlas blinked, turned to look at the waiting duchess whose eyes were huge behind her spectacles. They seemed to peer right past his thick skull and see that whisper yelling in his mind, demanding to be heard—no use getting comfortable with Mrs. Bronwen. He was leaving. Briarcliff, England, his family. His wife.

The duchess ripped off her spectacles and repeated herself. "When will you return to Briarcliff?"

"Tomorrow," he replied, barely feeling the word on his tongue as he returned his gaze to the pristine glass case and its contents. The emeralds blazed beneath the shop light like his betrothed's eyes. And in them, he discovered the lyrics he'd been hunting for in vain all afternoon. In green I'll drown, in green I'll die. Her eyes are like the sea. In green I'll live, in green I'lllove. If she comes back to me.

The green gems behind the glass turned ash colored.

He slammed his eyes closed, blocking out the sight of the gemstones as the dying fire blacked out the complexion of a lover's face.

"Lord Atlas?" Mrs. Bronwen's rich voice in the dark, calling him to join her. But if he opened his eyes, would the darkness remain? "Lord Atlas?"

He'd look a fool if he stood here much longer as if facing a firing squad. He opened his eyes, almost collapsed with relief. There his betrothed stood—red and cream and green, all the colors he feared to lose.

He joined her. "Well?" Good, that had sounded right jovial. "Have you made a sell?"

The duchess beamed. "It is quite the magnificent collection. I do not know if Frampton's can afford to purchase all of them. We budget for acquiring new stones, of course, and we only keep so much in the safe. But?—"

"I would like some of the gems for my own personal use." Crestmore pointed to a small pile of glittering blue stones. "I dabble a bit in design and have been looking for excellent sapphires."

"Everything on the counter," the duchess said, "we are happy to make an offer for. Everything in the bag, I'm afraid you'll have to keep. I hope it is not a bother."

Mrs. Bronwen shook her head. "No bother. Quite the opposite. I am quite grateful."

"I will consider, as well"—the duchess grinned at Atlas—"a trade. I assume you're in the market for a ring, Lord Atlas. I saw you eyeing a few pieces. Perhaps I can?—"

"No," Atlas said.

Clara's "That's not necessary" added a harmony to his rejection.

"Ah. I do apologize. I should not have assumed." The duchess bustled toward the door at the back of the shop. "I'll return shortly."

Crestmore watched his wife leave. "Payment will arrive at the Waneborough school within an hour. Do you need it sooner?"

"No, thank you." Atlas closed the valise and pulled it off the counter.

The duke grinned. "Will the both of you join us for dinner?"

Mrs. Bronwen's eyes widened. She may have stopped breathing.

"We've no time," Atlas said. "We leave London tomorrow and must prepare."

They left soon after and walked the long way in silence back to the art school, Mrs. Bronwen's hood pulled low, the valise, lighter now, swinging between them. They stopped to gaze at several shop windows, where she seemed to admire the chairs in the shops beyond more than the wares being sold.

"I know," she said, her face downturned, "it is not the done thing to speak of money."

"That's only for people who have it."

She huffed, and it sounded like a laugh, and his chest swelled as his mouth curved. He'd amused her. Made him feel… proud.

"True, my lord. And I'm glad you do not seem to be bothered by it, because I'm almost certain the Duke and Duchess of Diamonds are going to give us more than my jewels are worth."

"Likely. They're the sort. The duke at least. He's got full pockets. Overfull."

"They are nothing as I imagined. Despite the gossip. Or perhaps the gossip misled me." She rolled her shoulders, and the small, unconscious gesture pulled a harp string in his gut, sent music vibrating through him.

"Gossip is half truth, half story, Mrs. Bronwen."

"Clara."

He stopped. She continued on without him, and he hurried to catch up.

"Clara?" he repeated when he caught up once more.

"Yes. You must call me that from now on. Mrs. Bronwen is my married name, but I will no longer be that woman. Soon." She'd be Lady Atlas Bromley. "Besides"—she rolled a hand in the air, smiled—"it is more convenient. Fewer syllables."

"Clara," he said, the final a curving his lips into a smile that felt soft. Like most soft things, the smile did not last. It floated downward, a feather on a gale. "Clara is a beautiful name."

She tilted her head back to grin at him, and her hood fell down her back. The curve of her cheek annihilated him. But before he could stoop to kiss it, to worship it, the art school appeared, and Mrs. Bronwen—Clara—sped up her steps until she stepped inside.

And immediately bounced right back out, followed by a small fury of a body with whirling arms and legs. Alfie.

"Mama!" The boy stopped, legs spread wide, hands fisted at his side. "Where have you been? It's dangerous for you to go out."

Her head fell back on her neck. "Alfie." His name a groan. "Get inside. I'm perfectly fine. We're leaving London tomorrow, and you should be with, who is it now? The poetry man. What's his name?"

"Leaving?" The boy's shoulders slipped away from his ears. "Where to?"

She knelt before him as Atlas crept closer, stood right behind her, casting a shadow over them both. Alfie looked up at him, scowling, all the wild yellow hair on end like a frightened cat. Or an angry one.

"Alfie," his mother said, "I have agreed to marry Lord Atlas, and tomorrow we will leave London for his home, Briarcliff."

The boy's mouth fell open, and his scowl deepened, settling on Atlas. "I told you to hire her, not marry her!" He crossed his arms over his chest, which had puffed out like the feathers on some indignant baby bird. Cat or bird? Which was he?

The boy bolted back into the house. She bolted after him, calling out, "Do not worry, Lord Atlas! We'll be ready to leave first thing in the morning!"

"Excellent." But they were already gone.

Was it excellent? Yes. Of course it was. He was saving her. And her son. And if he left a year from now, they would not mourn his absence. No one should. He trudged up to his room. Tried to, at least, but a footman intercepted before he reached his door.

"This only just came for you, my lord." The footman held out a parcel wrapped in paper and twine.

"Thank you." In his chamber, Atlas unwrapped it, found a box and a note written in a strong, masculine script.

Lord Atlas,

Enclosed, you'll find the funds we discussed at Frampton's today as well as something unasked for. Rejected, really. But I could not let you leave London without something for your bride. I'm a bit of a romantic. Please consider it a wedding present. And if you send it back to me, I'll merely send it back to you again, and neither of us have time for such games.

I wish you the most felicitous union with Mrs. Bronwen.

Crestmore

Opening the package revealed, first, a pile of banknotes. But beneath those rested a small wooden box, simply but elegantly shaped. It opened without difficulty, revealing an opal ring.

Something in its unfathomable depths of milky brilliance mocked him. How could he give a thing that seemed to have no bottom, no end, to a woman he planned to leave one day?