Anne looked up. “Why—Why—”
Eleanor smiled and took off her glove.
“But you’ve seen him only twice!” Anne shrieked. “Oh, what an utterly darling ring!” She froze. “Eleanor, I’ve seen this ring.” Her voice was hushed. “Your Mr. Ormston is—is quite extravagant.”
“What do you mean?” Eleanor said, looking lovingly down at the ring. “I have certainly seen bigger diamonds.”
“It has been on display at Stedman and Vardan, the jewelers on New Bond Street for over a month—because it belonged to Queen Elizabeth, until she threw it to Sir Walter Raleigh after a jousting tournament. The diamond in the middle is one of the finest examples of a European cut that Mr. Stedman has ever seen…” Her eyes grew round. “Eleanor, what sort of fortune could Mr. Ormston have inherited?”
She couldn’t stop laughing. It was so like her own, darling Leopold. He had found the one ring in England that would suit both of them. “Would you say that this ring cost more than a marquise-cut diamond?” she asked Anne.
“Why…why this ring probably cost more than ten such rings, Eleanor! He must love you so much.” She peered at the ring, awed. “He must have thought of nothing but you for the last three years.”
“Not exactly,” Eleanor said, beaming. “Not exactly.”
Chapter Thirty-three
London residence of the Duke of Montague
September 14, 1784
“Your Grace,” the Duchess of Montague said, bestowing a measured smile on the man who, in a matter of two days, would become her son-in-law. “I suppose you would like to see Eleanor. She is in the morning room, and I shall allow you to go there on your own.”
The duchess’s visitors, Lady Festle and Mrs. Quinkhardt, smiled at the duke and then sighed at the look in his eye.
He was almost out the door when the duchess called after him. “My daughter tells me that you plan to bring her yet another betrothal gift.”
The Duke of Villiers bowed, with a great deal of address. “I did promise. And I have it with me this morning, Your Grace.”
The duchess must be forgiven if her smile was a trifle gloating. For, as she explained to her bosom companions, the Duke of Villiers was courting her daughter in a manner that was truly above reproach. “He never engages in the slightest indiscretion,” she told them. “They say there’s nothing as prudish as a reformed rake, and though I wouldn’t have believed it myself, I believe it now! He doesn’t even dance with her more than twice or at most three times.” She lowered her voice. “One can sense if a young couple engages in inappropriate behavior, and I can assure you…they never do!”
All of London was discussing the ring, naturally, and the duchess’s chest swelled with pride as she confirmed to Lady Festle that her dearest daughter Eleanor was indeed wearing a diamond ring that had previously been worn by Queen Elizabeth. “I am most curious about that betrothal gift,” she told them. “I’ll give them ten minutes…more than enough. Perhaps there is a diadem to match the ring!”
Eleanor looked up from a note she was writing to Lisette, commiserating over the fact the orphanage was being moved to Hampshire, when Villiers entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Since their betrothal, he had settled on a style somewhere between himself and Mr. Ormston. “You needn’t,” she had said, laughing, when he first appeared without a wig—but still clad in subdued black velvet. Magnificent black velvet, but without even a touch of embroidery, and certainly no gold buttons.
“I don’t do it for you,” he had said, imperturbable as ever. “It’s the children. They are so wildly disrespectful when I appear in full court dress that I have adopted the path of least resistance.”
Now he walked forward with that little secret smile of his.