the jewels, she might as well hand all three of them over to him. No need to give him another reason to call. “I’ll go and get them now.”
She rose and hurried out of the room, leaving Sally to keep an eye on him from the hallway. She retrieved the two diamonds from inside one of her shoes and collected the ruby from her bedside table.
When she placed the three gems in front of Danton, his delighted smile made her want to slap his face. She’d sweated blood and tears to get those jewels. Faced danger and possible arrest. It wasn’t fair that he simply got to take them away. Selling them had never been part of her father’s vision. Giving them to Danton simply so he could sell them for profit felt like a betrayal of the cruelest sort. Her stomach cramped in misery.
She watched, biting the inside of her cheek, as Danton examined first the Rundell & Bridge diamond and then the smoky blue from the museum. Rainbow shards scattered over the white tablecloth as he held them up to the morning sunlight, and the jewels fragmented the pale beam like a prism.
But when he picked up the ruby, he sucked in a breath. His features hardened and his mouth turned down in displeasure. “Is this your idea of a joke, Miss Danvers? What do you mean by giving me this?”
Emmy frowned. “You asked for Lady Carrington’s ruby. That’s it.”
His eyes flashed in temper. “This is no ruby. Look at it! It’s paste. Worthless!” He threw the stone across the table toward her.
Emmy stared at him, dumbfounded. She hadn’t taken a good look at the jewel last night; it had been dark, and she’d been too distracted by what had happened between herself and Harland. Was it possible she’d been tricked?
Surely not.
Danton’s voice, filled with fury, broke into her thoughts like a dreadful echo. “Do you think to trick me, girl? Do you take me for a fool?”
Emmy leapt to her feet and snatched up the stone from where he’d tossed it. “No! Of course not. I—I—”
She couldn’t explain it. Now she looked at the stone in the daylight, it was painfully obvious it was colored glass. It was a fine paste copy, one of the highest quality, but she’d seen enough of the real thing to know what to look for. She squinted at the surface of the jewel and with a sinking heart identified the tiny white spots that indicated gas bubbles, the fine lines of surface-reaching fractures, neither of which were found in true rubies.
As if she needed further confirmation, she ran the edge of her knife across it and watched as the blade left a telltale scratch on the surface. True ruby was hard, second only to diamond. It should not have yielded to the scratch.
Damn. Damn. Damn!
When had the ruby been exchanged for glass? Where was the true ruby?
Danton rose to his feet. He gathered the two diamonds and tucked them in his inside coat pocket. His face was mottled red with anger.
“You will get me the real ruby as soon as possible, Miss Danvers, or your family will pay the price. I do not make threats lightly.”
Emmy didn’t bother answering him. When he sauntered out of the room, she collapsed back into her chair and stared at the fraudulent stone in front of her, her mind a barrage of questions. Someone had swapped the ruby. But who? And when?
She took a deep breath and tried to think rationally. The Carringtons, either one of them, could have replaced the stone. Lord Carrington could have done it before he presented the necklace to his wife, but it was unlikely. Too many people had seen Lady Carrington wearing the necklace in public—and had a chance to inspect it at close range—for it to have been paste. The eagle-eyed ladies of the ton would have gossiped and speculated about it for weeks.
Lady Carrington could have done it herself. She could have pawned the original and had a paste replacement made if she needed funds and didn’t want to tell her husband. Emmy bit her lip. Or perhaps another thief had beaten her to it? Plenty of people had access to Lady Carrington’s bedroom, if rumor were true.
But none of those explanations took into account the evil genius that was Alexander Harland. He was by far the most likely culprit.
Damn him! He had the real ruby safe somewhere, she was certain. That’s what he’d been doing at