Page 49 of When the Rogue Returns
Stifling a sigh, she returned to her work. He was the most stubborn, secretive fellow, and it was beginning to irritate her. “You and Lady Lochlaw have quite an obsession with what is real and what is not.”
“I’m just astonished that people will pay good money for fake gems.”
“I don’t know why that surprises you. You should know better than anyone that real gems are beyond the reach of the average tradesman. And this ring I’m creating for a merchant has seven such gems.”
“Seven? Then they have to be imitations.” He peered at the ring. “Why wouldn’t the man just buy one fine emerald or ruby instead of seven gems?”
“This is an acrostic ring,” she explained. “The initial letters of the gems spell out words. The merchant wants it for his wife’s birthday this week. In order for it to spell out ‘dearest,’ I need a diamond, an emerald, an amethyst, a ruby, another emerald, a sapphire, and a topaz.”
“Ah.” He watched in silence a moment as she gingerly closed the tines around the topaz. “Do you make many acrostic rings?”
“We do, actually. Occasionally even with real gems. Acrostic jewelry is all the rage these days. We do bracelets, rings, brooches... whatever someone requests.”
She heard Mr. Gordon greeting Mary Grace out front. The young woman had been hanging about at the shop more and more lately. Apparently, despite her shyness, she preferred being with her great-uncle to dealing with her strident mother.
Neither Isa nor Mr. Gordon minded. She could be useful to have around when they needed someone to fetch them tea or help arrange the display cabinets.
“Looks like you’ve got everything but the diamond in the setting,” Victor said.
“Yes, the strass for the diamond is giving me trouble.” She pulled out a chunk of the glass. “It’s too milky. I don’t think it’s the pulverized rock crystal in the mix, although sometimes that can make the glasstoowhite. I suspect that it’s the fault of the oxide of lead. If even a particle of tin gets into that, it ruins everything.”
“So how do you fix it?”
“Fixing it is impossible, I’m afraid. I’ll have to throw out the paste and start over. Which means my customer won’t be getting his ring for another day. The strass mix must be heated slowly over many hours to get the sort of glass I need.”
Taking out her special crucible, she measured more pulverized rock crystal into it, along with white lead, potass, and borax.
When she rose to put the new mix in the furnace, Victor said, “How on earth did you do this in Amsterdam, if it requires a special furnace and crucible and tools?”
She set the crucible into the unlit furnace. “We had all of that at Papa’s shop. You probably just never noticed.” After hunting through their wood to find the driest pieces, she started a blaze going beneath the crucible. “You tended to avoid Gerhart, if you’ll recall.”
Victor snorted. “I never liked him, I’ll admit. I like him even less now.”
“To be fair,” she said, meeting his gaze, “when he first came into our lives after Papa’s death, I was just happy we had someone to run things, someone who could keep a roof over our heads.”
“He did a damned poor job of it,” Victor growled.
“In the end, yes. He hadn’t been an apprentice long enough, I think, to realize how much work such a clockmaker’s shop requires.” Her tone turned cynical. “And Gerhart was never fond of hard work. Then, once he began to gamble...” She shrugged.
Returning to her table, she scored the milky strass so she could cut it. Victor moved around behind her to watch over her shoulder. She could feel the heat coming off of him, making her dizzy. Making her want to throw caution to the winds and announce to the world that he was her husband. Except that she dared not.
“I thought you said that the glass was no good,” Victor remarked.
“For diamonds, yes, but it’s all right for paste rubies. So I’m cutting a piece that will fit into one of my faceted gem molds.”
He leaned forward to look over her head at what she was doing, placing his hand on her shoulder as he did so. Like heat reaching the strass mix in the crucible, it set off a chemical reaction that had her blood rising and her skin growing warm.
“How does that work?” Victor asked.
My arousal?she nearly said, before she remembered what they’d been talking about. “The molds. Right. Well, I lay the chunk of strass into the mold and heat it just enough to melt it, so it can take the shape of a faceted gem. Then I remove the paste stone from the mold when it cools.”
“Where do you get the molds?”
“I make them from real faceted stones that pass through the shop.”
“Real stones,” he said with a sudden peculiar edge to his voice. “Like jewels that you’ve been asked to put into new settings, for example.”
“Exactly.” She tapped the tool she’d set into the grooved glass.
