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‘I am ready for sustenance, how about you?’ Beldon said, betraying none of the comparisons dominating his mind at the moment. He helped Lilya with the bracelet clasp and returned it to the jeweller. ‘May I interest you in a stop at Fortnum and Mason’s before we head home?’
Ah, he’d chosen wisely, Beldon thought twenty minutes later. Tea was precisely the thing he needed to restore his balance. He could not recall the last time he’d enjoyed sitting down to flavoured hot water and little sandwiches so much. If he’d been alone, he would have taken refreshment at his club over on St James’s. The meal would have been more substantial, but the company less so.
‘You knew more about jewels than I realised. Your taste was impeccable,’ Beldon complimented as they finished their second pot. It was nearly time to go. He could not justify lingering any longer.
Lilya blushed becomingly, but her eyes darkened and Beldon sensed she was holding an internal debate with herself. Fine. He would wait. At last, aware that he wasn’t going to fill the silence until she spoke, she said, ‘My family dealt in jewels in Negush and, before that, my grandfather was a jeweller to the sultan in Constantinople.’
The admission stunned him into silence. She said it as naturally as if she’d said, ‘My family own dairy cows in Herefordshire’.
‘I never knew’ was all he could manage. Maybe he’d have to call for a third pot of tea after all. One didn’t just get up from the table and leave a comment like that unexplored.
‘You don’t talk of your life very much and yet I think your life has been full of fascinating experiences. Certainly, very different experiences than what one has here.’ Beldon held her eyes across the table, wanting her to see the sincerity in his own, wanting to see the veils lift from hers. The more he knew her, the more mysterious she became. There were depths here. ‘I would like to hear about them. You don’t have to forget about them simply because you’re in England now.’
‘It is all in the past and sometimes forgetting can be better than remembering.’
But surely not better than never knowing. Beldon would not be put off. ‘Jewels are not a poor man’s trade. What was your father to the empire?’ He gave in to the inevitable and signalled for another pot of tea.
Then, just as she had in the jewellery store when he’d deliberately selected the wrong piece, Lilya smiled and took pity on him. In soft tones of confidentiality she said, ‘We were hospodars. Do you know the word?’ Beldon shook his head. Her next words took his breath away altogether. ‘We were princes.’
The disclosure all but flattened him. She’d been born to great wealth and privilege and then it had all been taken away. This was not what he’d expected. He’d envisioned her raised in modest surroundings, middle class, perhaps, with a merchant father caught up in the intrigues of larger men. He’d attributed her nervousness to feeling overwhelmed by the jewels, out of her element, but clearly that was not the case. Her taste had been far too exquisite and this recent revelation confirmed it.
She was used to riches.
Lilya continued and Beldon listened intently for fear that she’d stop and he’d not get another chance to hear her answer. ‘We had our trade, but we also were responsible for collecting taxes for the sultan in our region.’ She shrugged here. ‘Many of the ruling families abused their power in being tax collectors. But the Stefanovs were always fair.’
She was used to power.
Riches and power. A deadly combination. And one that might explain the glimpse of worldliness he sometimes saw in her eyes, the way she carried herself with a certain degree of pride and confidence not found in the usual débutante.
She was not willing to say more and adroitly turned the conversation to his estate, plying him with questions regarding the upgrades and new technologies he was employing for higher crop yields.
‘I can see you love your home,’ Lilya said after a while. ‘I think it’s good for a lord to care so much for his people. A good leader is always ready to put his needs aside for the benefit of the people.’ She poured out the last of the tea, only getting half a cup. ‘Oh dear, I think we’ve drunk half the tea in England.’
Beldon laughed, the austere line of his mouth turning up into an approachable grin.
‘You should do that more often,’ Lilya remarked.
‘Do what?’
‘Laugh. Smile.’
‘I laugh. I smile,’ Beldon protested.
‘Not nearly enough. You have a wonderful smile, it was one of the things I noticed about you when we danced at the Fitzsimmons’ ball.’
‘And Mr Agyros? Does he have a wonderful smile as well?’ He was stoking the fires again. Lilya looked as if she’d been struck. It was not well done of him. He wished immediately he could take the words back.
Lilya stood up and gathered her things. Her tone was frigidly formal. ‘If I was not clear then, let me be clear with my gratitude now. I appreciated your interference although it was not necessary.’
Beldon rose along with his temper. He was angry with himself and this current gambit of theirs made an easy target. ‘My interference? Is that what you call it?’
‘What would you prefer I call it?’ Lilya said, undaunted.
‘How about “intervention”? “Interference” implies I was sticking my nose where it wasn’t wanted.’
‘Perhaps you were.’
‘Would you have preferred letting Mr Agyros kiss you?’
‘I can handle myself with a gentleman. Nothing would have proceeded without my permission.’ Lilya gave her hair a regal toss. ‘Now, I think it best you take me home. I want to make sure Philippa is feeling better. She was feeling poorly when I left this morning.’
He promptly left Lilya after a short visit with his sister to assure himself of her health. But his day seemed decidedly empty after that. Beldon had no appetite for the social engagements on his calendar that evening and he opted for a night in, poring over atlases in his library and searching his shelves for books about the Ottoman Empire and the hospodars.
That night he dreamed of a dark-haired woman wearing only the Pendennys emeralds.
In the morning, he sent a hurried note to Mr Brown. He’d take the tourmaline bracelet after all.
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