‘Huh! I’ve no doubt if there were any, she were the cause of ’em,’ Mrs B snorted.

Miranda meanwhile had entered the workshop to find Ruby busily at work with an array of glittering gems spread out in front of her.

‘Oh . . . hello, miss.’

Miranda chuckled as she lifted a rather splendid sapphire and began to examine it. ‘I’ve told you, it’s Miranda. You don’t have to address me as a servant would anymore. I thought I’d call in and see you now I’m not at school.’

‘Oh.’ Ruby was surprised; she had thought that Miranda was going to be away till much later in the year. She was also feeling rather nervous as Miranda turned the sapphire this way and that. She and Hermione knew every single stone that was kept in the safe and they had to be counted each time they took them out and each time they put them away to ensure that none had been dropped or gone missing, for some of them were worth thousands of pounds. Thankfully Miranda put it back down after another moment and taking a seat, she cupped her chin in her hand. ‘So what are you doing now?’

‘I’m designing a sapphire ring for a customer of Mr Chatsworth,’ she told her holding out the sketches. ‘What do you think?’

Miranda gave the sketch a cursory glance but it was obvious she wasn’t really interested in it.

‘I don’t know how you can sit there scribbling away all day every day,’ she said. ‘I’d be bored sick in ten minutes. It’s not the most exciting of jobs, is it?’

Ignoring the comment, Ruby asked, ‘And how is everyone back at your father’s?’

‘All well. In fact, Bill offered to drive me here today but I wouldn’t let him. It’s too far for the horses to come and much quicker on the train.’

Bill had actually done no such thing but Miranda wanted to let Ruby know that she was close to him, or at least she would have been if he’d allowed it. Up to now he had ignored all her advances.

‘But anyway, one thing I came to tell you is that now I’m home I’m going to really concentrate on tracking down your birth mother. There are people you can hire to help, like private detectives.’

Ruby looked up at that and her heart began to beat a little faster. ‘But won’t that be very expensive? I don’t have a lot of—’

Miranda held up her hand to block the flow of words. ‘Don’t you worry about that. I can afford it easily,’ she boasted. ‘I get an allowance off my father, and one off my mother too so it’s no worry at all. But isn’t it about time you stopped for lunch?’