Emblyn stared at the item within the brown paper, her pale eyes wide.

“I meant to give this to you on the occasion of our wedding,” Adelaide confessed, her cheeks heating with a faint blush of shame. “But I did not like you at first, so I did not.”

“Least ee can admit it,” Emblyn murmured through barely moving lips. “Addie…”

Emblyn’s hushed utterance of her name for Adelaide made Adelaide smile. “I hoped you would like it. It is lapis lazuli, just as your brother has on his signet ring. I did not wish to place the same letter and crest thereon, finding it hardly fashionable for a young lady, but I trust the flower will suffice.”

“It is beautiful.” Emblyn’s throat worked on a swallow, and she shook her head. “I’ve never ‘ad so fine a thing.”

“It suits you,” Adelaide insisted firmly. “Not so fine as to draw comment or attention, but rather pretty, and it will remind you of your family.”

Emblyn looked at her now, her wide eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Addie.” She rushed at Adelaide and threw her arms around her in a tight hug.

Adelaide hugged her back, pleased and touched to have garnered such a response from her. She had ordered the necklace made before she ever knew Emblyn personally, before she knew her situation or her nature, before she had ever set eyes on her, and now that she had done so and loved her, it only seemed more perfectly suited for her.

If Emblyn would wear it.

Adelaide looked beyond her sister-in-law’s shoulder to Basset, who was watching the embrace with some emotion. Considering how infrequently he showed emotion at all, it was something of a wonder.

His eyes met hers. “Thank you,” he mouthed before pressing a kiss into his fingers and holding them out to her.

Adelaide smiled in return and pushed back from Emblyn just a touch. “You must promise me that you’ll wear it. A trinket does no good to anyone sitting in a box.”

Emblyn laughed, wiping her eyes. “I shall wear it, Addie, and proudly, too.” She turned to a nearby chair and held out her gifts to them. “Here. They be not fine an’ all, but I ‘ope ee like them.”

Basset received the scarf Adelaide had seen her working on, and she a fine shawl that she was immediately tempted to wrap around herself and sit by a fire. The notion that Emblyn should be skilled enough to make such things by her own hand was extraordinary. Adelaide might have been taught embroidery and practiced enough in the drawing rooms of London, but to make an entire garment herself…

She would never have managed the patience for such a thing, let alone the talents.