There it was: the ruby ring, sparkling in the glow of the whale-oil lamps in the gloomy drawing room. Mrs. Whitstone held it out in front of her like a treasure-hunt find. “Where did you get this?”

Evangeline twisted the corner of her apron, an old habit from childhood. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s your implication.”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m asking a question.”

Evangeline heard a noise behind her and turned, startled at the sight of a constable standing in the shadows behind a chair. His moustache drooped. He wore a black fitted waistcoat and a truncheon in a holster; in his hands were a notebook and pencil.

“Sir,” she said, curtsying slightly. Her heart was beating so loudly she feared he could hear it.

He inclined his head, marking something in the notebook.

“This ring was found in your possession,” Mrs. Whitstone said.

“You—you went into my room.”

“You are in the employ of this household. It is not your room.”

Evangeline had no answer to that.

“Agnes spied it on the dresser when she went to check on you. As you know. And then you hid it.” Holding up the ring again, Mrs. Whitstone looked past Evangeline toward the constable. “This ring is my husband’s property.”

“It isn’t. It belongs to Cecil,” Evangeline blurted.

The constable looked back and forth between the two women. “Cecil?”

Mrs. Whitstone gave Evangeline a sharp look. “The younger Mr. Whitstone. My stepson.”

“Would you agree that this is your stepson’s ring?” His moustache twitched under his bulbous nose when he spoke.

With a pinched smile, Mrs. Whitstone said, “It belonged to my husband’s mother. There is a question, perhaps, about whether the ring now belongs to my husband or to his son. It most certainly does not belong to Miss Stokes.”

“He gave it to me,” Evangeline said.

Only a few days earlier, Cecil had pulled a small blue velvet box from his pocket and rested it on her knee. “Open it.”

She’d looked at him in surprise. A ring box. Could it be? Impossible, of course, and yet . . . She allowed herself a small surge of hope. Wasn’t he always telling her that she was more beautiful, more charming, cleverer than any woman in his circle? Wasn’t he always saying that he didn’t give a fig about his family’s expectations for him or society’s silly moral judgments?

When she’d opened the lid, her breath caught in her throat: a band of gold, ornately filigreed, rose in four curved prongs to support a deep red stone.

“My grandmother’s ruby,” he told her. “She bequeathed it to me when she died.”

“Oh, Cecil. It’s stunning. But are you—”

“Oh, no, no! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he’d said with a small laugh. “For now, just seeing it on your finger is enough.”

When he extracted the ring from its slot in the cushion and slipped it onto her finger, the gesture had felt both thrillingly intimate and strangely constricting. She’d never worn one before; her father, a vicar, did not believe in adornments. Gently Cecil bent his head to her hand and kissed it. Then he snapped shut the velvet box, slipped it back into the pocket of his waistcoat, and withdrew a white handkerchief. “Tuck the ring into this and hide it away until I return from holiday. It will be our secret.”