Dragonfly in Amber 2(383)

She smiled faintly. “It’s all right; you can call Frank my husband. He was, after all, for a good many years. And Bree’s right, in a way—he was her father, as well as Jamie.” She glanced down at her hands, and spread the fingers of both, so the light gleamed from the two rings she wore, silver and gold. Roger was struck by a thought.

“Your ring,” he said, coming to stand close by her again. “The silver one. Is there a maker’s mark in it? Some of the eighteenth-century Scottish silversmiths used them. It might not be proof positive, but it’s something.”

Claire looked startled. Her left hand covered the right protectively, fingers rubbing the wide silver band with its pattern of Highland interlace and thistle blooms.

“I don’t know,” she said. A faint blush rose in her cheeks. “I haven’t seen inside it. I’ve never taken it off.” She twisted the ring slowly over the joint of the knuckle; her fingers were slender, but from long wearing, the ring had left a groove in her flesh.

She squinted at the inside of the ring, then rose and brought it to the table, where she stood next to Roger, tilting the silver circle to catch the light from the table lamp.

“There are words in it,” she said wonderingly. “I never realized that he’d…Oh, dear God.” Her voice broke, and the ring slipped from her fingers, rattling on the table with a tiny metal chime. Roger hurriedly scooped it up, but she had turned away, fists held tight against her middle. He knew she didn’t want him to see her face; the control she had kept through the long hours of the day and the scene with Brianna had deserted her now.

He stood for a minute, feeling unbearably awkward and out of place. With a terrible feeling that he was violating a privacy that ran deeper than anything he had ever known, but not knowing what else to do, he lifted the tiny metal circle to the light and read the words inside.

“Da mi basia mille…” But it was Claire’s voice that spoke the words, not his. Her voice was shaky, and he could tell that she was crying, but it was coming back under her control. She couldn’t let go for long; the power of what she held leashed could so easily destroy her.

“It’s Catullus. A bit of a love poem. Hugh.…Hugh Munro—he gave me the poem for a wedding present, wrapped around a bit of amber with a dragonfly inside it.” Her hands, still curled into fists, had now dropped to her sides. “I couldn’t say it all, still, but the one bit—I know that much.” Her voice was growing steadier as she spoke, but she kept her back turned to Roger. The small silver circle glowed in his palm, still warm with the heat of the finger it had left.

“…da mi basia mille…”



Still turned away, she went on, translating,

“Then let amorous kisses dwell

On our lips, begin and tell

A Thousand and a Hundred score

A Hundred, and a Thousand more.”



When she had finished, she stood still a moment, then slowly turned to face him again. Her cheeks were flushed and wet, and her lashes clumped together, but she was superficially calm.

“A hundred, and a thousand more,” she said, with a feeble attempt at a smile. “But no maker’s mark. So that isn’t proof, either.”

“Yes, it is.” Roger found there seemed to be something sticking in his own throat, and hastily cleared it. “It’s absolute proof. To me.”

Something lit in the depths of her eyes, and the smile grew real. Then the tears welled up and overflowed as she lost her grip once and for all.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last. She was sitting on the sofa, elbows on her knees, face half-buried in one of the Reverend Mr. Wakefield’s huge white handkerchiefs. Roger sat close beside her, almost touching. She seemed very small and vulnerable. He wanted to pat the ash-brown curls, but felt too shy to do it.

“I never thought…it never occurred to me,” she said, blowing her nose again. “I didn’t know how much it would mean, to have someone believe me.”

“Even if it isn’t Brianna?”

She grimaced slightly at his words, brushing back her hair with one hand as she straightened.

“It was a shock,” she defended her daughter. “Naturally, she couldn’t—she was so fond of her father—of Frank, I mean,” she amended hastily. “I knew she might not be able to take it all in at first. But…surely when she’s had time to think about it, ask questions…” Her voice faded, and the shoulders of her white linen suit slumped under the weight of the words.

As though to distract herself, she glanced at the table, where the stack of shiny-covered books still sat, undisturbed.