PROLOGUE
London
April 22, 1661
THE DAY AMETHYST Goldsmith was born, her king was beheaded. Now, twelve years later, his son was returning to England, and Amy wanted to see every exciting second of his triumphant procession. Without taller people blocking her view.
Unfortunately, it seemed nearly everyone was taller than she.
She shouldered her way through the crowd, her parents and aunt murmuring apologies in her wake. “Here, there’s room!” Finally reaching a few bare inches of rail, she clasped it with both hands and turned to flash them a victorious smile. “Come along, it’s starting!”
Hugh and Edith Goldsmith joined her, shaking their heads at their daughter’s tenacity. Hugh’s sister, Amy’s Aunt Elizabeth, squeezed in behind. Ignoring the grumbling of displaced spectators, Amy spread her feet wide to save more room at the front. “Robert, over here!”
Robert Stanley tugged on her long black plait as he wedged himself in beside her. She shot him a grin; he was fun. Although he’d arrived just last week to train as her father’s apprentice, Amy had known since birth that she was to marry him—or at least since she was old enough to understand such things. So far they seemed to be compatible, although he’d been surprised to find she was far more skilled as a jeweler than he. Surprised and none too pleased, Amy suspected. But he would get over those feelings.
She might be a girl, but, as her father always said, her talent was a God-given gift. She’d never give up her craft. Robert would just have to get used to it.
With a sigh of pleasure, Amy shuffled her shoes on the scrubbed cobblestones. “Look, Mama! Everything is so clean and glorious.” She breathed deep of the fresh air, blinking against the bright sun. “The rain has stopped…even the weather is welcoming the monarchy back to England! Have you ever seen so many people? All London must be here.”
“These cannot all be Londoners.” Her mother waved a hand, encompassing the crowds on the rooftops, the mobbed windows and overflowing balconies. “I think many have come in from the countryside.”
A handful of tossed rose petals drifted down, landing on Amy’s dark head like scented snowflakes. She shook them off, laughing. “Just look at all the tapestries and banners!”
“Just look at all that wasted wine,” Robert muttered, with a nod toward the fragrant red river that ran through the open conduit in the street.
Amy opened her mouth to protest, then decided he must be fooling. “Marry come up, Robert! You must be pleased King Charles will be crowned tomorrow. Our lives have been so dreary until now. But now Cromwell is gone, and we have music and dancing!” She felt like dancing, like spreading her burgundy satin skirts and twirling in a circle, but the press of the crowd made such a maneuver impossible, so she settled for bobbing a little curtsy. “We’ve beautiful clothes, and the theater—”
“And drinking and cards and dice,” Robert added.
But Amy wasn’t listening. She’d turned back to ogle the mounted queue of nobility parading their way from the Tower to Whitehall Palace. Such jewels and feathers and lace! Fingering the looped ribbons adorning her new gown, she pressed harder against the rail, wishing she too could join the procession.
“Where did they possibly find so many ostrich feathers in all of England?” she wondered aloud, then burst into giggles.
Her aunt laughed and wrapped an affectionate arm around her shoulders. “Where do you find the energy, child? You must come to Paris. Uncle William and I could use your happy smiles.”
Feeling a stab of sympathy, Amy hugged her around the waist. Aunt Elizabeth had lost her three children to smallpox last year.
“We need her artistry here,” Amy’s father protested, poking his sister good-naturedly. “Your shop will have to do without.”
“Ah, Hugh, how selfish you are!” Aunt Elizabeth chided. “Hoarding my niece’s talent for your own profit.” She aimed a teasing smile at her brother. “No wonder we moved to France to escape the competition.”
Amy grinned. Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle William had been forced to move their shop when business fell off during the Commonwealth years. But they’d flourished in Paris, becoming jewelers to the French court, and wouldn’t think of returning now.
“I’m glad you came for the coronation, Auntie. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Aunt Elizabeth declared. “Old Noll drove me out of England, so my home is elsewhere now. But heaven knows no one here is happier than I.”
“Listen!” Amy cried. A joyous roar rolled westward toward them, marking the slow passage of His Majesty in the middle of the procession. “Can you hear King Charles coming? There are his attendants!” The noise swelled as the king’s footguards marched by, their plumes of red and white feathers contrasting with those of his brother, the Duke of York, whose guard was decked out in black and white.
All at once, the roar was deafening. Amy grasped her mother’s hand. “It’s him, Mama,” she whispered. “King Charles II.” Glittering in the sunshine, the Horse of State caught and held her gaze. “Oh, look at the embroidered saddle, the pearls and rubies—look at our diamonds!”
Amy didn’t care for horses—she was terrified of them, truth be told—so she paid no attention to the magnificent beast himself. But three hundred of her family’s diamonds sparkled on the gold stirrups and bosses, among the twelve thousand lent for the occasion.
“Oh, Papa,” she breathed, “I wish we could have designed that saddle.”
Aunt Elizabeth’s hand suddenly tightened on Amy’s shoulder. “Charles is looking at me,” she declared loudly.
Amy’s father snorted. “Always the flirt, sister mine.”
Amy’s gaze flew from the dazzling horse to its rider. Smiling broadly beneath his thin mustache, the tall king waved to the crowd. His cloth-of-silver suit peeked from beneath ermine-lined crimson robes. Rubies and sapphires winked from gold shoe buckles and matching gold garters, festooned with great poufs of silver ribbon. Long, shining black curls draped over his chest, framing a weathered face; the result, Amy supposed,
