She stilled, a sharp-tipped tool in her hand. "No." The word was directed toward Lord Greystone's ring, its hard-won shine dimmed by engravers' wax and the blur of unshed tears.
"And now that the good times have returned, we work every day to replace what we were forced to use. It's my responsibility, and one day it will be yours."
With the quick, sure strokes of an artist, she traced a reverse image of the crest into the wax, then lifted the graver. The murmur of Robert assisting two customers came through the arch from the showroom, but Amy and Hugh's silence grew tight with tension.
Hugh sighed. "These marriages—they're the way our trade works. I want your word that Goldsmith & Sons will go on. I need your promise."
"Nothing is happening to Goldsmith & Sons."
Amy started engraving, meticulously carving tiny ribbons of gold from the signet's top. She felt her father's gaze on her and knew he wanted an answer, not a denial. An answer about Robert.
The tool slowed as she focused on the ring—and the man it was for. A hazy image of Lord Greystone's handsome features hovered in her mind. He'd just looked at her with his piercing emerald eyes, and she'd felt warm all over and known that it would never, just never, be that way with Robert.
She hurried to finish, set down the graver and held the ring to the candle, studying the reverse crest for imperfections.
"Promise me," her father insisted. "You have a gift that cannot be wasted, an obligation in your blood. Promise me."
She dripped a shiny blob of red sealing wax onto the design sheet and pressed the ring into it. It made a perfect imprint of the Greystone coat of arms, but she didn't feel her usual surge of satisfaction.
Sighing, she turned to search her father's concerned blue eyes. "It's just Robert, Papa. He…he doesn't understand me."
"He doesn't have to understand you. You were promised to him years ago, and he knows his place. As a second son, he's lucky—very lucky—to be marrying into a wealthy family, with his wife-to-be the sole heir. Without you, Robert has nothing. He knows that. He's the right man for you—the right man for Goldsmith & Sons."
Her father didn't understand her, either. "He scares me when he touches me."
"You know nothing of the marriage bed, poppet. It won't scare you for long."
Tears stinging the backs of her eyes, she sat up straighter. "He wants me to stop making jewelry."
A short, harsh bark of laughter followed that statement. "The man is feeling impotent now. When his apprenticeship is finished, he'll feel differently. He won't care to do without the income from your designs."
He reached for the ruby earrings and turned to put them away. She watched him gaze at the jewels, then kneel to tenderly place them in the bottom of the chest. Her fingers clenched tight around Lord Greystone's ring as the tears that had been threatening welled up, and before she could stop herself, she dropped to her knees beside him.
"Papa, look at me. Me!"
She reached for his hands and grasped them in hers, the ring trapped somewhere amidst the tangle of their fingers.
"Papa! Remember you told me I'd have a love, a love like yours and Mama's? You promised, but it hasn't happened! I don't love Robert!" She felt a tear escape and roll down her cheek as her desperate eyes implored his pained ones. "If something happened to him, I wouldn't gaze at his picture, I wouldn't—"
"Enough!" Hugh stood so abruptly that Amy fell back. Never had he raised his voice to her. Now in his fear, his loneliness, he lashed out. "I loved your mother—I still do—and she's gone! I cannot work—I stare at her painting—I loved her so! Better you and Robert think straight. Not like me!"
His shoulders slumped, and his voice dropped to a husky whisper. "Not like me."
She watched him draw a shuddering breath as he reached a hand to pull her up. "I'm sorry, poppet." His eyes fluttered closed and then open as he ran a shaky hand through the black tangles of his hair. "That it's come to harsh words…I'm sorry. But there's more to life than love. It will be better for you this way. You must see a bigger picture. Tradition, continuity…this is how our guild has survived for centuries."
The hard edges of the heavy ring bit into Amy's clenched fist. She blinked back the tears. Like the vast majority of betrothal agreements, hers was not binding until consummation. No money had yet changed hands. There must be another way for her that would still preserve the business. "Surely there's another jeweler…"
"Ours is a small industry. Others were apprenticed a decade ago. Many died in the plague. These matches are made for children, and you're twenty-two. It's God's own truth I've been patient, but it's past time your future was cemented." He moved to wrap an arm tight around Amy's shoulders, as though willing her to understand, to accept the realities of her life. "Robert is a good goldsmith, a good man. You cannot have everything, Amy."
You cannot have everything.
The words echoed in Amy's head, summing up her destiny. She was stuck, as sure as an insect in amber.
Shrugging out of her father's grasp, she picked up a cloth embedded with reddish rouge powder and rubbed the ring absently, a final hand-polish to make it gleam. It felt solid in her hands, this thing she'd created from nothing more than raw metal and elusive inbred artistry. She could never give up making jewelry. She was born to it.
Her gaze swept the cluttered workshop. Tools, hunks of discarded wax and half-finished pieces of jewelry littered every available surface. A thin veil of the reddish rouge powder dusted the
