Dad Hears My Thoughts novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Glass Ring
A disgraced lord brings a foundling into Cicely's shop and answers a voice she can't hear; to keep the baby from his cousin, Cicely swears she's theirs, and he pulls the stolen diamond out of the blanket.
The man on my doorstep was holding a baby, and he was arguing with her.
"What do you mean, glass?" he said.
The baby hadn't made a sound.
Snow was blowing in past him onto my clean floor.
"Shut the door," I said. "You're letting the cold in."
He stepped inside and kicked it shut with his heel.
The basket hung off his arm.
Green velvet cloak with a fur collar. Black doublet. No sword.
I knew the face. Everyone on the Street of Lamps knew it by now.
They'd cried his name in the square at noon.
Tristram Harcourt. Heir to the Duke of Harcourt until this morning. Thief of the Queen's Sun Diamond.
Thirty days to give it back, or hang.
"We're closed, my lord," I said.
"I'm not a lord. They were very clear about that."
He set the basket on my counter, between the scales and the wheel.
Inside was a baby girl, maybe ten months old, with pale gold curls.
She was wrapped in a cream blanket with daisies sewn along the edge.
She looked at me.
Then she looked at him.
"She was on your step," he said. "In the snow. Nobody else in the street."
"Then she goes to the watch house."
"No," he said, too fast.
Then he frowned down at the baby. "I wasn't going to."
I folded my arms. "Who are you talking to?"
He didn't answer.
He pulled a ring off his little finger and set it on the counter.
A gold band with a blue stone the size of a pea.
"My mother's. I need to sell it. I need a room for tonight, and milk."
I picked up my loupe.
"Don't bother," he said. "It's glass."
I looked anyway.
The stone was dead under the lens. No fire, and a seam of tiny bubbles down one side.
Paste. Good paste, but paste.
"It's worth about tuppence," I said. "How did you know?"
He looked at the baby for a long moment.
"Somebody swapped it," he said quietly. "In my own house."
The bell over my door rang hard.
Two men from the watch came in stamping snow, and behind them came a man in a black coat stitched with gold.
Black curls. A handsome smile. An emerald ring on his left hand.
Ralph Harcourt. The new heir. They'd cried his name at noon too.
"Cousin," he said. "Selling the family silver already?"
Tristram didn't turn around.
The watch captain started pulling open my drawers.
"Those are client stones," I said.
He tipped a whole tray of garnets onto the floor.
Ralph walked straight past me to the basket.
He stared at the baby.
"There she is," he said softly. "The Keeper's brat. Somebody left her on this street tonight."
"You know whose she is?" I said.
"A thief's. Her mother ran off with something that belongs to the Crown."
He smiled at me.
"Captain, take it to the foundling house. The matron will know what to do with it."
"Half the babies in that house are dead by spring," I said.
"Then she'll be in good company."
The baby started to cry.
Tristram's hand went to the basket, and his face went white.
"She says you smell like the river," he said to Ralph.
Everyone stared at him.
Ralph laughed out loud.
"Grandfather was right to throw you out. You've lost your mind along with the Queen's stone."
The captain reached for the basket.
I stepped between them.
I had sixteen client stones on the floor and rent due Friday.
I did it anyway.
"She's not going anywhere," I said. "She's mine."
Ralph's eyebrows went up. "Yours."
"Mine. And his."
I put my hand flat on Tristram's back. He went very still under it.
"A foundling house can't take a baby from her own mother," I said. "Ask the matron. Ask any magistrate in the city."
The captain looked at Ralph.
Ralph looked me up and down. My apron. My burned fingertips. The pencil stuck through my hair.
"Hawtrey," he said, like he was reading it off my sign. "Old Hawtrey's girl. Cicely, isn't it?"
I didn't answer.
"A gem-cutter and a thief," he said. "What a pretty little family."
"Get out of my shop."
"I'll be back in the morning with the matron and a writ."
He pulled on his gloves one finger at a time.
"Enjoy her while you can."
He stepped on a garnet on his way out. It cracked under his heel.
The door banged behind them.
Tristram let out a long breath.
"Why did you do that?" he said.
"Your cousin kicked my stones. Pick them up."
He got down on his knees in his velvet cloak and picked up garnets.
A Duke's grandson, on my floor, counting under his breath.
The baby stopped crying and started gumming the edge of the basket.
"She needs a name," I said. "If she's mine, I'm not calling her the Keeper's brat."
He held up his mother's ring. "Tuppence."
"You can't name a baby Tuppence."
The baby squealed and kicked both feet.
"She likes it," he said.
"How would you possibly know that?"
He looked up at me. Gray eyes, very tired.
"Because she told me," he said.
I waited for him to laugh.
He didn't.
He stood and lifted her out of the basket. She grabbed a fistful of his fur collar.
Then he frowned at nothing. "Cold? What's cold?"
He turned the blanket over and ran his thumb along the daisy hem.
He stopped at one corner.
"There's something sewn in here."
I took the little knife off my bench and cut three stitches.
Something heavy slid out into my palm.
Yellow. The size of a quail's egg.
It caught the lamp and threw gold all over my ceiling.
I had seen it once before, when I was four years old, on my father's wheel.
My hand started to shake.
"That," I said, "is the stone they're going to hang you for."
Tristram didn't look at the diamond.
He looked at the baby.
"She told me where it was," he said.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend