"No. And my knowing it now is worth nothing." She said it plainly. "I am a woman who keeps bees on a hill. If I say Lady Livia's pearls are paste, she will say I am the thief who took the real ones, and sold them, and put the copy back to hide it. It's her word against mine, the same as it was a year ago."
She took a breath.
"But the jeweler's name was stamped in gold inside that red case. I saw it. I remember it. A London jeweler will not show a companion what a lady sold him. He would show a duke. I can't do this part, Oswin. You can."
It was the first time she had said his name. She had not meant to: it came out of her as naturally as breathing, there at the gate in the evening light. And she heard it land, and she saw it land in him.
He stood quite still. For a moment, he looked struck, or like a man who has been handed something so heavy he does not know how to hold it.
"Say that again," he said.
"You can do this part."
"Not that."
She felt her face go hot. "Oswin," she said.
He did not smile. He did something better: he reached across the gate and took her hand. He lifted it and pressed his mouth to the back of it, just above the healing stings, very briefly and very hard. Then he let go.