"I expect it was."
"Let me see the ring."
Frances called Robin, and Robin came, carrying his cup, and stood at the Duke's knee and held out his thumb, and the Duke unwound the black wool with great care, the way a man unwraps a bandage, and took the ring off and held it in the firelight. Then he took off his own ring, the one he wore on the fourth finger of his right hand, and held the two together.
They were the same, and not the same. The same oval bezel of carnelian, the same otter, the same fish. But the stone in the Duke's ring was cut clean and bright, and the stone in Robin's ring was softer at the edges, worn by a long time, as a step is worn by feet, and the otter in it had a slightly different turn to its head, as though it had heard something behind it.
"This is the old seal," said the Duke slowly. "My grandfather's. His father's before him. It was cut for the first duke, in the first George's time; there's a wax impression of it on the patent of creation, in the muniment room. My father lost it when he was at Oxford. It's a family story. He was nineteen and he lost it at cards, or in the river, or in a hedge on the Woodstock road; the story changed depending on who told it. My grandfather was so angry he had this one cut by Rundell's at once and wouldn't speak of the other again. I was given this when I came of age." He turned Robin's ring in his fingers. "My father never lost it at all. He gave it to her. To Rendle's mother."
"Yes," said Frances.
"What was her name?"
"Phoebe Rendle."
The library door opened. They both turned. The Dowager Duchess of Halvergate stood in it, with her veil put back and the rain on her shoulders, and Lorimer behind her with the dripping umbrella, and for a moment nobody spoke at all.
"Tristram," said the Dowager. "I should like a word with you."