“Isn't that jolly of the Renshaws to remember your mum and me.”
“I'll bet it's a bit of cash, like last year. Let's see . . .” Eva bent over the box to peer inside. The breath left her in a single whoosh.
“Well? What's next in that box of surprises?” Dad leaned expectantly forward in his chair. “Evie? Evie, why do you look like that? Surely they haven't gone and given us one of the family heirlooms, have they? Evie?”
“I . . . Oh, Dad . . . Oh,
God
.”
“Evie, we do not blaspheme in this house,” her mother called from the kitchen. She appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a dish rag. “Eva, what on earth is wrong? You're as white as the snow.”
“It's . . . it's a ring,” she managed, gasping. Her hands trembled where they clutched the edges of the box. Her heart thumped as though to escape her chest. “A s-signet ring.”
“Oh, that's lovely, dear. So why do you look as if you've just seen a ghost?” Her mother started toward her. Her father's rumbling laugh somehow penetrated the ringing in Eva's ears.
She held up both hands to stop her mother in her tracks. “Mum, stay where you are. Don't come any closer.”
“Why, Eva Mary Huntford, what
has
gotten into you?” The sullenness in her mother's voice mingled with that incessant ringing. A wave of dizziness swooped up to envelop Eva. “What sort of signet ring could make my daughter impertinent?”
Eva looked up, the room wavering in her vision. “One that's still attached to the finger.”