The Ruby Locket Read Online Free

so uncommonly soft…so fragile.” He fingered the fabric on my blouse. “Did you know that about yourself?”
                  “Sometimes I wish I weren’t so fragile. I want to be a stronger woman for Anne.”
                  “You’re perfect the way you are. In fact, I wish I’d had a mother like you, loving and affectionate.”
                  I realized I didn’t know much about Ivan’s mother, except that she was no longer alive. “Were you not close to your mother?”
                  His face clouded with a strange mix of emotions. “Far from it. She was successful at running the abbey after my father died, but she was strict, not to mention…austere. Like one of those grand lion statues on the front steps of the abbey.” He stared away as if thinking of a distant time in his youth. “She had a way of reminding me of my place.”
                  “Oh, I see.” I put my hand on Ivan’s cheek. “I’m so sorry you had to grow up that way. You deserved so much more than that.”
                  He came back to himself and took my hands in his. “I want to tell you something.”
                  “Yes?”
                  “There have been times I’ve felt trapped in this life. It’s as if I’ve been locked away in a windowless room ever since I was a boy. I’ve grown up never knowing there was a vast and lustrous world outside that door. Then someone came along, an angel, with a key. She opened the door, and the boy, who’s now a man, saw the world for the first time. A life that he’d never known existed.” Ivan gave my hands a squeeze and then released me. “You are the key, Dauphine. But more than that, you’re life to me. The world I’d never imagined.”
                  Tears stung my eyes. Ivan had so many words for me, and they were always so persuasive and passionate—not to mention entrancing—that my heart yielded a little more with each soliloquy. And he knew it. I could tell. But what could that matter? Edgar had been far from a romantic. He had loved me, yes, but he had been a pragmatic, calling sweet nothings no more than manipulative claptrap for the weak minded. But Ivan wasn’t manipulating me. He was simply loving me.
                  At that moment, a strange brooding stillness washed over him—one I’d seen before—almost as if a curtain had closed, and I was no longer allowed to see him, or be with him, no matter how close we were. At times he seemed burdened with something, even tormented. Perhaps he had hidden things in his heart as I did.
                  That thought moved me—connected my heart more closely to his. Perhaps it was time for a deeper level of commitment on my part. I unclasped the necklace and removed the ring from the chain. After placing the emerald ring in his palm I closed his fingers around it.
                  Ivan seemed to be shaken from his trance as he grasped my arms, almost a little too tightly. I don’t think he knew his own strength.
                  “Tell me you’re not giving me the ring back,” he said with a twinge of brusqueness. “Please.”
                  “No, no, of course not.” I cupped his face with my palms, trying to calm his fears. “I’d like for you to place it on my finger now.”
                  “Oh.” Ivan’s whole demeanor softened as he relaxed his shoulders.
                  “Also, I thought it might feel more like a real engagement…if we finally sealed our love with a kiss.” I’d never been a woman to blush, and yet my face heated the moment I’d made my request. It had been odd to become engaged without truly kissing, but then Ivan’s old-fashioned ways seemed endearing.
                  Ivan turned away.
                  But why would he refuse me? Dismayed at his response, I