Pink diamond tattoo on the chest

The snow has shut the Coldharbour road since Tuesday, so I am writing this by the kitchen range, where Mrs Ferrier lets me sit if I shell her peas. She has four guests and a cat with one ear, and we have all agreed that nobody leaves before the thaw. I tell you this so you do not fret about the stone. It is safe. I have it sewn into the lining of my coat, and I check it twice a night the way you check a boiler.

You will think me soft, but the thing has a habit of making me look. Last night, with the lamp turned low, I took it out and held it to the candle. The stone broke the flame into a hundred small pink fires, and on the sill behind it a rose-coloured shadow bloomed where the light fell through, as if the diamond kept its own weather. Mrs Ferrier's grandson came in for coal and stopped dead in the doorway. He asked what I was hiding in my hand. I said a river pebble. He laughed and said no pebble ever threw light like that.

Here is the part you need. The man in room four has asked about the stone since the first night. He calls himself a dealer, though his boots say otherwise. I have told him the truth: it belongs to Mr Oakes' estate and I am only carrying it to Bristol. He has offered me forty pounds to forget the road. I have not answered, and I will not until the London coach runs again.

Write to the Bristol address, not this inn. I will be there by Lady Day if the roads are kind. Tell your mother the pink is not a colour I would have chosen, but it was never mine to choose.

Yours in haste, Nell