The Unmasking of a Lady. Emily May

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СКАЧАТЬ sour taste in her mouth. She looked down at the bracelet and earrings, at the love letter, and bit her lower lip. What to do?

      St Just. Memory flooded through her: the smothered laughter of the ton, the sniggers and the sideways glances, the gleeful whispers.

      The thief tightened her lips. Resentment burned in her breast and heated her cheeks. Adam St Just could rot in hell for all she cared, but Grace St Just…Grace St Just didn’t deserve this.

      Her decision made, the thief gathered the contents of the hidden drawer—letters and jewels—and tucked them into the pouch she wore around her waist, hidden beneath shirt and trousers. Swiftly she replaced both drawers. Crossing the room, she plucked the ruby earrings from the objects littering Lady Bicknell’s dressing table. The rubies went into the pouch, nestling alongside the pearls. The thief propped an elegant square of card among the remaining earrings. The message inscribed on it was brief: Should payment be made for a spiteful tongue? Tom thinks so. There was no signature; a drawing of a lean alley cat adorned the bottom of the note.

      The thief gave a satisfied nod. Justice done. She glanced at the mirror. In the candlelight her eyes were black. Her face was soot-smudged and unrecognisable. For a moment she stared at herself, unsettled, then she lifted a finger to touch the faint cleft in her chin. That, at least, was recognisable, whether she wore silk dresses or boys’ clothing in rough, dark fabric.

      The thief turned away from her image in the mirror. She trod quietly towards the open window.

      Adam St Just found his half-sister in the morning room, reading a letter. Her hair gleamed like spun gold in the sunlight. ‘Grace?’

      His sister gave a convulsive start and clutched the letter to her breast. A bundle of items on her lap slid to the floor. Something landed with a light thud. Adam saw the glimmer of pearls.

      ‘Is that your bracelet? I thought you’d lost—’ He focused on her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing.’ Grace hastily wiped her cheek. ‘Just something in my eye.’ She bent and hurriedly gathered several pieces of paper and the bracelet.

      A pearl earring lay stranded on the carpet. Adam nudged it with the toe of his boot. ‘And this?’ He picked up the earring and held it out.

      Grace flushed. She took the earring.

      Adam frowned at her. ‘Grace, what is it?’

      ‘Nothing.’ Her smile was bright, but her eyes slid away from his.

      Adam sat down on the sofa alongside her. ‘Grace…’ he said, and then stopped, at a loss to know how to proceed. The physical distance between them—a few inches of rose-pink damask—might as well have been a chasm. The twelve years that separated them, the difference in their genders, seemed insurmountable barriers. He felt a familiar sense of helplessness, a familiar knowledge that he was failing in his guardianship of her.

      He looked at his sister’s downcast eyes, the curve of her cheek, the slender fingers clutching the pearl earring. I love you, Grace. He cleared his throat and tried to say the words aloud. ‘Grace, I hope you know that I…care about you and that I want you to be happy.’

      It was apparently the wrong thing to say. Grace began to cry.

      Adam hesitated for a moment, dismayed, and then put his arm around her. To his relief, Grace didn’t pull away. She turned towards him, burying her face in his shoulder.

      It hurt to hear her cry. Adam swallowed and tightened his grip on her. She’d grown thinner since their arrival in London, paler, quieter. I should take her home. To hell with the Season.

      The storm of tears lessened. Adam stroked his sister’s hair. ‘What is it, Grace?’

      ‘I didn’t want to disappoint you again,’ she sobbed.

      ‘You’ve never disappointed me.’

      Grace shook her head against his shoulder. ‘Last year…’ She didn’t need to say more; they both knew to what she was referring.

      ‘I was angry—but not with you.’ He’d been more than angry: he’d been furious. Furious at Reginald Plunkett, furious at the school for hiring the man, but mostly furious at himself for not visiting Grace more often, for not realising how lonely she was, how vulnerable to the smiles and compliments of her music teacher.

      The anger stirred again, tightening in his chest as if a fist was clenched there. I should have horsewhipped him. I should have broken every bone in his body.

      Adam dug in his pocket for a handkerchief. Grace had come perilously close to ruin. Even now, six months later, he woke in a cold sweat from dreams—nightmares—in which he’d delayed his journey by one day, and arrived in Bath to find her gone. ‘Here,’ he said, handing her the handkerchief.

      Grace dried her cheeks.

      Adam smiled at her. ‘Now, tell me what’s wrong.’

      Grace looked down at her lap, at the papers and the pearls. She extracted a sheet of paper and handed it to him.

       My dear Miss St Just, I have a letter of yours you wrote to a Mr Reginald Plunkett of Birmingham has come into my possession. If you want it back. In exchange for its return. I should like to return this letter to you. In exchange I want ask nothing more than your pearl bracelet.

      ‘What!’ He stared at his sister. ‘Someone’s blackmailing you?’

      Grace bit her lip.

      Adam’s fingers tightened on the sheet of paper. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

      Her gaze fell.

      Because you were afraid I’d be angry at you, disappointed in you. Adam swallowed. He looked back at the blackmail letter without seeing it. He rubbed his face with one hand. ‘Grace…’

      ‘Here.’ She handed him another piece of paper. The writing was the same as the first, the intent as ugly.

      ‘You did what this person asked? You gave them your pearls?’ His rage made the sunlight seem as sharp-edged as a knife. The room swung around him for a moment, vivid with anger. He focused on a chair. The rose-pink damask had become the deep crimson of blood, the gilded wood was as bright as flames. How dared anyone do this to her? The sheet of paper crumpled in his fist. I’ll kill them—

      ‘Yes.’ Grace gathered the bracelet and the earrings within the curve of her palm.

      Adam blinked. His anger fell away, replaced by confusion. ‘Then why—?’

      ‘Tom returned them to me.’

      ‘Tom?’

      He blinked again at the elegant piece of paper she handed him, at the brief message, at the signature and the cat drawn in black ink at the bottom of the page. His interest sharpened. That Tom.

      I believe these belong to you, Tom had written. I found them in Lady Bicknell’s possession.

      ‘And the letter to Reginald Plunkett?’

      Grace СКАЧАТЬ