The Unmasking of a Lady. Emily May

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СКАЧАТЬ his breath. He fastened his gaze on his sister. ‘Was there anything else? Anything that might identify him?’

      Grace shook her head.

      Adam touched the ink-drawn cat with a fingertip. It stared back at him, sitting with its tail curled across its paws, unblinking, calm.

      He lifted his eyes to the signature, and above that to the message. ‘Lady Bicknell,’ he said aloud, and the rage came back.

      ‘Apparently,’ Grace said.

      The blackmail letters were clearly drafts. ‘You have the ones she sent you?’

      Grace shook her head. ‘I burned them.’

      Adam re-read Lady Bicknell’s letters, letting his eyes rest on each and every word, scored out or not. ‘She’ll pay for this,’ he said grimly. ‘By God, if she thinks she can—!’ He recollected himself, glanced at his sister’s face and forced himself to sit back on the sofa, to form his mouth into a smile. ‘Forget this, Grace. It’s over.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Grace, but her expression was familiar: pale, miserable. She’d worn it four years ago when her mother died, and she’d worn it last November when she’d learned the truth about Reginald Plunkett.

      Adam reached for her hand. ‘How odd, that we must be grateful to a thief.’ He laughed, tried to make a joke of it.

      Grace smiled dutifully.

      Adam looked at her, noting the paleness of her cheeks, the faint shadows beneath the blue eyes. ‘Grace, would you like to go home?’ Away from the press of buildings and people and the sly whispers of gossip.

      Her face lit up, as if the sun had come from behind a cloud. ‘Oh, yes!’

      ‘Then I’ll arrange it.’

      ‘Thank you!’ She pulled her hand free from his grasp and embraced him, swift and wholly unexpected.

      Adam experienced a throat-tightening rush of emotion. He folded his sister briefly in his arms and then released her. How did we become so distant? He cleared his throat. ‘Have you any engagements today? Would you like to ride out to Richmond?’

      ‘Oh, yes! I should like that of all things!’ She rose, and the pearls tumbled from her lap on to the damask-covered sofa. A much-creased letter fluttered down alongside them. It was addressed to Reginald Plunkett in Grace’s handwriting.

      The delight faded from his sister’s face, leaving it miserable once more.

      Adam gestured to the letter. ‘Do you want to keep it?’

      Grace shook her head.

      ‘Shall I burn it for you? Or would you prefer—?’

      ‘I don’t want to touch it!’ Her voice was low and fierce.

      Adam nodded. He scooped up the pearls and placed them in Grace’s palm, curling her fingers around them, holding her hand, holding her gaze. ‘Forget about this, Grace. It’s over.’

      Grace nodded, but the happiness that had briefly lit her face was gone.

      Adam stood. He kissed her cheek. ‘Go and change,’ he said, releasing her hand.

      When she’d gone, he picked up the pieces of paper: Grace’s love letter, Tom’s note, Lady Bicknell’s blackmail drafts. He allowed his rage to flare again. Lady Bicknell would pay for the distress she’d caused Grace. She’d pay deeply.

      But some of the blame was his. The distance between them was his fault: he’d been his sister’s guardian, not her friend. She’d been too afraid of his disappointment, his anger, to ask for help.

      Adam strode from the morning room. His shame was a physical thing; he felt it in his chest as if a knife blade was buried there.

      He had failed Grace. Somehow, without realising it, he’d become to her what their father had been to him: disapproving and unapproachable.

      But no more, he vowed silently as he entered his study. No more.

      Adam grimly placed the letters in the top drawer of his desk. He put Tom’s note in last and let his gaze dwell on the signature. ‘I would like to know who you are,’ he said under his breath. And then he locked the drawer and put the key in his pocket.

      

      Arabella Knightley, granddaughter of the fifth Earl of Westcote, paused alongside a potted palm and surveyed the ballroom. Lord and Lady Halliwell were launching their eldest daughter in style: hundreds of candles blazed in the chandeliers, a profusion of flowers scented the air, and yards of shimmering pink silk swathed the walls. An orchestra played on a dais and dancing couples filled the floor, performing the intricate steps of the quadrille. The débutantes were distinguishable by their self-consciousness as much as by their pale gowns.

      Grace St Just wasn’t on the dance floor. Arabella looked at the ladies seated around the perimeter of the ballroom, scanning their faces as she sipped her lemonade. Her lip lifted slightly in contempt as she recognised Lady Bicknell.

      The woman’s appearance—the tasteless, gaudy trinkets, the heavy application of cosmetics—was reminiscent of her dressing table. Her earrings…Arabella narrowed her eyes. Yes, Lady Bicknell was wearing the diamond earrings she herself had discarded as worthless.

      If the woman’s appearance was in keeping with her dressing table, her figure brought to mind the mahogany dresser: broad and squat. Like a frog, Arabella thought, watching as Lady Bicknell’s wide, flat mouth opened and shut. She was disclaiming forcefully, her heavy face flushed with outrage. One of the ladies seated alongside her hid a smile behind her fan; the other, a dowager wearing a purple turban, listened with round-eyed interest.

      Telling the tale of Tom’s thieving, Arabella thought, with another curl of her lip. The woman certainly wouldn’t mention the other items that had gone missing last night: the pearl bracelet and earrings, the blackmail letters.

      Arabella dismissed Lady Bicknell from her thoughts. She continued her search of the ballroom, looking for Grace St Just.

      She found her finally, seated alongside a St Just aunt. The girl wore a white satin gown sewn with seed pearls. More pearls gleamed at her earlobes and around her pale throat. She was astonishingly lovely, and yet she was sitting in a corner as if she didn’t want anyone to notice her.

      Arabella was reminded, vividly, of her own first Season. It was no easy thing to make one’s début surrounded by whispers and conjecture and sidelong glances.

      And I had advantages that Grace does not. She’d had the armour her childhood had given her—armour a girl as gently reared as Grace St Just couldn’t possibly have. And she’d had advice—advice it appeared no one had given Grace.

      Arabella chewed on her lower lip. She glanced at the dance floor, trying to decide what to do. Her eyes fastened on one of the dancers, a tall man with a patrician cast to his features. Adam St Just, cousin to the Duke of Frew.

      She eyed him with resentment. St Just’s manner was as aloof, as proud, as if it was he who held the dukedom, not his cousin. How could I have been such a fool as to believe he liked СКАЧАТЬ