Unlacing the Innocent Miss. Margaret McPhee

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СКАЧАТЬ deny it most fervently. I hav—’

      But Evedon did not let her finish. ‘I do not wish to hear it. You are a liar as well as a thief, Miss Meadowfield.’

      She felt her face flood with heat, and her fingers were trembling so much that she gripped them all the tighter that he would not see it.

      ‘The diamonds we have thankfully recovered; with the emeralds we have not been so fortunate. Will you at least have the decency to tell me where you have hidden them?’

      She stared at him, her mind still reeling from shock, too slow and stilted to think coherently. ‘I tell you, they are not within my possession.’

      ‘Then you have sold them already?’ The silken rope slithered through his fingers to land in a dark pile upon the desk. He pocketed the diamond necklace. The clawed feet of his chair scraped loud, like talons gouging against the polished wooden floor, as he pushed the chair back and rose to his feet.

      ‘Of course not.’ Instinctively she stepped back, just a tiny pace, but enough to increase the distance between them. ‘I have taken nothing belonging to her ladyship.’

      ‘I doubt you have had time to rid yourself of the emeralds, and they are most assuredly not within your chamber. So where are they concealed?’ He moved out from behind the barrier of the desk and walked round to stand before her, facing her directly.

      Rosalind’s throat dried. ‘I am no thief,’ she managed to whisper. ‘There has been a terrible mistake here.’

      He ignored her. ‘Empty your pockets, Miss Meadowfield.’

      She stared at him all the more, her heart beating a frenzied tattoo while her mind struggled to believe what he was saying, and she could not rid herself of the sensation that this nightmare into which she had walked could not really be happening.

      ‘I said turn out your pockets.’ He enunciated each word as if she were a simpleton.

      Her hands were shaking and her cheeks burning as she removed a handkerchief from her pocket and pulled the interior out to show that it was empty.

      ‘And the others.’

      ‘I have no other pockets.’

      ‘I do not believe you, Miss Meadowfield.’ The logs crackled upon the fire. He stood there silent and still, before suddenly grabbing her arm and pulling her close enough to allow his hand to sweep a search over her bodice and skirts.

      ‘Lord Evedon!’ She struggled within his arms, trying to break free, but his grip tightened.

      ‘I will not let the matter lie so lightly. You will tell me where they are.’

      ‘I did not take them,’ she cried and struggled all the harder.

      The dog was still barking and, as if in harmony, came the sound of a woman’s cries and shouts from upstairs within the house.

      Rosalind ceased her resistance, knowing that it was the dowager that cried out.

      Evedon knew it too, but he did not relinquish his hold upon her.

      ‘Do not think to make a fool of me so easily, Miss Meadowfield. If you will not divulge the whereabouts of the emeralds to me, perhaps you will be more forthcoming to the constable in the morning.’

      From other parts of the house came the sounds of voices and running. And of hurried footsteps approaching the study door.

      ‘No,’ she whispered, almost to herself, and in that moment, his grasp slackened so that she succeeded in wrenching herself free of him. But the force of the momentum carried her crashing backwards towards the desk. Her hands flailed wide seeking an anchor with which to save herself, and finding nothing but the pile of books stacked upon the desk. Her fingers gripped to them, clung to them, pulling them down with her. From the pale fan of their pages a single folded letter escaped to drift down. Rosalind landed in a heap alongside the books with the letter trapped flat beneath her fingertips.

      Lord Evedon’s face paled. She saw the sudden change in his expression—the undisguised horror, the fear—as he stared, not at her, but at the letter. He reached out and snatched it back, the violence of his action startling her.

      A rap of knuckles sounded against the study door.

      ‘Lord Evedon.’ She recognized the voice as Mr Graves, the butler.

      Evedon stuffed the letter hastily into his pocket. She saw the glimmer of sweat upon the skin of his upper lip and chin as she scrambled to her feet.

      ‘Attend to your appearance,’ he hissed in a whisper.

      Only then did Rosalind realize that her chignon had unravelled, freeing her hair to uncoil down her back. She crouched and began searching for the missing hairpins.

      ‘M’lord,’ Graves called again. ‘It is a matter of urgency.’

      Lord Evedon quickly smoothed the front of his coat and waistcoat.

      ‘Up.’ And with a rough hand, he yanked her to her feet by the shoulder of her dress, ripping it slightly in the process. ‘You will speak nothing of this to my mother. Do I make myself clear?’

      She nodded.

      At last he granted Graves admittance.

      ‘Forgive me, m’lord, but it is Lady Evedon.’

      ‘Another of her turns?’

      Graves coughed delicately. ‘I am afraid so, my lord. She requests Miss Meadowfield’s presence.’ The butler did not even glance in Rosalind’s direction, and yet she could not help but remember what Lord Evedon had said about Graves overseeing the discovery of the diamonds. He had searched through her possessions, sparing nothing, not even her undergarments, and he thought her a thief. Her cheeks heated with the shame and injustice of it.

      ‘Very well.’ Lord Evedon’s gaze moved from Graves to Rosalind. ‘You will attend her ladyship, and this other matter will be concluded upon the morning.’

      She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, aware of her burning cheeks and her unkempt hair and of what Mr Graves and the small collection of maids and footmen gathered in the hallway all thought her. She could see the accusation in their eyes and the tightening of their lips in disapproval.

      She wanted so much to deny the unjust accusation, to say that she was as shocked at what was unravelling as they, but all turned their faces from her. She had no option but to follow Mr Graves up the staircase, aware with every step that she took of Lord Evedon at her back and of what the morning would bring.

      Lady Evedon was no longer crying by the time they reached the room. She lay there so small and exhausted and frail within the high four-poster bed, her face an unnatural shade of white.

      ‘I saw his face,’ she cried. ‘He was there, right there.’ She pointed to the window where she had pulled the curtain back.

      ‘Who was there?’ Rosalind followed the dowager’s terrified gaze.

      ‘The one that follows me always. The one that never СКАЧАТЬ