Unlacing the Innocent Miss. Margaret McPhee

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      ‘There is no one there, mother. It is only you and me and Miss Meadowfield.’

      ‘You are quite certain?’ Lady Evedon asked.

      ‘I am certain. It was another of your nightmares.’ He pressed a hand to his mother’s, his face filled with concern. ‘I shall send for Dr Spentworth.’

      ‘No.’ Lady Evedon shook her head. ‘There is no need. You are right. It was a nightmare, nothing more.’

      ‘Then we will request the doctor’s presence in the morning, to ensure that all is as it should be.’

      ‘I understand well your implication, Charles; you think that I am going mad!’

      ‘I was not suggesting any such thing. I am but concerned for your health.’

      Lady Evedon nodded, but Rosalind could see in the lady’s face that she was not convinced. ‘Of course. I am merely tired, and the barking of that wretched animal outside woke me with a fright.’ She seemed almost recovered. ‘You may leave us now; Miss Meadowfield will read to me until I fall asleep. Her voice soothes my overly excited nerves.’ She turned to Rosalind with a little smile. ‘You look rather pale, my dear. Are you feeling unwell?’

      ‘I—’ Rosalind opened her mouth to speak and, feeling Lord Evedon’s hard gaze upon her, quickly closed it again. With a sinking heart she realized that he had been right in his caution as they left the study. She could not tell Lady Evedon of the accusation of theft or any of the rest of it, not with the dowager’s state of mind.

      ‘I am quite well, thank you, my lady.’

      ‘Your book.’ Lord Evedon lifted a small book from the bedside table and handed it to his mother.

      Lady Evedon smiled. ‘Thank you, dear Charles.’

      ‘I will leave Stevens outside the door to ensure that you two ladies are kept safe.’ Lord Evedon’s gaze met Rosalind’s and she knew his words for the warning they were.

      ‘I shall be glad to know that we are being so carefully protected.’ Lady Evedon seemed reassured by the knowledge.

      ‘Mama…Miss Meadowfield.’ He bowed and left.

      ‘Miss Meadowfield,’ Lady Evedon held the copy of Wordsworth’s poems out to her.

      ‘My lady,’ she said, and with only a slight tremor of her fingers she opened its leather cover.

      She read aloud, keeping her voice calm and light. She read and read, and by the time that Lady Evedon finally fell asleep the candles on the bedside table had burned low.

      She sat there, listening to Lady Evedon’s quiet snores, her palms clammy even while her fingers were stiff with cold. Her mind raced with thoughts, with fears, with worried speculation. Once the constable arrived, it was only a matter of time before they discovered the truth: that Rosalind Meadowfield did not exist at all, that she had lied. Theft of this magnitude from an employer was a capital offence, and when they knew her real family name, there was no court in the land that would deal with her leniently. Prison. Transportation. Or even…hanging. Her hands balled to form fists, clutching so tightly that her fingernails cut into the flesh of her palms.

      She remembered the anger on Lord Evedon’s face, his rough search of her person and his cruel grip. He believed the worst of her. He thought she had betrayed the dowager’s trust and stolen from her and that she was still hiding the emeralds. The accusation stung at her doubly, for not only was she innocent, but she had grown fond of Lady Evedon. From all she had come to learn of Charles Evedon over the years, she knew that he was a man who would not take what he believed to be a betrayal lightly. Not for Evedon a quiet dismissal. Already she knew he meant to call the constable. He wanted retribution, and he did not mean to be denied it. The guard outside the door was testament to that fact. Evedon would see her punished. And once he knew her true identity, he would see her hanged.

      That knowledge had a cruel fatalism about it. She closed her eyes, trying to suppress the dread, and thought again of the black silken noose that had swung from Lord Evedon’s fingers. Did someone already know her secret? Or was it just a warning of the fate that awaited a jewel thief?

      She replaced the book on top of the copy of The Times that lay upon Lady Evedon’s bedside table, her eye catching again the small advertisement she had read earlier on the top right-hand corner of the front page. Oh, to be there on the wild moorland of Scotland, so far from Lord Evedon and the chaos that was unfolding around her. But such dreams were without hope.

      She rose to her feet and turned away from the bed where the dowager lay sleeping, knowing she must return to the small room that was her bedchamber even though its humble privacy had been violated. The thought of Graves and others of the servants raking through her undergarments, touching all that was personal to her, was deeply humiliating.

      The letter lay on the carpet behind the door. She saw it immediately, lying pale and slightly crumpled upon the deep rose and blue threads of silk, and she knew without touching it, without even seeing it close up, that it was the letter that Lord Evedon had stuffed into his pocket downstairs in his study. The same letter that he had snatched away from her so angrily.

      She walked towards it, lifted it, heard it crinkle with her touch and felt the stiffness of the paper and the broken sealing wax beneath her fingers. The large black spiky font showed the letter to be addressed to Earl Evedon, Evedon House, Cavendish Square, London. Normally, Rosalind would not have dreamt of reading a letter addressed to another, but there was nothing of normality about this evening. Beneath the low flickering light of Lady Evedon’s candles, Rosalind opened the letter and began to read.

      The dowager’s snores still sounded softly within the room, but Rosalind no longer heard them. She read the words and then read them again, and she understood the reason for Lord Evedon’s anger—and his dread. A scrawl of words that Evedon would not want the world to know. A scrawl of words that could destroy him, just as he could destroy her.

      She refolded the letter, knowing that fate had just dealt the final blow to her life as she knew it. She could not simply set the letter back on the carpet and pretend that she had not seen it. Once Lord Evedon realized that the letter was here in this room he would know that she had read it. And Stevens was standing guard outside the door so that she could not place it elsewhere. Besides, she would not wish another to chance upon it and read its words; Lady Evedon did not deserve that shame.

      And the thought came to her that, if Evedon knew that she had this letter, he would not then call the constable. He would not call anyone. He would do nothing to risk the focus of attention upon the letter or the truth that it contained. For there could be no doubting that its words were the truth; she had seen the desperation on his face.

      The realization was quiet in its dawning, a gentle waft of thought rather than a sudden inspired burst. She looked at the newspaper upon the bedside cabinet, weighing the thought in consideration for long minutes before she acted.

      The newspaper ripped easily with little noise, and she read the small ragged square of words again before folding it neat and smaller still and slipping it within her pocket. She sat there for a while longer before finally folding the letter and pocketing it in just the same way.

      She looked again at Lady Evedon sleeping so peacefully, all of the dowager’s demons banished—for now. A final lingering glance around the room, then Rosalind rose СКАЧАТЬ