Carlyle did not seem offended by her blunt reply. “Oh. Well, it was just a thought.”
She would have to be blunter. “Hmm. I would prefer that you do not address me as
He looked a little pained. “I used to in India. You did not mind it then.”
“We are not in India now.”
“No, we are not.” His voice was neutral and his steady gaze remained on her face. “You don’t like London, do you?”
“Not very much.”
Carlyle nodded. “I expect the endless parade of potential suitors is beginning to depress you. But I am sure someone will offer for you.”
Susannah fumed. Would he never notice the corset? Did she have to wave it like a flag?
“Someone whom you might come to love,” he added.
Perhaps he would receive a bonus, if that unlikely event should occur. “Have I no other choice in life?” Her vehement question seemed to take him aback.
He shrugged his shoulders, rubbing a hand thoughtfully over his chin. He had been well shaved, she noticed. A faint scent of bay rum came to her unwilling nose. She sniffed in reverse to get rid of it.
“Well, if you do not wish to marry, you can subsist on the income from your inheritance for some time,” he said at last, “if you can live modestly.”
“Hmph.” She waved a hand at the furnishings of the cluttered room. “I could live without all this, certainly. The British Empire raids the world simply to fill its parlors with useless bric-a-brac. Looking at it makes me want to run away.”
He smiled slightly. “If the money must last, there will be no travel, no servants, no extravagances. That might prove difficult for a girl who grew up in a palace.”
“My dear Carlyle,” she began, forgetting that she had asked him not to call her
“But you seemed somewhat-” He pressed his lips together for a second, not wanting to say something that would upset her. “Somewhat unaware. Everything you needed appeared as if by magic.”
“My toys were mine. And when I was older, my books and my piano. My clothes, of course. It is true that I wanted for nothing, but I had very little I could call my own.”
“And yet you were content.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“The happy empress of your own domain.”
Susannah shot him a wry look. “Are you saying that I was spoiled?”
“No, no. Not at all.” Carlyle leaned back in his chair.
“Do you know, I once saw you leading a flock of peacocks about the palace grounds. You certainly looked like an empress.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Peacocks, bah. I would rather have twenty thousand pounds a year.”
His mouth quirked up. “And so would we all. By any means possible.”
“And what means would those be?” Her tone was barbed. “Men are free to do what they will. A woman is not.”
He studied her intently for a long moment. “Don’t worry so, Susannah.” His tone was kind enough, but she could hear the hypocrisy underneath. “If your dowry is not spent it can be invested in the funds and that will help. You should do very well.”
She raised an inquiring eyebrow. “How well?”
“That remains to be seen,” he said.
Indeed it does, she thought. Carlyle would make a handsome sum if he sold the rubies and sapphires. If they were his. She was no closer to finding that out than when he had walked into the room. His bland assurances were not comforting.
Susannah crossed her legs and swung her foot under the table. Kissing the truth out of him would be nowhere near as satisfying as kicking him.
“But should you wed-”
“I shall never-ow!” She jabbed her fingertip by accident with the needle and a tiny drop of blood welled up. Susannah put her finger in her mouth and sucked before she thought of what she must look like.
“How do you know?” Carlyle’s eyes shone with amusement. “Should I ring the maid for a sticking-plaster?” he inquired. “You would not want a bloodstain, however small, on your best corset.”
At long last they had come back to the corset. Good. But her finger was throbbing. It was amazing how much a little sting could hurt.
“No,” she said at last, removing her finger from her mouth. A childish cure but it had worked. There was no more blood. His last statement piqued her. “How do you know that it is my best corset? Have you seen the others? Have you been skulking about my boudoir?”
He looked uneasy, which pleased her very much.
“Certainly not. But this corset is a very fine one, perhaps one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.” He was talking fast. “The embroidery is unique and-”
“It sounds like you have made a thorough study of the subject of corsets,” she said, a distinct edge in her voice.
“No, not really. Of course, one is much like another. It all depends on what’s inside them.” He gave her a smooth smile.
She gave him a narrow look in return. He was not to be trusted. She ought not to care. But she did.
And why is that? she asked herself, supplying an annoying but astute reply in an instant: Because you used to trust him. And you hoped he cared for you.
But those days were gone forever and she had changed. She was no longer a giddy, sheltered girl half in love with a dashing officer. She was a woman who had to make her own way in a cold and unfriendly metropolis, because the dashing officer was looking out only for himself. The corset in question-hers-had contained a small fortune in gems of uncertain provenance-his.
She amended the thought, but only to be realistic. Being fair had nothing to do with it. The gems were probably his. She still didn’t know for certain.
It occurred to her that his very coolness gave away his guilt. Staying silent, she folded the corset lengthwise. His smooth smile faded away.
Susannah had a sinking feeling she was about to be bested at a cat-and-mouse game. If Carlyle Jameson knew anything about the gems she’d found, he wasn’t going to confess.
They had talked at cross-purposes, and she felt deeply irritated. More with herself than him, however. She had bungled a heaven-sent opportunity to find out who’d hidden the rubies and sapphires. But then he had taken her unawares. Still, he could not have known she would be here, sewing away on the corset.
He glanced again at the corset she clutched. “Put it away. A lady keeps such things well hidden.”
Susannah glared at him. “Are you saying that I am not a lady?”
“Not quite.”
“Oh! You are insufferable!”
Furious with herself for seeming interested in what he thought, she gave a sharp shake of her head and her hair tumbled down. Susannah let it alone. Pinning it back up would mean looking for the hairpins on the carpet and that would mean bending down and he might very well interpret that as some sort of surrender.
Her agitation made her breath come faster. She parted her lips to speak but could think of nothing at all to say.
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second. “I was only teasing you, Susannah. I meant that you are young yet, and not quite a lady. But…may I say that you are lovely?”
What blather. And how humiliating. Mrs. Posey was probably feigning sleep and listening to every ridiculous word. Susannah rose swiftly, clutching the folded corset within the folds of her gown. “Go to the devil!”
He stood up very quickly. Susannah flung the corset at him. He caught it with one hand, tossed it aside, and
