There, an admission, aloud, of my complicity. She felt a surge of panic, of fear.
“I imagine you could have left them, very easily.” His gray eyes smiled at her. “And yet you chose not to.”
She looked away from those warm, smiling eyes, and swallowed again.
St. Just resumed his strolling pace. The Round Pond came into sight between the trees. “I applaud your choice of . . . er, victims, Miss Knightley.”
A response to this praise seemed appropriate. “Thank you,” Arabella said. Her half-boots crunched lightly on the chipped stone, but it felt as if she walked on quicksand, as if the footing was treacherous. She was tense with dread. The warmth in St. Just’s eyes reminded her of Lord Emsley. She repressed a shudder. Was St. Just going to demand something in return for his silence?
Panic rose in her throat. What does he expect from me?
“I assume that the proceeds of your activities go to the poor,” St. Just said.
“Yes,” Arabella said, staring down at the path.
He stopped and turned to her. “Miss Knightley, excuse my curiosity, but what do you do with the jewels once you have them?”
She raised her gaze. “I beg your pardon?”
“What do you do with the jewels? How do you sell them?”
“I take them to a friend who knows a . . . a fence.” She resolutely didn’t look at Polly, standing one pace behind them on the path.
“A friend in the ton?”
“No. In Whitechapel.”
She expected disdain, contempt even; instead St. Just nodded. “And then you give the money to charity?”
“I give it to a school.”
“Which school?”
Arabella flushed. “A school that I . . . founded.”
His eyebrows rose. He stared at her for a moment, and then said, “Tell me about your school, Miss Knightley.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
“Please, Miss Knightley. I’d like to know.” He was telling the truth; she saw it in his face, heard it in his voice.
Arabella cleared her throat. She fixed her gaze on the Round Pond. “Several years ago I founded a school, for girls from the slums.”
“Only girls?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So that they don’t have to be prostitutes.”
Adam St. Just was silent. Above them, a thrush sang.
“Most of them go into service,” Arabella said, staring at the Round Pond. “But once I gain my inheritance, I hope to set up a bakery and some other businesses, as well as more schools.”
She glanced at him. He was staring at her. The expression on his face was unreadable. “That’s what I do with the money, Mr. St. Just.”
He stared at her for several more seconds, his gaze so intent, so direct, that it almost made her step back a pace. It felt as if he was looking inside her. “Does your grandmother know?”
Arabella almost laughed. “No.”
He accepted this with a nod. The intensity of his stare didn’t waver. “Where’s the school?”
“In Swanley.”
His eyebrows rose. “So far from town? You go out there?”
“My friend . . . he goes in my stead, or sometimes . . . my maid goes.”
St. Just glanced at Polly, and then returned his attention to her. “How do you find the girls for your school? Do you go into the slums yourself?”
“My friend chooses them for me.”
“A big man,” he said. “With fair hair and a broken nose.”
Arabella looked at him warily. “Yes.”
St. Just answered her unspoken question: “The landlady at Jenny’s boarding house described him to me.”
Arabella returned her attention to the pond. There seemed to be nothing more to say.
“Miss Knightley, may I visit your school?”
The question was entirely unexpected. Her gaze flew to him. “The school? Why?”
“I’m a wealthy man, Miss Knightley. Your school sounds like something I should like to invest in.”
“Invest?” she said doubtfully. “But there’s no profit—”
“In terms of money, no. But in terms of people, I expect your school turns a great profit.”
Arabella stared at him in astonishment.
“May I visit it?”
Arabella glanced at Polly. Do I trust him? Polly looked equally as baffled. She raised her shoulders in a barely perceptible shrug.
Arabella bit her lip, uncertain. “I’ve never visited it myself.”
“Never?” Astonishment was visible on St. Just’s face.
“How can I? It’s further out of London than Richmond. I’d need the best part of a day, and my grandmother—”
St. Just understood. “Hard to keep such a visit a secret from her.”
“Yes.”
He frowned slightly. “But if you’ve never seen the school, how do you know everything is in order?”
“Harry takes care of that for me.”
“Harry?”
“Harry Higgs. My friend.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “The friend who knows a fence?”
“Yes.”
His frown deepened. “You must trust this Harry Higgs a great deal.”
“I do.”
He looked at her for a moment, still frowning. “May I meet Mr. Higgs?”
Arabella glanced at Polly again, and received another shrug.
She looked back at St. Just, studying his face. The gray eyes met hers steadily. He seemed to be entirely in earnest.
Arabella made her decision. “Very well,” she said, and had the sensation that she’d just plunged off a cliff. Trusting Adam St. Just seemed a terribly reckless thing to do. “We can go now, if you have the time.”
He appeared startled. “Now?”
“Yes.” Because otherwise I might lose my courage.
ST. JUST STEPPED fastidiously over the open gutter in Rosemary Lane. “Mr. Higgs lives here?”
“No,” Arabella said. “This is where we change our clothes.”
“Change them?” He raised his eyebrows. “Is that necessary?”
“You may venture into the slums wearing that—” She gestured at his superbly cut coat of olive green superfine and the glossy hessians with their golden tassels. “But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
St. Just looked down at himself. “You think it would be foolish?”
“I think it would be dangerous,” she said frankly.
He glanced sharply at her, and then nodded. “Very well. A change of clothing, then.”
Arabella watched his face as they stepped into the old-clothes shop, with its racks of used clothing and the dozens of coats hanging from hooks screwed into the ceiling. The smell was nauseating, as if a hundred unwashed people were crammed inside. She thought St. Just flinched slightly as he inhaled. His face stiffened. He’s holding his breath.
St.
