Page 60 of My Deceitful Duchess
“You’recertainyou saw a sapphire like this?” he pressed once more. “Around Nerissa Amberley’s neck? Could anyone else confirm it?”
“Half the ladies of London,” she said dryly. “Ambrosia was simplypackedwith ladies seeking an opportunity to catch a snippet of gossip.”
All at once he was gathering up all of his papers, shoving them into the folio in a mad rush. “I’ve got to go,” he said fiercely. And then before she could blink, he sank his fingers into her hair and pressed a burning kiss to her mouth. “You’vedoneit, you clever, beautiful woman.”
And then he was gone—leaving her alone, entirely baffled.Whathad she done?
∞∞∞
“Put on a damned coat at least,” Mr. Beckett growled, as he shoved a mass of fabric at Sebastian—some godawful stiff wool monstrosity that must have passed for a coat in another lifetime. “You’re in the goddamned Magistrates’ Court. Show some respect.”
Sebastian jammed his arms through the sleeves, grateful that little of the coat would actually touch his skin. “I don’t want this in the papers just yet,” Sebastian said. “I want the opportunity to tell Jenny myself.”
“Before I commit to that, I need to know exactly what it is you’ll be telling her,” Mr. Beckett said, settling into his chair.
“That she’s a free woman,” Sebastian said, laying out his folio on the desk between them. “And that she can expect an apology from this office, if I have anything to say of it.”
“Now,look here, Knight—”
“No,youlook. This office was pleased enough to brand her a murderess on no more than circumstantial evidence. It can offer her a well-deserved apology for it. Now, did youwantLady Pendleton’s murderer caught, or did younot?”
Thatdrew Mr. Beckett up short. “What has that to do with the duchess?” he asked, his hand jerking toward his cup of coffee. “I swear to God, Knight,” he said on a scowl, his brows knitting in consternation, “if you intend to withhold evidence, I’ll haveyoulocked up faster than—”
Sebastian shoved a sketch across the desk toward him. “This is a sketch of the Pendleton sapphire,” he said. “One of the gems that went missing during the murder.”
Mr. Beckett grunted an affirmation.
“It’s a star sapphire,” Sebastian said. “With an exceptionally rare inclusion; a twelve-rayed asterism, instead of the much more commonsix. And Jenny has seen it recently—around the neck of Nerissa Amberley.”
Mr. Beckett’s brows shot up. “You’re certain?”
“She wore it to Ambrosia,” he said. “There’s any number of other ladies who could confirm it.” In fact, it was the jewel Sebastian had thoughtleastlikely to have been cut into smaller gems—because doing so would destroy the very star that made it so valuable and so rare. “I imagine a search of Miss Amberley’s property—and that of her brother—will yield still more stolen gems. Gems they couldonlybe in possession of if they had committed the thefts…and the murder.”
A muscle twitched in Mr. Beckett’s cheek, and his hand clenched upon the page, creasing wrinkles into it. “I suppose you’re telling me that the Amberleys murdered the former duke as well, then.”
“It would be nigh impossible to prove,” Sebastian said. “But the late duke’s staff, both present and former, have confirmed her accounting of what transpired, and I have it on good authority that Jenny had made her escape long before the estate jewelry was actually stolen. It’s possible you’ll find bits and pieces of that amongst their possessions as well, provided Nerissa liked them enough to repurpose them as she has the Pendleton sapphire.” He thrust the statement from the former duke’s man of business across the desk. “This office wanted aneasyanswer,” he said. “They were content to accuse an innocent woman of murder because she was convenientto blame. And she has lived the last twelve years looking over her shoulder.” Waiting, even now, for the noose to be draped around her neck and strung tight.
“Christ,” Mr. Beckett breathed through his fingers as he reclined in his chair. “I thought we were going to have to hang a damned duchess.”
“Don’t get comfortable,” Sebastian said dryly. “When I’m through laying out thetruthfor you, you’re going to have to arrest a duke.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
The softly-spoken “Ma’am?” had followed a light scratch upon the door, and Jenny looked up from her ledger, where she had been busy scratching out a list of the various merchants with which Ambrosia frequently did business, the better to lay out the process for reordering necessary inventory.
“Enter,” she called, and Alice slipped inside, nervously shifting from foot to foot.
“You have a visitor, ma’am,” she said, her voice high and thin.
Good Lord.She’d had enough visitors to last a lifetime. Did all of London mean to make its way through her doors? “Not Nerissa again,” Jenny said, shoving herself from her chair with a caustic sound of rising fury.
“No, ma’am. It’s—it’s a gentleman from the Magistrates’ Court. I can’t make himleave, ma’am.” Alice’s hands bunched in her skirts. “He’s here to see you.”
Jenny felt the blood drain from her face in a rush that left her woozy, light-headed.Seeher? Perhaps, in a manner of speaking. More likely he’d come to take her straight back to jail. They had decided, she supposed, what was meant to be done with her.
She had known it was coming. Eventually. Atsomepoint. She had thought she had resigned herself to it, but now—now she could see that she hadnot. And they couldn’t even have come quietly, or to have the guards with which she had been saddled escort her discreetly back. Instead they had to humiliate her, and Lottie, and Harriet with this—ashow of force.
She wiped her clammy palms upon the skirt of her gown and steeled her shoulders. Whatever they intended, she would go with dignity. She would not embarrass herself, nor anyone else with an unseemly display. Tongues would wag, but they would never say that she had been anything but graceful in this defeat.
