Page 48 of A Lady's Wicked Revenge
Just as they’d thought they’d escaped back into anonymity, four words split the air and stopped them in their tracks.
“Diana, there you are!”
Diana froze, her eyes wide with fear, and when Leah Reid placed her hands on her friend in greeting, she nearly cried out in terror.
“Diana, whatever is the matter?” Leah asked in concern. She glanced around them conspiratorially. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Don’t tell anyone, but Mother and I weren’t exactly invited to the ball. I just knew that you would hate this affair, and I couldn’t stand by and let you—”
Leah stopped mid-sentence as Diana took her hands and leaned in close, whispering over the thundering of her heart in her chest. “You trust me, don’t you, friend?” Diana asked softly.
The other girl nodded, her face suddenly serious.
“Then please, for my sake—walk away. If anyone asks if you’ve seen me, tell them I’m out in the garden or in my room.Anything,” Diana pleaded. “I swear to you that I’ll tell you all as soon as I’m able.”
Leah nodded again, a look of concentration on her pretty features. Diana turned away, following a worried-looking Colin, and heard her friend making animated conversation with someone else, loud enough that she drew the eye of every nearby reveller.
How lucky I truly am to have friends such as Leah, thought Diana.
At last, they crossed into the other wing of the strange house; the humble door to the servants’ stairway was in sight at the end of the corridor.
“Wait!” Diana hissed, grabbing Colin by the sleeve of his coat. She pulled the two of them into a darkened doorway, unsure whether she wanted to peek out at the dirty face she had just seen or to hide her face and pray he had not sighted her.
“What is it?” Colin asked quietly. He was standing close to her, close enough that she could feel his breath on her ear.
Trying to force her heartbeat to quieten, she pointed. Though the man was wearing a black gentleman’s coat of recent vintage, his greasy hair and unshaven chin made him easily visible “Over there—it’s that man, Bertrand. The man who …”
She fell silent as Bertrand turned in their direction. He was standing at the edge of a cluster of noblemen and women in their finery, guzzling a glass of wine and looking admiringly at the furniture surrounding him in the first-storey atrium. He seemed not to notice Diana, however, and soon wheeled in the other direction in pursuit of a gaggle of tittering young ladies.
“I’ve seen him come and go from time to time,” Colin said, a hard edge coming into his voice. “He was always escorted to my father’s study, then left shortly thereafter. I never thought to stop him, to enquire about what business he might be on …”
Diana glanced at a nearby clock.Almost seven-thirty,she thought, her pulse racing. “Never mind that now, Colin. You couldn’t have known.”
But Colin’s eyes were locked on the receding form of Bertrand; his jaw clenched tightly. “Sir James would not invite him here tonight. Even if all our suspicions are true, he would not attract suspicion by having his relationship with the man made generally known.”
“We have to hurry,” Diana protested, pulling his arm.
“The bastard, I’ll not let him leave here if he’s done even a tenth of what you say …” Colin growled, stepping out from the shadows and beginning to roll up his sleeve.
“Colin,please!”
He looked down at her, and Diana could see all the anger in his face melt into concern. Colin stepped closer and wiped away a tear from her face with his finger.
“I’m sorry, Diana. You’re right, of course.” He cast his gaze back at Bertrand, teeth bared. “But his time will come before long, I swear it.” And with that, they were on their way to the staircase and their goal.
At long last, they reached the study. Just as they approached the closed door and found it unlocked, Diana winced at a sudden thought. “The key to the safe! Damn it; I didn’t—”
She was abruptly silenced by the sight of a small brass key entering her field of vision, dangling from a threadbare blue ribbon held neatly between Colin’s fingers. The man flashed his most winning smile, his teeth dazzling white, eyes dancing with laughter. “Fortunately, at least one of us has—”
Colin’s gloating was brought to a quick conclusion by Diana wrapping her arms around his neck and bringing her lips against his in a ferocious kiss. They breathed as one, their mouths tingling as they scrambled for purchase. Colin’s hands found the small of Diana’s back, and for one perfect second, all of Sir James Leeson’s scheming and treachery and murderous minions dissolved into nothingness.
Yet, for all its perfection, that glorious second tragically needed to end. Their lips parted, Diana’s heart crying out as they pulled back from one another. “Thank you, Colin,” she said softly, and the warm, innocent smile that lingered on his lips was almost enough to make her forget all else and lose herself there for the rest of her days.
“Hurry,” Colin said, nodding reluctantly to the door. “I’ll stay out here and call out if anyone approaches.”
The study was shrouded in sinister orange light from the fire that was kept burning in the study’s fireplace. Fearing the slightest sound or sight would spoil everything, Diana crept towards Uncle James’ desk without lighting a candle, fumbling half-blind across the room.
The key clicked true in the little black safe, and its door swung open to reveal dozens of papers and pouches. Wordlessly Diana pored over the contents. At the top of the pile, she found documents pertaining to her inheritance, and she could not help gasping as she read the astronomical sum she had to her name.
All the fruits of Father’s work … this is more than enough for me to live on for ten lifetimes.Her fingers clenched, wrinkling the paper.Enough for Uncle James to kill for.
