Page 2 of When the Rogue Returns
She sighed against her pillow.
“So you’renotasleep,” Jacoba said, having padded back into the room with the quiet tread of a cat.
Isa tensed. “No, not yet. But I feel horrible, all weak and achy. And my throat hurts.” Tamping down her guilt, she slanted a glance up at her sister, who, being seven years older, had been like a mother to her.
Once.
Jacoba laid her hand on Isa’s brow. “You do seem a bit hot.”
That’s what came of lying under a pile of heavy covers. Though she prayed that the dampness of her brow wouldn’t give her away. “I can’t get warm,” she lied in a husky whisper. “It always starts with the chills...”
“I remember.”
Her sister cast her a hard look, as if she’d seen right through her farce, and Isa held her breath. Jacoba and Gerhart had been pressing her to substitute her imitation parure for the real one, now that the jeweler had finished it. All she’d have to do, according to them, was steal her husband’s keys while he was asleep and get into the strongbox while the jeweler was at lunch.
Betraying her husband and everything she believed in.
She’d put them off for days. But last night Gerhart had threatened to bring up the matter with Victor and get him to do the switching. Isa couldn’t have that; Victor would be horrified.
Let Gerhart rage about the injustice of her being sick on the last day she could have switched out the parure. Eventually he would resign himself to having missed his chance. He might even be able to sell the imitation parure, as he’d first intended, to some wealthy woman who wanted jewelry identical to that of the soon-to-be bride of the prince.
At last Jacoba seemed to accept Isa’s ruse, and her expression softened. “Well, then, you’d better get some sleep. I’ll bring you something to soothe your throat.”
“Thank you,” Isa murmured, not bothering to hide her grimace.
She hated Jacoba’s medicine. But when her sister returned with the vile tonic, Isa knew she had to choke it down. If she refused, Jacoba would be suspicious.
Afterward, her sister surprised her, sitting by her bedside and wiping her forehead with a cold cloth until she dozed off.
♦♦♦
IT SEEMED ONLYminutes later that she awoke to the gray dawn seeping into her bedchamber. At first she was groggy and disoriented. Where was she? Why wasn’t she in her apartment? And where was Vic—
She bolted upright as last night’s events came flooding back. It was always dark when Victor’s shift ended at 6A.M., but judging from the light, it must be well pastseven now. He should be here. He’d said he would fetch her as soon as his shift ended!
A door opened and shut down the hall, and she heard voices. Before she could do more than throw her legs over the side of the bed, Gerhart and Jacoba entered her room.
“We did it, Isa!” Jacoba cried, her face flushed and her eyes bright as she performed a little jig. “We got them!”
When Isa stared in confusion, her brawny brother-in-law pulled a necklace from his pocket and held it up to catch the faint rays of morning light. “It’s ours now. We’ll break it down for the diamonds and sell them in Paris. I know a dealer who will pay us well for—”
“Stop it!” Isa said, horror growing in her belly. “What do you mean? You have therealdiamonds?”
“Of course.” Gerhart exchanged a glance with his wife. “With you ill, we had to act on our own. Surely you didn’t think we’d let this opportunity pass? We made the switch ourselves.”
Her mind raced. “But how... Victor would have had to let you...”
“Yes.” Jacoba came over to lay an arm about her shoulders. “After I explained our scheme earlier, he agreed to help in exchange for our giving him the earrings from the parure. He and I left here to go look for the imitation at your apartment, and then he made the switch at the shop.”
A chill coursed through her. Was that the reason for all the furtive whispers in the hall earlier? Jacoba had actuallyspokento Victor about the scheme?
“We were more than happy to allow him a share,” Gerhart put in, “given your part in the affair... and his. Sale from the earrings alone should provide the two of you with enough money to—”
“He wouldn’t do that!” Isa cried through a throat thick and tight with dread. Shoving free of Jacoba, she rose to face them. “He would never steal. I know him.”
“Apparently not as well as you thought.” Gerhart headed over to the window and opened the curtains to let in the weak winter light. “I told you he would listen to reason if you only broached the subject.”
Was it possible? Could she really have been that wrong about her husband? “I was waiting to mention it until—”
