Page 4 of When the Rogue Returns
Worse yet, some facts were irrefutable. Jacoba and Gerhart couldn’t have breached the strongbox without Victor. And a glance at the clock showed it was already 8A.M.He would have been here long before now if he were coming.
That was the part that hurt.
“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Isa whispered.
Jacoba chucked her under the chin. “Why should he, silly girl? He’ll see you in a few weeks. This is just temporary. He had to get as far away as he could before the time he’d be expected at the shop.” She bent her head to touch Isa’s. “And we have to as well, so come along now. Victor packed your bags, and we have to hurry to the dock.”
Her heart faltered. “Can’t I go back to the apartment?”
“We’ve no time, I’m afraid. The packet boat for Calais leaves very soon. We’ll barely make it as it is, and the next one doesn’t leave for hours.” Jacoba squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry—I gave Victor the address of the hotel where we mean to stay in Paris, and I daresay there will be a letter waiting for us the moment we arrive. Or one will come shortly afterward.”
Isa hesitated, but what choice did she have? She could never go back to the shop now. Even if the imitations were never discovered, she would know they were there, and that would plague her until she told the truth.
Besides, she couldn’t risk implicating Victor. Or her family. She was furious that they’d taken the matter out of her hands, but now it was done, and she didn’t want to see them go to prison—or worse yet, be hanged!
Shecould end up in prison or hanged herself, just for making the parure. The thought sent a chill to her soul.
“All right?” her sister pressed.
She nodded. But as they raced about, preparing to go, she vowed that this would be the last time she let them bully her into doing something so despicable.
And once her husband arrived in Paris, she would find out what kind of man she had really married.
♦♦♦
FOUR MONTHS LATER, Victor still hadn’t come or even sent word. And now she had his child growing in her belly. Dear heaven, what was she going to do?
Feeling particularly blue, she sat in the parlor of their very fine Paris town house and waited for the mail. She wasn’t sure why she bothered. Clearly something awful had happened to Victor. It was easier to believe that than to think he might just have abandoned her.
A ray of afternoon sun flashed through the barely parted silk curtains, glinting off Jacoba’s new gilded ormolu clock, dancing across Gerhart’s recently acquired Persian rug, and bursting into sparkles in the cut-crystal bowl near her hand. But she could find no joy in all thecostly newness.
With a sigh, she picked up that week’s issue of theGazette de Franceand flipped through it. An article caught her attention. Her French wasn’t the best yet, but she could still decipher a bit of gossip that a local jeweler named Angus Gordon was leaving Paris to return to his native Scotland. His French wife had died, and he wanted to go home.
But what intrigued her was that the fellow had built his reputation by creating exquisite imitation jewelry.
She muttered an oath, something she was doing more and more lately. If her sister and brother-in-law hadn’t been so impatient, the three of them might have built a similar business in Amsterdam.
No, that would never have satisfied them. Gerhart was already hinting that Isa should make more imitations to sell as real. So they could buy an even better house in an even better part of Paris, with better chances for social advancement.
She suspected that he just wanted more money to wager on wrestling bouts. He thought he could always win since he’d been a wrestler briefly himself, before he’d injured his knee. And the very thought of committing fraud repeatedly in order to provide Gerhart more money for gambling chilled her blood.
Jacoba wandered in, thumbing absently through a stack of mail. She looked different now, with her hair short and fringed about her face to change her appearance. Gerhart wore a beard now for the same reason.
Swiftly turning over the newspaper, Isa asked, “Anything for me?”
At the quiver in her voice, her sister’s head came up. “It’s just bills.” She walked up to the table. “My dear, I hate to see you like this. Don’t you enjoy being able to buy what you want and go to the theater whenever you wish?”
“That was always your dream, not mine.” Isa’s hands shook now, too. “I just wanted Victor.”
Something like guilt flashed over Jacoba’s face before her expression hardened. “Well, it’s clear he’s not coming. He took the earrings and left, the wretch, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We don’t even have a way to find him.”
The truth of that statement struck Isa hard. “We wouldn’thaveto find him if you and Gerhart hadn’t gone to him behind my back. He was probably so disillusioned to learn that his beloved wife was no better than a counterfeiter that he—”
“Has it occurred to you that perhaps he married ‘his beloved wife’ in the first place because of her post at the jeweler’s?” Jacoba snapped.
Isa blanched. No, that hadn’t occurred to her. But it should have.
With an oath, Jacoba hurried to sit beside her and take her hand. “I’m sorry, sister, I shouldn’t have said that.”
