Page 61 of When the Rogue Returns
“The hell we are!” he growled, taking another step toward her. “Now, tell me how you found her, damnit!”
Fear flickered in her eyes. “How do you think?” she cried, backing away from him. “We followedyou.”
He froze. “What do you mean?”
“The story of your new cousin, the duke, appeared in the Paris papers because of that Vidocq fellow’s involvement. When we learned that you were in London, we traveled there. Then we just watched you and waited. We figured it was only a matter of time before you hired the Manton’s Investigations people who found you, to find your wife.” She shrugged. “So after you met with them, we followed you to Edinburgh.”
Fear fisted around his chest. He’d led them straight to Isa. “You couldn’t have followed me to this cottage today. I would have noticed that.”
“No,” Jacoba said. “Isa is the one who led me here.”
Isa gasped. “When?” she asked, her voice edged with alarm.
Why didthatmatter?
“If you must know,” Jacoba said with a sniff, “it was last night. I waited around, hoping to speak to you alone, but you had that Mr. Gordon with you. Then you rode off on a horse so quickly I couldn’t keep up with you, not knowing the roads. After I waited here a bit I gave up and went back to town, and came back tonight when I knew you’d be here.” She glared at Victor. “I didn’t know you would havehimhere.”
“Yes,” Victor snapped, “I’m sure you would have preferred that I go on believing that my wife deserted me. After all, you’re the one who set me up to believe it in the first place. The one who forged the note I found in our apartment.”
She paled. “I—I didn’t forge anything,” she protested, though she avoided his gaze.
“Jacoba,” Isa chided. “We know you did it. And if you won’t tell the truth, there is nothing left for us to talk about. So you might as well—”
“All right, all right,” Jacoba said irritably. “I forged the note. But only because I had to. It was the only way.”
“To do what? Separate me from my husband?” Betrayal sounded in Isa’s voice. “So you and Gerhart could live well for the rest of your lives?”
“You owed us that!” Jacoba cried. “We took care of you after Papa died, and all we asked—”
“Was that I become a criminal.” Isa strode up next to Victor and leveled an accusing look at Jacoba. “You wanted me to turnhiminto a criminal, too. And when I refused to entertain the notion, you forced my hand and turned me into a criminal against my will. Then you separated me from my husband.”
“I did what was best for you,” Jacoba said stoutly.
“How do you figure that?” Victor growled.
Jacoba’s eyes glittered at him. “Back then you didn’t have two guilders to rub together!” she spat. “And your temporary post at the jeweler’s was about to end. How were you going to support her without a post?”
“You didn’t seem to care about that when you gave your approval to our marriage,” he clipped out.
“That’s because... well...”
“Because even then you were planning on using him to get into the strongbox, weren’t you?” Isa said. “That’s the only reason you encouraged the marriage.” Her voice grew choked. “Victor was sure that you two planned the theft from the beginning, and I didn’t want to believe him. But he’s right, isn’t he?”
Jacoba’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “If we hadn’t acted and you had stayed with him, the two of you would have been poor as church mice all your lives.” She waved her hand to indicate both of them. “And look at you now. Thanks to us, you have a fine business and Victor has discovered he’s a duke’s cousin.”
Victor took a menacing step toward her. “You two had naught to do withthat.”
“Those investigators found you in Antwerp, didn’t they? That’s what the papers said. And you would never have gone to Antwerp if we hadn’t—”
“Destroyed my life? Set me up to take the blame foryourcrime?”
“We didn’t do that!” she said. “Not... exactly. We just... thought that no one would ever discover that the diamonds were fake.”
“And you made sure that if anyone did, I’d be blamed for it.” He glared at her. “How did you get the keys to the strongbox? Did you steal them out of our home when I was asleep one day and make a copy? Is that what you did?”
When Jacoba colored, he knew he’d hit on the truth.
“You conniving, devious—”
