Page 42 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
“He stole something of hers.”
A ring, Bakeley had said. Bink waited.
“Leastways that would be my guess from the way she talked to him and he talked back. He’s a shady bugger. I don’t like him.”
“What was it he stole?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Somethin’ of her mother’s I’d warrant.”
“What exactly did they say?”
Thomas eyed the bottle of whisky on the shelf.
“If you’d conceded to letting your brother send you off to school you’d be quaffing that under the stairs with a bunch of lordly brats. Not here though. Not yet. It’ll stunt your growth. What was said?”
Thomas flung himself into a chair, grumbling. “I couldn’t hear all, what with one ladyship talking my arm off and the other ladyship telling me to go to bed.”
He would have to talk directly to Paulette in the morning. Before he attacked the stack of mail.
“All right. At least you got Miss Heardwyn all tucked in. Now it’s me telling you to go to bed.”
“She’s not tucked in.”
“No?”
“That’s why it took me so long to get down here. From what was said, I had this feeling like, and I waited around in the corridor. Your lady is in the library and he’s there too.”
