Rake with a Frozen Heart

‘I take it that you have left Lady Ipswich’s employ?’

Henrietta clenched her fists. ‘She accused me of theft.’

He had not expected that. Unbelievable as her tale was, he had not thought for a moment that she was a thief. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Yes, I am. She said I was in cahoots with the housebreaker. She said I opened the safe and broke a window to make it look as if he had broken in.’

‘A safe? Then whatever was stolen was of some value?’

Henrietta nodded. ‘An heirloom. The Ipswich emeralds. The magistrate has summoned a Bow Street Runner. Lady Ipswich ordered me to stay in my room until he arrives to arrest me.’

Rafe looked at her incredulously. ‘The Ipswich emeralds? Rich pickings indeed for a common housebreaker.’

‘Exactly. It’s a hanging matter. And she—she—by implicating me—she—I had to leave, else I would have been cast into gaol.’ Henrietta’s voice trembled, but a few more gulps of air stemmed the tears. ‘I don’t want to go to gaol.’

Rafe tapped his riding crop on his booted foot. ‘Tell me exactly what was said when you returned this morning.’

Henrietta did so, haltingly at first in her efforts to recall every detail, then with increasing vehemence as she recounted the astonishing accusations levelled at her. ‘I still can’t quite believe it. I would never, never do such a thing,’ she finished fervently. ‘I couldn’t just sit there and wait to be dragged off to prison. I couldn’t bear for Papa to be told that his only child was being held in gaol.’

‘So you stowed away in my carriage.’

Rafe’s eyes were hooded by his lids again. She could not read his thoughts. She had never come across such an inscrutable countenance, nor one which could change so completely yet so subtly. ‘Yes, I did,’ she declared defensively. ‘I didn’t have any option, I had to get away.’

‘Do you realise that by doing so you have embroiled me, against my will, in your little melodrama? Did you think of that?’

‘No. I didn’t. It didn’t occur to me.’

‘Of course not, because you act as you speak, don’t you, without thinking?’

‘That’s not fair,’ Henrietta said indignantly. She knew it was fair, but that fact made her all the more anxious to defend herself. ‘It’s your fault, you make me nervous; besides, I didn’t know it was your carriage.’

‘As well for you that it was. Did you think what might have happened if it had belonged to some buck?’ Rafe’s mouth thinned again. ‘But I forgot, it could not be worse, could it, for you are now at the mercy of a notorious rake. Consider that, Miss Markham.’

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