Rake with a Frozen Heart

‘You said he hit you?’ Lady Ipswich said abruptly, fixing her with a piercing gaze.

Henrietta’s hand instinctively went to the tender lump on her head. ‘He knocked me out and carried me off. I have been lying unconscious in a ditch.’

‘No one else saw him, or you, for that matter?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘In fact,’ Lady Ipswich said, turning on Henrietta with an enigmatic smile, ‘I have only your word for what happened.’

‘Well, yes, but the emeralds are missing, and the safe was broken into, and so—’

‘So the solution is obvious,’ Lady Ipswich declared triumphantly.

Henrietta stared at her blankly. ‘Solution?’

‘You, Miss Markham, are quite patently in league with the thief!’

Henrietta’s jaw dropped. Were she not already sitting down, she would have collapsed. ‘I?’

‘It was you who told him the whereabouts of the safe. You who let him into my house and later broke the glass on the window downstairs to fake a break-in. You who smuggled my poor Princess out into the night in order to prevent her from raising the alarm.’

‘You think—you truly think—no, you can’t possibly. It’s preposterous.’

‘You are his accomplice.’ Lady Ipswich nodded to herself several times. ‘I see it now, it is the only logical explanation. No doubt he looks nothing like this lurid description you gave me. An eyepatch indeed! You made it up to put everyone off the scent. Well, Miss Markham, let me tell you that there are no flies on Nell—I mean, Helen Ipswich. I am on to you and your little game, and so, too, will be the gentleman from Bow Street who is making his way here from London as we speak.’ Striding over to the fireplace, she rang the bell vigorously. ‘You shall be confined to your room until he arrives. You are also summarily dismissed from my employ.’

Henrietta gaped. A huge part of her, the rational part, told her it was all a silly misunderstanding that could be easily remedied, but there was another part that reminded her of her lowly position, of the facts as they must seem to her employer, of the way that Rafe St Alban had reacted to her story. What she said wasn’t really that credible. And she had no proof to back it up. Not a whit. Absolutely none.

‘Did you hear me?’

Henrietta stumbled to her feet. ‘But, madam, my lady, I beg of you, you cannot possibly think …’

‘Get out,’ Lady Ipswich demanded, as the door opened to reveal the startled butler. ‘Get out and do not let me see you again until the Runner comes. I cannot believe I have been harbouring a thief and a brazen liar under my roof.’

‘I am not a thief and I am most certainly not a liar.’ Outrage at the accusations bolstered Henrietta’s courage. She never told even the tiniest, whitest lie. Papa had raised her to believe in absolute truth at all costs. ‘I would never, ever do such an underhand and dishonest thing,’ she said, her voice shaking with emotion.

Lady Ipswich coldly turned her back on her. Henrietta shook her head in confusion. She felt woozy. There was a rushing sound like a spate of water in her ears. Her fingers were freezing as she clasped them together in an effort to stop herself shaking. She wished she hadn’t left the sal volatile on the chair. ‘When he hears the truth of the matter, the magistrate—Runner—whatever—they will believe me. They will.’

Lady Ipswich’s laugh tinkled like shattering glass as she eyed her former governess contemptuously. ‘Ask yourself, my dear, whose version are they more likely to believe, yours or mine?’

‘But Lord Pentland …’

Lady Ipswich’s eyes narrowed. ‘What, prey, has Lord Pentland to do with this?’

‘Merely that it was he who found me. It was his carriage which brought me back.’

‘You told Rafe St Alban this ridiculous tale of being kidnapped?’ Lady Ipswich’s voice rose to what would be described in a less titled lady as a shriek. Her face was once again drained of colour.

Henrietta eyed her with dismay. Her employer had not the sweetest of tempers, but she was not normally prone to such dramatic mood swings. The loss of the heirloom had obviously overset her, she decided, as her ladyship retrieved the smelling salts, took a deep sniff and sneezed twice. ‘It is not a ridiculous tale, my lady, it is the truth.’

‘What did he make of it?’ Lady Ipswich snapped.

‘Lord Pentland? He—he …’ He had warned her. She realised that now, that’s what he meant when he told her not to expect to be treated as a heroine. ‘I don’t think—I don’t know exactly what he thought, but I suspect he didn’t believe me, either,’ Henrietta admitted reluctantly.

Lady Ipswich nodded several times. ‘Lord Pentland clearly attaches as much credence to your tale as I do. You are disgraced, Miss Markham, and I have found you out. Now get out of my sight.’

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