Ariadne's Diadem (24 page)

Kitty believed herself to have triumphed, but she halted at Hugh’s door as Lady Fanhope’s nasal tones drifted mockingly from the staircase. “I told you she’d be ablaze with cheap paste! Did you ever see such a fairground bauble in your life?”

Sir Thomas replied, “My dear, I think you’ll find those stones were the real thing.”

“The real thing? Thomas, I
recognize
the item in question.”

“You do?”

“Yes. It was brought to the London jeweler only the other day when I was waiting for the senior partner to return. Don’t you recall? I had to make a serious complaint about being expected to wait in that poky backroom.”

“Oh, yes, dear, I recall,” Sir Thomas muttered long-sufferingly.

“Well, a gentleman—a male person, anyway, presumably the very same who is staying here now—brought that trinket in. I couldn’t see him, but a mirror afforded me an excellent view of what he wished to have priced. As you, he clearly believed it was valuable, but he was soon disabused of that misconception, for it is worthless.”

The story rang only too true, and Kitty’s eyes hardened.
Worthless?

“My dear, you cannot possibly be sure it was the same piece.”

“Thomas, if I tell you it was the same, then it was the same!” she replied sharply. “Besides, I’d recognize it anywhere. Some of those glass stones are unusual, both in shape and color.”

“My dear, I still can’t help thinking their glitter seemed genuine,” Sir Thomas ventured again.

“It is a gewgaw, Thomas, and a vulgar one at that.”

Kitty remained in frozen fury as their voices faded down the stairs. The truth stared her in the eyes. What a fool she’d been, for if Hugh was prepared to fob her off with paste, he was also prepared to lie about marriage! He’d clearly never had any intention of making her his duchess! She’d been used! Rage, incredulity, and humiliation engulfed her, and wisdom had no place either as she snatched the diadem from her head and burst in upon him.

Hugh whirled around in alarm as the diadem flew past his ear, struck the drawn curtain, and rolled onto the worn rug by the bed. “What in God’s name—?” he cried.

“How
dare
you attempt to fob me off with paste!” she cried.

“Paste?” He tried to evince astonishment, but the flicker of his eyes told her differently.

“You know it’s worthless, and you lied to me in order to get me between your sheets! Well, I’ve warmed your bed for the last time, because I’m no longer the fool you took me for!”

“Keep your voice down!” He strode across to drag her into the room, and then slammed the door. Still gripping her arm, he looked coldly down at her. “What is all this about?”

“I’ve just overheard Lady Fanhope! She was there that day the jeweler told you the diadem was worthless!”

“She what?” Hugh was startled.

“She didn’t know it was you, but she recognized the diadem!”

Hugh dissembled smoothly. “Lady Fanhope may have been present when
someone
took
something
to a jeweler, but it wasn’t me.”

But Kitty had seen the initial dismay in his eyes and knew who was telling the truth. Her fury made her foolhardy. “You’re lying, and I’ll make you pay!” she cried.

Until that moment he hadn’t realized exactly how much he now despised her. Breakfast had been an embarrassment he never intended to experience again, and as to permitting her to threaten him... His hold on her arm became cruel. “Have a care. Kitty, for I’m not a man to cross! One word out of place, and you’ll be sorry—is that clear?” Like lightning he put his other hand to her throat. “Just remember I make a very dangerous enemy,” he breathed, stroking her skin with his thumb.

A deadlier truth stared her in the eyes now, and the blood froze in her veins as she saw that the fate planned for Anne Willowby could as easily be assigned to her. From the depths of her acting soul she clawed a mien that was both conciliatory and humble. “F-forgive me...it’s just that I’m always foolish when I’m angry. You don’t honestly think I’d betray anything, do you? Besides, we are in this together, aren’t we?”

Satisfied that he’d frightened her into submission—albeit temporarily—he slowly released her. “Yes, of course we’re in this together,” he said softly.

“I should go down to dinner...”

“By all means.” But as the door closed behind her, his eyes glittered coldly. Kitty had become tiresome, and certainly could not be trusted to hold her tongue. She would have to go—permanently.

Just on the other side of the door. Kitty was shaking like a leaf. Her fate had been written only too large and clear in Hugh’s eyes, and she knew she had to get away from the White Boar as quickly as possible. She’d be long gone before he returned from the vile deed at Llandower! Fortified by decision, she was about to return to her own room when she heard a scraping sound coming from the Fanhopes’ room. Curious to the last, she gathered her skirts and hurried to peep through the keyhole.

She saw Sir Thomas dragging a small but heavy chest from beneath the bed. He unlocked it with a key he took from a secret compartment in his wife’s jewelry box, and Kitty’s eyes widened when she saw that the chest contained a hoard of golden guineas that shone richly in the light of the setting sun. Sir Thomas was startled too, for he drew back with a gasp, but then his brow darkened with anger, and he rose to his feet with an air of what Kitty could only interpret as simmering resentment. Intuition told her that what she’d just witnessed could be turned to her advantage, and without further ado she opened the door and went in.

Sir Thomas gave a fearful start, expecting to see his wife. His shock was almost as great as he saw it was Kitty, her lips curved in the sort of seductive smile he’d conjured in his dreams ever since he’d had to set her aside in favor of money.

“Well, Thomas, what have we here?” she murmured, closing the door and leaning back in a pose that outlined her figure to perfection.

His glance moved over her, and when he met her eyes, he was her prisoner once more. He didn’t mince his words where his marriage was concerned. “What you have here is a husband who is apparently not to be trusted with anything, but who can be compromised most shamefully when it comes to breaking the law,” he replied.

“Breaking the law?”

“I’ll warrant you’ve heard the rumors about my father-in-law’s finances?”

“A little.”

“Until now I’ve never seen anything to either confirm or deny the whispers. I wondered what was afoot when my wife was despatched upon this visit to America, and I became downright suspicious when she brought this chest with her. She claimed it contained nothing more than books for her New York cousin, but since she always keeps the key with her, I couldn’t take a look. Tonight, however, she forgot, and I made an excuse to leave her in the dining room and return here for something.
Et voilà”
He indicated the gleaming hoard. “Clearly, the duns are snapping at his heels, so dear Papa Pottery has despatched his daughter with as much of his wealth as he can before his debts catch up with him. I have been dragged along and made accessory.”

“You have been used most vilely, Thomas, and so have I, for tonight it has become clear that Hugh has no intention of marrying me,” Kitty said softly. “Oh, Thomas, would it not serve them both right if we took our revenge?” She smiled and glanced meaningfully at the gold. “I presume passage has already been booked to America?”

His lips parted. “Eh? You mean...?”

She shrugged. “If the coins have no business being sent away at all, I hardly think your wife will dare set the authorities after us, do you? We could live very well indeed.” She raised a cunning eyebrow.

He hesitated, and then smiled.

* * * *

Hugh had temporarily dismissed Kitty from his mind. He was confident that her ambition for a title would keep her close by, so it simply did not occur to him that she would slip from his clutches. Ready to set out for Llandower, he paused to retrieve the diadem from the floor, and was about to toss it onto the bed when he recalled how delighted Kitty had been with it at first. He smiled. How ingratiatingly perfect a birthday present it would make for Anne Willowby! It would make him appear even more charming and thoughtful. He cast around for something in which to wrap it and on the bedside table saw the small tablecloth that concealed old wine stains. Carefully, he wrapped it around the matchless piece of jewelry, then tucked the resultant package in his pocket and left the room.

As he crossed the entrance hall, he was startled as the neat handwriting on Anne’s note leapt out at him.
The Duke of Wroxford.
Realizing immediately that it could be only from Anne, he glanced swiftly around to see if there was anyone to observe Mr. Oadby purloining a message meant for the Duke of Wroxford. No one seemed to be near, so he took it and withdrew to a quiet comer to read. The formality of the opening greeting warned him immediately that something was wrong.

“Your Grace, (For such I believe I should address you from now on.)

“I am sure that in spite of your reassurance, in your heart you would prefer to abandon our match, so it will be welcome tidings indeed to learn that I am now free of any compulsion to proceed. Word has reached me from Ireland that my parents intend to make their home there, thus Llandower ceases to be of any consequence in the scheme of things. In view of this I feel it would be inappropriate for our picnic plans to continue, or for you to come to Llandower for a celebration that would not be of any interest to you were it not for our enforced betrothal. Accordingly I will attend you at the White Boar at noon tomorrow, when I trust we will be able to discuss our situation, and then part as amicably as we met. I will not communicate with Mr. Critchley until you and I have addressed the entire matter to our mutual satisfaction.

“Sincerely, Anne Willowby.”

Hugh was so shaken that he almost dropped the note. She was withdrawing from the match? In a flash he saw the destruction of his dreams. By lying that he could avoid the terms of the will, he’d allowed her to think he would not suffer at all if the match were ended. Why, oh
why
had he gilded the lily like that?

Then he paused as it struck him how easily he might have walked past the note and arrived at Llandower none the wiser. He could still do that! It was imperative that he saw her tonight, because now she
had
to die before it got out that she’d changed her mind. The old glitter returned to his eyes, and he ripped the note into tiny fragments, which he tossed into the empty fireplace before strolling out into the late evening light, where an ostler waited with his horse.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Anne believed she had successfully canceled Hugh’s visit, and so had spent the day picturing the various ways the following day’s meeting at the White Boar might go. Her concentration upon Hugh had been very determined indeed, because the alternative was to dwell endlessly upon her increasing disquiet regarding the statue. The strange events of the morning, coupled with Joseph’s insistence that he and Jack had fleetingly been turned to marble, left very little option but to wonder about the impossible.

All day she’d stayed well away from the statue, and the fading evening light found her reading in her bedroom, but her gaze kept wandering to the open window, beyond which lay the dark-hedged maze. Birdsong echoed across the park, and the scent of spring flowers was almost beguilingly heady as she at last went to the window to gaze down at the rotunda. It seemed the remnants of the sunset shimmered with a different light from usual, and that the hazy evening was unseasonably warm and drowsy. The rotunda rose from the center of the maze with an air of mystery it had never possessed before, and she could see the statue that she had begun to suspect might be so much more than it seemed.

She’d kept telling herself she was allowing her imagination to run wild, but if that were so, then Joseph and Mrs. Jenkins were doing the same. Had the occupants of Llandower Castle been bewitched of late? Or were they suffering from shared hysteria? It was hard to accept either explanation, for the gardener was a down-to-earth countryman, not given to an over-active imagination, and Mrs. Jenkins hadn’t invented the mystery of the disappearing naiad, because Anne herself had witnessed its disappearance and subsequent return. She wished she could blame it all on the vagrant who’d been sleeping in the temple, but although that would explain away the theft of food and the knocking over of pots and pans, it didn’t explain the comings and goings of the naiad. Nor did it account for the apparent transformation of flesh into marble....

Suddenly, she knew she couldn’t ignore things any longer. Every instinct urged her to allay her wild and totally unlikely suspicions by finding something that proved the statue
wasn't
Charles Danby! But as she left the room to do just that, she wondered what she would do if the very opposite happened. What if she was about to
confirm
the impossible? What then?

She hurried into the maze, the atmosphere of which was eerily different tonight, but when she reached the clearing in the center, she hesitated before facing the chimera that had tormented her more and more all day. As she at last took another step forward, a sound somewhere behind made her whirl about. Her heart lurched because she hoped to see Charles, but there was nothing there, just the tall, dark hedges, silent in the breezeless air, and the gravel path disappearing among them. Then she remembered hearing a similar sound on the stormy night when she’d first found the statue. On that occasion it had come from the bench at the back of the rotunda, and she’d thought it was rats, but now she knew rats had nothing to do with it. Was it the intruder? Had he taken refuge here now that he’d been found out in the temple? Her heart quickened unpleasantly as her uneasy glance moved from lengthening shadow to lengthening shadow, but as the seconds passed and there was no further sound, she gradually relaxed and turned to face the rotunda again.

Behind the hedges Sylvanus was down on all fours, making himself as small as possible in order to avoid detection. Deprived of his comfortable temple, the faun had spent a very disagreeable night in the open air on the bench and had been on the point of leaving the maze on the lovesick and rather risky errand of trying to see Penelope before the light had properly faded, when he realized Anne was coming. Concerned as to why she’d come here when—as he thought—she must be expecting Hugh at any moment, the faun had hidden down one of the maze’s blind alleys until she passed, then followed her back to the rotunda. The sound she’d heard came when he’d caught a hoof in a root and stumbled against the hedge, and now, as he peered uneasily through the tight-packed greenery, a sixth sense told him something was wrong. Surely she could not have begun to guess the truth about the statue? He tried to keep her in view, but as she stepped forward again, the density of the hedge hid her from view.