The Confounding Case Of The Carisbrook Emeralds

by Stephanie Laurens

  Afraid of what?

  Given he couldn’t be sure, Wilkes merely inclined his head in acknowledgment of her statements; he could hear the scritch of Fitch’s pencil as he jotted down her words. “Be that as it may, miss, we need you to come with us.”

  For an instant, he wondered if she would resist, but then, slowly, she pushed to her feet. She drew in a deep breath and tipped up her chin. “Very well, Sergeant.” Then her façade wavered, and her fear shone through. “May I fetch my coat and bonnet?”

  Her uncertainty—the underlying vulnerability—tugged at Wilkes, and he hurried to assure her, “This will probably just be temporary, miss. Just until we can figure out what happened. And—” He paused, then, looking into her wide eyes, went on. “As it happens, we’ll need to search your room, miss, so you’ll have time to collect whatever you want to take with you.”

  Her expression eased enough to be noticeable.

  Wilkes darted a glance around the room. His words had lowered the tension in all those watching—not just in her two cousins but in Jarvis and the silent footman, too.

  Wilkes shot a glance at Fitch and saw his own dawning understanding reflected in the constable’s eyes. No one in that room believed Cara Di Abaccio was the thief—that she’d been the one to take the Carisbrook emeralds.

  Everyone thought Lady Carisbrook had chosen her as a scapegoat.

  Wilkes swallowed a groan. Ton cases—they were never straightforward.

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” Miss Di Abaccio nodded in patent gratitude. She glanced once—fleetingly—at her cousins, then looked at Jarvis. “Perhaps, then, we should go to my room.”

  Jarvis signaled to the footman. “Henry will show you up.”

  Wilkes softly humphed, but didn’t argue. Obviously, Cara Di Abaccio knew the way to her own room, but Wilkes wasn’t averse to a non-Yard witness able to testify to anything found—or not found—during the upcoming search.

  Without another word, Cara Di Abaccio swept out of the room and into the front hall. She paused to allow Henry to lead the way up the main staircase, then followed. Wilkes trooped behind her, with Fitch bringing up the rear.

  Miss Di Abaccio’s bedchamber was a smallish room on the first floor, toward the end of one wing of the house and facing the street. A medium-sized two-door armoire stood against one side wall, with a modest dressing table next to it. A washstand and a chest of drawers lined the opposite wall, flanking a small fireplace with a neat fire still smoldering in the grate. Opposite the door stood a tester bed with a pretty chintz coverlet that matched the curtains hanging at the windows to either side. A flat-topped traveling chest draped with a colorful shawl sat at the bed’s foot.

  The windows were shut against the noise rising from the street. It was only early April; there was unlikely to have been any reason the windows would have been opened for months—not unless Cara Di Abaccio had wanted to toss a jewel case to an accomplice waiting in the street.

  Wilkes crossed to one window. A quick survey of the lock showed it hadn’t been unsnibbed recently—indeed, not for some time.

  Fitch had moved to check the other window. He looked at Wilkes and infinitesimally shook his head, then turned to survey the room.

  After noting that the footman had taken up a stance against the wall just inside the door and Cara Di Abaccio was holding herself rigidly upright in a similar position on the other side of the door, Wilkes scanned the space with an experienced eye.

  Searching the sparsely furnished room wasn’t going to take long.

  Cara clasped her hands, her fingers twining and gripping tight, and watched as the burly policemen searched through her belongings. They wouldn’t find anything…

  At least, nothing put there by her.

  Her always-active imagination threw up the horrifying specter of her aunt hating her enough to have hidden—or had her horrible dresser hide—the jewel case containing the Carisbrook emeralds somewhere among Cara’s things.

  Chilled, Cara examined the mental vision, then drew in a breath through lungs painfully constricted and, by an effort of will, banished the image.

  If her aunt hated her that much…there was nothing she could do.

  From the moment she’d arrived in John Street, she’d known Lady Carisbrook disapproved—mightily—of her; her uncle Humphrey’s sincerely warm welcome hadn’t lessened the impact of her ladyship’s cold glare and her grudgingly uttered and stilted words. From the instant of setting eyes on her, her aunt had wanted her gone.

  Cara had no idea why and had worked to ensure she did nothing to incite her aunt’s active malevolence.

  Apparently, she’d failed.

  Moving about the small room in their heavy uniforms and coats, the policemen were surprisingly quick and efficient. To Cara’s relief, they didn’t tumble her few possessions about but lifted, looked, and set things back.

  Finally, the pair exchanged a glance, then the older man—the sergeant, Wilkes—turned to her. “Perhaps, miss, you would like to pack a small bag. Just the essentials to tide you over for a few days.”

  She drew in a deeper—freer—breath and nodded. “Thank you. I will.” It seemed her aunt hadn’t tried to…what was the English term? Pin the crime on her? Regardless, the jewel case wasn’t in her room. Did that mean it was truly missing?

  As she pulled her empty traveling valise from beneath her bed—unexpectedly grateful that she hadn’t sent it upstairs to the attic—Wilkes said to his helper, “Check with the staff.” Cara felt the sergeant’s gaze briefly touch her face but, setting her bag on the bed, didn’t meet it. Wilkes looked back at his man. “Ask around and learn what they can tell us about Miss Di Abaccio’s movements late last night and this morning.”

  The other man snapped off a salute, shut the notebook in which he’d been jotting, and made for the door.

  Cara set about systematically packing as much as she could into the valise.

  Ignoring the footman, Henry, who watched her with sympathetic resignation, Wilkes studied her as she moved about the room. After a time, he grunted. “You didn’t take the jewels, did you?”

  Pressing a folded gown into the case, Cara looked up and, across the bed, met Wilkes’s eyes—kindly brown eyes, their expression steady. “No.” After a moment, she straightened and went on, “I can’t imagine why anyone would think I would.” She spread her hands. “What would I do with them?”

  Wilkes frowned. “Wear them?”

  She made the scoffing sound her aunt and her cousin Julia had told her ladies in England never made and moved to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. “The Carisbrook emeralds are famous for their age and quality. But the design is very old and…heavy.” She turned back with her underthings in her hands. Without looking at either Wilkes or Henry, she prosaically laid them in the case. “They would look”—she frowned—“outré.” She searched for the English words. “Awkward and clumsy—silly—on me. I am far too small, too”—straightening, she gestured, indicating a massive bosom—“not-large to carry off such a piece.”

  Henry made a strangled noise, and Wilkes’s face turned decidedly pink. He cleared his throat. “I see. Then I assume your aunt imagines you would sell them.”

  About to close her case on her meager wardrobe—all the clothes she’d brought with her to England—Cara paused and met Wilkes’s gaze. “As I am what the English call a ‘poor relation,’ perhaps that is what my aunt thinks in making her accusation.” Cara shrugged. “Who can tell what is in her mind? But I only arrived in England a month ago. I have never been here before, so I know no one, and through the past four weeks, the only people I have spoken to outside my aunt’s or my cousins’ presences have been the staff of this house. And my uncle, of course.”

  “Your uncle—Lord Carisbrook.” Wilkes frowned. “Her ladyship said you were his niece.”

  Cara nodded. “My mother was his younger sister. She eloped with an Italian painter. But both my parents died of an illness last year, and Lord Carisbrook—who w
as made my guardian in my parents’ wills—insisted I come here to London and live with his family.” Cara thought back to that moment when she’d received his lordship’s summons; in the straits she’d been in, the directive had appeared a godsend. She looked down at her valise. “It was a very kind offer.”

  She moved back to the dresser and reached for the bottom drawer.

  “So where is your uncle at the moment? It’s Sunday—most gents of his ilk would be at home.”

  “He left for his estate in Surrey on Friday.” Cara studied the contents of the bottom drawer. “He isn’t expected back until later today.” She honestly wasn’t sure if, in the circumstances, her uncle would defend her against his wife’s accusation. He’d been kind, but even when he was in London, he held himself aloof from the household, from Cara, and Franklin and Julia, too, as well as his wife.

  Cara bit her lip. She couldn’t allow herself to think of what might come. She needed to preserve what hope she still had and wait to see where this latest bend in her life’s road would take her. Her recent experiences had taught her that clinging to hope and being open to whatever possibilities Fate deigned to offer was the surest route to survival.

  Refocusing on the pencils, crayons, and sketchbooks stored in the drawer, she debated her options. She couldn’t take her wooden art case in which she normally transported her supplies; it was too big and bulky. Along with her easel—also far too big to carry—the art case, still holding her paints, was pushed to the back of her armoire. But she could probably take all her drawing supplies if she crammed things in and didn’t worry about crushing her clothes.

  Wilkes had said “essential” things, and to her, her drawing implements were as essential as air—far more important than clothes. She stacked the pencils, crayons, and books, lifted them from the drawer, and turned to the bed and the valise.

  Wilkes continued to watch, but as if he wasn’t truly seeing her press and push and rearrange her things until she could shut the case. He seemed to shake himself back to the present as she buckled the straps.

  When she straightened and reached for the bag’s handle, Henry stepped forward. “Allow me, Miss Cara.”

  She gladly surrendered the case; even though she’d been among them for only four weeks, she’d come to know and like the staff. “Thank you, Henry.”

  She looked at Wilkes. He walked to the door, opened it, and led the way out. Cara drew in a breath, raised her head, and followed him into the corridor.

  Henry shut the door, then quickly caught up to her. He glanced at the back of Wilkes’s head, then murmured, “Don’t you worry, Miss Cara—we’ll make sure the master knows what’s happened the instant he steps through the door.”

  She smiled, although it was a weak effort. “Thank you, Henry. And please thank the others, too.” She paused, then, as they neared the stairs, added, “And please assure everyone that no matter what her ladyship thinks, I did not touch her jewels.”

  “No, miss. Of course not.”

  Henry sounded vaguely offended that she’d imagined the staff would think such a thing.

  Wilkes heard the exchange and inwardly grimaced. Staff in a house like this always knew what was what; the more he heard, the more he was convinced that Lady Carisbrook’s accusation was all a hum.

  He started down the stairs, unsurprised to hear Miss Di Abaccio’s footsteps lightly but determinedly descending behind him. She was a sensible young lady with a decent spine, and he liked her the more for it. Lots of young ladies would have had the vapors. Just the thought made him shudder, a reaction he endeavored to suppress.

  Jarvis was waiting in the front hall, along with Fitch. Wilkes could tell from Fitch’s demeanor that he’d learned something pertinent from the staff, but rather than asking for a report then and there and prolonging what—judging by Jarvis’s and Henry’s torn expressions—was already a fraught moment, Wilkes met Jarvis’s gaze. “Please inform Lord Carisbrook that we have detained Miss Di Abaccio for the moment. We’ll be taking her to Scotland Yard.”

  Jarvis inclined his head in acknowledgment, his expression signaling that he was glad to have been given such a definite order.

  As if to confirm that, Jarvis’s gaze cut across the hall.

  Wilkes followed the butler’s glance and saw Lady Carisbrook standing in the drawing room doorway with her arms folded beneath her impressive bosom, vindictive triumph all over her face.

  Wilkes glanced at his “prisoner.” Miss Di Abaccio was standing with her back ramrod straight and her head held high. Her gaze remained steady, fixed on Wilkes; she didn’t spare a glance for her aunt.

  Wilkes looked again at Lady Carisbrook and saw an ugly sneer further distort the lady’s countenance. Then she uncrossed her arms, stepped back, and shut the drawing room door.

  The words “good riddance” hadn’t been uttered but had been most effectively conveyed.

  Another glance at Miss Di Abaccio confirmed that her composure remained intact.

  Feeling ever more convinced of her innocence, Wilkes gestured to the door. Jarvis opened it, and Wilkes solicitously ushered Miss Di Abaccio out and down the steps.

  Fitch moved past and went to open the door of the plain black police carriage they’d arrived in.

  Wilkes guided Miss Di Abaccio to the carriage. Henry, who had followed, stowed her valise in the boot, then saluted her before turning away.

  “Thank you,” she softly called before allowing Wilkes to help her into the carriage.

  Wilkes clambered in after her and settled on the seat beside her.

  Fitch joined them and, after shutting the door, fell onto the facing seat.

  The instant the carriage rattled off, Wilkes met Fitch’s sharp eyes. “What did you learn?”

  Fitch’s gaze shifted to Miss Di Abaccio, and he politely inclined his head. “The staff said her ladyship came home in the small hours from some ball, and Miss Di Abaccio, as well as the son and daughter, were with her. Seems they all went upstairs—it was close on two o’clock—and her ladyship was wearing the jewels then. Miss Di Abaccio and the others all went to their own rooms. The next thing the staff knew, at about half past eight this morning, her ladyship came raging downstairs and accused Miss Di Abaccio of stealing the emeralds.”

  Wilkes grunted and shook his head. “Who knows what’s going on in the lady’s mind? The instant we get to the station, collar a runner and send him off to Greenbury Street. This is definitely one for Senior Inspector Stokes and his friends.”

  Hugo Adair slipped through the throng of worshippers who, at the end of the morning service, had spilled onto the porch of St. George’s Church at the corner of Hanover Square. Tall enough to see over most heads, Hugo scanned the crowd, searching for a glimpse of glossy black curls framing a face of Madonna-like sweetness whose features, instead of exuding serenity, glowed with vibrant liveliness.

  Cara Di Abaccio’s face held so much life—radiated so much engaging vivacity—that Hugo could literally stare at her for hours and had whenever he could get away with such unwavering absorption.

  He’d taken to assiduously escorting his mother to Sunday service precisely for that reason.

  But today in the church, when he’d located Lady Carisbrook’s hatted head among the devoted—not difficult given her ladyship had a fetish for extravagant headgear that put all others to shame—he hadn’t seen Cara in her usual position, seated three places past her ladyship, with Franklin and Julia, the Carisbrooks’ children and Cara’s cousins, between.

  The thought that Cara must be ill and languishing at home alone prodded Hugo on as he quartered the shifting crowd, searching for the Carisbrook party.

  He’d first encountered Cara Di Abaccio three weeks before, at an alfresco luncheon one of his sisters had dragged him to. He’d been instantly smitten; he was willing to admit that, no matter how silly it made him sound.

  Smitten. It was the right word. Struck beyond recovery, he’d been drawn to Cara—to her laughing eyes and her fascinating
smile and the warm glow that suffused her face when she looked at him.

  Since their first meeting, he’d tracked her through the ton, attending the same events she did. Given his family’s connections, that hadn’t proved all that hard. His only concern was that, sooner or later, his mother and sisters would learn of his doings and insist on meeting Cara before he and she had progressed to the point family introductions.

  Hugo paused at the edge of the crowd to sweep the gathering again. There! The gauzy creation with countless tiny ribbon bows in a hideous shade of puce could belong to no other than Lady Carisbrook. Of course, her ladyship was holding court right in the middle of the crowd. Muttering a curse, Hugo dived in again, smiling and nodding and resisting all attempts to waylay him.

  Something was wrong—or at least, not right. His instincts were pricking as they hadn’t in a long while—not in all the months since he’d sold out of the army and returned to civilian life.

  He’d spent nearly a decade in the cavalry, serving in a regiment of Hussars. With the wars long over, he’d seen no battlefields—just as well given he’d discovered a year ago that dead bodies left him nauseated. Instead, his time had been consumed by parades and balls and looking the part as he rode with his troop in this or that procession or guard. Being tall and dark haired and possessing broad shoulders and a long lean frame, he had excelled at the activity of looking the part. For the rest of his time, along with a circle of like-minded friends, he’d engaged in the usual hedonistic pursuits at which gentlemen of his class also excelled, wine, women, and song being the least of them. Gambling hard, riding to hounds, consorting with opera dancers, and even more reckless adventures had filled uncounted days and nights.

  Then, abruptly, his interest in such activities had died. Whether it was age or something else, he didn’t know, but one day, he’d simply had enough. Restless and dissatisfied, he’d sold out.

  A month later, during the Season last year, his mother had hauled him off to a ball in the vain hope he would stumble on some sweet young miss who would fix his peripatetic interest and get him off his mother’s hands, or at least that was how she’d phrased it. Instead, he’d gone out to smoke a cheroot and stumbled over a dead body—a lady with her head bashed in.