Determined not to be a mouse this time, Isa thrust out her chin. “I just can’t believe that Victor would have agreed to—”
“He’s not here, is he?” Jacoba pointed out. “And you heard him say he would be here to fetch you home. Yet it’s well past the time for him to do so.”
The truth of that struck her hard. “I still just don’t—”
“How do you think we got the diamonds, you little fool?” Gerhart strode up to her in a temper. “We couldn’t have breached the strongbox ourselves. The thing takes five men to lift, and the locks are intricate. It could only be opened with the keys. Victor’s keys.”
Isa’s blood thundered in her ears.
He let that sink in, then added coldly, “He was more than happy to help when he realized it was the only way to make sure he could provide for his wife.”
I will find work after this, even if the jeweler doesn’t keep me on. Don’t worry about that.
Tears sprang to her eyes. Had she sent him off to do this awful thing by making him believe she was worried about his ability to find another post?
“And I should think,” Gerhart pressed on, “that you’d be grateful for all the trouble we have taken to provide for you. Instead, you stand here mewling—”
“Gerhart, darling,” Jacoba said in soothing tones, “why don’t you go pack our things and let me talk to my sister?”
Gerhart glared at Isa, who was clutching her stomach in a fruitless attempt to quell the fear roiling inside her. With a snort, he walked out.
As soon as he was gone, Jacoba came to Isa’s side. “My dearest, I like Victor as much as you, but you must admit that you hardly know him. He rarely even speaks of his previous life. For all you know, he may have done this kind of thing before. Consider all those languages he speaks—has he ever even said how he knows so many?”
She swallowed. She’d never asked. He just seemed worldly, a man who’d learned things far beyond her ken, even though he was only two years older. “He was a soldier in the Prussian army,” she pointed out.
“That explains his knowledge of German. But how does he know English? Or French? Surely not just from being a soldier. I daresay he did a few things during the war that required special . . . skills.”
Since she’d often wondered about his reticence, she could hardly ignore that possibility.
“Besides,” Jacoba went on, “soldiers are practical sorts. And since you never mentioned our plan to him, how do you know he wouldn’t have embraced it?”
The words cut her right through. She didn’t. She had only her instincts to go on, which said that Victor would never steal. But could she be sure? Or did she just believe it because she’d placed him so high in her esteem?
Worse yet, some facts were irrefutable. Jacoba and Gerhart couldn’t have breached the strongbox without Victor. And a glance at the clock showed it was already 8 A.M. He would have been here long before now if he were coming.
That was the part that hurt.
“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Isa whispered.
Jacoba chucked her under the chin. “Why should he, silly girl? He’ll see you in a few weeks. This is just temporary. He had to get as far away as he could before the time he’d be expected at the shop.” She bent her head to touch Isa’s. “And we have to as well, so come along now. Victor packed your bags, and we have to hurry to the dock.”
Her heart faltered. “Can’t I go back to the apartment?”
“We’ve no time, I’m afraid. The packet boat for Calais leaves very soon. We’ll barely make it as it is, and the next one doesn’t leave for hours.” Jacoba squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry—I gave Victor the address of the hotel where we mean to stay in Paris, and I daresay there will be a letter waiting for us the moment we arrive. Or one will come shortly afterward.”
Isa hesitated, but what choice did she have? She could never go back to the shop now. Even if the imitations were never discovered, she would know they were there, and that would plague her until she told the truth.
Besides, she couldn’t risk implicating Victor. Or her family. She was furious that they’d taken the matter out of her hands, but now it was done, and she didn’t want to see them go to prison—or worse yet, be hanged!
She could end up in prison or hanged herself, just for making the parure. The thought sent a chill to her soul.
“All right?” her sister pressed.
She nodded. But as they raced about, preparing to go, she vowed that this would be the last time she let them bully her into doing something so despicable.
And once her husband arrived in Paris, she would find out what kind of man she had really married.
♦ ♦ ♦
FOUR MONTHS LATER, Victor still hadn’t come or even sent word. And now she had his child growing in her belly. Dear heaven, what was she going to do?
Feeling particularly blue, she sat in the parlor of their very fine Paris town house and waited for the mail. She wasn’t sure why she bothered. Clearly something awful had happened to Victor. It was easier to believe that than to think he might just have abandoned her.
A ray of afternoon sun flashed through the barely parted silk curtains, glinting off Jacoba’s new gilded ormolu clock, dancing across Gerhart’s recently acquired Persian rug, and bursting into sparkles in the cut-crystal bowl near her hand. But she could find no joy in all the costly newness.
With a sigh, she picked up that week’s issue of the Gazette de France and flipped through it. An article caught her attention. Her French wasn’t the best yet, but she could still decipher a bit of gossip that a local jeweler named Angus Gordon was leaving Paris to return to his native Scotland. His French wife had died, and he wanted to go home.
But what intrigued her was that the fellow had built his reputation by creating exquisite imitation jewelry.
She muttered an oath, something she was doing more and more lately. If her sister and brother-in-law hadn’t been so impatient, the three of them might have built a similar business in Amsterdam.
No, that would never have satisfied them. Gerhart was already hinting that Isa should make more imitations to sell as real. So they could buy an even better house in an even better part of Paris, with better chances for social advancement.
She suspected that he just wanted more money to wager on wrestling bouts. He thought he could always win since he’d been a wrestler briefly himself, before he’d injured his knee. And the very thought of committing fraud repeatedly in order to provide Gerhart more money for gambling chilled her blood.
Jacoba wandered in, thumbing absently through a stack of mail. She looked different now, with her hair short and fringed about her face to change her appearance. Gerhart wore a beard now for the same reason.
Swiftly turning over the newspaper, Isa asked, “Anything for me?”
At the quiver in her voice, her sister’s head came up. “It’s just bills.” She walked up to the table. “My dear, I hate to see you like this. Don’t you enjoy being able to buy what you want and go to the theater whenever you wish?”
“That was always your dream, not mine.” Isa’s hands shook now, too. “I just wanted Victor.”
Something like guilt flashed over Jacoba’s face before her expression hardened. “Well, it’s clear he’s not coming. He took the earrings and left, the wretch, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We don’t even have a way to find him.”
The truth of that statement struck Isa hard. “We wouldn’t have to find him if you and Gerhart hadn’t gone to him behind my back. He was probably so disillusioned to learn that his beloved wife was no better than a counterfeiter that he—”
“Has it occurred to you that perhaps he married ‘his beloved wife’ in the first place because of her post at the jeweler’s?” Jacoba snapped.
Isa blanched. No, that hadn’t occurred to her. But it should have.
With an oath, Jacoba hurried to sit beside her and take her hand. “I’m sorry, sister, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Misery choked her. Jacoba was merely voicing fears that Isa hadn’t wanted to admit to herself. It was time she faced the truth. After all, it had never made sense to her that a fine, stalwart fellow like Victor would consider her worthy to be his wife. She wasn’t tall and elegant and blond like Jacoba. She wasn’t a good cook, which every man wanted, and she liked to spend her hours poring over design books and experimenting with smelly chemicals.
“Do you really think he married me because of . . . my post?” Isa managed.
“Of course. The jeweler constantly sang your praises. So if Victor married you, he knew he could stay on longer. The jeweler would have found something for him to do, if only to keep you there.”
Isa’s heart broke. She hadn’t thought of it in that way, but it made sense. Had she always been the mouse to him, someone to shoo off once he got what he wanted? Had she really only been a convenient means to an end?
How could she not have seen that?
But she knew how. She’d been so enamored of his sweet kisses, so caught up in the idea of healing his pain from the war that she hadn’t seen the real him. All it had taken was those diamond earrings dangled in front of him, and he’d sold his soul to the devil.
And thrown away their marriage in the process.
“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” Jacoba said softly, “but I thought you would have figured it out by now.” She tightened her grip on Isa’s hand. “You deserve better than Victor Cale.”
Isa stared at her sister a long moment, then lifted her chin. Yes, she did. She deserved a husband who didn’t hide his ulterior motives behind his reserve. Who didn’t run off without saying goodbye.
Who didn’t collude with her family to steal things.
“He only wanted to use you,” Jacoba added.
Like you and Gerhart? Isa nearly said.
It was dawning on her that she also deserved better than to be used by her kith and kin. She had a child to consider. It was one thing to let them use her, but it would be quite another to let them use her child. And they would surely find a way to do it.
“Shall I fetch you something?” Jacoba asked, all soothing kindness now that she’d made her point. “You have to keep your strength up for the babe, you know. Perhaps some of those summer peaches you love?”
“Yes, thank you,” she murmured.
As soon as Jacoba was gone, Isa flipped back to the article she’d been reading. Mr. Gordon had told the paper that his main regret in leaving Paris was that he had to leave his French apprentices behind. They didn’t want to go to a land as wild and barren as Scotland. So now he would have to train new ones in Edinburgh, and that would take time.
Her heart began to pound. She tore out the article, then tossed the rest of the paper into the fire so Jacoba and Gerhart wouldn’t figure out that she was planning something.
Was she? It was a mad idea at best, to think she could convince a stranger to hire her as his apprentice and take her with him to Scotland. How was she supposed to manage it?
By steeling her heart and swallowing her fears. It would take strength and courage to get away. And she had to get away. She dared not stay with her family any longer if she wanted to have a respectable future.
Papa had left her Mama’s ruby ring, which might cover the cost of the passage if this Mr. Gordon wouldn’t agree to pay for it. And she had her talent. All she had to do was show the jeweler what she was capable of, and be honest with him about what she wanted. If he had any heart at all, he might be swayed when she told him her soldier husband was dead.
It was almost true, after all. Victor might as well be dead to her, along with her old life and all it meant to her. If he’d wanted to find her, he could have, and so far he’d made no effort.
Tears stung her eyes, and she fought them back. No more tears allowed. No more waiting and hiding from life. If she was to save herself and her child, that must all end.
She would be Mausi no more.
1
London
September 1828
VICTOR CALE PACED the foyer of Manton’s Investigations in an unassuming town house on Bow Street, praying that his longtime friend Tristan Bonnaud was here today. Tristan had to convince Dominick Manton, owner of the investigative concern, to try Victor out as an investigator.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t have useful skills—he was fluent in six languages, he had decent aim, and he’d already done some investigative work. It might even be considered an asset that he’d recently been discovered to be cousin to Maximilian Cale, the Duke of Lyons and one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in England.
Most important, Tristan wouldn’t hold the crimes of Victor’s father against him, which was refreshing. Sometimes he felt as if he wore his father’s actions like a brand, even though Max never so much as alluded to them. Indeed, Max went out of his way to treat his newfound cousin well.
That was the trouble. Max seemed determined to show him off in high society, where Victor could never feel comfortable. A childhood spent in English regimental camps and three years in the Prussian army had hardly prepared him for such a life. Nor had his brief, ill-fated marriage to a lying thief.
He scowled.
“Mr. Manton will see you now.”
Victor turned to find Dominick Manton’s butler, Mr. Skrimshaw, standing there in a bright salmon waistcoat, blue Cossacks, and a coat so over-braided and frogged in gold that he looked like a soldier from some war of fashion. “I’m not here to see Dom,” Victor pointed out.
“‘Come, gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles.’” With that curt and curious statement, Skrimshaw headed for the stairs, clearly expecting Victor to follow.
Only then did Victor remember that Skrimshaw not only acted in the theater sometimes but had a penchant for quoting lines from plays. He wished the irritating fellow had a penchant for speaking and dressing plainly, instead. The man’s coat was an assault on the eyes. Though perhaps it was a costume. One never knew with Skrimshaw.
When the butler ushered him into Dom’s study, Victor relaxed to find both Dom and Tristan waiting for him. Whenever he saw the two half brothers together, he was struck by the family resemblance. Both men had ink-black hair, though Tristan’s was longish and wildly curly, while Dom’s was cropped shorter than was fashionable. Tristan’s eyes were blue and Dom’s green, but they were of the same shape and size. And both men had the sort of lean attractiveness that made women blush and stammer whenever either entered a room.
That was where the resemblance ended, however, for Tristan liked a good joke, a fine glass of brandy, and as many pretty females as he could tumble without compromising his work as an investigator.
Dom liked work and naught else. The man meant to make Manton’s Investigations a force to be reckoned with. Apparently jokes, brandy, and pretty females were unacceptable distractions.
So it was no surprise when Tristan was the one who came forward to clap a hand on Victor’s shoulder. “How are you, old chap? It’s been a few weeks, hasn’t it?”
“A few.” Victor shot a glance at Dom, who remained seated. The man’s expression gave nothing away.
He wished Dom weren’t here, too. That might make this very awkward.
“Sit, sit,” Tristan said as he leaned against the desk with arms crossed. “Tell us why you’ve come.”
With a sigh, Victor settled into a chair. In for a penny, in for a pound. “It’s simple, really. I was hoping you might take me on as an investigator.” When both men looked surprised, he went on hastily, “You won’t have to pay me, just cover my expenses. Max gives me an ample allowance. But I need something to do.”
He’d spent enough time playing the role expected of him as Max’s long-lost cousin. He had to get back into the world of investigations. To start looking for his betraying wife again.
Tristan exchanged a glance with his older brother. “Tired of the ducal life already, are you?”
“Let’s just say that nobody warned me what it would entail
. I’ve done naught but attend dinners and parties and balls where I’m bombarded with questions about my life abroad, none of which I can answer without bringing down scandal on the house of Lyons.” Victor shifted in the small chair. “And when people aren’t interrogating me, they’re talking about fashion or who placed the latest wager in White’s betting book. Or, worst of all, about whether waltzes really are morally reprehensible.”
“What, you don’t have an opinion about the moral implications of the waltz?” Tristan quipped. “I’m stunned.”
“I don’t like dancing,” Victor grumbled. Especially since he didn’t know how. Though one of these days he probably should learn.
“I loathe dancing myself,” Dom put in, “but it’s the primary way to meet ladies in good society.”
“Victor doesn’t need to meet ladies,” Tristan said dryly. “They throw themselves at him. Always did. And he always ignored them. Of course, now that he’s the duke’s first cousin once removed, he’s eminently more eligible.”
Except for the fact that he was already married—though no one knew that. No one could ever know that.
He tensed as an image of Isa leapt into his mind, young and sweet and adoring. But it had all been an act. She’d been setting him up for betrayal from the beginning, her and her scurrilous family.
After all these years, he could still hear his inquisitors in the Amsterdam gaol. She used you, you besotted arse! Yet you protect her.
He had . . . at first. He’d remained silent throughout his ordeal, thinking that she couldn’t have been part of it. It had taken him years to admit to himself that she must have been.
So now he searched for her wherever and whenever he could. He’d suspended the search when he’d come to London, in hopes that finding his English family might enable him to forget her and make a new life for himself.
Except that he couldn’t. The injustice of what she’d done ate at him. He had to find her. He needed to find her. He told himself it was because he didn’t want his past with her coming up to harm his cousin unexpectedly, but deep down he knew that was a lie. Finding her was the only way to get some peace. Because she still, after all these years, plagued his dreams.
When the Rogue Returns Page 2