An Honest Heart (14 page)

“You went behind the main counter to retrieve a lamp.”

Her gaze snapped to Dr. Stradbroke. “I did? I . . . yes, I did.” Locking gazes with the doctor made Caddy’s face hot, so she turned her eyes back to the constable. “It was dark, and I needed to see if the shelf had fallen. But before I could get to the lamp, there”—her heart pounded and she swallowed hard—“there was a dark figure. And then I was struck in the head. That is all I remember until . . .” She sneaked a glance at the doctor, unsure how much he had told the constable about their unchaperoned time together.

“I believe this is where your part of the telling comes in, Doctor.” The constable did not look up from the notes he scribbled.

Dr. Stradbroke cleared his throat and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “I was coming home from Jericho, walking east on North Parade. I had just passed Howell’s when I saw a cloaked figure run out of Miss Bainbridge’s shop.”

The constable looked up. “Which way did he go?”

“In the opposite direction from me.”

The constable dropped his pencil. “Are you certain?” He leaned over to retrieve the writing utensil. “He did not run west, toward Jericho?”

“No.”

“Does that make a difference?” Caddy was alarmed at the change in the constable’s demeanor at this revelation.

“It changes the scope of my investigation. I was prepared to spend my time in Jericho . . .” He looked at Dr. Stradbroke again. “Did he start toward you, then change direction once he saw you?”

Neal shook his head. “No. I was hidden in the shadows. He ran east apurpose.”

The constable appeared disappointed. When he turned and noticed the scrutiny with which Caddy watched him, his eyes softened, and his mouth seemed to turn up into a slight smile under its thick fringe of fur. “Not to worry, Miss Bainbridge. I will find the criminal. It just might take a little longer than expected. Now, Doctor, go on.”

Caddy listened with a mixture of fascination, shock, and mortification as the handsome man explained how he’d found Caddy on the floor, the dropped candle so close that her skirts could have gone up in flames and burned her to death.

“I do not believe the thief delivered the blow to Miss Bainbridge’s head, though.”

If raising her brows weren’t currently so excruciating, Caddy’s would have shot up in surprise. “You don’t?” She touched the bandage covering the scar that seemed to belie his words.

“No. From the nature of the wound, its location, and where I found you when I arrived, I believe you might have lost your balance or tripped and fallen, hitting your head on the sharp corner of the counter.”

Caddy closed her eyes and tried to remember. She’d entered the shop and gone for the lamp. And then . . .

“He rose up from behind the counter. I . . .” Her eyes popped open. “I was so startled that I leapt back. My skirt caught on something, I’m not certain what. I tried to catch the edge of the cabinet to keep from falling. But I miscalculated in the dark, and I hit my head on it instead.” She gazed at the doctor in wonder. “How did you know?”

He shrugged. “I suspected and deduced.” He turned back to the constable. “I tended to Miss Bainbridge’s wound and then departed for home, as I told you before.”

“Yes, quite so.” The constable wrote a bit more, then looked up at Caddy again. “What was taken?”

“The strongbox.”

“What was in it?”

Caddy’s mouth went dry. Admitting how much money she’d left vulnerable like that in front of an officer of the law was one thing—but in front of Neal Stradbroke?

She whispered the amount, but a grunting groan from across the tea table indicated the doctor had heard clearly enough.

“I planned to take it to the bank the next day.” As if that were any excuse for leaving the money in the strongbox—the location of which anyone who came into the shop could know.

The constable made more notes. “Is it generally known in the neighborhood that you keep such amounts of money about?”

“No. And I would not have had it then except we were so late returning from Wakesdown that the bank was already closed.”

“Then you must have been targeted by someone who knew you had the money. Can you think of who that might be?”

Had this been her fault? Was she somehow to blame for the break-in? “No. Except for the butler at Chawley Abbey who paid me, I spoke to no one about it. Not even Alice, who was with me.”

The constable muttered to himself and continued writing in his leather journal.

Caddy dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. She could not look across the low table at Dr. Stradbroke—she did not want to see the pity, or accusation, she assumed would be reflected in his bright blue eyes.

“Did you go straight from Chawley to Wakesdown?”

Frowning, she dragged her gaze up from her hands back to the constable. “Yes, the schedule of my appointments did not allow for time to stop at the bank.”

“How did you get from one place to the other?”

Caddy opened her mouth, then closed it, an outlandish possibility suddenly clouding her mind.

“What is it?”

She finally returned her gaze to Dr. Stradbroke. He sat on the edge of his seat as if ready to jump up and run off after whomever she might name.

Not wanting to put voice to her suspicion now, she shook her head.

“Miss Bainbridge,” the constable prompted, “if you know something, you must tell me.”

“It is only a whim of the mind caused by my injury. I know noth—”

Dr. Stradbroke launched himself from his chair, hopped over the tea table, and sat beside her on the settee. He wrapped his large, soft hands around hers, which were still clasped together.

A jolt of electricity shot up Caddy’s arms and stole her breath from her chest.

“Please do not be afraid, Miss Bainbridge. The constable will ensure your safety, and I will provide whatever protection I can through vigilantly making my presence known in the community.” He looked down and released her hands as if he’d just realized he was holding a stone plucked from a roaring fire. He slid several inches down the seat until the side of his leg did not press against her skirt.

“But I know nothing that could help the constable.” The untruth of her statement kept her from making eye contact with either of the men. “If that is all, I do believe I need to rest for a while.”

Caddy stood, hands folded at her waist, eyes downcast. The two men also stood, though both seemed hesitant to leave. She crossed the room and opened the door, then turned and bent her knees in a polite curtsy. “Constable. Doctor. Thank you for your assistance.”

Heart hammering, she walked as calmly as she could to her bedroom, trying not to conjecture about what the men thought of her abrupt departure. Collapsing onto her bed, Caddy squeezed her eyes closed and prayed.

She prayed not for healing or deliverance from pain, nor about what she would do to survive the loss of the money. She prayed she was wrong—that the person she suspected had nothing to do with the robbery. Because if she was correct, justice in this instance would not bring resolution. It would only bring more suffering.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

H
e had not taken the hint.

Edith stood at her bedroom window, fuming. She’d sat up here, alone, for more than a whole day, waiting for Oliver Carmichael to come and pay his respects and give her his best wishes for a quick recovery from her indisposition.

Instead, he’d spent last evening below with the party guests, no doubt entertaining flirtations from all the other girls since Edith was out of the way. And today he’d been away from Wakesdown all day.

Her maid bustled about in the dressing room, packing Edith’s trunks in preparation for the removal to London in a week’s time. Each little noise pulled at Edith’s nerves like an archer stretching a bow. Until finally—

“Enough!” Edith flung open the half-closed door to the room that contained all of her clothing, shoes, and accessories. “Stop what you are doing and leave. I need quiet.”

“Yes, Miss Buchanan.” Jones curtsied and fled from the suite. She was the fifth lady’s maid Edith had employed in the last three years, and the most recent to be likely to lose her position for not meeting Edith’s expectations.

As soon as the door clicked shut, the small porcelain clock on the dressing table chimed. Four thirty. Time for Edith to dress for tea. If she decided to go down.

Noise from outside drew her to the window again. As a child, she’d chosen a suite in the east wing on the courtyard-side of the house so she could see guests as they came and went. She parted the sheer curtains and peered down in time to see Oliver Carmichael dismount his horse, along with his friends Doncroft and Radclyffe.

She breathed a relieved sigh, then pulled the cord to recall Jones to help her dress for tea. No doubt the three men had been to their club in town—a club that admitted only men, which meant her fears that he had been visiting a paramour, or even calling upon another lady, were unfounded. She chided herself for doubting him. After all, they had formed their arrangement mere days ago. If she could not trust him to keep his side of the bargain for so short a time, she should break the agreement.

But absenting herself and hoping he would come to her had been a mistake. She had not yet made him fall in love with her. That would be the only enticement that would make him forsake the pleasures of a house party or the company of his friends to seek her out.

The maid entered, and Edith led the way back into the dressing room. “I am over my illness, and I want to look my best to show it.” The gowns that had already been packed were those she had worn several times during the house party. She shuffled through the ones still hanging. “Ah, here it is.”

Jones nodded. “We will need to tight-lace you for that one, miss.”

“Then best you get on with it.” Edith returned to her bedroom, untied the belt of her dressing gown, which she had not changed from this morning, unbuttoned it, and then shrugged out of it. She turned her back to Jones, hands pressed to the sides of her corset. She could feel it gap in the back when she pushed on it. “Do it up as tight as you can. I want to look as though my health has returned yet I am still in a fragile state.”

“Yes, miss.”

Edith took hold of one of the newel posts at the end of her bed to give her maid leverage. At intervals in the process, Edith measured her waist with her hands. “Tighter, Jones. Tighter.”

When finally satisfied, she could barely breathe, and the corset’s boning dug uncomfortably into her ribs, but instead of pain, it gave her confidence. “Get the tape measure.”

Jones complied and brought the narrow, stiff, marked cloth, which she wrapped around Edith’s waist. “Seventeen inches, miss.”

Edith smiled at herself in the standing mirror. The magazines mandated eighteen inches. Most of her guests, even with tight-lacing, could not get their waists down to that size. Her cousin Kate’s was an ungainly twenty-four inches when tight-laced, but the American was so tall, the thickness was not as noticeable as it would be on someone of Edith’s petite stature.

And it was that petite stature that gave Edith the ability to meet—and exceed—the standard of fashion. Well, her stature combined with her ability to endure and adapt to the discomfort tight-lacing caused. She pursed her lips, reveling in how the expression displayed her high cheekbones and the smooth planes of her face. She’d been blessed with thick black lashes surrounding large eyes with a natural upward tilt at the outside corners, so she had no need of cosmetics to give them definition or draw attention to them.

Yes, she was most definitely a natural beauty. And today, she would use that to her advantage. She perched on the stool at her dressing table. “I do not want curls or bows today, Jones. I want simple and elegant.”

Jones went to work, and when Edith took the small mirror to view the back of her coiffure in a double reflection, she decided she would not sack the maid just yet. The front was simple, certainly, with the shiny ebony hair parted in the middle and combed smoothly over her ears. The chignon in the back, however, was an intricate design of interwoven tendrils and braids, similar to a Celtic knot. Anything but simple, and most definitely elegant.

Edith set the hand mirror on the table and rose. “Now, my gown.”

When she had first seen the dress, she’d deemed it too plain for herself and considered allowing Dorcas to have it. But Dorcas, with an entire new wardrobe for her presentation and first season, had no need of another gown, so Edith kept it. And now she was happy she had. The brocaded cream silk took on a golden shimmer when the light hit it. A few shades darker than her skin, it set off her paleness to perfection, made her blue eyes appear bigger and brighter, and created a bold contrast to her black hair.

Jones laced the afternoon bodice so that it fit snugly to Edith’s torso. White gauze undersleeves, buttoned above her elbows, covered what the wide pagoda sleeves of the dress fell away to reveal. The heavy skirt, with its deep box pleats surrounding a tiny waistline, created its own fullness, needing few petticoats under it to affect the perfect bell shape. The lace at the rounded neckline was high enough to be demure without being so high as to make her look prudish.

The evening bodice she would change into before dinner was even more exquisite. Though Edith hated to admit it publicly, Miss Bainbridge was an excellent couturier.

She looked like a bride—no, like a queen. She raised her chin even higher, displaying her swanlike neck to full advantage. She would outshine stout little Queen Victoria in this gown.

Now it was time to go down and win the heart of her own prince. Well, future baron. And if, while she was working on Oliver, she happened to catch the attention of a certain viscount currently courting her cousin . . . that was simply the way the world worked.

Certain she was the last to arrive, Edith paused outside the sitting room, fingered the thin gold chain that held the ivory cross pendant she wore, then dropped her hands to clasp at her waist. A deep breath. A raised chin. An extended neck. Yes. She was ready.