She cut a small, almost invisible slash into a rib on the other side. The channel yielded twenty sapphires of a vibrant dark blue. By midnight, she had taken hundreds of small precious stones out of the corset. Her petticoat was filled with winking blue and red points of light.
She smiled ever so slightly, looking down at them. Anyone else who’d stumbled across unexpected treasure would have been agog with excitement, but Susannah knew enough about gems and gem-dealing to keep quiet-and to keep her discovery to herself. She dipped a hand into the stones and let them cascade through her fingers.
Her father had sometimes allowed her to look at and even play a little while with his cache of gemstones and pearls, but he’d kept a watchful eye on her and on his precious stock in trade. Most of it was destined for the workshop of the palace artisans, to be set into rings and dagger hilts and turban brooches and ceremonial objects. The maharajah liked to dazzle his subjects-it was expected of him-and rewarded his courtiers with such things, to say nothing of his concubines.
Alfred Fowler cared very little for gems, except for the price he could get for them. He was a shrewd trader, buying low and selling high. Very high. When she was older, he’d told her that it was best not to keep such things around. She’d feared for him and for herself, but he’d said the maharajah would kill anyone who dared to steal from his treasury.
He had shown her the ingenious hidden compartments in his traveling cases and trunks, but he never put the real goods in there. The compartments were filled with paste jewels and lacquered beads that resembled pearls to satisfy a thief.
While traveling on business, he preferred to conceal gems and pearls inside belts and the seams of his clothes, so nothing could be taken from him-without the use of force, of course.
Someone had thought along similar lines and stuffed the pink corset in the same way. The gems were of high quality as far as she could see, but she would need a jeweler’s loupe to assess them properly. There was one somewhere in a wooden chest filled with mementoes of her father. Susannah picked up the largest ruby, wondering if her father had planned to smuggle the gems out. It would not be the first time Alfred Fowler had done such a thing.
Taking opium for the pain of his final, wasting illness had made him ramble, and he had told her of many things that were best forgotten. But he had said nothing of this. Ought she to ask Carlyle? Or was it possible that Lakshmi had hidden the gems there?
She could not imagine why or where the girl might have got them. Had Lakshmi sewn the corset? It was possible-the embroidery was distinctly Indian in design. Susannah had come across it this morning when she was clearing out a drawer, finding it at the bottom. She had admired it with a trace of puzzlement, not remembering where it had come from or who made it. Several of the palace women had worked to provide her with clothing that was suitable for England, and it had all been packed for her. But that was months ago.
She held up the corset and looked at it closely. It was cleverly fashioned and the embroidery was very fine.
The Indian maid had seemed nervous when Susannah discovered the loose pearls, but then she’d been flighty and distracted for the last few weeks.
It was all very strange. Susannah’s forehead furrowed when she thought back to the time of their departure from India.
Carlyle had insisted that Lakshmi accompany them to London when another girl would have done just as well.
Now that she thought of it, she’d heard the maid’s name muttered in connection with some court scandal around the time of her father’s death. Out of respect for Susannah’s feelings, no one had said much. There were so many scandals in the palace anyway, where gossip was rife, especially in the zenana, where the concubines lived.
If only she could remember more.
It hardly seemed possible that a village girl like Lakshmi would have thought of concealing gems in such a way. Susannah doubted that her maid had ever seen a corset before coming to her. Lakshmi had been the servant of the maharajah’s favorite, whose shapely body was never pinched and poked by such beastly things.
Susannah rose, tossing the corset onto the bed before she folded the heap of rubies and sapphires in part of her topmost petticoat. She bent to pick up her evening shoes from the floor.
Numerous as they were, the gems could be easily hidden under paper stuffed in the toes, the shoes put back in their box, the box returned to the bottom of her closet, and no one would be the wiser.
She sat down on the bed and let go of the petticoat she had been clutching to sort out the stones, putting the rubies in the left shoe and the sapphires in the right.
Once she’d found tissue paper and crumpled it into the toes, she put the shoes away. She would not wake Lakshmi, who was not likely to tell the truth if she were confronted. Even if the maid had not smuggled the stones, she had hidden the corset. But someone had to have put her up to it.
The only likely culprit would be Carlyle Jameson. Susannah went back to the bed and dragged the crocheted afghan from its place at the foot of the white comforter. She tucked her feet under it, still thinking. There could be a good reason for Carlyle having the gems. Her father might have given them to him as payment for taking care of her. But having and hiding were two different things.
If they were indeed her father’s gift, Carlyle might not have wanted to tell her. She supposed he wouldn’t want her to know that he had been well paid for his services on her behalf, being an officer and a gentleman and all that.
Hmm. Perhaps there was a better word than payment. Alfred Fowler was not above out-and-out bribery when it served his interests.
So that was why Carlyle had been at such pains to get her out of India and handle every complication of introducing her into society-it was a rewarding job in every sense.
Bah. And she had thought he liked her. Another thought occurred to her. The corset was hers and, for now, so were the gems. If Carlyle Jameson didn’t own up to what he had done, she might as well sell them. Of course, she would not do so until the mystery of how they got there in the first place was solved. But she would have them appraised. Just in case she got to keep them.
She had no doubt of their value. Susannah jumped up from the bed and put the corset on top of her sewing box. She would either wear it or keep it with her. She preened a bit in front of the mirror, putting on a haughty smile. The fantasy of being a very wealthy woman-who didn’t have to marry anyone-was deliciously wicked.
In the house next door…
Lost in reverie, his long legs stretched out in front of him, Carlyle Jameson stared into the fire. Red, orange, hot pink-the intense colors of the licking flames reminded him of India. He was trying not to think of Susannah in that damned corset.
Perhaps it was a lucky thing he had chanced to see her tonight, for more reasons than one. It was time to remove them. She need never know. Once the rubies and sapphires and diamonds were sold, Lakshmi, a pawn in a cruel game that had now played out five thousand miles away, would be set for life. Once he had found out about the gems, he’d thought they would spirit the corset out of Susannah’s bedroom, remove the jewels, and put it back. She would be none the wiser, and they could sell them.
But Lakshmi had been skittish and uncooperative. Understandably, she was afraid of the maharajah, to whom the gems belonged, even though the old fellow was a few continents away. Still, it was very likely that they had been followed by his agents and were being watched.
Perhaps he should not have waited so long. But Carlyle had been leery of selling the stones right away if the least breath of scandal would have hurt Susannah’s chances. So much time had gone by that he thought it was now worth a try-but he could be wrong. Very wrong. A dagger-wielding assassin was not likely to listen to the very good reasons why Carlyle had kept Lakshmi’s secret or that he had not smuggled the stones out of India in the first place.