She stood there and watched him go, the coat slung over his broad back. Unwillingly, she took him in, from his tousled dark hair to his boots. His confident stride extended from the muscular buttocks she had shyly touched, moving in rhythm with long legs that had captured his prey: Her.
He was gone. She heard the front door shut.
If only she had a fraction of his confidence. Or should she call it arrogance? She had been planning to kiss or kick what she wanted to know out of him, and he had beaten her to it.
But what a kiss. What a man. He was capable of anything. She almost…admired him for it.
Susannah picked up the corset once more, moving to the open door to hear if he had gone. He was exchanging pleasantries with Mr. Patchen. As if nothing at all had happened.
Her ire rose up again and she reminded herself how much she hated losing as she paced, her rapid strides quickening as she thought. More than ever, she was convinced that he had hidden the jewels in the corset.
The kiss had blindsided her. Owing to her regrettable curiosity to find out what happened next-what she had felt while clasped in his arms no more than that, surely-Susan-nah had not been able to winkle the truth out of him. He would be exceedingly wary from this moment on.
Carlyle had bested her without even trying. She hated him. Suddenly, madly, deeply.
“Now who was that, Miss Fowler?” asked the old lady in the chair, yawning. “I seemed to have dozed off. Did I miss anything?”
He waited until he reached the end of her street to put his coat back on. He’d stalled as long as he could in her front room, hoping to get a better look at the corset, but the fire in her eyes told him that she was very close to flinging something breakable-a china vase, perhaps-that would have woken Mrs. Posey.
He had seen a small cut in one of the corset’s ribs when he’d sat down. And the thing had been limp-Susannah folded it easily. Therefore, she had removed the rubies and sapphires that had made it stiff enough to stand up by itself. There was no doubt in his mind that she suspected him of using her personal belongings to smuggle jewels, and despised him for it. It was too bad, but explaining Lakshmi’s predicament would reveal more than that unfortunate young woman wanted the world to know.
Spouting off about the paintings of Zoffany had distracted Susannah just long enough to make a second quick study of the corset. He was sure that she had not found the diamonds inside the ribbon rosebuds nestled in the corset’s frill, and that fact meant he breathed a little easier as he walked away from Albion Square. But only a little.
Though there were only six diamonds, Carlyle happened to know that they were worth far more than the rubies and sapphires. He might have to resign himself to Susannah keeping those, especially since she had found them. The diamonds, however, were a different matter. They were much prized by the maharajah, who boasted that they had once belonged to a Mughal emperor. In an offhand conversation about the old fellow’s love of baubles, Alfred Fowler had said the same thing and added that they were a set, perfectly matched for extraordinary brilliance and clarity.
The maharajah had unwisely bestowed them upon his favorite, who had given them to Lakshmi in secret, and they were the stones, Carlyle knew, that the old fellow was most likely to want back. The diamonds had been easy enough to conceal, from what he could make out of Lakshmi’s tale.
Bloody hell. Carlyle told himself it was only a matter of time before she found the diamonds, too. He would have to get them first and try to figure out some way to return them to the maharajah. That process would take months and was sure to cause no end of ill-feeling-meaning he would have to explain everything to everybody eventually. The prospect was daunting.
She very well might try to sell the rubies and sapphires-certainly she understood their value. If he told her that Lakshmi had removed them from the maharajah’s palace, she might not. But it was difficult, if not impossible, to predict what Susannah would do.
The smaller gems were in her possession and possession was nine-tenths of the law. And they were worth a fortune, and what woman would not want to control a fortune of her own? It was becoming increasingly clear that she valued her independence more than he’d thought. That was only one reason why marrying off Miss Fowler was a thankless task, he told himself. Of course, the candidates thus far had been a lackluster lot. He could not blame that entirely on the half-aunt.
Carlyle had arranged several of the introductions, relying on recommendations from friends at his club, and choosing the safest-seeming men, in deference to Mr. Fowler’s last wishes.
Yet he knew quite well that they were not suited for her, a curious fact he could not deny. He didn’t understand it, but he was not inclined to soul-searching. Carlyle prided himself on being a man of action.
Still, her happiness was important to him. They had been fast friends in India. If he had been the unprincipled seducer and corset connoisseur she now seemed to think he was, they would have been lovers.
But nothing had happened. She was too young and too headstrong and too innocent-a volatile combination in every way. And her father had been his good friend. Carlyle considered his sexual attraction to Susannah quite understandable, but he also prided himself on his self-control.
He turned the corner, took a deep breath, and summoned up every ounce of it he had.
If she really did not wish to marry, then he might as well let her have the little gems, so to speak, and sell them to provide for herself. She could not prove he had put them in the corset. He hadn’t. She might ask why she hadn’t told him right away. He couldn’t, that was all there was to it.
Time would pass. It seemed unlikely that she would accuse him outright of smuggling and even less likely that she would swallow her pride and ask him to explain. No, most likely she would simply sell them quietly through an intermediary-and get a good price, too. She was the daughter of the famous Mr. Fowler and that counted for something.
Her misguided suspicions concerning him were something that he would have to live with. He hated the idea that, as of this morning, she thought less of him for something he had not done. Especially since she had looked so astoundingly sensual in that flowing dress, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her lips parted as she tried to think of something vile to say to him. He’d had to kiss her. Did she even know how irresistible she was?
The thought crossed his mind that he might have fallen in love with her. Hmph. He wanted to laugh and made do with a wry smile.
A little sweeper at the curb saw the smile and seized his chance to beg a penny from a man in a good mood. Carlyle found three shillings in his pocket and dropped them into the lad’s grubby hand.
“Aow-thank ye!”
“Carry on,” he replied absentmindedly.
“Good day and good luck to ye, sir.”
He would need it, because he did intend to get the diamonds back. Keeping a straight face while he had simultaneously teased her and pricked her pride had been the only way he could think of to distract her. The combined effect of remembering how she had looked in it last night-and finding that part of the treasure was no longer in it this morning-had been almost too much for him.
She was sensitive enough to read his mind-perhaps she had. The damned corset had been right under his nose. All he thought of was the diamonds once he realized the rubies and sapphires had been removed. God only knew where a woman would hide so many gems. They could be anywhere and everywhere.
He would have to find a way to get her out of the house somehow-and soon-and get the six diamonds out of the ribbon rosebuds. And those would have to be sewn back up just so, or she would notice that the corset had been tampered with again.
Carlyle frowned. He had never threaded a needle, never sewed so much as a button. He would have to enlist Lakshmi’s aid once more. The Indian maid would be terrified of being caught once she knew that Susannah had found the other gems.