Poor Lakshmi had many things to fear. Serving as go-between for the maharajah’s favorite and her young lover had been an awful mistake. The unfaithful favorite had given her the gems, prying them from their settings and ruining all her jewelry as a final act of rebellion against her lord and master. She had told Lakshmi to flee the country, knowing they both faced the ultimate penalty.
Carlyle had felt sorry for her and for the favorite, and his judgment had not been the best. At the time his overwhelming concern had been for Susannah. Had he but known…et cetera. But he hadn’t.
What to do? If he succeeded in finding the corset in Susannah’s bedroom, he could not just take it to his tailor’s and have him or his busybody wife mend the opened rosebuds. The fellow was entirely too friendly as it was, always inquiring into Carlyle’s life and loves.
And what if Susannah wore it night and day, instead of hiding it?
Preoccupied, he went hurrying down an unfamiliar street crowded with shops. Carlyle slowed his steps. Looking into windows would be a pleasant enough distraction. He came to a jeweler’s. Bright little things winked at him from the boxes on display. Good God. No. He moved on to the next shop, a tobacconist’s, and clasped his hands behind his back, studying the humidors. They were brown. They were square. There was one in a rectangular shape. He found their very plainness soothing, but there was a limit to how long a man could stare at mahogany boxes.
Onward he went. The shop next door to the tobacconist’s sold prints and engravings. He glanced idly at the display in the main window. There was one of a lady in the elaborate gown of an earlier historical period, powdered hair piled high, bosom popping out of her tight bodice-
Don’t look, he told himself.
An odd little man, his hands thrust into the pockets of a shabby coat, sidled up and leered at the same print. Carlyle sighed. He had fallen low indeed if this was the company he was keeping.
He stepped well away from the fellow, examining a group of botanical prints in the side window. Apples. Quinces. Pears-ah, that one was particularly nice. He peered through the glass, reading the fine engraved script beneath the two nicely rounded pears in the picture: Cuisses de Nymphe.
Nymph’s thighs. He almost groaned aloud and then remembered the odd little man not far away, still leering at the prints. Judge not, Carlyle told himself, lest ye be judged. He had been reminded of Susannah by a colored engraving of fruit that was suitable for a Methodist’s parlor. He strode away, swiftly putting as much distance as he could between himself and all stimulation.
He finally stopped in a park and sat down on a bench under a tree. Carlyle was beginning to realize that his brains were still addled by his unexpected glimpse of Susannah last night. But why? He was a grown man, not some randy lad, achingly stiff and stupid after just one look at an unclad woman.
And yet the mere sight of her had undone him. He was almost jealous of the damned corset, if it was possible to be jealous of an inanimate object. It was able to encompass her slender waist just as he wished to do with his hands, it had the privilege of cupping her beautiful breasts, it was warmed by her silky skin-he had no doubt that her skin was silky. At his level of amorous expertise, Carlyle was good at guessing such things.
He wanted to caress her with all the skill he possessed, wanted to rain kisses on her bare shoulders, wanted to tease her sensitive nipples, wanted to fondle her glorious rear with both hands, then beg permission to touch her as intimately as she might wish-damn, damn, damn. Right now he wanted to shoot himself more than anything. He could not have her.
Susannah knew that dressing herself would be a bit of a struggle, but she vowed to do it, even if her corset-the corset-ended up going on crooked. She could tighten the crisscrossing back laces before putting it on over her camisole and then take a deep breath and hook it in front somehow. It had lost much of its stiffness since she’d removed the gems. She might even be able to breathe.
She had looked in on Lakshmi, who still slumbered in her narrow bed in the chamber under the eaves, though it was past noon. Susannah had no idea what ailed her, but it seemed that the very least she could do was go out and purchase a tonic from the apothecary or medicinal herbs to make up a posset.
She was thankful that Lakshmi was not suffering from fever, but had no idea what her illness might be. Would an English doctor prescribe the right remedy? Susannah doubted there were any practitioners of Indian medicine in London.
The physic garden could be just the place to find something that would help her, though Mrs. Posey might say something disparaging about Lakshmi again. Susannah resolved to sack her if she did. Unfortunately, she would have to be replaced and there was no shortage of chaperones for hire.
Susannah, who had left Mrs. Posey to her knitting in the front room, began to make a mental list.
First, she had to help Lakshmi. She decided to ask the Rajasthani family they had met-she would have to find them somehow. Or, first she had to talk to a dealer in precious stones-she knew just the fellow, she would write to him today-and have the rubies and sapphires appraised.
She wondered what Carlyle would have done if she’d simply spilled the stones on the table in front of him and asked where they had come from and what they were worth. His face had been close to expressionless when he saw the pink corset. Provoking of him. Perhaps he was a better strategist than she had thought. It all depended on what game he was playing.
Two days later…
Her face hidden under an overlarge bonnet-she had added a veil for good measure at the last minute-Susannah waited on the step for the clerk on the other side of the shop door to unlock it from the inside. Not wanting the servants to know about this confidential errand, she had traveled most of the way here via horse-drawn omnibus, a jolting journey that exhausted her, until she got out in Oxford Street and walked the rest of the way, looking in the shop windows along the way.
This shop’s wares were not shown in the window. Indeed, there was no window and there were no goods sold here-only skill. Rough gemstones were cut, faceted, and polished behind the heavy doors, and sent back to those who had purchased them elsewhere.
The narrow lane was a warren of similar shops, some at street level and some within the taller buildings that loomed over the old ones.
She heard repeated clicks and then the door suddenly swung open. An elderly clerk peered at her doubtfully.
“I am Susannah Fowler,” she said.
“Of course. Mr. De Sola told me you would be coming. My memory-” He tapped the side of his head. “Please enter.” He stepped to one side of the door, peering up and down the empty lane.
She looked where he was looking and thought she saw the shadow of a man melt back into an alley. Had she been followed? The idea was frightening. No one besides Carlyle knew that she had found the stones. She looked again and saw nothing. The clerk was far too frail to deal with ruffians, but she supposed that a watchful eye was better than nothing. There was undoubtedly a burly fellow somewhere on the premises. Anything to do with jewels carried a risk of theft and worse.
She went in, lifting her veil over the bonnet, and was greeted by another man, white-haired and short, who came out from an inner office. Behind it, she guessed, was the cutters’ room, where rough stones were assessed, sometimes for months, before the final decision to cut was made.
The man who greeted her was soft-spoken and utterly unassuming. But she knew he was Moise De Sola, the man who had cut and faceted the legendary Gulbahar diamond and several of the largest jewels in the royal collection. Still, one might pass him in the street and never remember him. He gave her a kindly smile and clasped her hands in his.