“Fine,” he said, his teeth gritted. “Get out of my room, you—”
Alice had slipped out before he could finish the sentence.
When Alice swept into their shared bedchamber, Molly knew straightaway that she had been successful. She fairly glowed. If this was what jewel theft did to a girl, it was a wonder it wasn’t more common.
But Molly knew it wasn’t the diamond that made Alice look like she had beams of light stuck under her skin, but rather the fact that she had taken back what was hers.
“I’ve got it,” Alice said, holding out the cravat pin.
Molly scarcely paid the jewel any attention, instead pulling Alice into an embrace. Their hearts were both racing. “Did everything go as planned?”
“No,” Alice said, the sound muffled in Molly’s hair. “He found me. I made him let me have it.”
That changed things. Molly had planned to hide the pin among her belongings—sewn into the hem of her skirt or the boning of her corset—until they returned to London. But now she’d have to get rid of that diamond in case Tenpenny decided to summon a magistrate and have Alice arrested. Even if she knew a pawnbroker in Norfolk, she’d hardly want to sell the diamond so close to where it had been stolen. No, she needed to go back to London now and do this thing safely.
“What’s wrong?” Alice asked, leaning back to peer searchingly at Molly’s face.
“No time to explain.” There came the old, familiar fear of being caught, hanged, transported. “Give me the diamond so I can sell it.”
Alice handed it over without hesitation. “You can’t just leave, though. You’ll lose your place.”
She might, if it came to that. But here they were, with a stolen diamond on them, and a mean-spirited man who might do God only knew what. Even if the worst happened and she got sacked, she’d still have half the worth of the diamond.
“Thank you,” she said, pressing her lips to Alice’s for a kiss that was too hurried to mean anything.
Chapter Eight
Molly didn’t return that night. When the sun rose the following morning and Molly still wasn’t there, Alice started to worry. She had told Mrs. Wraxhall—who had been overflowing with apologies that she had inadvertently subjected Alice to Mr. Tenpenny’s company during the house party—that Molly was ill, but she couldn’t keep up that pretense forever. Besides, somebody must surely have seen Molly leave. She couldn’t have walked to—Alice suddenly realized she had no idea where Molly planned to go. She felt utterly stupid for having let Molly go without having asked. At first, she thought Molly meant to sell the jewel in Norwich, but perhaps she intended to travel to London. In that case she couldn’t possibly return until tomorrow at the earliest. And she needn’t bother coming back, because there would be no job waiting for her, not after Mrs. Wraxhall inevitably realized that Molly wasn’t in bed. Likely Alice would be turned off as well, after Mrs. Wraxhall discovered that she had lied about Molly’s illness.
Those were relatively minor concerns, compared to the dawning certainty that Molly was not coming back. What if Molly were no different from Alice’s father and sister, willing to cast Alice off as a bad bargain? Molly had given Alice no reason to think so, but Alice couldn’t silence the whisper that she was worth less than a diamond. That whisper had been with her for as long as she could remember, and she had precious little evidence that she might be worth even more than a hairpin, let alone a diamond cravat pin.
That next morning, with still no word from Molly, Alice packed her valise and knocked on the door to Mrs. Wraxhall’s bedchamber. The lady was sitting at her dressing table, arranging her hair as best she could without a lady’s maid.
“Alice!” she exclaimed, turning to face the door. “What on earth are you doing with your valise?”
“Ma’am, I’m afraid I lied when I said that Molly was ill. The truth is that she had to leave to dispatch an errand for me, and she hasn’t yet returned. It was quite wrong of me to ask her to do this, and I take full responsibility. Please don’t give her the sack.”
“The sack? What on earth are you talking about? What errand? Alice, you’re as white as a sheet.”
“I can’t tell you about the errand, only that it’s my fault.”
Mrs. Wraxhall opened her mouth as if to ask further questions, and then snapped it shut again. Instead, she took her coin purse out of her dressing table drawer. “How much do you need to get wherever you’re going?”
“I don’t know where I’m going. I thought you’d want me to leave, so I ought to be prepared.”
“Of course. The last time you were turned out, you hardly had enough time to grab so much as a clean shift. I have no intention of turning out either you or Molly. She’s worked for me for several years, and never once have I had the least reason not to trust her. Quite the contrary, in fact. She helped me at a time when I thought I was beyond help. So I have to believe that if she saw fit to deceive me, she had a reason she thought worthy, and a person for whom she was willing to risk her position. If that person were her daughter, I feel certain that she would have told me herself. That leads me to believe that she has another person she feels strongly about, and the fact that she told you the nature of her errand suggests that you are that person. No, you don’t need to confirm. Just tell me what you need.”
“What I need?” Alice echoed, stunned.
“What you want, if you prefer.”
What she wanted was for Molly to return, for Molly to be safe. But there was no way to ensure that. Either Molly would return or she wouldn’t. All Alice could do was wait. But while she was waiting, perhaps there was something else she could do. “I want to go to the vicarage at Barton St. Mary.”
Mrs. Wraxhall raised her eyebrows. “To burn it down, I hope?” she asked coolly. “Perhaps smash its windows?”
Alice smiled despite herself. “To get what’s mine,” she said.
“Do let me send you in my carriage,” Mrs. Wraxhall said. “I’d be honored.”
