AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You’re very beautiful.’
All over again Kirsten felt the ignominy of being valued for her physical charms alone. Indeed, it seemed to her that the looks that had attracted him to her had extracted a high price from them both. He believed that he had wronged her, but she refused to accept that he was at fault and she totally blameless. Had she admitted her inexperience he would not have slept with her. She was responsible for her own behaviour. She had wanted him. Even knowing that what she was doing was wrong, she had encouraged him to make love to her. Now she had to accept the consequences. He was only asking her to marry him because he felt guilty, and she hoped she had enough pride and decency not to take any man on such discreditable terms.
‘Let’s just forget about all this.’ Her strained green eyes locked to his stubborn jawline and rose no higher. ‘You don’t owe me anything. I’m not holding you to blame. There’s certainly no need for you to be offering me marriage.’
‘There is every need,’ Shahir countered.
‘I appreciate the offer. I really do. I don’t want to be rude either…But I’d have to be really desperate to marry anyone without love.’ Especially a man madly in love with another woman, Kirsten affixed inwardly.
‘This is your decision?’
‘Yes. May I go now?’ she prompted uncomfortably.
‘As you wish.’
Shahir watched her hasty retreat from his presence with grim dark golden eyes and a rare sense of incomprehension. He had expected her to accept his proposal. Indeed, the prospect of refusal had not crossed his mind. He had already been planning the best terms in which to present such an unequal marriage to his father. He should be relieved that would not now be necessary, and that honour had been satisfied without any degree of personal sacrifice. Disturbingly, however, all he could think about was the fact that there was now no way that Kirsten Ross could ever adorn his bed again.
Kirsten had managed barely three steps down the gallery before Jeanie appeared at the far end and gave her a frantic wave.
‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Have you been off some place crying?’ the redhead asked with rough sympathy. ‘Well, guess what? There’s a big panic on in the basement. Something valuable has gone walkabout and the staff lockers are being searched. Everyone has to agree to their locker being checked…but can you imagine how it would look if you refused?’
‘Like you were guilty.’ Relieved that Jeanie had noticed nothing amiss, Kirsten made a determined effort to behave normally. ‘What’s gone walkabout?’
‘Haven’t a clue. The housekeeper and her sidekicks aren’t telling.’
So much had happened so fast to Kirsten that she felt disconnected from the world around her. In the midst of the noisy chatter of the staff room she sat in a daze, lost in her own increasingly fantastic thoughts.
Suppose she had been insane enough to say yes to his proposal, she was thinking. Would Shahir really have married her? He would scarcely have asked had he not been prepared to do so. Would she have become a princess? Was there the remotest possibility that she might have made him happy? That he might have fallen out of love with Faria and fallen in love with her instead? How low would it be to marry a man who was only asking out of guilt? Very low, or only a little bit low?
When the senior housekeeper, Mrs Cook, appeared, with her thin face set in severe lines, Jeanie nudged Kirsten to attract her attention. ‘Now someone’s for it…’
‘Kirsten…could I have a word?’ Mrs Cook enquired.
Silence spread around Kirsten like a pool of poison. Getting up with a bewildered frown, she followed Mrs Cook into her office, where the older woman’s two assistants were waiting.
‘This was found in your locker.’ A sparkling diamond pendant on a gold chain was placed on the desk in front of Kirsten.
‘That’s not possible…’ Kirsten studied the pendant in disbelief. It was familiar to her, for on at least two occasions she had seen it lying in a careless heap on Pamela Anstruther’s dressing table.
‘We have a witness who says she saw you hiding it in your locker during your lunch break,’ Mrs Cook divulged.
Stunned by that announcement, Kirsten immediately endeavoured to argue her innocence.
What followed was the worst experience of her life. She insisted that she had not entered the locker room since the start of her shift. She declared that it was impossible for there to be a witness to an act that had not happened. She had neither stolen the pendant from Pamela’s bedroom, nor attempted to conceal it.
The witness, Morag Stevens, one of the two assistant housekeepers, then stepped forward to tell her story without once looking in Kirsten’s direction.
When Kirsten realised that nobody was paying the slightest heed to her protests and defensive explanations she became very scared and upset. But within the hour it was all over. She was informed that she was very lucky that Lady Pamela did not wish to have her prosecuted for theft, and she was dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct. The contents of her locker were packed into a bag and she was escorted out of the castle.
Jeanie was waiting at the courtyard gate for her. White-faced, Kirsten got off her bicycle to speak to the other woman and tell her about her dismissal. ‘I didn’t do it, Jeanie. I swear I didn’t!’
‘I’d be amazed if you did. After all, you’d be the first to be suspected, and you’d have to be a right idiot to think you could get away with it!’
‘But why did Morag say she saw
me put the pendant in my locker at lunchtime? Why would she lie? Why would she do that to me?’
‘Maybe she stole it and then got nervous and hid it in your locker? She has access to the pass keys,’ Jeanie reminded her. ‘But somehow I’d be more suspicious of Lady Posh.’
