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She stifled a gasp, retreating as far back into the pillows as she could. His lordship remained seated, looking as comfortable as if they were discussing the weather. Not her life, for that was what was at stake if she reacted the wrong way.
Forcing the faintest of polite, grateful smiles, she listened for sounds in the corridor or outside, but all was silent.
“It is the least I could do for your father,” his lordship went on. “Preserve his life’s greatest work.” He sent her a thoughtful look. “And preserve you in the process, considering the danger you’re in.”
Fingers of dread crawled up Jemima’s spine. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak.
When he intercepted her look over his shoulder toward the door, he shook his head. “My dear Miss Percy, there really is no alternative. You must give the tablet to me or your outlook is very bleak. I am sorry for your distress, but if your father had quietly surrendered that which was rightfully mine, he wouldn’t be dead, and you would not be in the terrible situation in which you find yourself.”
She managed to suck in enough air to croak in outrage, “Rightfully yours?”
Lord Griffith nodded slowly, and his mouth hardened. “Tell me where the tablet is, Miss Percy, and I will protect you. I will also make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.” She shrugged. “Who else can you turn to?”
She stared at him, coldly. Accusingly. “You killed my father?”
Lord Griffith looked pained. “I never killed anyone. Your father and I were friends. We met in Italy during the last century. W
e were travel companions on the Grand Tour during which we developed a shared a passion for antiquities. Surely your father spoke of our friendship and of our love of historical artifacts?” He indicated the room, and Jemima scanned the objects which she’d mentally cataloged while lying in bed. The fourth-century drinking cup from Greece; the late Roman bronze oil lamp. She was as invested as her father in rare treasures such as these, learning to interpret the ancient language of the region in Mesopotamia where he’d made three trips, despite his club foot, before age bent him and twisted his hands into painful claws. He’d relied on Jemima to conduct his painstaking research, directing her at first until she’d developed an instinct for how to date a shard of pottery. It had been Jemima who’d discovered the real importance of the clay tablet after she’d dedicated herself to translating the strange hieroglyphics. Yes, about ten years ago she’d come upon the small gray stone, covered in dust behind a row of books. Her father had told her he’d picked it up during his travels as a young man, and Jemima had then set herself the task of interpreting it.
“You only learned of its value after my father mentioned to you the fact that the script suggested a hidden treasure.” Anger made her sit up straight. “Just because you were travel companions, and you might have been with him when he found the tablet, does not give you ownership to any part of it!”
Now that Jemima thought back, she remembered Lord Griffith’s visit to their home when she was about twelve, but the visit had ended with the men raising their voices, something her father had never done before or since.
She huffed out a breath. “You wanted it ten years ago, but didn’t pursue it. Now you’ve heard …”
She realised her foolishness in continuing but he finished for her. “That the code has almost been deciphered leading us to what’s believed to be an unclaimed treasure in Constantinople? Yes, my dear. When I learned that, and also of the imminent arrival of the Rosetta Stone, which I was confident I could use to interpret what you had failed to do—and would be unable to do, in fact—without a visit to it in the British Museum, I decided the time had come to secure the tablet.”
“My father did not rely on colleagues. He did not steal the discoveries of other men. He made them himself. Honorably. I merely transcribed what he told me to, as his hands had become too painful for him to write.” She’d be safer if she let him assume what most men did: that her role was little more than as scribe and helpmate. “It was his work, alone, which led to this find.”
“When your father and I journeyed through Constantinople we found the clay tablet together.”
“But you disregarded its value. Both of you did. It was only twenty years later my father started to uncover its secrets, and he worked hard to do so. You have no claim on either the tablet or the discovery.”
“My dear, your beauty leads me to assume you must also be ridiculously indulged but surely you are not so feather-brained that you fail to understand the facts. You are entirely at my mercy and we are getting nowhere.” His nostrils flared. A burst of cold air swept down the chimney, scattering embers; the sound causing Jemima to jump.
She pulled the covers up over her chest, and Lord Griffith bent forward. For one horrifying moment, Jemima feared he was going to grip her arm.
With what appeared to be a concerted attempt to reign in his anger, Lord Griffith said quietly, “My wife has ordered the physician. He will examine you. You can’t hide it on your person, and the room will be searched.”
Through gritted teeth, Jemima muttered, “I don’t have it. I dropped it when I was being pursued. Yes, that’s right. I threw it away, my Lord. There is no point in keeping me your prisoner.”
The sound of a Christmas hymn being sung in a sweet soprano voice drifted through from the lobby, and his lordship smiled again as the voice was augmented by the chorus. He chuckled. “Another wave of ragged wassailers. Yuletide brings such optimism. Listen to them. They are undeterred by the heavy snowfalls, sustained by the hope of crumbs from our table to reward them for their rendering of a few Christmas carols. They are as patient and forbearing as I am.”
The pedestrian nature of his words didn’t fool Jemima. He was not going to let her go without making some impossible stipulation. She steeled herself.
With a supercilious look, Lord Griffith leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. “You came to me amidst another group of wassailers; half of them wearing shoes that didn’t keep out the snow. Unless you want to find yourself like them, destitute or worse, you will deliver me what I demand.” He rose, his eyes hard. “Let me make it clear to you, Miss Percy, that you cannot return to your aunt—poor, frail Mrs. Jessop, who is at this moment making plans to bury her brother. Nor can you seek succor from your pretty cousin, Mrs. Hislop and her lovely daughter, Lucy, who makes her debut this year. Or those clever, active young boys—your nephews. Oh yes, I know where they live and what they do. And I will bring harm to each and every one of them if you so much as breathe a word of what has passed between us, or if you are seen in the proximity of where they live.”
“What if I can’t retrieve the tablet?” Jemima whispered.
His forehead creased, and he opened his mouth to speak. Instead, they both jumped at the clatter of a fire iron. Lord Griffith turned. “Not now, Daisy! Our visitor doesn’t need you to frighten her with loud noises. You can do the fire later.”
When the door shut behind the abigail, Lord Griffith turned back to Jemima, as he made for the door. “You will set in motion the means to retrieve the tablet while you remain as my houseguest. For the moment, you can act as companion for my daughter so I can keep an eye on you. Tomorrow, though, you will retrace your footsteps and I, or my servant, will accompany you.”
“The servant who killed my father and then shot Sir Richard?” Jemima asked bitterly, shaking and afraid.
He gripped the door handle, his jaw clenched. “It was a rogue act, and murder was not part of my orders.”
“He acted under your authority.”
