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Jemima glanced sideways at Rebecca. She was very pale—far more so than her mother. That was partly her fairer hair and her lighter, aqua-colored eyes, but mostly her almost bloodless skin, bruised-looking around her eyes from sleeplessness. Jemima hated raising the issue. “Rebecca…”
“What?” There was apprehension in her face.
Jemima hesitated. Was this necessary? Yes, it was. “Did anyone tell you that Philip Sidney has been arrested for embezzlement?”
Rebecca stopped, her face paler still.
Jemima tightened her grip on Rebecca’s arm. “The embezzlement took place, apparently, when he was at the British Embassy in Washington.”
“Are you sure?” Rebecca sounded startled.
Jemima’s mind raced, her imagination all over the place. She realized she had thought that Tobias Thorwood might be behind the charges—that they may have been created to force Sidney into a courtroom. She worried about Patrick: How far would he go to help Rebecca? How exactly did he know about the embezzlement? Was it a trumped-up charge, with Tobias behind it? Had they asked Rebecca at all exactly what had happened, if she was sure it was Sidney who had broken into her room? How far had the Thorwoods thought about it, beyond revenge, beyond a verdict? Had they thought about Rebecca afterward at all?
“Didn’t your father tell you?”
“No! How do you know?” Rebecca was shivering despite being in the sun.
“Patrick told us that the police had arrested him. He asked my brother if he could defend him.”
“Defend him!” Rebecca’s voice rose in the beginnings of hysteria. She was shaking, standing in the middle of the footpath, on the edge of losing control altogether. There seemed to be no hunger for revenge in her, no anger, just outrage and terror on top of her grief for May Trelawny
.
Jemima seized hold of Rebecca by the shoulders. “No!” she said loudly. “Only to defend him of the charge of embezzlement and see that there is a proper trial, with all sorts of questions asked. But let’s start now with the most important: Do you want to do this?”
“What?” Rebecca’s voice steadied, but she still looked trapped. “Do what? I don’t…I don’t even know anything about it!”
“Your father wants…” Jemima began, then realized she knew this only because Patrick had told her. “I think your father wants,” she began again, “to have Sidney charged with a crime here in England, so that the theft of the pendant and your assault can be mentioned and Sidney’s part in it be made public.”
“But it has nothing to do with the embezzlement. If that even happened!” Rebecca protested.
“I know, but you can bring all sorts of other things in, if you’re clever enough, and it doesn’t have to be proved. If everyone knows, because it is an open court, that will ruin him anyway. And…and you might get May Trelawny’s pendant back.”
Rebecca was silent for a long time. Then she turned and began to walk along the path again, gazing at the gravel at her feet.
Jemima caught up and walked beside her, falling into step. “I’m sorry, but I thought you needed to know about the trial. It should be your decision, whether you want to accuse him of the theft or not.”
“Father says it will make me feel better if I make it public…”
“Maybe it will, but you will have to live with people knowing about it, even after that. Is that really what you want?”
“No,” Rebecca said quietly. “I was frightened. He was so…so…rough! It was as if he hated me…despised me…I felt isolated, because I’d liked him.”
“Had you rebuffed him?” Jemima tried to think of a reason for Sidney’s sudden change of attitude. It was a ridiculous and horrible thing to have done. “Or could he have acted only for money? The pendant—was it worth a great deal?”
“Only to me. I loved Aunt May, and I would never have told anyone, for her sake, that it wasn’t even a real diamond. It was made out of crystal.”
Jemima wondered if, had Sidney known this, he may never have acted so rashly at all.
“Did Sidney say anything to you? Did you rebuff him? You didn’t really answer me.”
“No. I…liked him. He was quite shy underneath the humor. I…” Now her eyes filled with tears and she was obliged to stop and find a handkerchief. She blew her nose, as much as was ladylike in a public place, and put the handkerchief away. “That’s another thing. It made me feel such a fool! I so badly misjudged him. If I can’t tell a man who’s violent—breaks into my bedroom at night and steals what he thinks is a diamond, tears it off my neck so roughly it cuts my skin—from a man I thought I would like and trust…even fall in love with…what kind of a complete fool am I?”
“Only the same as the rest of us,” Jemima said gently. “Is it possible he knew you liked him and confused a signal?” There was no way to finish this decently.
Rebecca was understanding, and Jemima liked her intensely for it. She could so easily have taken refuge in anger. “You mean did I lead him on? No, I didn’t. I liked him. That’s all. I’m not as sophisticated as some, but I’m not completely naïve.”
“I’m sorry. I—”
