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“Are you certain it was the same pendant?” Lily asked cautiously. “Maybe you were mistaken. It feels like one hell of a coincidence for you to find her in this manner.”
“I’ve prayed and begged and hoped for a miracle and this is one. You have to believe me.” When Lily didn’t say anything, she walked to the drawer where a small pouch of cloth was kept alongside the letter. She opened it to reveal a small chink of metal. “The pendant broke off when I lost it. This piece is all I have left of it. I have seen the pendant that belongs to Nora. It is the same one.”
Lily still looked unsure. “I want to believe you, but you have been acting rather strange lately. First you thought you were imagining Jaxon and now this.” She shook her head. “Maybe the stress of everything is getting to you.”
“No, Nora is my daughter,” Carmen said. “Once you see the pendant, you will believe me. But unfortunately, I think I left it back at the mansion—” She stopped when she saw Remi at the door, almost as if she had been eavesdropping on their conversation.
“Yes?” Lily called out. “Do you need anything?”
“Queenie needs you at the hall,” Remi said. She didn’t meet Carmen’s gaze who frowned in return. Something was off about the woman. First, she had refused to acknowledge Jaxon’s presence at the hall yesterday and now she was eavesdropping on them.
Lily nodded. “I’ll be right there.” She turned to Carmen and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “Rest. You need it.”
Carmen didn’t argue with her. She rested her head on her hard pillow, but she was feeling restless. Thoughts of Nora crowded her head and then there was the other thing. She couldn’t help reminiscence about what had happened in Arthur’s chambers, their bodies clinging to each other in the aftermath of devastating pleasure. Shame filled her ears. She shouldn’t even be thinking about that. She meant nothing to Arthur.
At last, when she knew she couldn’t stay in any longer, she went out to find the others for the evening practice. She found most of them sitting in the kitchen. Some were working on their costumes at the table while others laughed amongst themselves or practiced their tunes. They all stopped the moment she walked in. Despite Lily’s reassurances, Carmen knew something was wrong.
“You’re back,” Elaine said from the table. “I thought you would never come.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“You’ve been away at the Duke’s,” she said. “You were supposed to be here hours ago. But I guess you forgot, or more pressing concerns arose.” Carmen knew from her tone what concerns she thought they were. She had no answer for these accusations. She did sleep with the Duke. She had yet again been blinded by stupid notions of love.
“Shall we practice?” she asked ignoring some of the cold gazes shot towards her. As she walked in, she could hear somebody say, “Do you think she is his mistress now?”
“Seems like it,” somebody else said. “She taught us to be self-sufficient and yet she is—” Carmen couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop it,” she said. “I’ll lay your concerns to rest. The Duke and I are not associated in any manner. In fact, starting today I no longer hold my position as tutor at his household. Does anybody have any questions for me?”
Instead of answering her, people shook their head guiltily and averted their gazes. She could hear a few notes of apology too, but she didn’t really blame them.
Carmen was also fairly certain that Remi had her assumptions about the nature of her relationship with the Duke and had been poisoning everybody else’s ears against her. But why? And then a horrible thought occurred to her. She didn’t know the identity of the man she had been involved with. But what if it was Jaxon…
