“I’m afraid I know nothing about them, Miss Manning,” he said smoothly.
“Of course not,” Norah said. “But you were in my room.”
Sir Elston had thrown his napkin to the table and risen, his round face almost purple with anger. “We’ll see about this.”
“Oh, dear,” Lady Manning fluttered. “A thief in the house? Why, we all might wake up with our throats cut.”
“There’s no thief in the house!” Georgie cried furiously. “Norah’s just trying to get Rafferty into trouble.”
“Then it won’t do any harm if we search his rooms,” Norah said sweetly.
“What if he’s already sold them?” Neddy raised his head blearily, more aware of the conversation that Rafferty would have thought.
“He wouldn’t have had time,” Norah said. “They’ve only been missing for a few hours. And I suspect I know exactly where my jewels are.”
I suspect you do too, Rafferty thought.
By this time everyone at the table had risen, with the exception of Neddy. “Where the bloody hell are your rooms, Rafferty?” Sir Elston said with something short of a bellow.
“Oh, dear, oh dear,” Lady Manning fluttered again.
But Rafferty simply bowed. “If you’ll follow me, sir.”
“You’re a beast,” Georgie hissed at her sister. “You’re just trying to cause trouble for Rafferty!”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Norah said innocently. “I just want to know where my jewels are. They’re very precious to me.”
They were a strange procession past the baize door and down the servants’ staircase into the vast kitchen beneath the house. Bertha was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in her hand, and the new scullery maid was scrubbing pots in the huge iron sink. “What’s all this, then?” Bertha demanded with the temerity of an old retainer, but no one answered her as they marched down the hallway to the comparatively sumptuous butler’s quarters.
There were two rooms—a small sitting room and a smaller bedroom, with his narrow bed neatly made—no sign that anyone had been there since he’d first left that morning.
Sir Elston had gone to the cupboard and begun tossing things about, as Lady Manning kept up a litany of “oh, dears.”
“What’s this?” he said, emerging, with Rafferty’s serviceable pistol in his hand.
“It’s a gun,” Georgie said unnecessarily. “He has to have something to protect us, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, dear, a gun,” Lady Manning moaned.
But Sir Elston wasn’t interested in firearms, and he tossed it back on the shelf with a singular disregard for the safety of everyone. “I’m not looking for a gun, I’m looking for the Vandevere diamonds. Not your diamonds, missy,” he informed his smirking daughter. “They’re from your mother’s family and I have yet to recall they were ever given to you.”
That made the beauty pout for a moment, but he knew it wouldn’t slow her down for long. As far as he knew, she didn’t have the eye to differentiate between paste and real diamonds, but it was unfortunate it wasn’t paste that was missing.
“I’ve heard that criminals hide things under their mattresses,” she offered in a silken voice. “Why don’t you search there?”
Rafferty leaned back against the wall, perfectly composed. “Would you prefer I do the hunting, sir?” he inquired in his best butler’s voice.
“Don’t be impudent!” Norah snapped.
“I can look,” Georgie offered, starting toward the bed, but her father was ahead of her, and Rafferty breathed a tiny sigh of relief. He truly didn’t want to see Georgie diving beneath his covers—he’d never have a peaceful night’s sleep again—and he was an idiot to be thinking such things with her irate family surrounding him.
Sir Elston had already thrown back the covers and yanked the horsehair mattress from the wooden frame. There was nothing beneath it.
Norah’s smug smile turned blank for a moment, and then she started forward. “It has to be there!” she cried.
“Why?” Georgie demanded, glaring at her sister suspiciously. “Did you put it there?”
Sir Elston was standing straight now, a thunderous expression on his face. “What’s going on here? There’s something havey-cavey about this entire thing.”
