Certain now that his quarry was upstairs, he ran to the first bedroom, throwing the door wide. This must be Alice’s room, neat as a pin and with all the expected feminine accoutrements. Feeling like a beast, he walked in and checked under the bed and in the wardrobe, just in case, finding nothing remarkable. The next room must be her brother’s, and here he discovered clothes cast hastily aside, some on the floor, others thrown over the bed. He’d changed in a hurry, but why? Even his boots were here. They were a decent pair, very well made and expensive, but it seemed unlikely that Alfred Marwick would have dozens of such pairs at his disposal.
Mind you, he’d sold those bloody diamonds, so maybe he did. And suits made by Weston, too, Aubrey thought sourly.
“My room’s up there,” Lill said, having followed him up. She glared at him as she gestured to a narrow staircase hidden behind a small door. “Help your bleedin’ self, why don’t you?”
Feeling increasingly like he was in the wrong, Aubrey went up, by now unsurprised to find the place deserted. If there was some kind of hidey hole in this house, it was damned wellconcealed. He came down again and made his way back to the front parlour where Alice stood stiffly before the fire, her arms wrapped around herself. Lill stood to one side, looking like she’d disembowel him if only her mistress would give the word.
“See, like we both said. He ain’t here,” she snarled.
“All right, Lill. We cannot blame him for being angry. Make some tea for us, there’s a love. Mr Seymour and I will discuss the matter like civilised people. Won’t we, Mr Seymour?” she said, turning cold grey eyes upon him.
Aubrey nodded, feeling an odd sense of loss at having her regard him as the enemy. Why he should care what she thought when she and her brother were criminals he did not know, but it was true all the same.
“Won’t you sit down?” she said, excessively civil, once Lill had left them alone.
“Thank you,” Aubrey replied, matching her civility with an icy tone that would have done Hawkney proud.
There was an impenetrable silence that seemed to ring in Aubrey’s ears, broken only by the relentless ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Nothing to say, Miss Marwick? I have accused your brother of having stolen a quantity of diamonds. It’s the kind of accusation that might send him to the gallows,” he said, provoked by her silence into cruelty. He regretted it at once, especially as her pallor increased, her fine skin so white it looked almost blue in the indifferent daylight that penetrated the parlour window.
She stared at him, her fingers tugging anxiously at a loose thread on the arm of her chair. The movement struck him asdreadfully familiar, but the recollection remained just out of reach.
“Is that what you want? To see him hang?” she asked, the words just as brutal.
Aubrey cursed and surged to his feet, striding to the window and staring out. “Devil take the pair of you! No, Miss Marwick, that is not what I want, though it ought to be. You have both treated me abominably, lying to my face and making me into a complete fool. I liked you—both of you, dash it—and this is how I am repaid for my amity.”
There was a taut silence, and Aubrey could not make himself turn around, staring instead at the seafront through a white lace curtain.
“I don’t imagine it will make any difference to you now, but we both liked you very much too. We never intended to deceive you, but you must see we could hardly admit what we had done? I know what Alfie did was wrong, but we were not raised with all the advantages you were. You said once that you thought life had not been kind to me. Well, Mr Seymour, I must tell you that you don’t know the half of it.”
Aubrey sighed and turned to regard her, wishing at once he had not. She looked so fragile and alone, yet sat so straight, defiance shining in her eyes. How proud she was, and resilient too. “I don’t expect I do,” he told her gently. “But not everyone turns to larceny to improve their lot.”
She snorted. “There speaks an educated man. Precisely what opportunities do you think are open to children raised in the workhouse, Mr Seymour?”
Aubrey blanched, his stomach twisting into a knot.The workhouse. She had not been exaggerating.
“I cannot pretend to imagine what you endured in such a place,” he said carefully. “And perhaps in your place, I would have followed the same path as Alfie. It is all most dreadfully—” he hesitated, not knowing what to say. It was a complete bloody mess, and he fervently wished he didn’t know about it. He wished he had never followed Alfie, and that he could still live in happy ignorance, but he had learned the truth as he’d been determined to do, and here they were.
“Unfortunate?” Miss Marwick suggested crisply.
“Quite.”
The door opened, and Lill appeared with the tea tray. Aubrey saw the frightened look she cast her mistress and knew in that moment Miss Marwick had been correct. Lill was more than just her housekeeper, she was family.
“It’s all right, Lill. Mr Seymour does not wish to see Alfie go to the gallows.”
Lill let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes, then she opened them and turned, staring at Aubrey with only a degree less hostility than before. “Then what does he want?”
“I don’t know yet. Leave us for now, love. I’ll explain everything to you later, once Mr Seymour and I have come to an agreement.”
Lill looked none too pleased by this but left the room. Miss Marwick looked up at him before reaching for the teapot. He noticed it was a pretty set, bone china painted with a delicate floral design and edged in gold. Expensive, he thought with amusement. The entire house was like that, he realised. On the face of it, the place was modest, but if you looked closely, there were touches of luxury, things that would not look out of place in Hatherley Hall.
“Please sit down, Mr Seymour. I do not enjoy having you looming over me.”
He did as she asked, noticing her hands were steady as she poured the tea, making it as he liked, with milk and no sugar. She had remembered, he thought, absurdly pleased by this, though he told himself he was being ridiculous.
“Have a biscuit,” she said, offering him the plate of sugar biscuits that accompanied the tea. “I made them myself and they are rather good. They are the only thing I can make mind. Lill remarks that I could burn water.”
