He blinked. “You are not?”
“No. I know why you did. You thought to elicit information from her by cleverly turning the tables. She intended to seduce you, so youdecided that your best plan would be to play along with her, perhaps even introduce a few caresses of your own in order to lower her defenses.”
He shook his head. “I may live ninety years and never will I understand how the workings of your mind can so closely intuit mine.”
I shrugged. “I would have done the same in your position. In fact, I might have done the same with the wretched Göran, but he provided me no opportunity for seduction. It was the best strategy under the circumstances. And she is a most attractive woman. It is not as if the effort would have been unpleasant,” I added, cutting my eyes around to where he sat, looking entirely miserable.
“Not entirely,” he admitted in a low mutter.
I cleared my throat. “Then let us discuss its effectiveness. What did you learn?”
It was his turn to shrug. “Very little for the amount of time we spent together. Much of it was taken up with dinner.”
“Dinner?” My stomach gave a hopeful rumble. Julien’s fruit tart had been slender sustenance.
“Six courses,” Stoker said. At my expression, he made an attempt at consolation. “But the champagne was an indifferent vintage and the duck was overcooked.”
“Duck? I do love a nice duck,” I said mournfully. “The house appears thoroughly decrepit. Where did you engage in such debaucheries as roast duck?”
“She has fitted out one of the rooms as a sort of boudoir,” he said, blushing furiously again. “I daresay the walls are still crawling with damp, but there’s a good deal of satin and scarves draped about to conceal it, and the food was brought in, I suspect.”
“Salome could not have done better,” I said brightly. “Now, what does she want?”
“The Eye of the Dawn, which we knew. And Harry. She does notknow where he is at present, and she seems to be getting anxious that the diamond may be slipping through her grasp.”
“She questioned me along the same lines, although she was rather less winsome in her attentions,” I said sourly. “How did she even know to abductus? We have never been in public with Harry, never been seen together. No one knows of our connection to him, although she suspects he and I may have known one another at some point.”
“Apparently they have been keeping a weather eye upon Hathaway Hall. She said Harry was supposed to bring her the diamond and that she had been cheated. When he did not arrive to hand off the jewel, she sent Göran into the local pub, where he bought Tom Carter a few pints in exchange for any information about guests at the Hall. Carter obliged and said we had come just before the diamond was taken and left just after it went missing.”
“So Göran does speak English? I suppose he thinks glowering at us in Swedish is more intimidating,” I mused. “The Hathaways meant to keep the business quiet. How did Tom Carter come to hear of it?” I asked.
“His sister is one of the few maids left at the Hall. She has rather a soft spot for ‘Master Jonathan’ and decided it was far likelier that we had stolen the diamond than the long-lost heir.”
“Stupid girl,” I said with feeling. “So her indiscretion has caused village gossip to label us the malefactors?”
“It is a plausible enough story if one discounts Harry’s Jonathan Hathaway as a possible villain,” Stoker said evenly.
“It is ludicrous. One cannot be more suspicious than a long-lost heir returning to claim the family name and then disappearing precisely when the most valuable jewel in their collection goes missing. I should like to have a robust discussion with these villagers on the subject of Occam’s razor.”
“To them, the simplest explanationisthe likeliest,” he replied. “Strangers come, strangers go, the jewel leaves with them.”
“Harry Spenlove is a stranger,” I pointed out.
“Not to a village accustomed to the Hathaway name. It shields him where we are outsiders—outsiders who actually are in possession of the diamond, so they are not wrong,” he added.
“That is hardly our fault! It was thrust upon us. Did you tell Mrs.MacGregor its whereabouts?”
“I did not,” he said.
“Neither did I, although I admit I was tempted,” I told him. “We need not be enduring a moment of this.”
“Well, from my perspective, it’s quite the nicest abduction we have ever had,” he remarked.
A hot rush of rage fired my veins. “I have no doubt. You have been wined, dined, and caressed whilst I have been here, worried beyond belief that that woman was going to let her pet Swede twist your limbs into something resembling an Alpenwalder pretzel. Next time, I shan’t bother.”
“Next time?” He choked a little, and if we had not been confined in possibly mortal peril, I might have suspected him of laughing.
“Well, if you refuse to tell them, perhaps I should,” I suggested.
