He was amazed at how easily she managed to look horrified.
“Who took them?”
His eyes locked on hers as he took stock of her shocked attitude. “You tell me. You were the one who invited me to your bed. You must have known I’d hurry over here and leave the door unlocked. Is that why you were so eager for my touch? You knew you would soon have possession of the pearls.”
“You think I had someone take them?” she snapped, anger replacing surprise on her face. “That’s preposterous! Why didn’t you have them under lock and key?”
“I did. Someone picked the lock and took everything in the safe.”
“I can’t believe you think I had anything to do with that,” she said, looking stunned.
Race heard footsteps running down the corridor, and Mrs. Princeton bounded through the open doorway, dressed in a black robe with a white nightcap covering her hair. She gasped and jumped back at seeing him standing in her mistress’s bedchamber with both of them only partially clothed. The air between the three of them crackled with raw tension.
“I heard voices,” Mrs. Princeton said breathlessly, her rounded eyes darting fitfully from Race to Susannah. “Your Grace, what is wrong? What is the marquis doing here? How did he get in?”
Susannah lifted her chin, and after taking in a deep, solid breath she calmly said, “I’m not sure yet, but it appears the marquis rushed through the bramble bushes to get over here this morning because he failed to keep my grandmother’s pearls protected and someone has stolen them from him and of course he believes that thief to be me.”
Mrs. Princeton gasped in outrage again. “How dare you, my lord. The duchess is no thief. I insist you leave Her Grace’s room immediately. You are not properly dressed, and neither is she. You have violated her sensibilities.”
Race didn’t bother to look at Mrs. Princeton but instead kept his gaze firmly fixed on Susannah as he said, “I assure you, Mrs. Princeton, that neither your mistress’s sensibilities nor any other part of her have been violated.”
“I can vouch for the fact the duchess was in her bed all night after she arrived home.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” A rueful chuckle rumbled past his lips. “But quite frankly, woman, I have no more faith in your assertions than I do hers. Now, where are the pearls, Susannah?”
“I do not have them,” she stated again, his rage provoking an equal measure of anger from her.
He eyed her skeptically once more and curtly said, “But you know who has them and where they are.”
“I do not know,” she countered fiercely.
Mrs. Princeton marched between Race and Susannah and faced him like a general before his troops. “My lord, leave this bedchamber immediately. Your being here is highly improper, and you are endangering Her Grace’s reputation.”
“I will handle the marquis, Mrs. Princeton,” Susannah said. “You may go.”
“But Your Grace,” she countered as she swung to face Susannah.
“I understand why the marquis is so upset about the theft that he stormed out of his house like a madman and rushed over here without thought to his appearance. If I had had the pearls in my possession and learned they were stolen from me, I might run out of the house half dressed as well.”
“But he has compromised you,” she said in exasperation.
“If that be the case, nothing can be done about it now. But I believe I’m not fully compromised unless someone other than the three of us learns of this. I would like for you to go below stairs and keep the other servants off this floor until the marquis leaves. Hopefully, what little reputation I have left can remain intact. Failing that, I survived ruin once before and I’m much stronger now than I was twelve years ago.”
Mrs. Princeton didn’t move. She stood rigid with her nose in the air, breathing so heavily her bony chest heaved.
“Do it now, Mrs. Princeton. Blast the saints in heaven, I have been married and I know what a man’s chest looks like, and so do you. The marquis and I have seen each other now, so how long he stays here does not matter at this point. I assure you, contrary to what you might think about him he will not harm me, and the only danger I am in at present is if the servants see him here in my room with us dressed like this. They will spread it to all the gossipmongers in Town. Your job is to keep that from happening, so I suggest you hop to it.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Susannah’s companion walked out the door with a huff and so stiff that Race was sure she would have snapped in two if anyone had tried to bend her.
Race took in a deep, raspy breath, feeling calmer than when he arrived. He hated himself for his lack of control where Susannah was concerned, but last night she had moved him like no other woman ever had. After his time in her bed, he was thinking about words like love, forever, and marriage, but today all those words had been stripped away.
It had been so good between them. No, better than good, it had been the best ever. It had been right. For the first time in his life, he thought he’d actually made love to a woman and not just had sex. He’d thought she trusted him to come to her, to satisfy her, and now he was thinking that all the time he was only a means to get what she had really wanted. The Talbot pearls.
The hell of it was he still wanted her. He still had those desperate, unexplained feelings for her, even more than before if that were possible.
“You may say anything you want to me, my lord, but please keep your voice low.”
