Emma jerked her gaze to Helena’s face.“What, Letty?”
“I think she was afraid something might happen to her,” Helena whispered.
Emma’s hand closed into a tight fist around the pendant. The boy in the portrait must somehow reveal the identity of the culprit, then, or else Caroline would never have risked stealing it.
It was also proof of a connection between him and Caroline.
Orher.
Perhaps it wastheonlyproof.
Emma slipped the pendant into her pocket, tossed the pillow aside, and got to her feet. “I need you to come with me tonight, Letty. Right now.”
Helena blinked up at her. “Come with you where?”
“To Lady Clifford’s. Daniel is outside with the carriage, and Lady Clifford is expecting you.” That wasn’t quite true, but Emma wanted Helena gone from this place, before something awful happened.
The sooner Emma could coax her to leave here, the better.
“I can’t simply walk out the door, Emma. You know as well as I do Madame Marchand will come after me. I owe her for board and clothing.” Helena snatched up the folds of her gown. “This gown on my back belongs to her. She’ll have me takenup for theft!”
Emma’s hands tightened into fists as a strange emotion, something between fury and despair swept through her. This was how the bawds made courtesans of the young, friendless girls who came to London looking for employment. They coaxed them into the brothel with false promises, offered them shelter and fancy clothes, then threatened to have them taken up for theft when the girls balked at earning a livingon their backs.
“Lady Clifford will see to it your debt to Madame Marchand is settled. You can’t stay here, Helena. Lord Lymington saw you nod to me at Hyde Park yesterday. He knows who you are, and he knows you’re Caroline’s friend. He’ll come here looking for Caroline, and when he can’t find her, he’ll ask for you. He’s likely on his wayhere even now.”
If he wasn’t here already.
Helena didn’t move.
“Come, Letty,” Emma bit out. “Before Daniel comes searching for us.”
“No. I can’t leave without Caroline.”
“You can, Letty, and you will.” Emma, who recognized the familiar stubborn expression on Helena’s face, was ready to tear her hair out. “If you think I’m leaving you here, you’re mad.”
Helena crossed her arms over her chest. “Lord Lymington can ask me whatever he likes. I’m not obliged to answer him. If I can manage a blackguard like Lord Peabody, then I can daresay can manage Lord Lymington.”
“It’s not Lord Lymington I’m worried about. He’s the least of our problems.” Lord Lymington might scowl and seethe a bit, but there was no cruelty in him, no violence. He was everything so many other men claimed to be, but weren’t.
A true gentleman.
He’d never hurt Helena, or anyone else, but that was the only thing Emma could be certain of at this point. With every day that passed, more worrying questions arose, and she didn’t have any answers.
All she knew was that something was terribly, terribly wrong at Lymington House.
Someonehad seduced and ruined Caroline, almost certainly the same person who’d taken Amy and Kitty, and was trying to shift the blame for it onto Lord Lovell by having Caroline come to London and lie about it.Thatwas why Caroline was still alive—because the culprit needed her to point the finger at Lord Lovell.
And what better place to spread those lies than at the Pink Pearl?
But the culprit’s plans had gone awry when Lovell and his family had appeared in London for the season. The culprit hadn’t expectedthat—and then Lord Lymington had come to the Pink Pearl in search of Caroline Francis on his first night in London. Caroline’s private engagements had begun that very same night, the first of them asuddenprivate engagement, Helena had said.
Whoever the villain was, he—orshe—was determined to keep Caroline from speaking toLord Lymington.
“Listen to me, Letty. Caroline believes her paramour is a threat to her, or else she never would have given you that pendant to begin with. If he’s willing to hurt her, why should you think he’d hesitate to hurtyou? It’snot safe here.”
Letty’s voice rose. “If it’s as dangerous as you say it is, then how can you think to leave Caroline here alone?”
“Hush, Letty! Someone will hear you. I don’t like to leave Caroline. I came here tonight to fetch you both, but it might be hours yet before she returns.”
