“Silence.”
“Yes, sir.”
“From the moment we met, you have been high-handed, idiotic and beetle-brained in the extreme. Not at all trust-inspiring.” She sniffed. “But, as you can clearly see, I am here now, am I not?” She threw him a withering glare.
“Oh.” Schneider lifted his quill. “I believe that is to say that she trusts you after all, sir. She would not have come here and told you all this if she did not.”
Hartenberg closed his eyes for one moment, as if gathering all his patience.
“Secondly,” Evie continued, “I assumed you did nothave the list. Yet I wasn’t at all sure. The Baroness seemed certain that you did. So what if you did have a copy? With information that would incriminate Julius.”
His face was hard as a stone. “So you broke into the study to see whether you could find it.”
“Yes.”
Schneider whistled.
“But, my lady, just for the record, how did you manage to break into his strongbox?”
“I used a hairpin.”
“That is ingenious. That is absolutely brilliant. That is absolutely?—”
“Schneider, I think I shall have to throw you out after all,” Hartenberg said heavily.
She fiddled with the string of her reticule. “But of course, I found nothing.” She bit her lip.
“So you believed I might have incriminating information on your brother hidden away somewhere, which is why you found it necessary to break into my study to find it, and destroy it, I suppose.”
“Yes.” She tugged on her lower lip. “But then I thought about it the entire night. And some more. My brother doesn’t like just anyone, you see. But for some reason that eludes me entirely, he seems to think that you are just the right person to trust his only sister with. He would give his life for you. Julius isn’t stupid, you know. So I came to the conclusion that, well.” She ran out of words and she made a helpless movement with her hands.
He looked at her for a long time. “So you came to the conclusion that maybe I would not betray your brother, after all. And that maybe, I would give my life for your brother as much as he would for me.” Another pause. “Instead of betraying his trust.”
She looked at him with big eyes. “I am right, am I not?”
“He is my blood brother,” he said softly. “I have sworn to protect him. As I will protect you. If you allow it.”
She cleared her throat. “So it appears we are on the same side. How f-fortunate. What now? The Baroness is waiting for me to give her the list. She will do her best to ruin Julius otherwise. I had the intention of giving her the list, actually. Without Julius’s name on it. But I thought I’d ask you first to see whether that is the right thing to do. I do not want to give her anything that might cause some real trouble.”
Schneider shook his head, confused. “Hold on one moment, Lady Evangeline. I don’t understand. Earlier you said that you’d burned the list.”
“So I did.”
“Then explain?” Hartenberg’s frown etched even deeper into his forehead.
A small smile stole onto Evie’s face. “See, that is why I believed it would be of benefit for you, too, to get to know me a bit better. You do not know me at all. Not one whit.”
“I do not understand, Evie. What does this have to do with anything?”
“You do not know that I have an excellent memory.” She tapped a finger against her temple. “I can memorise entire passages of books merely by looking at them. It is a bit of a talent that I possess.”
Schneider dropped his quill. “Youmemorisedthe list?”
“Why…yes?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
She had indeed memorisedthe list. It was full of outlandish names, half of which she could not even pronounce.
