The Fairy Tale Bride

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

“What is what?” he asked, pretending innocence, though he was braced for the anger that he expected any moment, once she realized what he had done. He hoped her anger would burn cleanly through the fog of desire and passion that they shared.

Her hand reached in and came up with the necklace he had stolen from her. “This.” She held it up between them, looking at him. No anger yet, only puzzlement. But her breathing had slowed and he could see the pulse at her neck beating more normally. He strove to control his own response to her nearness, her scent.

“That is something I picked up in London.” He was not lying. He had indeed picked it up in London. He just happened to be dressed like a common thief and blessed with breath that would kill a dead man.

“Where in London?” Her voice was urgent. He could well imagine her hurrying there to find the thief and chastise him for stealing from her. Fortunately, she would not have to travel so far.

“On the street, actually.”

She was still puzzled. He could see it, but had no idea what would be best, merely to let her have the piece and think he had bought it from a dishonest man, or to tell her the truth of how he had acquired it.

Telling the truth would encourage her anger, and keep her away from him, as he had been so successful in doing these past few weeks. It would also serve, he hoped, to teach her how dangerous it was for her to take matters into her own hands. But she would trust him no longer.

“It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” she whispered. The reverence in the tight planes of her face as her fingers traced the lines of the swans made him glad that he had chosen to return the necklace. Most probably, it was her last tangible link with her mother.

If he’d realized how much the piece meant to her, he could never have kept it from her for so long. He had foolishly assumed that if she meant to sell it, she could not hold it dear. But he had been thinking of it as a piece of jewelry, not a connection to her mother. How he could have misjudged so badly he could not imagine. He knew how much she was willing to sacrifice for her family. They meant everything to her.

It was blind luck that made his delay suit his purposes. Initially, he’d planned to give the necklace to Valentine to dispose of as he would. But any lesson to Miranda would have been muted, as she would not have known the disposition of the piece.

With it here, there was no choice for her but to acknowledge that it had found its way back in a quite unorthodox fashion. He wondered if she would confess her part in the loss of the necklace were he to press her. So he pressed her.

He closed the box, hiding away the rest of the jewelry. “You seem to be partial to that trinket. Why don’t you wear it?”

“I will.” She still could not take her eyes from the swans.

When she said nothing more, he prodded further. “You are quite enamored of the piece, I see.”

He was rewarded by her singular admission. “It was my mother’s.”

“What!” He pretended astonishment. “Then how did it come to be on a London street.”

He saw the war between expedience and innate honesty within her; the slim column of her throat worked as he stood watching her try to shape a response. “It was stolen from me.”

Of course she would tell the truth. He was the one caught in a web of lies. “Stolen from you? How?” He pretended to be outraged, which he found to his surprise was not difficult. The desire to bed her was still strong in him and that passion, along with a healthy dose of self-loathing for what he was doing, rekindled his anger at the danger she had put herself in by going to London alone.