Page 11

The room was dark, with only a dying fire in the hearth illuminating a small patch of space along the wall. Moonlight, shaded by the curtains, didn’t reach far, so the majority of the room was enveloped in darkness. The bed stood in the middle, empty, cold, inviting…

Inviting? What a ridiculous thought.

That thought was exactly what had led her to the current state of her affairs—from a comfortable house to the streets and into a life of crime.

She cocked her head to the side as she took in the dark interior of the room. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing. A thief was better than a maid. A rented townhouse was better than a tiny cot in a just as tiny room.

Except… Would her mother still be alive if she’d stayed as a maid?

A painful ache tightened in her chest. Or was it always her destiny to leave this world so young?

Shaking off the grim thought, Lydia spun on her heels and walked straight to the painting of the marquess hanging on the wall across from the bed. She reached out to take it off, but paused mid-motion, squinting at the art.

This used to be the marquess’s portrait, if she remembered correctly. It was difficult to make out the details in the dark, but it seemed like the current painting was of a boat shaking about in the storm.

She could be misremembering. It had been quite a few years since she’d last been in this place—she was mostly a country maid, after all…

Did it matter?

Lydia flexed her fingers before lifting the painting and propping it against the wall.

Whether or not her mind was deceiving her regarding the painting, she was certainly not mistaken about the location of the safe. She’d never quite understood why the wealthy trusted their jewels to a piece of metal that was incredibly easy to break open.

With a shrug, she reached into her tool belt and made quick work of the lock. The safe door gave in, opening with a weary creak.

Their mistake, her easy pickings.

A dance in her step, Lydia reached into the safe, rifling through its contents: a stack of crisp banknotes, a bejeweled pocket watch, various documents… No, no, and no.

She patted the bottom of the safe. Nothing.

Closing the safe with a quiet click, she returned the painting to its spot on the wall. Where else could the jewel be?

Lydia turned to face the room, her gaze running over every surface. She’d have to rummage through the entire place, she realized.

It was a blessing that Art wasn’t in his bedchamber now… in the middle of the night. He was probably spending his time in someone else’s bed, not that Lydia cared. At least, she shouldn’t have cared.

Lydia scoffed. It made no sense she would feel this burning sensation in her chest at the thought of Art with another woman. It had been over a decade since she saw him last. He had promised to marry her, seduced her, then forced her out of the house to fend for herself. If anything, she should feel anger toward him and indifference toward his nightly activities.

Nodding resolutely to herself, Lydia continued the search, carefully but thoroughly looking through the entire room and the dressing chamber. No success.

Nothing but clothing in the chest of drawers, naught but journals and writing implements on the desk, and nothing of importance on the bedside table. A jewelry box she’d found tucked in the corner of the room offered a temporary hope, but the jewels inside were not the ones she was looking for. She rummaged through the items once more and was ready to put the box away when her glove caught onto a nick in the corner.

Wait a moment… Is there a secret compartment in the jewelry box?

She ran her gloved fingertips methodically across every surface, feeling for the slightest irregularity. She was right! There was a nick in the corner. Catching it with her nail, she managed to lift the false bottom.

Her heart drummed in anticipation as she peeked into the secret compartment… only to let out a sigh of disappointment when she found nothing but the Thornton signet ring.

The question of why he wasn’t wearing it but hiding it inside the jewelry box flickered in her mind. The rest of her thoughts were reserved for utter complete disappointment.

In frustration, she shut the jewelry box, making a dull sound in the quiet room.

Another dull sound followed, then another, and another.

It took Lydia a few moments to realize that those sounds weren’t coming from inside the room and they were not of Lydia’s making.

They were footsteps! Someone was approaching the bedchamber.