Read Chapter 18: The Double Cross

The sedan chair sat in the center of the attic like a sarcophagus, its faded silk and gold trim ghostly in the lantern light. Clara’s fingers shook as she ran them along the cushioned seat, searching for a seam, a latch—anything.

“Here,” Julian said. He knelt beside her, his coat brushing her shoulder as he pressed at a carved rose along the armrest. The wood gave with a soft click, and a narrow compartment slid open.

Inside lay a key—brass, unremarkable, cold.

Julian lifted it, turning it over in his palm. “Whatever this opens, Eastleigh doesn’t know about it.”

Clara exhaled. “Then let us keep it that way.”

They descended the back stairs, keeping to the walls, listening for servants. Dawn had begun to grey the windows. The household was stirring—footmen lighting fires, maids carrying coal—but none of them looked twice at the master and mistress returning from the attic at an hour no one would think to question.

But the moment they entered the library, the atmosphere shifted. A footman—Samuel, new since Michaelmas, Clara noted—was stoking the fire. He turned too quickly, bowed too low.

“My lady. My lord. You’re up early.”

Clara’s smile stayed fixed. “We enjoy the morning light.”

She waited until he left before closing the door. “He was in the chapel corridor two nights ago. I’m sure of it.”

“And the day before, he asked Mrs. Hedges whether the Eastleigh carriage had been seen on the road,” Julian said. “Hedges told me as much when we arrived.”

Clara stared. “You knew, and you said nothing?”

“I wanted to see who else knew what.” He moved to the desk, pulling the note from his boot—the one that had pointed them upward. “Eastleigh’s agents are inside, but they don’t know where we’ve been. That’s our advantage.”

“For how long?” Clara’s voice came sharper than she intended. The hours of flight, the terror in the chapel, the sight of Lady Eastleigh’s triumphant smile as her men seized the map—it all pressed at once. She steadied her hands against the chair back. “She has the cipher. She has the map to the vault. If she finds the sapphire before us, she holds every card.”

“Then we don’t let her find it.”

A knock came at the door. Clara composed herself as a maid entered, face flushed.

“My lady—Lady Eastleigh is in the yellow drawing room. She arrived just now, insisting she sees you. She says—” The maid hesitated.

“Says what?”

“Says she’s brought a gift for your mother.”

Clara’s blood went cold. The house had been in mourning for her father less than a year, and her mother, frail and bedridden, rarely received anyone. That Lady Eastleigh would come armed with kindness was a weapon in itself.

Julian’s jaw tightened. “I’ll go.”

“No.” Clara met his look. “She’s come for me. I’ll speak with her. You stay here and hide that key.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but Clara was already moving.

---

Lady Eastleigh sat in the window seat as if she owned it, a shaft of pale morning light catching the auburn in her hair. On the table before her sat a porcelain figure—a dancing shepherdess, Sevres, worth more than Clara’s entire wardrobe.

“Lady Clara.” Eastleigh rose, extending a gloved hand. Her eyes flicked over Clara’s gown, her unbrushed hair. “I do hope I haven’t called too early. But I was in the neighborhood, and I thought of your dear mother.”

“My mother is unwell.”

“Oh, I know.” The smile was beatific. “I remember her from the old days. She was so bright at the Eastleigh ball in ninety-eight. All those roses in her hair.” She paused. “Before your father’s debts ruined her health.”

Clara didn’t flinch. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t invite you to her room. The physician advises rest.”

“Of course. Of course.” Eastleigh settled back into her seat, arranging her skirts. “Then perhaps you’ll take a turn with me instead. The gardens must be lovely this time of year.”

“I have duties.”

“You have a marriage to manage,” Eastleigh said, sweet as poison. “I understand. A new husband can be so… consuming.”

Clara stood by the door, uninvited, and made no move to come closer. “I imagine you would know nothing of happy marriages, Lady Eastleigh. Given you are here alone.”

The eyes sharpened a fraction. “Touché.” She picked up the porcelain shepherdess, examining its painted face. “But then, I did my turn as a wife. Lord Eastleigh gave me his name, his fortune, and three children—two of whom survived. I gave him what he wanted in return: heirs and an obedient smile.” She set the piece down. “You and I are not so different, Lady Clara. We both married for survival.”

“I married for my family.”

“Did you?” Eastleigh rose, moving toward Clara with measured steps. “Or did you marry the first man who offered to pay your father’s debts of honor? A man of lower rank, a solicitor—no one your family would have acknowledged a year ago.” She stopped an arm’s length away. “Tell me, does he still smell of the courts? Or has he washed that off?”

“You will not speak of my husband that way.”

“Husband.” Eastleigh laughed, a low musical sound. “He was to be mine, you know. Ten years ago. He courted me in London before he ever set his ambitious eyes on the peerage. I was a young widow then, wealthy, admired. He promised me marriage.” Her smile turned brittle. “Then he discovered a better match—or so he thought. A lady with a fortune he could take and an estate he could prop up. He discarded me without a word.”

Clara’s heart hammered against her ribs. She forced her voice steady. “You invented that to wound me.”

“Did I? Ask him.” Eastleigh’s eyes glittered. “Ask him how many times he lay in my bed before he decided I wasn’t enough. Ask him whether the ring he gives you at night once sat in my dressing table.” She stepped closer, her perfume—jasmine, thick and cloying—flooding Clara’s senses. “He married you for a title, my dear. For an Earl’s daughter who would lift his name. He will cast you aside the moment your family’s debts destroy you, just as he cast me aside when I refused to gamble my inheritance on his ambitions.”

Clara heard her own breath, too loud in the quiet room. Inside, she felt the words land—sharp, aimed, precise. Yet she lifted her chin.

“If he meant to abandon me,” she said, “he would not have risked his life retrieving that map from the chapel. He would not have hidden the evidence in his boot while your men searched us.” She stepped forward, closing the gap herself. “And he certainly would not have told me the truth about you.”

Eastleigh’s smile flickered. “The truth?”

“That you engineered my father’s ruin. That you paid to have him flee—gambled him into debts you could not collect—so that his despair would loosen Ashworth from his grip.” Clara watched the color rise in Eastleigh’s cheeks. “Tell me, my lady, did you believe your scheme so intricate that no one would ever find the paper trail? The IOU is signed. The letter from your agent is in our possession.”

For a beat, Eastleigh was silent. Then the veneer cracked, and something cold and ancient surfaced.

“Your father made a fool of me,” she said softly. “He promised me a place in this house—a connection to his daughter, a marriage with his son that would secure my children’s future. And when I reminded him of his word, he laughed and said he could not wed his daughter to a merchant’s widow.” Her voice was flat. “He chose your mother’s pride over my survival. I merely returned the favor.”

Clara’s hands trembled at her sides, but she held her ground. “Then you understand why we will not be moved by your threats.”

“Threats?” Eastleigh laughed again, and it carried no mirth. “My dear, you mistake me. I did not come to threaten.” She reached into her reticule and drew out a small leather pouch, emptying its contents into her palm.

A sapphire. Large, brilliant, impossibly blue.

Clara’s breath caught. “That is—no, you cannot have it. The vault was sealed.”

“The vault behind the altar? Oh, it was sealed. But I have had years to study your father’s cipher, even if you only just discovered it.” Eastleigh turned the stone in her fingers, light dancing through its facets. “You raced to Ashworth to retrieve this before I did, but you forgot the most important lesson of my marriage: I always wait for the moment the opposition is distracted.”

Clara’s mind reeled. She had not even thought to open the velvet pouch since Cambridge—had assumed it a keepsake, a token, not the prize itself.

“That’s mine,” she heard herself say. “It belonged to my family. My grandfather commissioned it for his first wife.”

“And now it will belong to whoever holds it.” Eastleigh slipped the stone back into the pouch, tucked it into her bosom, and smiled. “So you see, Lady Clara—you have no cards at all. Your husband’s secrets mean nothing if I hold your future in my palm.”