Free Prince of Secrets by Paula Marshall Page B

might be Sir Ratcliffe returning early from Susanna’s bed. And if so, what should he do then?
    But it was Lady Heneage, ghost-like in a long white nightdress, her greying hair in a plait down her back, her eyes fearless, looking straight at him. He could have applauded her—he might have expected hysterics or wild screaming, either of which would have brought all the inhabitants of Markendale at the run, leaving him to escape…if he could.
    Cobie decided to do nothing, simply to continue calmly unpacking the diamonds from the safe. To move towards her, to say anything, might only serve to destroy her unnatural calm.
    She hesitated. She put up a hand to switch off the light, before walking silently from the room. The whole episode had taken only one nerve-shattering minute. From wondering sardonically what would follow if he were caught, he moved to understanding what her inaction, her refusal to arouse the house, told him of her relations with her husband.
    Her intrusion also told him that the tightrope on which he was walking was higher above the ground than wasusual, even for him. He didn’t think that he had been recognised. He did think that it behoved him to move as speedily as he could, which he did. At the end he took a card from his pocket and put it into the empty safe which he left, prominent in all its rifled glory on the dressing table.
    The last leg of his dangerous odyssey lay before him. His booty in his pockets, he wriggled through the sash window, leaving it open. It was the work of a moment to walk briskly along the balcony to enter his bedroom through his own open window. Earlier, he had placed a ladder, fetched from the garden, to lean against the orangery wall, giving the impression of an outsider having gained entrance.
    Luck had been with him again, but for how long? One day the horse beneath him would fall at one of the fences he was trying to take, and that would be the end—but not yet, please. He laughed noiselessly at the thought of the brouhaha the rifled safe would cause in the morning.
    He parcelled up the Prince’s letters, to place them in a large and expensive envelope of white hand-made paper which he sealed with an elaborate and meaningless seal, bought from a pawnbroker’s in a dingy part of London, sinking it deep into the hot wax.
    The envelope was addressed as to the personal attention of HRH the Prince of Wales. In the morning he would set out for his pre-breakfast ride—he had been taking one for the last week, so that his being up at such a time would cause no comment, and on his way out he would slip the envelope on to the table where the incoming mail was placed.
    His last act after hiding the diamonds was to take a bath and dress himself for bed. Angelic in pure white, his newly washed and dried hair clustered in curls about his head, he offered the world the impression of a cinquecento saint. He opened the communicating door between Dinah’s room andhis, to slip quietly into her bed where she lay sleeping, a small smile on her face, to be discovered by her in the early hours and to celebrate with him not only his presence, but his unknown skulduggery.
    Sir Ratcliffe Heneage lay in bed with Susanna Winthrop in the curve of his arm. It was almost dawn, time for him to leave. He began to move; she protested against him in half-sleep. Waking fully, she said, a little fretful, ‘I really—can’t think what I’m going to do.’
    He tensed a little, and asked, ‘About what?’ He was a trifle apprehensive. It was always dangerous when women began to think. Best if they only ever felt.
    â€˜About the fact that I’m having a baby.’
    â€˜What is there to do? Your husband knows, and hasn’t made anything of it.’
    He could really do without this sort of thing to trouble him. Yesterday’s letters from his bankers and his creditors were enough trouble for a fellow without a woman having second thoughts when