Free Miss Appleby's Academy by Elizabeth Gill

emeralds.
    She put down the pearls and then in her mind she saw herself taking the box itself and running away in the night, and just as she took the box in her hands the door opened and Verity came into the room. Emma put down the box very carefully.
    ‘I have just put the pearls back.’
    ‘My grandfather brought them from some far-flung place where the boys dived for them which is why they are all different. They mean a great deal to me.’
    ‘But you have other jewellery which you wear.’
    ‘It is all from my grandmother. She loved rubies and sapphires too, and I have a lovely diamond necklace which I never wear. It would be quite out of place in Mid Haven, but Laurence has promised to take me to Boston in the spring and there I will be able to buy new gowns to match. Such finery,’ Verity said. ‘You must come with us. The Judge I’m sure could take time away. We will go dancing and shopping and stay in a fashionable hotel. What do you think?’
    It was the first time Verity had made her feel like an equal.
    ‘It sounds perfect,’ she said.
    There was to be no sleep for Emma. She paced the floor, sat by the window watching for the dawn and wondering how she would live out her life in this place with these people. When the dawn finally came, she made up her mind. She must steal Verity’s jewellery. All she had to do was walk into the room after she had packed a bag, secrete the box in her bag and leave.
    She could not do it. There must be another way to come by sufficient money to get her out of here.
    *
    The following day she approached Laurence in his study. It was Saturday, he was working at his desk at home and she said that she needed some money. She did not like to ask, but there were some gifts she wished to buy for people who had been good to her. He looked puzzled and she hated that she had to ask, that he had not offered.
    ‘I’m sure the Judge will be more than generous whenyou marry. I have so many people to keep, I can’t afford to be open-handed.’
    Emma was stung. ‘He has shown no signs of it so far,’ she said, and then wished she hadn’t.
    Laurence frowned, but she was so angry that her cheeks burned. She felt she had put up with so much from Laurence lately.
    ‘That would hardly be delicate.’
    ‘I doubt anyone would call the Judge delicate.’
    Laurence’s face darkened and she thought how little he was like their father.
    ‘Don’t you remember what our parents were like?’ she said, she didn’t care now, she was beyond that. She wanted to try to summon any regard that he could ever have had for her; she wanted to probe beyond the distance where he had put himself. ‘They were happy together. Do you really think I could be like that with a man twenty years older than I am?’
    ‘I can’t see what difference it makes.’
    ‘How would you feel if Verity was sixty?’
    ‘That’s quite different.’ He was not looking at her and his mouth had gone thin.
    ‘And what is the difference?’
    ‘I’m surprised you need to ask.’
    ‘Tell me then.’
    ‘I’m not going to do anything of the kind. You forget yourself.’
    ‘You’re the one who has forgotten,’ she said. ‘We used to talk about home—’
    ‘This is the only home I know.’
    ‘You treat George as though he doesn’t matter because he’s Irish, yet our mother was Irish, Kathleen McLoughlin.’
    Laurence’s eyes blazed though he said nothing, and that was the first time that Emma thought they had eyes the same colour, deep green like emerald fire.
    ‘Her parents left Ireland for a better life, just like our parents left Durham, to make things better for us.’
    ‘And they did,’ Laurence said.
    ‘And now you’re destroying what there is between us by insisting I marry that old man.’
    There was silence. Emma was stunned at herself. What on earth was she doing, challenging her brother like this? She wanted to run from the room, she wanted to cry, ached to, or at least move her gaze from his, but she