Read Online Midnight Masquerade by Joan Smith - Free Book Online Page B

holidays regularly till Aunt Miriam died. I haven’t been back since. That was two years ago.”
    “But you and Carswell meet from time to time?”
    “Not by arrangement, but only by chance.”
    She wondered what he lived on. He didn’t work. His own father had presumably left him something. “Perhaps you and Carswell would go on more smoothly if you had joined him in his business,” she suggested.
    “He would have been richer in any case. A shocking bad manager.
    “The insurance business is risky.”
    “So it is. But enough gloomy talk. I see Belami has arrived.”
    “Yes, he’s at breakfast.”
    “What time did he arrive?”
    “Late last night,” she said vaguely.
    “I daresay he is taking the affair in hand. Our thief is intrepid, to pull off his stunt under Belami’s roof. He’ll get caught certainly. Don’t you think?”
    “I hope so.”
    “Has Belami made any startling discoveries?” he asked. The question struck her as significant, as dangling for information, yet it was also a perfectly natural question under the circumstances.
    “I don’t believe so. Not yet.”
    “I will be perfectly happy to help him in any way possible. I shall tell him so as soon as I see him.”
    “He’ll appreciate that.”
    “Oh, I am eager to find your aunt’s diamond, even if my uncle doesn’t have to stand buff.”
    They finished their tour in front of the doorway to the room where the sheet and stocking had been discovered.
    “I must go and see my aunt. She’ll be eager to learn if there is any news.”
    He bowed and stood waiting while she left. After a minute, her head peeped around the corner of the stairway to see where he went. He was gone. She didn’t think he had time to go anywhere but into the small study where the thief’s things had been hidden, but this didn’t tell her much. If he had been seen coming out with them in his hands, that would have been meaningful, but Belami, the genius, had made that impossible.
    With nothing more interesting to do, Deirdre decided to go to the library till lunchtime. She scampered quickly around the corner in case Bidwell should come out and catch her in a lie. Much of her time was spent in libraries of one sort or another. They were better company than her aunt and her friends. She pulled a book from the shelves and sat at an armchair by a window, with the book open on her knee in case Belami or anyone should glance in, but she was not reading. She couldn’t have told you what book she held. No, she was cogitating on life.
    The aspect of her own private life that most preoccupied her was Lord Belami, though she would sooner have lost the last tooth in her head than admit it. She told herself firmly that she despised him. He had insulted her, publicly insulted her by his lack of attention both here and in London. She had been humiliated in front of her friends, and he had done it on purpose so that she would break off their engagement. Furthermore, he had told her so.
    There was clearly no hope of going through with it after this. It would be back to her aunt’s library and the dull round of nothings on Belvedere Square till another Twombley came along to rescue her. It was madness to have thought she could live with Belami. She should never have accepted him. She knew that when he asked he was under some duress. There had been no warmth, no enthusiasm in his words.
    Well, she had been under duress too. If the threat of Twombley wasn’t duress, what was? Belami may have been unreliable, unstable—in short, a womanizer. But at least he wasn’t personally repulsive. The necessary intimate side of marriage with him would have been possible. Indeed, she had looked forward to it with lively curiosity. She would learn at last those secrets known to the Widow Barneses and Lady Lenores of the world.
    Soon her mind had wandered off to the bedroom upstairs, where Belami was this instant with Lenore Belfoi. Deirdre had spoken disparagingly of that dasher, but in fact