Page 37 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘No, no Miss, ’ Elspeth refuted, visibly bridling. ‘No, no, it is not her … It is my fault.’

Jane shook her head. ‘No, it is not.’

‘What is “it”?’ Pip prompted.

Elspeth stared at them, tears still glinting on her face, the absolute picture of tragedy.

‘It’s the diamonds, sir,’ she whispered. ‘Lady Phoebe’s diamond necklace. It’s gone.’

Pip drew in a deep, ecstatic breath. ‘You don’t mean it’s been stolen?’

He turned on Lydia triumphantly. ‘I told you there was something smoky afoot – thievery! It is just as I suspected.’

‘I didn’t do it – I promise I did not,’ Elspeth said. ‘But I went to clean it tonight, after Lady Phoebe retired – and it’s not there.’

‘Perhaps it’s lost,’ Lydia said. ‘Misplaced – fallen down the back of something.’

‘It’s always locked safely in the box,’ Elspeth said. ‘Sir Waldo is most specific for it’s so valuable and he worries about thieves – and I have the only key because he says Lady Phoebe can’t be trusted not to lose it.’ She let out another sob. ‘I have the only key,’ she repeated. ‘Everyone is going to think I took it.’

‘Did you?’ Pip asked.

‘Pip!’ Lydia smacked his arm.

‘One has to ask the difficult questions,’ Pip said. ‘In my line of work.’

‘Steal diamonds worth half the country?’ Jane said. ‘She’d be far better off stealing silverware.’

Indeed. For what servant would set such a rare and easily identifiable item in their sights, when the house was riddled with far easier treasures?

‘I would never do such a thing!’ Elspeth insisted.

‘Then you have nothing to fear,’ Lydia assured her. ‘We shall go to Lady Phoebe and alert her there is a thief—’

‘No! They will think it’s me,’ Elspeth said, ‘and I’ll be hung.’

Jane reached out and squeezed her hand. Lydia bit her lip. Servants often received severe punishments for egregious thefts, imprisonment or even transportation to foreign lands, for a mere moment of light-fingered temptation. The largest diamonds in Europe, Sir Waldo had called them. What would be the punishment for such a theft?

‘You will not be hung,’ Pip said, ‘not if we can find the true thief.’

His dramatic, portentous tone filled Lydia with foreboding. ‘Pip, we cannot promise such a thing.’

‘May I remind you,’ Pip said, a bite in his voice that she was not used to hearing, ‘that I am a Senior Officer on Bow Street.’

He had promoted himself, since arriving at Hawkscroft. Lydia huffed out an exasperated sigh.

‘Pip, I really do not think …’

Pip turned to Elspeth and Jane. ‘Together, we will find the diamonds and catch the killer.’

‘The thief,’ Lydia corrected.

‘The thief, yes,’ Pip said. ‘Exactly.’

‘Do you truly think it possible?’ Elspeth blinked up at him.

‘Pip …’ Lydia cautioned. To give the girl false hope – it would be unreasonably cruel. More to the point, would it not make her look more guilty, the longer the absence were concealed? ‘Lady Phoebe will discover it missing herself if we tarry. What if she wishes to wear it on the morrow?’

‘She doesn’t,’ Elspeth said. ‘She says it is too uncomfortable, to put it away until the masquerade.’