Secrets in the Stones by Tessa Harris

Author:Tessa Harris [Harris, Tessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

Bibby Motte winced suddenly and made an odd hissing sound as she sucked in air through her clenched teeth. A ruby-red droplet of blood was blooming on her forefinger, and she thrust it into her mouth.

“My dear Bibby,” exclaimed Marian Hastings, seated opposite her. “But you have pricked yourself.” She laid down the embroidery she was working in a frame and patted her companion’s skirt.

Bibby Motte, sucking at her finger, tried to make light of it. “’Twas my own fault, Marian.”

Her companion looked sympathetic. “You are distracted,” she told her. “I can tell you are not yourself zese days.”

The two women sat by the window of the upper drawing room in the South Street residence to catch the late-afternoon light. The sun had, however, long dipped below the roofline of the elegant mansions, sending deep shadows onto the wooden floor. On the thoroughfare below, carriages and sedan chairs rushed hither and thither along the Mayfair street. Observing such activity through the large casements provided the occasional welcome distraction for the ladies.

“You have heard news of your husband?” asked Marian Hastings after both had resumed their embroidery.

Bibby Motte sighed deeply and rested her needle again. “It has been four months now. All I know is he must be growing weaker and more despondent every day in that terrible place.”

Marian Hastings shook her immaculately coiffed head. Even during the day, her hair was studded with sapphires and diamonds. “But you must be strong for him, my dear. Our sex must bear the veight of a thousand hardships so often.”

The younger woman’s back stiffened as she shifted in her chair and her eyes fell to the floor. She suddenly looked even more vulnerable.

“Zere is something you vant to tell me, dear Bibby?” asked Marian, ducking her head slightly so that she could catch her companion’s attention. She had not spent the last six months on board ship with her not to know when she was deeply troubled.

Bibby Motte nodded with the look of a penitent about to confess to a priest. “The other day I went to East India House,” she blurted.

At this news the governor-general’s wife set down her embroidery on a nearby chair as if such a revelation required her undivided attention. “To inquire after Captain Flynn?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Apparently he resigned from the company soon after he came ashore. They have no record of him.” She lifted her palms from her lap in a gesture of both acceptance and despair.

Marian Hastings’s lips tightened into a flat smile. “It vould seem he is trying to avoid his creditors,” she ventured. But the younger woman’s expression suggested there was more and the older woman picked up on it, like a seamstress on a bad stitch. “You know something?” She leaned forward conspiratorially.

Bibby Motte glanced over to the door to make sure they were not overheard. “One of the sepoys brought me news. There is a tavern by the docks, frequented by the lascars. There is talk that Flynn is trying to sell the diamond.”

Marian Hastings leaned back.

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