Regency Masquerade by Joan Smith

being quite horrid,” she told him. “The jewelry is the only thing he left me in his will, for Penworth, of course, is entailed on Sir David. Now the lawyers are trying to say my husband did not want me to have my own jewels, if you please! I thought it best to take them and run while I had the chance. I brought Sir David along to keep them from influencing him. He is so young and a regular greenhead. Sir David is in total agreement with me. He wants me to have the jewelry, but the lawyers say he cannot give it to me formally until he is one and twenty. He is only sixteen years old. How am I expected to live in the meanwhile? I do not want to stay at Penworth, with all the old cats squinting at me every time I step out.”
    “And you plan to sell the jewelry in London?” he asked, cutting through the rodomontade to the gist of the matter.
    “Yes. I have an agent from a jewelry firm coming here to meet me. I thought the lawyers might have been in touch with the larger firms, like Love and Wirgams and Rundell and Bridges, so I have a man from a smaller company coming. I do not plan to go to London until I have my money in my pocket. Once the collection is sold, the lawyers can hardly reclaim it, eh?” She allowed a cunning smile to alight on her lips.
    “I see,” Stanby said, nodding his approval. “An excellent notion, but you realize the jeweler will not give you a fair price when he sees your position.”
    “I am prepared for that,” she said. “I know I shall lose half their worth, but as that will still leave me with fifty thousand, I can manage. I am not greedy.”
    “When do you expect this jeweler to arrive?”
    “I was to write him when I reached Blaxstead. It was he who suggested meeting at this place.”
    Stanby saw a situation much to his liking. A hussy was running off with stolen valuables worth a fortune. She was exceedingly careless of both their safety and her own, to say nothing of the law. His eyes slid to the sapphires at her throat and ears. Worth a small fortune! If the rest of the stuff was of this quality . . . She was ready to take half of what the jewelry was worth—and with a little pressure, she might very well take half of half. Another possibility was simply to steal the jewels and make a run for it. Yet another idea was beginning to find approval. Lady Crieff was a pretty hussy. He had not had a “wife” for a few years. It might be amusing. . . .
    “We shall speak of this again,” he said, as people were beginning to look at them.
    “Oh, yes, I do appreciate your interest, Major.” Her eyelashes fluttered shamelessly. “I have always felt so safe with older gentlemen. Not that you are as old as Sir Aubrey. Indeed, you are hardly old at all. It is just that I am so young and foolish.”
    When she joined Jonathon at the table, she was trembling but happy. The major had behaved exactly as she had foreseen. His eyes fairly glowed with greed. A few heads turned to admire the young widow as she passed, Hartly’s among them. He wondered at that tête-à-tête by the doorway. If Lady Crieff and Stanby were working together, he would not be so chummy with her in public, and it was he who had intercepted her, not vice versa.
    She was looking particularly lovely this evening. A deep green gown of lutestring provided a dramatic contrast to her ivory skin. It shone in the lamplight, highlighting the lithe body beneath it. The gown was, unfortunately, somewhat overembellished with gold ribbons. The coiffure, as well, was too ornate for a young lady. Those whirls were seen on no one but lightskirts in London, but it would take more than a bad coiffure to destroy that face. The sapphires were not the optimum choice of jewels to wear with a green gown. He had heard that the Crieff collection included emeralds—why did she not wear them? Or diamonds. Diamonds were the champagne of jewelry; they went with anything.
    He bowed when she passed his table. She stopped for a word, and Hartly