Sir George sighed deeply, sat back in his chair, and indicated that his guest should take the one across from him. “I suppose there will be no keeping it entirely from you or Lady Beamish,” he said, “though I was hoping and still hope to keep the sordid details from the rest of our neighbors. There was some unpleasantness here last night, Bedwyn. My mother-in-law’s jewels were stolen sometime in the course of the evening and a search turned up quite unmistakable and damning evidence in Judith’s room. She was also seen hurrying out of her room at a time during the ball when she had no clear reason for being there, and soon after that, Branwell Law disappeared. He left Harewood in the middle of the ball without a word to anyone.”

Rannulf sat very still.

“Judith was confined to her room overnight,” Sir George continued, “though I refused to have her either locked in or guarded. It seemed somehow demeaning to my whole family to treat her like a prisoner. My intention was to send her home under escort this morning in my own carriage with a letter to her father.

This letter.” He tapped a folded, sealed paper on the desk. “But when I went up very early, with a maid, and knocked on her door, there was no answer. The room was empty. Most, if not all, of her belongings are still there, but she most certainly is not. She has flown.”

“You think she has gone home?” Rannulf asked, breaking a heavy silence.

“I doubt it,” Sir George said. “My brother-in-law is a stern man. He is not the sort to whom a woman in her predicament would run voluntarily. And her brother would certainly not go there, would he? I suppose they have a plan to meet somewhere and divide the spoils. Those jewels must be worth a very sizable fortune, yet my mother-in-law would never allow me to put the most valuable of them in a safe place.”

“What do you plan to do now?” Rannulf asked.

“I wish I could simply do nothing,” Sir George told him quite frankly. “They are Lady Effingham’s own niece and nephew and my mother-in-law’s grandchildren. But the jewels at least must be recovered. I suppose now they have fled and must be pursued it is too late to treat the matter with quiet discretion. I suppose they will have to be brought to justice and made to serve time in jail. It is not a pleasing prospect.”

“There will be pursuit, then?” Rannulf asked.

Sir George sighed again. “We will keep the matter quiet as long as we are able,” he said, “though with a houseful of servants and guests I daresay I might as easily attempt to muzzle the wind. My son will go after them tomorrow morning after seeing our houseguests on their way. He believes— and I must concur with him—that their only sensible destination is London since they carry jewels, not money, and jewels are not easily disposed of. He will pursue them there and apprehend them himself if he is fortunate—if we are all fortunate. It is more likely that he will be compelled to engage the services of the Bow Street Runners.”

They sat for a short while in silence and then Rannulf got abruptly to his feet.

“I will intrude upon you no longer, sir,” he said. “You may rest assured that no one else except my grandmother will hear anything of this through me.”

“That is decent of you.” Sir George too got to his feet. “It is a nasty business.”

Rannulf rode down the driveway somewhat faster than he had ridden up it just a short while earlier. He might have guessed that something like this would happen. He himself had come very close to being trapped into marrying Miss Effingham, yet he was probably not even the primary enemy as far as Horace Effingham was concerned. It was by Judith he would have felt most humiliated. She was the one he must be most intent upon punishing.

It was a nasty punishment he had chosen and was likely to get nastier.

His grandmother was in her private sitting room, writing a letter. She smiled at him and set her pen down when he answered her summons to enter.

“How delightful it is,” she said, “to see the sun shining again. It lifts one’s spirits, does it not?”

“Grandmama.” He strode across the room toward her and took one of her hands in his. “I must leave you for a few days. Perhaps even longer.”

“Ah.” She continued to smile, but something had turned flat behind her eyes. “Yes, of course, you have grown restless. I understand.”

He raised her hand to his lips.

“Someone stole Mrs. Law’s jewels last night during the ball,” he said, “and the blame fell squarely upon Judith Law. Evidence was found in her room.”

“Oh, no, Rannulf,” she said, “that cannot be.”

“She fled sometime during the night,” he said, “making herself, I suppose, look even more guilty.”

She stared at him. “I would never believe it of Miss Law,” she said. “But poor Gertrude. Those jewels have great sentimental value to her.”

“I do not believe it of Judith either,” he said. “I am going after her.”

“Judith,” she said. “She is Judith to you, then, Rannulf?”

“I rode over to Harewood this morning to propose marriage to her,” he said.

“Well.” The usual briskness was back in her voice. “You had better not delay any longer.”

Fifteen minutes later she stood out on the terrace, straight-backed and unsupported, to wave him on his way when he rode out of the stable yard.

Judith would doubtless have been feeling very frightened indeed if she had allowed her mind to dwell upon the nature of her predicament. She was alone with only a small bag of essential possessions in her hand. She was on her way to London, which she might hope to reach after walking for a week or perhaps two. She really had no idea how long it would take. She had no money with which to buy a coach ticket or a night’s lodging or food. Even when—or if—she reached London, she did not know how she would find Branwell or whether it would be too late to recover the jewels and take them back to their grandmother.

Meanwhile there was bound to be pursuit. Uncle George or a constable or—worst of all—Horace might come galloping up behind her at any moment and drag her off to jail. Having escaped from Harewood, she would probably no longer be given the option of returning home. She was not sure that would not be worse than going to prison anyway. How would she face Papa when it was so impossible to prove her innocence and when no one could prove Bran well’s?

No, it was the very thought of facing the dreadful disgrace of going home and of seeing Bran crash down off the pedestal he had always occupied that had finally convinced her just before first light to flee alone and on foot while she still had the chance. She had been surprised at how easy it was. She had fully expected to find guards outside her door or at least in the hall below.

She refused to give in to fear now. What was the point, after all? She trudged along the road on an afternoon that was growing hotter by the minute, concentrating upon setting one foot in front of the other and living one moment at a time. It was more easily said than done, of course. She had had a ride for a mile or two early in the morning in a farmer’s cart, and he had been good enough to share a piece of his coarse, dry bread with her. Since then she had drunk water at a small stream. But even so her stomach was beginning to growl with emptiness, and she was feeling slightly lightheaded. Her feet were sore and probably acquiring blisters. Her bag was feeling as if it weighed a ton.

It was difficult not to give in to self-pity at the very least. And ravening fear at the worst.

The fear crawled along her back at the sound of clopping hooves behind her. It was a single horse, she thought, not a carriage. It had happened a number of times during the day, but she had stopped ducking into the hedgerow to hide until the road was clear again. She waited for the relief of seeing a strange horse and a strange rider go past.

But this horse did not pass her. Its pace slowed as it came up to her—she prayed that she was imagining it—and it clopped along for a while just behind her right shoulder. She would not look, though she braced herself for she knew not what. A whip? Chains? A flying human body to knock her over and pin her to the ground? She could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears.

“Is this an afternoon stroll?” a familiar voice asked. “Or a serious walk?”

She whirled around and gazed up at Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, huge and faintly menacing on horseback. He had stopped his horse and was looking gravely down at her despite the mockery of his words.

“It is no business of yours, Lord Rannulf,” she said. “You may ride on.” But where was he going? Home again?

“You failed to keep our appointment this morning,” he said, “and so I was forced to ride after you.”

Their appointment. She had completely forgotten about it.

“Don’t tell me you forgot about it,” he said as if he had read her mind. “That would be very lowering, you know.”

“Perhaps they did not tell you—” she began.

“They did.”

“Well, then,” she said when it appeared that he would say no more, “you may ride on or ride back, Lord Rannulf, whichever you choose. You would not wish to associate with a thief.”

“Is that what you are?” he asked her.

It was incredibly painful to hear him ask the question.

“The evidence was overwhelming,” she told him.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “You are a particularly inept thief, though, Judith, to have left evidence lying about your room when you must have guessed that sooner or later it would be searched.”

She still could not understand why Bran had put the bag in her room. The earring she could understand.