Chapter 59

"My bracelet. It was there." Belle held up her wrist. "And now it's gone. Because she took it."
"Gone? Good God." Lord Koorecroft almost dropped the punch ladle. "What are you saying? Her? Took your bracelet? Good God. But that is Lady Armstrong, girl. Have you lost your senses?"
It was a pertinent question. For Belle to blame her showed a dislike and a distrust that was lamentable. Cass had expected to hear someone cry thief. But to know so well who that thief was, when there were so many present it might be ... well? And yet, if she'd to count on someone, Belle had every reason to detest her. Hadn't she stolen Devorlane after all?
"Me? No, I have not, sir." Belle stood her ground. "My bracelet is what I've lost. Stolen. Stolen away by that unspeakable slu-"
"Would somebody mind telling me what the hell is going on here?" As Devorlane Hawley strode through the crowd toward her, his eyes blazed. "Well?"
"It is perfectly obvious what is going on here, Devorlane. I have been robbed."
"Robbed?"
Oh, this would be interesting. Cass should bate her breath, especially with the performance Belle was giving. She could grace the boards at Covent Garden.
"Belle, don't be so silly." Eudora swept forward in a rustle of pink silk. "Cassidy wouldn't do that. How can you say or think so? Cassidy Armstrong's a lady. Why would she steal?"
"Cassidy? Cassidy Armstrong. I knows that name. How does I knows that name?" As the old woman--shabby clothes, a farthing for dusters no more-stepped up beside her, Cass smothered the urge to say 'because all my life everybody thinks they do. But no one does. I am nothing.'
And just maybe that was why she had created this glittering illusion, one the toffs talked of and the newspapers wrote of and all the other girls in the Starkadder Sisterhood thought was the best thief going. Looked up to. Feared a little. Wanted to be like. The new ones coming. The old lags like Ruby. Or they had, until earlier today anyway.
How hard she'd tried to be that other woman, Cassidy Armstrong, to hang to some silly notion. But she wasn't her. This was what she was. Who she was. And it was over. All her silly questing. All her stupid everything. The relief she felt was huge. Bigger than this building, bigger than this town. Probably bigger than India, where she'd pretended to live for a time, because she was good at these things.
"I'm telling you she did, Eudora. So let go of me this instant." Belle tugged her arm free. "Because that's not all I have to say about her. Yes. Cassidy? My stars. Do you think I don't know what a sick, stupid joke that is? Who you really are?"
Cass squared her jaw. And proud of it too. Especially in front of this goody two shoes-should have got her mother to buy her a better pair, except that was one thing they shared. No mother.
"That's damned enough, you damned snake," Devorlane said. "If that bracelet's missing there's only one reason for that."
There was, wasn't there? And if anyone was bound to know, it was him. Hadn't she left him with that nice little gift all those Christmas Eves ago?
"You took it yourself. Now hand it over. Give me it."
"Devorlane." Belle's eyes widened. "I--I do not know how you can say such a thing. I mean I just don't."
Cass neither. If only he wouldn't. Stride across what remained of the distance between him and Belle either, towering over her, so she shrank back, her hand clutching her chest. Not after all he'd done to Cass and how, despite everything, she'd tried to help him.
"Devorlane ... to me, of all people, who your dear mama, your very dear mama-"
"I do say it. To you most of all. Do you think I don't know exactly what you're up to here? How damned jealous you are of Lady Armstrong?"
"Me? Jealous? Devorlane, I refuse to believe that you of all people-"
"Because you've always wanted me for yourself. And you can't bear, can you, to see me with Lady Armstrong?"
"Lady?" Belle's laugh echoed around the hushed hall. "And if I did, would that be so wrong? Do you think I haven't seen from the start how you looked at her? Spoke to her? Why, I even asked Tilly about her."
That must have been interesting. Small wonder his shoulders tightened, straining against the seams of his black overcoat, the one he always looked so stunning in, as much as his voice strained within the confines of his throat.
"I don't care what the hell you did, it doesn't excuse this."
Another peal of laughter. "Oh, and no doubt I also took the mustard spoon did I? And the lorgnette Tilly has been looking all week for."
"What?"
"And stuffed them at the back of her dressing table drawer, with what looked like your cuff link. Unless of course, there is some other man whose cuff link she prefers?"
Cass swallowed. Her? When she'd never had a man before him in her life and Belle, so far as she knew, hadn't even had one. Period.
As for him defending her? When she was guilty as hell?
The poor soul plainly wasn't free of opium at all. What a waste of her valuable time. She edged her chin higher. She was here to end this after all. She just hoped for her sake he'd shut his mouth. A thief was one thing. A whore--a mistress anyway-quite another. She'd sooner hang for a thief than a whore. The time had come to say so. It was why she was here, after all.
"No. It is his, Belle. What kind of a woman do you think I am? And there's no need to fuss about it. To fight about it either, Lord Hawley. I'm guilty as charged. I took the bracelet. As Belle so kindly pointed out, I took the mustard spoon too, because I liked the mustard spoon. It's pretty and has nice edges. The lorgnette is too, although that wouldn't fetch nearly such a good price. But it was after that evening when you had been particularly obnoxious. I found it comforting. Once a thief ... "
She had started this now, so she might as well finish it. Give them all their pennyworth, those that still had one. All these gaping milliners and whispering laborers. The powder haired matron lying flat out on the bench. Lord Koorecroft, for all he might swallow the glinting punch ladle and save her taking that too, especially when it was tin plated-worth nothing. A bit like herself.
"And I am a thief. You're right about that. Although not just any one. Oh, dear Lord, no. You're quite right about that too, Belle. I am that special, elusive thief all of London struggled to find. The one the newspapers offered rewards for and who still couldn't be found. Do you want to know why that was? Because I am Sapphire."
"Sapphire?"
The punch ladle clanged off the floor. The wonder was Lord Koorecroft didn't do the same. But then it was Christmas Eve. A time of miracles.
"Yes."
"Here? In ... in Berkshire?" he gasped.
"I'm afraid so. It's as good a place as any, don't you think?"
"At me party?"
"My specialty. Why should your party be any different from anyone else's? They're all just parties and dances to me. Soirees, social evenings."
"But you said you was ... you was a spy's wife. You said ... You said all sorts of things."
"Here's the thing, your lordship, I could have told you I was the Queen of Sheba, Christ Almighty. Sodding Eleanor of Aquitaine. It was much the same thing. Now, when you have a moment, I await your convenience in seeing I enter the bench's custody."