Chapter 62

The ticking of the mantelshelf clock hammered in Cass's brain. While she wanted to think calm--calm wasn't how she felt right now. Not when it had taken Ruby less than a minute to demolish that in the carriage. Still she was here, wasn't she?
"Yes." She flexed her fingers.
Devorlane Hawley was right. Colonel Caruthers was neither goat, nor coot. He was perhaps in his early forties, which made him an unusual choice of comrade for Lord Koorecroft, and he wasn't unhandsome, with his neatly waved hair and chestnut moustache. If you liked that sort. She didn't. Especially when 'I see,' were not the preferred words she wanted to hear right now.
Just when she least needed it to, her mind drifted to that moment, the instant on the pavement outside Mistress Fan's, as Devorlane Hawley made to step into the coach. How could she never have considered that she'd ruined his life? Yet when she'd run to him and grasped his arm, he'd still kissed her. The imprint lingered still, of his mouth, of his faintly curved lips, as he'd gazed down at her for that second. 'I love you and I'm sorry,' he'd said.
So was she that she'd opened her mouth let alone her bag, that she was plainly incapable of willingly giving any bit of herself to anyone. 'I never betrayed you. I wouldn't have. I wrote that letter before, before you ever came to Chessington to stay, when you ... well ... ' he'd added.
Then there were Belle's words as the coach was driven away. 'I hope you're happy now, you damned bitch. I hope you rot in hell for what you've done to Devorlane."
Christmas Eves, did they get better, or worse? The little pile of gifts she'd deposited from her reticule said not. Happy? How could she possibly be happy?
Colonel Caruthers tossed the letter on the desk. "You do realize that if this is true ... "
"True? I beg your pardon?"
Hadn't she-and Ruby-convinced Lord Koorecroft of the truth with a demonstration of their skills, in order to make him write that letter? True? She wasn't here to barter that. She was here because there was truly nowhere else for her to be. Although that ... that was a very nice pocket watch hanging from his waistcoat. A nice inkwell too. Worth several guineas. She could have it out of here in five seconds. Sold in as many minutes too, if she was required to give another demonstration of her skills.
As if he knew what she was thinking, he raised his head. "Oh please, Miss Armstrong-Sapphire-whatever the blazes you call yourself, spare me whatever this is. Your looks at my inkstand as if you think you can take it off my head and then get out of here with it. Don't think for a moment because you've come in here, with this tosh-"
"It's not tosh. I don't deal in tosh."
"--you will be spared. Devorlane Hawley was one of my best officers. And you ... "
Her? She was the best jewel thief in London.
"Well, let's look at you, shall we?" He reached into the desk drawer and drew out a vellum file. "The Pimlico theft."
"Pimlico?" She was never at Pimlico. Ever.
"Vauxhall Gardens."
"Vauxhall Ga-" That botched job? That was Ruby and Diamond as sure as her mother had left her at a church door.
"Blackheath Manor."
"What?" She fought the urge to grab the file. If she wasn't to be spared-and just because she wasn't, didn't mean she wouldn't-she'd at least be grateful if it was for the right thefts.
His eyes slithered over her like a snake. "Oh, the sum told of one's sins is always greater than the lesser past. But the fact is you're not innocent. If you want Lord Hawley to be released from jail, if you don't want to hang, as Lord Koorecroft begs that you don't, which I'm sure you know perfectly well, having opened his letter-"
"I beg your-"
"There are conditions."
"Conditions?"
She swallowed her burning ire. She did want and she did know. She wanted and she knew more than anything in her whole life right now. Conditions though? Her palms sweated.
"If I don't want to hang? What are you saying? That you'll only free Lord Hawley if I agree to certain things? When he's innocent? When Lord Koorecroft sent you that-"
Actually where was the letter? She'd been so busy looking at the ink stand she hadn't noticed the desk was empty of it. Who was this man? Better than her? Certainly he'd detected she'd resealed that envelope.
"There's no need to get uppity with me. Lord Hawley will go free. I'm perfectly prepared to write to Lord Koorecroft this very day concerning that. But if you want that letter to go and you don't wish to hang, you will present yourself here at ten o'clock tomorrow."
"Me?"
"With no thief's tricks in between."
"I beg your -"
"Granted. You could be of use to me, Miss Armstrong. We are a nation at war and I believe you possibly possess some skills. Make sure you bring your belongings. You won't be returning to your lodgings."
"And if I don't agree?"
"Then you'll hang. And Devorlane Hawley will stay exactly where he is. The choice is yours."

***
Choice? Cass closed the door of Colonel Caruthers's office. The marbled staircase seemed to take forever to walk down, so it was an eternity before she reached the street, noisy with the clatter of carriage wheels as the cool corridors her heels had echoed through weren't.
Hang? Present herself? Put pieces of herself back in ownership? When having pieces of herself in hock had led to this?
Crossing the road she acknowledged one thing. Ruby was right as ever. The man was a slippery, sodding coot. An ungrateful, whinging, demanding, rubbish-talking goat of a sodding coot at that. Of course she'd known she wouldn't be let off scot-free. But this? This? She'd even dressed in her best, a dove gray dress and jacket and elegant bonnet. For what? Especially in this freezing weather. Ice still frosting the pavements. Chestnut braziers everywhere. The smell roasting the air. She sniffed and turned a corner.
Choice?
Whatever duty bound Colonel Caruthers, she was duty bound to bolt. Of course she hadn't said so, but just because she hadn't said so, didn't mean she wouldn't do so. Hang her indeed. God Almighty.
"How did that go then? Did he take our letter?"
Of course Ruby would be about somewhere too, as opposed to taking the coach back to their lodgings as Cass had told her to.
"In a manner of speaking."
"Shiny bright then, is it?"
"Sparkling."
Give her life? Her freedom for Devorlane Hawley? Not in a thieving month of Sundays, no matter the rubbish that sodding goat had spouted. At her. Sapphire if you pleased. A tinker's daughter no less. The best jewel thief England had ever known. As for saddling her with all the wrong heists?
"Well then, whot more can yer want?" Ruby shrugged, tightening her shawl around her. "Saff, is there somefing wrong?"
"Apart from the fact we're probably being watched? If not followed?"
"Whot?"
"Keep walking. Just please don't tell me I was wrong to go in there. We were wrong to go to Lord Koorecroft-"
"Well, we was. Yer was-"
"That it all comes from mixing with these hoities."
"It does."
"So now, we might be wrong to go anywhere. You might as well say it. I'm certainly going to."
"I ain't sayin' nuffin'." Ruby caught at her arm.
"That's a change."
She dragged a cool breath, then another one. It ended here. Hawley had refused point blank to see her.
I love you and I'm sorry.
Choice.
Whatever she did here she'd never see him again.
Whatever Caruthers said, Hawley--funny how she kept thinking of him as that-was innocent. Caruthers couldn't lock up an innocent man.
I love you and I'm sorry.
Choice.
He'd locked Hawley up once before though. Well someone had.
I love you and I'm sorry.
Choice.
Let her examine the facts. Hawley was a harlot-hardened, narcotic addicted rou? whose world she didn't belong in and never, ever would. If she'd been Lord Armstrong's daughter now? But she wasn't.
What she was, was a woman who'd gone along to see the coot Caruthers expecting one thing and been told another. Times of war indeed. It wasn't as if she'd started that war. What she was, was a woman who probably wasn't even related to Matthew. She'd just assumed.
I love you and I'm sorry.
Choice.
A park bordered their side of the road. She glanced at the railings. Ten bob the lot, the state they were in.
What was this? When the damned man was impossible, she thought that if it wasn't for him, she'd not be standing there, feeling the railings cold beneath her glove. She'd be standing on an executioner's drop. Not because of him and everything he'd done. Because of herself and everything she'd failed to.
I love you and I'm sorry.
Choice.
There was but one. Just because she wouldn't, didn't mean she couldn't.
That too, was love.
Just sodding great, wasn't it?