Margaret McPhee - Unlacing the Innocent Miss

by

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARGARET MCPHEEloves to use her imagination – an essential requirement for a trained scientist. However, when she realised that her imagination was inspired more by the historical romances she loves to read than by her experiments, she decided to put the ideas down on paper. She has since left her scientific life behind, retaining only the romance—her husband, whom she met in a laboratory. In summer, Margaret enjoys cycling along the coastline overlooking the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, where she lives. In winter, tea, cakes and a good book suffice.

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A season of secrets, scandal and seduction in high society!

A darkly dangerous stranger is out for revenge, delivering a silken

rope as his calling card. Through him, a long-forgotten past is

stirred to life. The notorious events of 1794 which saw one man

murdered and another hanged for the crime are brought into

question. Was the culprit brought to justice or is there still

a treacherous murderer at large?

As the murky waters of the past are disturbed, so is the Ton ! Milliners and servants find love with rakish lords and proper ladies fall for rebellious outcasts, until finally the true murderer and spy is revealed.

From glittering ballrooms to a smuggler’s cove in Cornwall, from the wilds of Scotland to a Romany camp and from the highest society to the lowest…

Don’t miss all eight books in this thrilling new series!

May 1815, London

Outside in the darkness of the night a dog was barking.

A necklace of diamonds lay within a nest of black silken rope coiled on Lord Evedon’s desk. The diamonds glittered beneath the light of the candelabra as he picked up the necklace, letting it dangle and sway from his fingers, all the while watching the woman standing so quietly before him across the desk.

‘Well?’ he finally said, and his expression was cold. ‘What have you to say for yourself, Miss Meadowfield?’

A look of confusion crossed Rosalind Meadowfield’s face. The concern that she had felt at being summoned to attend Lord Evedon in his study had become fear. The hour was too late, and they were alone. His mood was not good, and it could be no coincidence that he was holding his mother’s missing jewels.

‘Lady Evedon’s diamonds, they have been found?’ She did not understand what else he expected her to say.

‘Indeed they have.’ He spoke quietly enough, politely even, but she could hear the anger that lay beneath. ‘Do you know where they were found?’

Her puzzlement increased, along with her sense of foreboding. ‘I do not.’

His eyes seemed to narrow and he glanced momentarily away as if in disgust. ‘The crime is ill enough, Miss Meadowfield. Do not compound it by lying.’

The tempo of her heart increased. She eyed him warily. ‘I am sorry, my lord, but I do not understand.’

‘Then understand this,’ he spoke abruptly. ‘The diamonds were found hidden in your bedchamber, wrapped within your undergarments.’

‘My undergarments?’ She felt her stomach turn over. ‘That is not possible.’

He did not answer, just stared at her with angry accusation. And in that small pregnant silence she knew precisely what he thought and why he had called her here.

‘You cannot believe that I would steal from Lady Evedon?’ Her words were faint, their pitch high with incredulity. ‘I would not do such a thing. There must be some mistake.’

‘There is no mistake. Graves himself was there when the diamonds were discovered within your chamber. Do you mean to call into question the propriety of the butler who has worked for the Evedon family for over forty years?’

‘I do not, but neither do I know how the diamonds came to be hidden within my clothing.’ She gripped her hands together, her palms sliding in their cold clamminess, and bit at her lower lip. ‘I swear it is the truth, my lord.’

‘And what is the significance of this?’ From the surface of the desk he lifted the rope, and even in the subdued lighting from the candles and the fire, she could see its dark silken sheen. With one end of the rope secured tight within his fingers, he released the rest; as it dropped, Rosalind saw, to her horror, that it had been tied in the shape of a noose. She could not prevent the gasp escaping her lips.

‘Well?’ One movement of his fingers and the noose swung slightly.

‘I have never seen that rope before. I know nothing of it.’ Her heart was hammering so hard that she felt sick. All of her past was back in an instant—everything that she had fought so hard to hide—conjured by that one length of rope.

He made a sound of disbelief. ‘I warned my mother against taking on a girl without a single name she could offer to provide her with a character. But Lady Evedon is too kind and trusting a spirit. What else have you been stealing these years that you have worked as her companion? Small items perhaps? Objects that would pass unnoticed? And now you become brave, taking advantage of a woman whose mind has grown fragile.’

‘I deny it most fervently. I hav—’

But Evedon did not let her finish. ‘I do not wish to hear it. You are a liar as well as a thief, Miss Meadowfield.’

She felt her face flood with heat, and her fingers were trembling so much that she gripped them all the tighter that he would not see it.

‘The diamonds we have thankfully recovered; with the emeralds we have not been so fortunate. Will you at least have the decency to tell me where you have hidden them?’

She stared at him, her mind still reeling from shock, too slow and stilted to think coherently. ‘I tell you, they are not within my possession.’

‘Then you have sold them already?’ The silken rope slithered through his fingers to land in a dark pile upon the desk. He pocketed the diamond necklace. The clawed feet of his chair scraped loud, like talons gouging against the polished wooden floor, as he pushed the chair back and rose to his feet.

‘Of course not.’ Instinctively she stepped back, just a tiny pace, but enough to increase the distance between them. ‘I have taken nothing belonging to her ladyship.’

‘I doubt you have had time to rid yourself of the emeralds, and they are most assuredly not within your chamber. So where are they concealed?’ He moved out from behind the barrier of the desk and walked round to stand before her, facing her directly.

Rosalind’s throat dried. ‘I am no thief,’ she managed to whisper. ‘There has been a terrible mistake here.’

He ignored her. ‘Empty your pockets, Miss Meadowfield.’

She stared at him all the more, her heart beating a frenzied tattoo while her mind struggled to believe what he was saying, and she could not rid herself of the sensation that this nightmare into which she had walked could not really be happening.