The Orphan of Cemetery Hill - Hester Fox Page 0,41
and tingly from sitting on her heels and she didn’t hear the noise again, she let out her breath and resumed searching.
The bottom drawer wouldn’t open, and she couldn’t risk spending any more time trying to force it. Switching her focus to the top of the desk, Tabby ran her hands over the sparse items on the well-polished surface: a stack of newspapers, a handsome set of pens and blotting sand, a small wooden box inlaid with ivory. Gingerly, Tabby put her thumb to the lid of the box and pushed it up. To her surprise, it opened easily.
In the dim light she could just make out the hodge-podge of contents. There were a few loose buttons, stamps, and coins...the normal assortment of homeless items that find their way into a such a box, only to be forgotten. But then something caught the little bit of light coming through a crack in the curtains, reflecting back at her. Fishing it out, Tabby held up the small bauble for a closer look.
It was a sapphire or topaz, some sort of deep blue stone, and it was set in filigree and hung from an earring hook. It was exquisite; by far the most precious thing that she had ever held in her hand. But that wasn’t what gave her pause. There was no question that it was a woman’s piece of jewelry. Perhaps Mr. Whitby kept it as the relic of some doomed love affair, or an acquaintance had lost it and he had yet to reunite it with her. Or perhaps there was a more sinister explanation. Slipping it into her pocket, Tabby gently closed the box and returned it to its place on the desk. To stay any longer would be to press her luck too far, and even if the jewel was nothing, it was the closest thing she had found to a clue.
“Looking for something?”
The voice stopped her heart in her chest, and she spun around. A dark shape in the doorway stepped forward, revealing every intimidating inch of Mr. Whitby. “Miss Cooke, what a charming surprise.”
No matter what he had seen, there was nothing she could do to explain her presence in his study in the middle of the day. Her tongue was suddenly thick, her feet slow. She just stared at him.
Moving into the room with lethal grace, Mr. Whitby came right up to her until she thought he was going to grab her by the shoulders and shake her senseless. But he continued moving past her to a sideboard and picked up a glass.
“You seem to have an inordinate amount of interest in me,” he said casually as he fixed himself a drink. Did she have enough time to make a dash for the door? Before she could find out, Mr. Whitby turned, drink in hand, and placed himself between her and the only exit. “First following me on the street and now appearing uninvited in my study. I won’t flatter myself that you have any sort of romantic designs on me, but I must say I find it curious that you make such an effort to put yourself in my path.”
She forced herself to return his cold, unyielding gaze. “You killed Rose.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. What was she thinking? The last thing she ought to do was provoke him. As the air between them grew hot and prickly from the accusation, some animal instinct inside of her screamed for her to flee. But before she could obey, he was lunging toward her, hands reaching for her like the talons of a bird of prey.
He was going to kill her, she thought numbly as his glass shattered on the floor. She had always prided herself on her survival instincts, had always thought that she was made of stronger stuff, but as she watched him approaching her at lightning speed, all she could do was shrink down into herself and pray that she was wrong about his intentions.
Stumbling back, she would have hit the desk except that elegant hands grabbed her by the collar and jerked her back up.
Time stopped and she froze in place, his hands still at her neck. “How dare you,” he hissed. His cold blue eyes were mere inches from hers, his breath hot and unpleasant on her skin. “You come into my house, rifle through my belongings, and then accuse me of murder.”
Tabby’s heart beat furiously. He was guilty, she was sure of it.