The Heir - Catherine Coulter [137]
The earl only shook his head, though his hand, filled to overflowing with those emeralds, was still outstretched toward Gervaise. “Yes, that would be a better plan. But it won’t happen. Did you think me a fool, Gervaise? I knew weeks ago that you were not the Comte de Trécassis. Although my informant was uncertain as to your true heritage, I ordered him to keep looking. Yes, monsieur, I sought more knowledge of you. I didn’t want to order you out of my house until I knew what you were about. I guessed you were a bloody little fraud, I knew you were dangerous, I just didn’t realize how dangerous until after Arabella and I found Josette’s body, until after I realized you had caused the collapse in the old abbey, endangering Arabella. It was then I knew it was something in the earl’s bedchamber. What other room was there that you could not enter with impunity? How you must have gnashed your teeth when I kept the door locked.
“But enough. I searched your room, you know, just this afternoon while Arabella kept you out of Evesham Abbey. Without the exact instructions Magdalaine wrote to Thomas de Trécassis of the hiding place of the emeralds, I knew I should never know what it was you sought. With the instructions, it was all quite simple. The frustration you must have known all these weeks. I could almost feel pity for you if you weren’t such a villainous little sod.”
“Damn you, the emeralds are mine!”
The earl shook his head. He turned to Arabella. “I really wish you had remained safe at the ball.”
Gervaise looked at the earl. It was all so very easy. There, the earl, all his attention riveted on his wife. The stupid man had no gun. Gervaise pointed the pistol at him. “I will have them now, my lord. Give me those damned emeralds.”
The earl, to Arabella’s shock, merely stared at Gervaise, his look one of boredom. Bored? “As you will, monsieur,” the earl said. “They are really not all that important, you see.”
“I don’t trust you. Why didn’t you bring a weapon? You are planning something, I know it. What is it?”
The earl merely shrugged. Then he tossed the necklace to Gervaise. He said nothing, merely watched as Gervaise slipped it into his pocket. He now pointed the weapon directly at the earl. “You know, my lord,” Gervaise said easily, “it should have been so very simple for me to fetch the emeralds. But no, you had to meddle. You had to tell the world that there are loose floorboards, thus the locked door.
“And, Arabella, yes, she had to meddle as well. You forced me to go to desperate lengths, my lord, to retrieve what was by all rights mine. The old servant Josette was an encumbrance, with all her righteous rantings about conscience and duty. It was a pity, her death. It really does not matter now if you believe me, but I will tell you. I sought only to speak to the old woman that night, but she fled from me—afraid, she was, so afraid that she ran down the dark corridor, tripped, and fell down the stairs. As to causing the rocks to collapse in the old abbey ruins, I had no wish to harm you, Arabella, merely to empty Evesham Abbey of his lordship’s interfering presence. Well, the game has taken a complicated turn, my lord, but I shall contrive. I know that you would not face me without a weapon unless you had an army of men waiting just outside this room. That is true, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. You will not know until you try to leave.”
Gervaise paused, then continued in a meditative voice, “You know, my lord, I have never liked you. Arrogantly proud you are, just like the old earl, that filthy old man. Of course, I could not come for my birthright while he lived. Thomas de Trécassis cautioned me to wait, to be patient.”
“No! Gervaise, no! It cannot be true! You are a thief? You are stealing from Justin?”
All of them stared blankly at Elsbeth, who stood just inside the bedchamber, breathing hard, for she had run as fast as she could up the stairs. “No, Gervaise, stop it now. You love me, don’t you? At least you love me as you would a cousin? Don’t do this. I cannot bear that