The maharajah had unwisely bestowed them upon his favorite, who had given them to Lakshmi in secret, and they were the stones, Carlyle knew, that the old fellow was most likely to want back. The diamonds had been easy enough to conceal, from what he could make out of Lakshmi’s tale.

Bloody hell. Carlyle told himself it was only a matter of time before she found the diamonds, too. He would have to get them first and try to figure out some way to return them to the maharajah. That process would take months and was sure to cause no end of ill-feeling-meaning he would have to explain everything to everybody eventually. The prospect was daunting.

She very well might try to sell the rubies and sapphires-certainly she understood their value. If he told her that Lakshmi had removed them from the maharajah’s palace, she might not. But it was difficult, if not impossible, to predict what Susannah would do.

The smaller gems were in her possession and possession was nine-tenths of the law. And they were worth a fortune, and what woman would not want to control a fortune of her own? It was becoming increasingly clear that she valued her independence more than he’d thought. That was only one reason why marrying off Miss Fowler was a thankless task, he told himself. Of course, the candidates thus far had been a lackluster lot. He could not blame that entirely on the half-aunt.

Carlyle had arranged several of the introductions, relying on recommendations from friends at his club, and choosing the safest-seeming men, in deference to Mr. Fowler’s last wishes.

Yet he knew quite well that they were not suited for her, a curious fact he could not deny. He didn’t understand it, but he was not inclined to soul-searching. Carlyle prided himself on being a man of action.

Still, her happiness was important to him. They had been fast friends in India. If he had been the unprincipled seducer and corset connoisseur she now seemed to think he was, they would have been lovers.

But nothing had happened. She was too young and too headstrong and too innocent-a volatile combination in every way. And her father had been his good friend. Carlyle considered his sexual attraction to Susannah quite understandable, but he also prided himself on his self-control.

He turned the corner, took a deep breath, and summoned up every ounce of it he had.

If she really did not wish to marry, then he might as well let her have the little gems, so to speak, and sell them to provide for herself. She could not prove he had put them in the corset. He hadn’t. She might ask why she hadn’t told him right away. He couldn’t, that was all there was to it.

Time would pass. It seemed unlikely that she would accuse him outright of smuggling and even less likely that she would swallow her pride and ask him to explain. No, most likely she would simply sell them quietly through an intermediary-and get a good price, too. She was the daughter of the famous Mr. Fowler and that counted for something.

Her misguided suspicions concerning him were something that he would have to live with. He hated the idea that, as of this morning, she thought less of him for something he had not done. Especially since she had looked so astoundingly sensual in that flowing dress, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her lips parted as she tried to think of something vile to say to him. He’d had to kiss her. Did she even know how irresistible she was?

The thought crossed his mind that he might have fallen in love with her. Hmph. He wanted to laugh and made do with a wry smile.

A little sweeper at the curb saw the smile and seized his chance to beg a penny from a man in a good mood. Carlyle found three shillings in his pocket and dropped them into the lad’s grubby hand.

“Aow-thank ye!”

“Carry on,” he replied absentmindedly.

“Good day and good luck to ye, sir.”

He would need it, because he did intend to get the diamonds back. Keeping a straight face while he had simultaneously teased her and pricked her pride had been the only way he could think of to distract her. The combined effect of remembering how she had looked in it last night-and finding that part of the treasure was no longer in it this morning-had been almost too much for him.

She was sensitive enough to read his mind-perhaps she had. The damned corset had been right under his nose. All he thought of was the diamonds once he realized the rubies and sapphires had been removed. God only knew where a woman would hide so many gems. They could be anywhere and everywhere.

He would have to find a way to get her out of the house somehow-and soon-and get the six diamonds out of the ribbon rosebuds. And those would have to be sewn back up just so, or she would notice that the corset had been tampered with again.

Carlyle frowned. He had never threaded a needle, never sewed so much as a button. He would have to enlist Lakshmi’s aid once more. The Indian maid would be terrified of being caught once she knew that Susannah had found the other gems.

Poor Lakshmi had many things to fear. Serving as go-between for the maharajah’s favorite and her young lover had been an awful mistake. The unfaithful favorite had given her the gems, prying them from their settings and ruining all her jewelry as a final act of rebellion against her lord and master. She had told Lakshmi to flee the country, knowing they both faced the ultimate penalty.

Carlyle had felt sorry for her and for the favorite, and his judgment had not been the best. At the time his overwhelming concern had been for Susannah. Had he but known…et cetera. But he hadn’t.

What to do? If he succeeded in finding the corset in Susannah’s bedroom, he could not just take it to his tailor’s and have him or his busybody wife mend the opened rosebuds. The fellow was entirely too friendly as it was, always inquiring into Carlyle’s life and loves.

And what if Susannah wore it night and day, instead of hiding it?

Preoccupied, he went hurrying down an unfamiliar street crowded with shops. Carlyle slowed his steps. Looking into windows would be a pleasant enough distraction. He came to a jeweler’s. Bright little things winked at him from the boxes on display. Good God. No. He moved on to the next shop, a tobacconist’s, and clasped his hands behind his back, studying the humidors. They were brown. They were square. There was one in a rectangular shape. He found their very plainness soothing, but there was a limit to how long a man could stare at mahogany boxes.

Onward he went. The shop next door to the tobacconist’s sold prints and engravings. He glanced idly at the display in the main window. There was one of a lady in the elaborate gown of an earlier historical period, powdered hair piled high, bosom popping out of her tight bodice-

Don’t look, he told himself.

An odd little man, his hands thrust into the pockets of a shabby coat, sidled up and leered at the same print. Carlyle sighed. He had fallen low indeed if this was the company he was keeping.

He stepped well away from the fellow, examining a group of botanical prints in the side window. Apples. Quinces. Pears-ah, that one was particularly nice. He peered through the glass, reading the fine engraved script beneath the two nicely rounded pears in the picture: Cuisses de Nymphe.

Nymph’s thighs. He almost groaned aloud and then remembered the odd little man not far away, still leering at the prints. Judge not, Carlyle told himself, lest ye be judged. He had been reminded of Susannah by a colored engraving of fruit that was suitable for a Methodist’s parlor. He strode away, swiftly putting as much distance as he could between himself and all stimulation.

He finally stopped in a park and sat down on a bench under a tree. Carlyle was beginning to realize that his brains were still addled by his unexpected glimpse of Susannah last night. But why? He was a grown man, not some randy lad, achingly stiff and stupid after just one look at an unclad woman.

And yet the mere sight of her had undone him. He was almost jealous of the damned corset, if it was possible to be jealous of an inanimate object. It was able to encompass her slender waist just as he wished to do with his hands, it had the privilege of cupping her beautiful breasts, it was warmed by her silky skin-he had no doubt that her skin was silky. At his level of amorous expertise, Carlyle was good at guessing such things.

He wanted to caress her with all the skill he possessed, wanted to rain kisses on her bare shoulders, wanted to tease her sensitive nipples, wanted to fondle her glorious rear with both hands, then beg permission to touch her as intimately as she might wish-damn, damn, damn. Right now he wanted to shoot himself more than anything. He could not have her.

Susannah knew that dressing herself would be a bit of a struggle, but she vowed to do it, even if her corset-the corset-ended up going on crooked. She could tighten the crisscrossing back laces before putting it on over her camisole and then take a deep breath and hook it in front somehow. It had lost much of its stiffness since she’d removed the gems. She might even be able to breathe.

She had looked in on Lakshmi, who still slumbered in her narrow bed in the chamber under the eaves, though it was past noon. Susannah had no idea what ailed her, but it seemed that the very least she could do was go out and purchase a tonic from the apothecary or medicinal herbs to make up a posset.

She was thankful that Lakshmi was not suffering from fever, but had no idea what her illness might be. Would an English doctor prescribe the right remedy? Susannah doubted there were any practitioners of Indian medicine in London.

The physic garden could be just the place to find something that would help her, though Mrs. Posey might say something disparaging about Lakshmi again. Susannah resolved to sack her if she did. Unfortunately, she would have to be replaced and there was no shortage of chaperones for hire.

Susannah, who had left Mrs. Posey to her knitting in the front room, began to make a mental list.

First, she had to help Lakshmi. She decided to ask the Rajasthani family they had met-she would have to find them somehow. Or, first she had to talk to a dealer in precious stones-she knew just the fellow, she would write to him today-and have the rubies and sapphires appraised.

She wondered what Carlyle would have done if she’d simply spilled the stones on the table in front of him and asked where they had come from and what they were worth. His face had been close to expressionless when he saw the pink corset. Provoking of him. Perhaps he was a better strategist than she had thought. It all depended on what game he was playing.

Two days later…

Her face hidden under an overlarge bonnet-she had added a veil for good measure at the last minute-Susannah waited on the step for the clerk on the other side of the shop door to unlock it from the inside. Not wanting the servants to know about this confidential errand, she had traveled most of the way here via horse-drawn omnibus, a jolting journey that exhausted her, until she got out in Oxford Street and walked the rest of the way, looking in the shop windows along the way.

This shop’s wares were not shown in the window. Indeed, there was no window and there were no goods sold here-only skill. Rough gemstones were cut, faceted, and polished behind the heavy doors, and sent back to those who had purchased them elsewhere.

The narrow lane was a warren of similar shops, some at street level and some within the taller buildings that loomed over the old ones.

She heard repeated clicks and then the door suddenly swung open. An elderly clerk peered at her doubtfully.

“I am Susannah Fowler,” she said.

“Of course. Mr. De Sola told me you would be coming. My memory-” He tapped the side of his head. “Please enter.” He stepped to one side of the door, peering up and down the empty lane.

She looked where he was looking and thought she saw the shadow of a man melt back into an alley. Had she been followed? The idea was frightening. No one besides Carlyle knew that she had found the stones. She looked again and saw nothing. The clerk was far too frail to deal with ruffians, but she supposed that a watchful eye was better than nothing. There was undoubtedly a burly fellow somewhere on the premises. Anything to do with jewels carried a risk of theft and worse.

She went in, lifting her veil over the bonnet, and was greeted by another man, white-haired and short, who came out from an inner office. Behind it, she guessed, was the cutters’ room, where rough stones were assessed, sometimes for months, before the final decision to cut was made.