5
Sachelle
I’m still panicking over my notebook in the middle of the afternoon when the front doorbell rings, normally a cheery sound but today it’s a deep, ominous chime.
I wait at the top of the staircase out of sight, certain I know who’s at the door and why he’s here.
The butler opens the front door, and I hear Wraye’s voice. I gasp in relief and run down the steps, two at a time. She’s holding my notebook. “I wondered where I left that! Thank you, Fenchurch,” I add to the butler, and he slips away.
Wraye smiles and passes it to me. “I thought I’d bring it to you on my way home. Was everything all right with Mr. Rasmussen? I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to you.”
I examine the exterior of the notebook carefully, as if it’s very interesting. “Fine, thanks. He just wanted to know what I was doing there and if I had everything I needed.” I feel the ghost of his hand around my throat and a hot sensation chases through me. “For the research I’m doing.”
“He knows about the research?” Wraye frowns at the incongruity of the King’s Head of Security, who I’ve had almost no contact with, knowing about my made-up project.
“Yes, he was very interested. Anyway,” I add, with another breathless smile, “I should get back to my work. It’s just started to get interesting.”
After waving goodbye to Wraye, I close the door and lean against it. After checking that no one’s around, I flick through the pages to check that the schematic is still there.
It’s not.
I check again. It’s definitely gone.
I almost lunge for the door handle and call after Wraye, but there’s no point. If she’d found the map, she would have mentioned it.
A wave of nausea washes over me. He knows. Rasmussen knows what I did and he’s taken back the map. I tried to steal something from the palace and I got caught. What was I thinking?
I head upstairs and sit on the edge of my bed, my mind sifting through my options. Confess to Mum and Dad? No, never. I couldn’t face their shock and disappointment, or what it might do to Dad’s heart. Confront Rasmussen? That means facing him again, and throwing myself on his mercy. I shudder even thinking about it. Do I contact Tieman and tell him I failed? Maybe he’d assure me that everything’s all right and that mistakes happen. That doesn’t get me out of trouble, though.
My phone beeps, and I pick it up and glance at the screen. I’ve received an email from a junky-looking email address and I almost delete it. Then I read the subject line. You’ve been a bad girl.
Barely breathing, I open it and see that it contains a thirty-second video without sound. I frown at the black and white images, wondering what I’m looking at, until I recognize myself and the library at the palace. Me folding up and concealing the schematic inside my notebook and walking out.
I was caught on CCTV.
Downstairs, the doorbell rings.
I shoot to my feet. Shit. Shit. Shit.
The front door opens, and I hear Fenchurch’s polite voice, and a deeper, sharper one replying. Mr. Rasmussen.
One set of feet cross the threshold, not a whole troupe of City Guards. He’s not here to arrest me. Yet. No, it’s worse, he’s here to tell my parents that I’ve been stealing from the palace, when they raised me to be so honest. Tears swim in my eyes. I’m going to be such a disappointment to them.
I’d better go down and face them all. There’s no point hiding what I’ve done.
Rasmussen’s waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. His cold, gray eyes follow my descent.
You’ve been a bad girl.
“Lady Sachelle. May I speak to you in private?”
I lead him into the sitting room and stand in the middle of the carpet. Chin high. Ready to admit to everything, because while I’ve been stupid, I’m not a coward.
Rasmussen smiles at me. A sleek, conspiratorial smile that has all the hairs standing up on the nape of my neck.
“How are you?” When I don’t reply, he continues. “It’s a lovely evening, and the restaurant at Hotel Ivera is very good. If you’re free tonight, I’d enjoy taking you out.”
I’ve been anticipating words like criminal and arrest. “What? To dinner?”
His smiles wider. “Yes, to dinner. A date.”
Was I mistaken? Maybe Rasmussen doesn’t know I stole those plans and he didn’t send that email. Is this the normal way people are asked out to dinner? At the polytechnic, I’d sometimes be asked out by skinny engineering students and bespectacled chemistry majors. They took me for pizza or to drink beer along the bank of the river. They didn’t show up at my house in expensive suits and ask me to restaurants.