It was exactly what Beatrice had hoped. She had not wished to name the girl herself—that would have shown her hand too plainly. Far better that the housekeeper find the brooch by chance before witnesses, and let the truth seem to discover itself.
The search began. Mrs. Pruitt, the head housekeeper, a stern and honest woman, moved from room to room with two footmen and a clutch of curious guests trailing behind. The kitchens were turned out; the footmen's quarters were examined. Nothing was found.
Then they came to the small chamber that had lately been given to the Duke's new assistant.
Beatrice followed close, her handkerchief pressed to her lips, scarcely able to hide her satisfaction. Dorcas hung back by the wall, pale and silent.
Mrs. Pruitt searched the little room with brisk, reluctant hands: the plain dress hanging on its peg, the narrow writing desk, the small trunk at the foot of the bed, and then, last of all, the bed itself. She lifted the thin mattress.
There, glittering against the rough ticking, lay the diamond brooch.
A gasp went through the watchers crowded at the door.
"There!" Beatrice said, and her voice rang with a triumph she could barely contain. "There it is! In her room, beneath her own bed!" She turned to the assembled guests, her eyes blazing. "I told you! A thief! The creature my husband raised above her station, who could not even keep her hands from my dead mother's jewels!"
Genevieve had been brought up from the study at the height of the search, and she stood now in the doorway, staring at the brooch in the housekeeper's hand. For one terrible moment, her composure broke—not from guilt, but from the sheer cruelty of it: the trap she had walked into without ever seeing it laid.
"I have never touched that brooch," she said. "I have never been near the Duchess's rooms. I do not know how it came to be here."
"Of course she would say so!" Beatrice cried. "A thief always says so!" She rounded on Arthur, and now her voice softened into wounded reproach. "You see, Your Grace? You see what you brought into our home? I begged you to send her away, and you would not hear me! And now she has stolen from your own wife!" She let a single tear fall, perfectly timed. "I demand she be dismissed at once and given over to the magistrate! Let her be shamed before the whole county, as she has shamed this house!"