Chapter 6 - The Trap is Sprung
The carriage house was dimly lit by a single swinging lantern, swaying in the violent drafts of the storm. The scent of hay, wet leather, and horse sweat filled the air.
Clara rushed inside, gasping for breath, clutching the leather portfolio under her sodden shawl.
"Thomas! Please, wake up!" Clara cried out to the head groom, who slept in the loft above the stables.
To her astonishment, a carriage was already hitched.
Two sturdy black geldings stood in their harnesses, pawing nervously at the straw-littered floor. The carriage doors were unlatched, and a heavy wooden trunk sat loaded onto the rear carriage rack.
Clara slowed her steps, a cold dread washing over her that was far more bitter than the rain.
Why was a carriage readied in the middle of a torrential midnight storm?
She approached the rear of the carriage and touched the leather trunk. Tied to the handle was a shipping tag—written in Evelyn’s sharp, spidery handwriting.
The label bore Clara’s name.
Inside the trunk, visible through an unclasped latch, were several pieces of heirloom family silver, Marcus’s grandmother’s diamond parure, and stacks of forged promissory notes made out in Clara’s name.
The trap had already been laid.
Evelyn had never planned on merely catching Clara in the study. She had staged an escape. She was orchestrating a scene where Clara would be caught fleeing Vance Manor in the dead of night, stealing the family heirlooms and bearer bonds, abandoning her husband like a common thief.
If Clara was caught with the carriage, no magistrate in the county would believe her story about bank transfers. She would be branded an embezzler, a gold-digger caught red-handed trying to flee the country.
"Clever girl," Clara whispered, horror constricting her throat. "She planned this from the very beginning."
Footsteps splashed furiously through the mud outside the carriage house.
"Clara! Where are you?!"
It was Marcus’s voice. Distraught, confused, terrified.
Clara turned around, clutching the leather folder containing the *real* records to her chest. She stepped out toward the entrance of the courtyard just as the lantern lights illuminated the gravel drive.
Evelyn was already there, wrapped in a heavy velvet cloak, flanked by the house butler and two groundskeepers.
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And right behind them, running through the rain in his shirtsleeves, his hair plastered to his forehead, was Marcus.
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