Courting Trouble by Jenny Schwartz Read Free Book Online Page A

the scorn was clear. “The sort of people who consort with thieves and deal in stolen goods.”
    Jed stepped out of the doorway.
    Esme tensed instantly, aware that Prasad’s insult had been of the deadly kind. Jed put such stock in being respectable. She shifted sideways, placing herself squarely between the two men. “May I inquire what was taken from you?”
    “My wallet and watch. The watch, although a gift from my grandfather, can be replaced. But the contents of the wallet…no, they are irreplaceable. Not simply money, you understand. Private papers. Only a wretched thief would have stolen them from me after my many kindnesses to her.”
    “Bah.” Lajli threw oil on the flames. “Better a thief than a slithering snake. These people, they know you are a bad man. A bad man who hates the so-handsome prince.”
    “What nonsense is this?” Prasad frowned.
    Gupta plucked at his cousin’s sleeve. They were beginning to attract attention. Across the road, an apprentice tailor paused in sweeping the veranda floor of his master’s store. He leaned on the broom and stared.
    “You are a common thief, Lajli Joshi,” Prasad said. “An uneducated woman. What stupidity have you imagined from the blueprints you stole from me?”
    “Me? I imagine nothing. I speak truth. You may ask—”
    “I do ask. I ask that you return my private papers. I don’t expect miracles. I know a woman such as you will have spent my money and pawned my grandfather’s watch, but I want my papers back.”
    “Well, you can’t have them.”
    “Why not?” Prasad lowered his voice. There were echoes in it of a tiger’s menacing purr.
    Gupta shuffled his feet.
    Jed moved and Esme hastily stepped back to block him. The warm strength of him pressed into her back. He halted.
    “Because I do not have your nasty papers.” Lajli threw her hands in the air, fingers widespread to demonstrate their emptiness. She waggled them. “All gone.”
    Prasad scowled at her, then he looked over Esme’s shoulder to Jed. “If this thief has passed my property on to you, her gallant defender, I would appreciate its return.”
    Jed stepped around Esme and took her arm. He tipped his hat forward, shading his eyes. “I have more interesting things to concern myself with than your correspondence.”
    “It is as well.” Prasad spun his swagger stick. “The enclosed blueprints would not be easily deciphered by the uneducated.”
    “Mr. Reeve is not uneducated.”
    “Thank you, Lajli.” Jed’s gaze stayed on Prasad. “As it happens, I’m something of an inventor.”
    Prasad’s hand tightened on the stick. “Then you may comprehend my anger at having the blueprints stolen from me. They are the work of a very dear friend, a very clever inventor, a genius I am proud to have known. It is the last device he ever designed and of the dearest import to me. Kali’s Scream is a music box and sonic amplifier. My friend had a most compassionate heart. He profoundly pitied the silent world of the deaf. With Kali’s Scream he sought to overcome the barriers preventing the deaf from enjoying music. The sonic amplification generates vibrations that the deaf can sense. Thanks to my friend, the deaf may know the joy of dancing to music.”
    The explanation sounded utterly convincing. Esme half turned to look up at Jed. It was he who had read the stolen blueprints and notes. Could he have misinterpreted them?
    He met her gaze and his mouth twisted derisively.
    She flushed, aware that he’d read her doubts. She looked hastily back at Prasad, the epitome of a Western-educated intellectual. A late-night reading of papers, colored by whatever story Lajli had told, could have affected Jed’s understanding of the notes.
    Or Prasad could be lying.
    “I do not know you, sir,” Prasad continued. “But if you are in possession of my stolen wallet, of my dear friend’s papers, then I ask of you—on your honor—to return them to me.”
    “But of course,” Jed said calmly.