Muriel thought she would lose her lunch. She put her head on Ewan’s shoulder to try and steady herself. Why hadn’t she thought about that? But who did the jewels belong to? Maybe it was Della trying to make everyone think she was a thief.
As if she knew Muriel was thinking about her, Della screamed, the sound one of obvious disgust.
“What is happening?” Della screamed. “They are keeping us locked up in here and the only ones who are not concerned is Romeo and Juliet over there in the corner! I say they stole them together some time during the night, and have hidden them so they don’t have to pay for them. Tell Philip to search their rooms!”
“We stole nothing,” Ewan said. “My mother always told me that the person that points a finger is usually the guilty party.”
“How dare you!” Della screamed.
“Me? You call me a thief and expect me to take it lying down?” Ewan yelled.
“If it’s not you, it’s your lover,” Della said. She jabbed her finger in Muriel’s direction. “Maybe she’s using you to get what she wants. I know she’s interested in the Fortuna reliefs.”
“And how do you know that?” Muriel asked. “We’ve never talked about it.”
Della glared at her, but didn’t respond. No one else spoke up; instead they all sat down at the table. Muriel looked up at Ewan; after he nodded they joined the group. No one spoke or moved, and Muriel felt as if the room was shrinking in size. The air grew denser and Muriel felt as if it might wrap around her and choke her to death.
They sat that way for some time. The clock struck two, and still they sat, in silence.
Finally, Philip opened the door. He came inside and he looked as stern as he had last night when he’d spanked Pansy.
“On your first day here there was a theft from the marchioness’s rooms,” he said. “Someone took a handful of jewelry.”
“Her!” Della said, pointing her finger at Muriel.
“Silence, please,” Philip said.
“We have searched the rooms and—”
Patrick stood and slammed his fist against the table. “You had no right!”
“I had every right,” Philip said. “We found neither the jewels, or the reliefs, in any of the rooms.”
“Which means she’s hidden them!” Della screamed. “Have her arrested!”
Philip sighed, and Muriel wondered if he was thinking about taking Della over his knee and spanking her.
“We will continue to search,” he said. “In the meantime I would like the guests to stay as close to their rooms as possible. Please do not go in the family portion of the house. The library will be open to you.”
“What about the auction room?” Patrick asked. “I still want to look at the items.”
“Perhaps later in the day,” Philip said. “Right now that room is closed until we figure out what happened to the reliefs.”
Chapter 5
The next few hours were quiet, as each person retired to their own room. After about an hour, there was a soft knock on her door. She opened it to find Pansy standing there, a tray in her hand.
“A food tray,” she said softly as she pushed her way into the room. “There will be no formal dinner tonight.” She set the tray on the table in the outer room and started for the door.
“There are two plates of food,” Muriel said. “I’m not that hungry.”
“Ewan will be here shortly,” Pansy said before she exited and closed the door.
Muriel wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She was happy that he’d taken the jewels and hidden them for her, but she still wasn’t sure about the reliefs. They had disappeared in twelve hours. Muriel looked at the door.
Pansy. The name echoed in her mind over and over as she thought about her arrival, about how the maid had given her instructions on how to get to the auction room through the secret passageways. About how the maid had been in her room when she’d woken up from her nap, and how she’d been the one to show Muriel the jewelry.
There was a knock on the door, and Ewan came in without waiting for her to answer.
“Ah, beef and potatoes,” he said as he sat down. He picked up his plate and started to eat.
“You’re awfully calm,” she said.
“I am,” he said, his words a little muffled by the food in his mouth. He continued to eat and didn’t expand on his words.
“They are trying to make me look like a thief,” she said. She came and sat down next to him.
“They failed,” he said as he shoved food into his mouth. “Eat something. It will make you feel better. This food is really good.”
She sat down and took a bite. It was good, but her stomach was in too many knots to allow food into her belly.
“I think I know who took the reliefs,” she said.
“Della?” he asked after he’d swallowed.
“Pansy,” she replied. He greeted her declaration with laughter.
“Why would the maid take it?” he asked.
“She could sell them and get out of her life,” Muriel said.
“What makes you think she wants out of her life?” He put down his plate. “She seemed very happy the other night when she was being spanked. Something tells me she and Philip went upstairs and had sex, lots and lots of sex that made them both very happy.”
Muriel couldn’t argue with him, she supposed. Pansy had seemed happy while Philip was spanking her.
“Having her ass reddened does not mean she can’t be a thief,” Muriel said.
Ewan, who had just taken another bite of food, spit it out and coughed.
“What?” Muriel said.
She watched as he drank a few large gulps of wine, then cleared his throat. He turned to her and said, “I never thought I’d ever hear those words come out of your mouth.”
“You’ve known me for all of two weeks,” she said. “You don’t know anything about the words that might come out of my mouth.”
He laughed. Then he picked up his plate. “Is it safe to eat again, or are you going to talk about a sexual position you want to try?”
“I’m a virgin, remember? I’ve never tried any sexual position.” She picked up her wine and took a drink. “We need to change the subject, back to the issue at hand. Someone has taken the reliefs I was supposed to buy. How can I go back to Mrs. Temple and tell her I wasn’t able to buy them?”
“Which would be your first?” Ewan was looking at her in a way that made her knees feel weak.
“I told you, Pansy is my number one suspect,” she said. She knew that’s not what he was talking about, but she wanted to change the subject as quickly as possible.
They were quiet for a while, and then he said, “How did you like watching the spanking last night?”
“I can’t believe you just asked me that,” she said. She started to pace. “Can we focus on the issue at hand?”
“What would you like to do about the issue at hand?” He batted his eyes at her and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“How about we go downstairs around one and check the room out again. Maybe someone hid them and we can find them.”
“Or maybe we’ll run into Philip and he’ll really think you are a thief, what with the sneaking around and such,” Ewan said.
Muriel continued to pace, her strides becoming more and more frantic. “Then we’ll wait until late.”
“Yes, because that turned out so well last time,” Ewan said. “Will you please sit down? You are making yourself very nervous.”
“Making me nervous?” she said. “I’m fine. I just—I just—hey!”
She was across his lap so quickly her head spun. He was lifting her skirts and she tried to stand up. But somehow he’d captured her legs between his. Her skirts were now above her head and he was ripping her underclothes in half. The sound of her clothing being mangled brought about a scream, which was muffled by the fact that her skirts were over her head.
Ewan’s hand slammed down on her bare bottom and she yelled again. His hand came down
again, and again, and again, and soon he’d set up a steady rhythm, slapping one side of her bottom before he moved to the other one. The sting was horrible, but she had stopped screaming.
He spanked her harder and harder, and she struggled against his hold, but it did no good. Finally she just went limp, hoping it would make him stop. But it didn’t. If anything he spanked her harder.
Her ass was stinging fiercely, and she let him know by yelling.
“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”
That voice wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. It was Philip.
Right now she was pretty sure the color of her bottom matched the color of her face.
“Of course not,” Ewan said as he smacked her bottom again. “We’re just trying to turn Muriel’s attitude around. She was in a bit of a snit earlier about being thought of as a thief.”
Ewan slapped his hand down on her ass again, and again.
“I never said she was a thief,” Philip said.
Muriel tried to twist off his lap, but he slapped her bottom a few more times.
“Stay where you are,” Ewan ordered.
“Let me go!”
He slapped her ass in response.
“This is humiliating!” she screamed. “Let me go!”
Ewan slapped her ass a few more times, and then, miraculously, he had her on her feet so fast she almost lost her footing.
He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down next to him on the sofa. Philip was sitting in a chair opposite them.
She wasn’t sure which one of them she hated the most right now, so she stood and pointed at the door. “Out, both of you.”
“I don’t see that the spanking had any effect on her,” Philip said. “Perhaps you should do it again.”
“Maybe I should,” Ewan said. He made a grab for her but she managed to sidestep his hand.
“I want you both out of here,” she said.
“Not so fast,” Philip responded. “I have something I need to talk to the two of you about, and it involves the theft of the Fortuna reliefs, and of the jewelry from the marchioness’s apartments.”
“You think I took it?” Muriel asked.
“No, the jewelry was gone the day before you arrived,” Philip said. “Pansy told me about it then.”
Muriel wanted to scream. The maid had known about the jewelry when she’d asked Muriel about it? “Where is she? I want to tell her what I think about her, because she led me to believe she knew nothing about that jewelry.”
“She was confused when she found it in your bag,” Philip said.
“Well she wasn’t confused when you—” Muriel stopped speaking when Ewan squeezed her thigh.
“When I what?” Philip asked.
“When youuuu… asked her about it,” Muriel said. “Or did she tell you that I had the stolen jewels in my bag?”
“She said she saw them there, but when she tried to find them the next day they were gone, and a different necklace was in its place,” Philip said. “To her credit, she wasn’t sure of the exact pieces taken from the marchioness’s rooms. I told her they were some of the simpler pieces. The marchioness took her better jewels with her to Paris.”
“Of course she did,” Muriel said. “What about the reliefs?”
Philip turned his head. “There we face a much different situation. The reliefs were on the wall this morning when we put the statues in the room about ten. Someone slipped in the room, the locked room, and took them between then and one in the afternoon.”
“Someone who knew about the passages behind the rooms,” Muriel said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew she shouldn’t have said them.
“Yes, Pansy told me she’d informed you about how to see the objects, because she liked you. She’s been reprimanded for that.”
Punished would be a better word, Muriel thought. But she knew she couldn’t say that because Philip would figure out that Muriel had witnessed the spanking. This was such a touchy situation. She wasn’t sure how much information she should tell Philip about their nocturnal activities.
“We need to flush out the thieves,” Philip said. “I need your help with that.”
Muriel and Ewan exchanged glances. “What sort of help?” Muriel asked.
“I want to make you look guilty. If that happens, the person, or persons, who took the reliefs will let their guard down and try to sneak them out of the chateau.”
Muriel processed his thoughts, but before she could express her concerns, Ewan spoke.
“What if they have already removed the reliefs from the house?”
“In three hours?” Philip asked. “No one left the house. And there is nowhere you could go, and return, in three hours.”
“What if they were working with someone else, someone on your staff?” Muriel asked.
“We’ve considered that,” Philip said. “Gabriel and Nolen are searching the servants quarters. I trust them implicitly.”
“And Pansy?” Muriel asked.
“She has worked at the chateau forever. She is very trustworthy.”
And very spankable, Muriel wanted to add. She wondered if Pansy and Philip were lovers. But it wasn’t something you could ask without raising a few hairs on Philip’s neck and making him suspicious of them.
“What exactly would we have to do with this plan of yours?” Ewan asked.
“How do you feel about being caught in a compromising position?” Philip asked.
Muriel looked at Ewan, then turned her attention back to Philip.
“Tell us exactly what you want done, and we’ll discuss it and get back to you.”
* * *
They started down the stairs, hand in hand. When they were on the middle landing, Ewan stopped and gathered her in his arms.
“You remember what I said, right?”
“I remember,” she said.
“You’re not going to go off on your own, right?”
“I’m not,” she said.
“You’re going to obey Philip’s lead, right?”
Muriel smiled at him, as she said, through clenched teeth, “If you say right one more time I am going to step on your toes. All of them.”
“What a horrible thought,” he said. “It sounds extremely painful.”
“It will be,” Muriel said. She cocked her head and giggled, hoping anyone who might be watching them thought they were stopping on the landing to have a last minute tryst before dinner.
She kissed him. “You promise to stop saying right and ordering me around?”
“I do,” he said.
“Good.” They joined hands and went down the stairs. Philip’s plan would work best if everyone thought they were coming out in the open about their relationship, of which there wasn’t one.
Well, not in the most usual use of the word. They had a relationship where he thought he could take her across his knee. She meant to talk to him about that when they had a few moments together. They would have the next day together, and alone, after what was about to happen in the dining room.
They stopped in front of the doorway and Ewan whispered, “Get ready.”
The rest of the guests were already in the room, and it was quiet as a Sunday morning in church. Everyone stared at them, and for a moment, Muriel wondered if somehow Philip had set them up and was about to actually accuse them of stealing the reliefs.
She looked around the room. Philip was not there.
“You’re late, and we’re hungry,” Patrick said. “They refused to serve us until everyone was here.”
His words made Muriel feel a little better, because that was the first step of their plan, to be late and to have people angry, or at least hungry and off their guard.
Once she was seated, Muriel glanced at Della, who was sitting across from her, staring at her as if she could kill her with one glance.
The staff started to deliver the food. The diners were barely into their food when Philip came inside. He had two men with him, wearing suits. The
y had hats pulled far down on their heads.
“These two, officers,” Philip said in French. He pointed to Muriel and Ewan. “They are the thieves. Please take them into town and lock them in the jail.”
“Up!” one of the men yelled. He pulled on the back of Muriel’s chair; she almost fell to the floor, but she caught herself at the last moment. The other man crossed to Ewan’s chair and clapped his hand on Ewan’s shoulder.
“Stand up,” he said. He had manacles in his hands, and before Muriel knew what was happening, they had been placed on Ewan’s wrists.
“Don’t make me put these on a lady,” the man said. Muriel looked at him and almost burst out laughing. She had only seen him from afar, but she was pretty sure this man was Gabriel. That meant Philip was right on track with his plan.
“I knew it!” Della stood and pointed at Muriel. “She’s the thief, she took the reliefs. And it looks like she had help from her lover.”
“Enough from you,” Philip said. Della opened her mouth to speak, but he put his finger up. He dropped the bag of jewels on the table. “I don’t know about the reliefs, but we found the jewels taken from the marchioness’s apartments. We are still looking for the reliefs.”
“Tell us where they are!” Thomas said loudly.
“We didn’t take anything, not the reliefs and not the jewels,” Ewan said. “If you insist on throwing around accusations that you have no evidence to support you will face legal troubles.”
Philip snorted. “You were seen burying the stolen goods.”
“By whom?” Ewan said. “You have no witnesses because it never happened. If you can’t produce one, you have no reason to take us into custody.”
“I saw it.” Julia Petit stood up. “Maybe not the actual burial part, but he came out of the gardens this morning with dirt on his hands. I did see that.”
Muriel looked down at her plate. Philip had said he thought Simon and Julia were the guilty parties, but he couldn’t prove it. He said on the morning of the thefts, Pansy said she saw the Petits near the auction room. She said they had a container with them. She also said they did not see her.
Muriel’s Adventures Page 6
