To Trust a Thief Read Online Free PDF

fond smile that graced her old lips faded a bit when she turned her gaze to her grandson. He obviously shared some traits with his grandfather…and Min doubted Mrs. Carmichael enjoyed seeing them in Arthur. She patted his hand and continued.
    “One night, instead of returning the necklace to Mr. Courtland’s safe as he was supposed to, your grandfather took it. He brought it home, hid it under our mattress. He had such grand plans. We were going to run away. He wanted to buy me a villa in Italy and treat me like a queen. It’s hard to resist a man who says such things to you.” She winked at Min.
    “But we needed money to travel, and to get set up. So he pried out one of the gems, intending to sell it in London. Then, the night before he was to leave, Miss Benton died. Mr. Courtland went crazy with grief. Your grandfather had to postpone his trip for several weeks. So he moved the necklace to a safer hiding place and drew a map to it in case anything happened to him. He thought it would be safer if he were the only one who knew the whereabouts of the necklace. If I didn’t know, I couldn’t be made to tell. Or maybe he just didn’t trust me not to run off with it in his absence,” she added, chuckling. “Though he did almost tell me where the second half of the map was hidden.”
    “How did he ‘almost’ tell you?”
    Mrs. Carmichael stroked the locket. “Miss Benton and Mr. Courtland had been very much in love. The eye portraits they kept of each other were their most prized possessions. Your grandfather put half of the map in the locket. The other half is on the back of the second portrait.”
    “So you do know where it is.”
    “Not quite. Mr. Courtland always kept the portrait of Miss Benton’s eye in a silver frame on his nightstand. After her death, he kept her locket right beside it. Since I was an upstairs maid, and your grandfather was Mr. Courtland’s valet, we both had access to his personal belongings. We thought something he cherished so much would be the safest place to put the maps. And if they were ever discovered, they’d be untraceable to us. But about a week or so after Miss Benton’s funeral, the framed portrait and the locket disappeared.
    “I found the locket a few weeks later, under a chair in the far corner of Mr. Courtland’s room, as if he’d thrown it against the wall. I took it, and hid it in the library where it would be safe. We never discovered where the second portrait had gone. Your grandfather was going to draw a second map, but he died before he could. I never came across it again, though I never really searched for it.”
    Mrs. Carmichael’s eyes grew sad. “My husband was killed before he could make it home with the money he’d made from selling the stone. He was found stripped bare, nothing on him.”
    “But you’ve always told me Grandfather died of influenza.”
    “I didn’t want you, or anyone else, to know the truth. And I didn’t want anyone searching for the jewels. That necklace is cursed. It was a curse to the Courtlands and a curse to us. If it hadn’t been for that necklace, we’d have grown old together, content and peaceful. Instead, your grandfather was murdered and I was left a widow at twenty years old with your father to raise on my own.”
    “You were never tempted to find it?”
    “No. I’d lost enough because of it.”
    “Then why tell me now?” Arthur asked.
    His grandmother raised a trembling hand to stroke his battered face. “That necklace led to your grandfather losing his life. But finding it might help save yours.”

    Min sat in Arthur’s parlor and watched him pace back and forth in front of the hearth. He finally sat with a thump beside her on the sofa.
    “I can’t believe my grandfather stole the Courtland necklace. The whole bloody legend came about because of him.”
    Min sat in silence, allowing Arthur to process everything he’d been told. He finally leaned back against the couch.
    “Your grandmother was right