The Offer
At that moment, I felt dumbstruck. Rachel Diamond?
Rachel Diamond?Mary led me in to take my hat and touch up my hair. She took up the necklace Mr. Hart had given me. “Here, mum, wear this.”
Before her marriage, Rachel Diamond had been an Inventor’s Apprentice. Yet a terrible accident had left everyone thinking her mind had gone. I’d stumbled on the truth: her mind was whole, yet she hid this from even her children, for her own protection. This woman held the secrets of both the Inventors and the Diamond quadrant, in a body barely able to walk, much less defend herself.
How had her husband allowed her to come here, of all places? And with Mr. Hart, of all people?
Mary said, “Let"s not bother with changing.” She took a damp cloth and scrubbed a bit of mud from my hem. “You sho
