Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
CARRIAGE TO LONDON - NOVEMBER 8, 1816
CHARLOTTE
He was torturing himself for my sake. I knew that. But I couldn’t bring myself to be brave about this. Selflessness was beyond me.
The scent of peppermint filled the carriage, and I caught the crunch of another. He busied himself settling the blankets before dragging me over to them. To him.
His arm, warm and steady, pulled me against his stiff shoulder, his fingers attempting to rub a soothing pattern along my shoulder and upper arm. It was an odd juxtaposition, the conscious comfort and the unconscious terror. Whether the latter was due to our missing son or the flames flickering beside us… I doubt he knew himself.
“Lee…” His name seemed to be the only word I was capable of now.
“Can you try to rest?”
My curls caught on the beginnings of his beard when I shook my head.
“All right. That’s all right. When we get to town, we’ll—” The carriage jolted forward, and both lanterns swung precariously on their hooks. And Lee… he broke off with a choked gasp.
In my entire life, I’d never once considered the perilous nature of the lanterns. I pulled free from him, flipped open the nearest one, and blew it out. I had no need of sight for this trip. What good would it possibly do?
Lee followed suit with the other and a relieved sigh, and when I settled against him again, he was steadier, more solid.
“Right,” he breathed out in a rush. “We’ll go straight to Wayland’s… Or Hudson’s? I suppose it will depend on the time.”
“Why there?”
His fingers tangled in the loose ends of my half-braided hair. “The gaming hell is the only place to find that high a sum quickly. I doubt Parker will accept a bank note. Ainsley knows I’m good for it. But he might be at the bakery that time of morning.”
“You’re—we’re—going to pay him?”
“If it comes to that. Though I’d rather not have him learn that he can simply kidnap our son whenever his funds run dry. After that, we’ll stop by Cee’s.”
“Why?”
“More hands. It’s possible there are more involved—beyond Parker and Mrs. Hyde. But Celine is out for blood, Parker’s specifically.”
“Is there time for all of that?”
“We’ll make time. Send Jack to Cee’s if need be.”
“Jack?”
He merely pointed out the back window. The boy must have come with us.
Our vague plan, if it could even be termed as such, came together over the miles. We found a numb kind of calm, trapped in the carriage as the night sky rushed by outside. My body ached more with each passing mile. There was little strength left in my abdomen after my ordeal.
It lasted right until the moment the carriage wheel dipped into a rut, hurling us to the side violently.
Lee’s reaction was sharp and swift. Beneath and around me, he became stone. Immovable, breathless, inhuman marble.
“Lee?”
My eyes hadn’t entirely adjusted to the inky black inside the carriage. I couldn’t see the look of terror I was certain consumed his face.
“Lee?” I repeated. Catching his textured cheek with my hand, I tried to pull him down to face me. It was a fruitless endeavor. “Lee, please. I need you. Leo needs you.”
Underneath the pulse of my wrist, I felt it. The slightest dip in his jaw as he swallowed. My own heart restarted in a pounding rush.
“Char—”
“It’s me. I’m here.”
“Sor—”
“Don’t apologize. Just come back to me. Stay with me.”
His nod was shaky and tentative, whiskers dragging along my palm still caressing his cheek. “Peppermint?”
With trembling hands, I dug into his pocket and grabbed two. I unwrapped one and handed it to him, then the second went to me.
The bright scent filled the muggy, dark carriage, wrapping us both in its comforting blanket. He shuddered, his forehead dropping to my shoulder.
“I…” he trailed off, too exhausted or overwhelmed to finish the thought. My fingers tangled in his overgrown hair, my thumb dragging along the back of his neck.
“Another?” I asked, already fishing it out of his pocket and pressing it into his hand with my free one. He didn’t move from his place on my shoulder as he crushed it in between his teeth.
“I warned you I would be a terrible husband.”
“You’re the best husband.”
Lee scoffed and turning his head to the side to rest his temple before inhaling, quick and rough through his nose. Though he didn’t reply to my comment, I could feel the disagreement lapping over him.
“You are,” I insisted.
A massive palm dragged along my back, soothing the ache his absence caused as he pulled away.
And there, in the moonless night of carriage, he shattered me. “I swear to you, I will get Leo back to you. But… You do not have to come back to the manor. You and Leo. I will not hold you to our agreement. I will get him back to you, and the two of you can start building your life in town.”
“What?” The word ripped from me, breathless and pained. “I don’t…” He was so solemn, sincere, certain, and I didn’t—couldn’t… “I do not understand. You want me to?—”
“Stay in town. I think it’s for the best. Once we have him back.”
“But I…” want to stay with you. Don’t want to leave. Love you.
“You’ll be safe, the two of you. And no matter what anyone says, Leo is legitimate in the eyes of the law. You won’t need me anymore.”
Why was he doing this? How could he do this to me? Here? Now?
Before I could give voice to the questions, before I could slap him, before I could reach behind him, yank open the door, and shove him out, the carriage shuddered to a halt.
Lee blanched at the motion before recognizing we were at one of our destinations. He peered out of the curtain, leaving it open before turning back to me.
“Wait here. I’ll be back shortly.”
As if I could do anything else. Physically, I wanted to die. Emotionally, I wanted to die. And practically, I knew I had bled through my dress quite thoroughly.
Lee grabbed his coat and donned it after he stepped out of the carriage and strode into the gaming hell.
The anguish I felt at the realization that Leo was missing returned full force, as if Lee’s presence had been the only thing keeping the wrenching of my heart at bay. The distraction of his episode had dulled the edge of the terror but his exit had pulled it back. Now the knifeblade stabbed into my chest with every breath, with every heartbeat.
I wasn’t entirely lost to sense. I knew Lee’s offer was likely due more to his episode than any particular desire to be rid of me. Or Leo. But… I could not think on that now. There wasn’t time, and I hadn’t the energy.
I needed to conserve both for my babe. Once Leo was back in my arms, safe, then I could decide what to do with my lout of a husband. At the moment, abandoning him to his solitary sad existence seemed the least punishment he deserved for choosing now to have his crisis of conscience.
The carriage shifted, the door creaked open, and Lee wearily eyed the seat he’d vacated with his absurd, slappable face.
“Good news. Augie had more than enough on hand,” he said, patting his bulging pocket distractedly. Comprehension dawned slowly, slipping through thick, soupy exhaustion and worry to the forefront. My husband, right this moment, had hundreds of pounds casually tucked in his pocket. That was…
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Yes,” he replied with a decisive nod. “Unfortunately, I’ve nothing better.”
Neither did I.
He climbed across from me and with a jolt, the carriage set off again. Lee’s hand found a peppermint in his other pocket, the one not packed to bursting with life-changing sums of money. He tipped his head back and tossed the mint in his mouth, gnashing on it with gritted teeth.
His eyes slipped shut. For a moment, I worried over another attack, but his breathing remained steady. Too steady. He was concentrating, slipping his palms across the velvet covered seats at his sides. His concentration entirely spent, he was focused on fighting back another episode.
Lee continued in this fashion until we pulled up outside a stylish white house on Grosvenor’s Street.
“Right. Cee’s. Do you want to come in?” he asked, distractedly reaching for the handle.
“I cannot,” I replied tersely.
Lee froze, his hand hovering just above the door. “Why?”
“I’m bleeding.”
His eyes widened, and he paled even further.
“What?”
“It is normal,” I bit out.
“But…”
“It is normal. I gave birth this morning.”
“I don’t…”
I rolled my eyes and thrust out my hand. “Your coat. Please.”
He shucked it unquestioningly, and as I stepped from the carriage with a handful of supplies, he wrapped it around my shoulders.
We climbed the few steps to the door, Lee hovering behind me the entire way. Rather than step to the side, he merely curved his arm around my shoulder and pounded on the door, rattling it in the frame.
His knock was too loud and too long to be anything but an emergency and we waited only a minute before a soot-covered scullery maid answered the door. The sun hadn’t yet hinted at its arrival, and presumably she was the only one awake.
She blinked blearily at me for a moment before her head tipped back. And back. And back, to find Lee. Her only reaction to his scars was a wince.
“I need your employers. It’s urgent—life and death,” Lee rushed to explain. The fury in his tone sent her dipping into a tremulous curtsy before scurrying down the back hall. Not up the stairs directly in front of the open door.
Lee sighed and urged me inside even though we’d received no invitation.
“Gone for the butler, almost certainly. I’ve half a mind to drag the two of them out myself,” he muttered.
One minute, two, three passed with no sign of the maid, the butler, or the family. Lee turned to me and rubbed his hands along my arms. “How are you feeling?”
Before I could reply, we were interrupted by returning footsteps. Lee’s gaze shot from me to the rumpled butler stumbling down the hall. He was hastily half dressed.
“Who the devil are you? What is the meaning of this? Barging in here, and in the middle of the night!”
Lee looked around him at the silent maid. “I said your employers.”
The butter interrupted. “You’ll speak to me, and me alone.”
A curse escaped my husband and he dragged a hand through his ragged hair. “It’s about Rycliffe’s murderer.”
That stopped the butler in his tracks, still halfway down the hall. He considered my husband thoughtfully, his gaze catching on his scars. I couldn’t contain my eye roll.
“How am I to believe that?” the man protested, slower and with infinitely less fury, as he came to stand before us.
In that moment it all transferred to me. Fury. Rage. The fires of hell sang through my blood. Before I made the choice to do it, I had yanked him down to me by the collar.
“Get me your employers in the next minute or so help me, you will be wearing your bawbels as a hat. I have done the impossible today, and I can do something as simple as that with my bare hands and not even flinch.”
He froze midflinch before wide, horrified eyes tipped behind me, presumably to where Lee stood.
“Do not look at him! He is not the frightening one here. I am. Get me your employers. Now. Am I understood?”
“What is the meaning of this?” The shrill voice came from above.
Celine. Finally.
LEE
My wife had clearly lost her tenuous grip on her temper, possibly her sanity as well. And, of course, that was the precise moment Cee saw fit to join us. Entirely abandoning her French accent in her upset.
Charlotte released her grasp on the sniveling little worm of a butler, and he scurried to the side.
Now I was left to explain why my wife was accosting the household staff.
I began, “Cee?—”
“Do you want my help finding Parker?” Charlotte cut in, not bothering to face me.
That had Celine rushing down the stairs, two at a time.
Will followed—they were both still in dressing gowns—and caught her arm with a tut before she could accost my wife in the same way Charlotte had the butler.
“What do you know?” Celine ordered more than asked. “And why are you no longer with child?”
“He has my son.” Charlotte’s words were low, solemn, snapped through gritted teeth and filled with more hatred than should be possible to fit inside her.
The butler took that opportunity to creep back down the hall, facing my wife in his retreat, with the scullery maid in tow.
“What?” Celine demanded.
“He took my son. And I have an address. Are you coming?”
“Yes,” Celine replied. “Now?”
“Wait just a minute, love,” Will interjected, grabbing his wife’s elbow.
Both women spun toward him, feral. He tripped back a step, arms raised warily.
I started to explain and slide closer to my wife, but Charlotte rounded on me. “Are you helping?”
“Wh-what?”
“Help or get out. I do not have time for you to send me away for my own protection or whatever ridiculous scheme you’ve concocted where I’m left here while you swan off and get yourself or Leo killed.”
“Charlotte—”
“Tell me I am lying. Tell me that wasn’t what the speech in the carriage was. That whore’s pipe has my son, the babe I birthed this morning. I do not have the time or energy to deal with whatever noble, self-sacrificing, asinine shite you’ve worked up. If your plan involves me sitting here— waiting —I have no interest in it. And you can leave.”
That was… precisely what my plan involved. I was even willing to send Celine in Charlotte’s place if need be. At least she hadn’t given birth some three and twenty hours ago. But I wasn’t dim enough to tell her that at the moment, not after what she’d threatened the butler with.
This woman was not my wife, but also… she was. This was the woman I’d met at the masquerade, the one who was willing to seduce a perfect stranger to secure a future for herself and her child.
“All right, no plan. Can I convince you to sit down before you make me wear my ballocks as a hat?”
Eventually, Will managed to coax everyone to a seated position in the drawing room, easing the tiniest bit of the tension.
Time ticked slowly by as the women argued over the scraps that would be left of Mr. Wesley Parker when they were finished with him. Will and I eyed each other warily through discussions of pistols, swords, and even an umbrella.
“From a legal perspective, I really should not be here for this,” he muttered under his breath toward me. “Kit is going to have a devil of a time keeping us all from the hangman.”
I wasn’t overly thrilled with the idea of leaving our fate to Will’s overworked partner—a solicitor who did not even specialize in criminal matters.
But… I was also fond of all my parts. “You’re welcome to interject,” I whispered back.
He sighed. “This would be much easier if I drank as a rule.” Turning toward our wives, he spoke up. “Ladies, would you be amenable to a plan that doesn’t involve execution as a likely consequence?”
Their synchronized nods were slower and less enthusiastic than I would have liked.
“Right. If I might propose an alternative to flaying the man.”
Again, a reluctant, almost petulant, nod from each of the ladies.
“Now my plan does, in fact, hinge on Lady Champaign maintaining her calm and not murdering the man in cold blood. Is that feasible?”
“What about me?” Celine interrupted.
“You, I know, will murder the man in cold blood. You’d only need a piece of string and some shoe polish.”
“Will…”
“Fine. Go grab your maid’s outfit. I’m certain you’ve still got that thrown somewhere in your drawers.”
I could feel the puzzled expression twisting along my face, pulling against the scars. Nonetheless, Celine seemed to understand the meaning of his bizarre request and shot up the stairs.
“The dagger, too, love,” he called after her.
“You say that as though I don’t already have it on my person,” she yelled back. And wasn’t that terrifying.
Will only raised a brow and turned back to use. “Well then… How comfortable are you with acting, Lady Champaign?”
“Charlotte, please. We’re plotting a murder. It seems only fitting.”
“Charlotte,” Will replied
“I’m adequate,” she answered in a strained tone. I tried to remember back to when she was trying to seduce me.
“She’s better than adequate,” I protested.
“Good. Here’s what we’ll do…”