CHAPTER 9
The change was subtle, but the air in the parlor suddenly felt charged with the same sort of thrumming current that presaged a summer thunderstorm. Charlotte didn’t need to look up from her notebook when in the next instant a long shadow fell across the sofa.
She knew who it was.
The earl seemed to suck all the oxygen from the room as he crossed the carpet, compressing the space around her and making it hard to breathe.
“Did you learn anything at the brothel?” she asked, after finishing what she was writing and setting down her pencil.
“Yes.” He moved to one of the armchairs, but didn’t sit. The planes of his face, always sharp to begin with, seemed chiseled to a harsher edge. Fatigue dulled the green of his eyes to a slate-dark hue. “However, you’re not going to like it.”
As if anything about this dreadful nightmare doesn’t send a shiver of dread down my spine.
“Be that as it may, I need to hear it.”
Wrexford hesitated for an instant. “How well did you know Chittenden?” he countered.
Fear squeezed at her lungs. What horror had he uncovered? The earl was not in the habit of pulling his punches.
“I should think it’s obvious I knew him very well,” she replied.
“But not, perhaps, as well as you might think.” He ran a hand through his wind-snarled hair. It needed trimming, she noted.
“Let’s stop playing cat and mouse, sir. Our previous investigations were hardly all sweetness and light. Haven’t I proved myself capable of hearing grim news?”
“Actually, no,” replied the earl softly. “You fell into a dead faint at learning of Chittenden’s death. That begs the question of . . .”
Charlotte shifted uncomfortably under his hooded stare. “Sit down, Wrexford. I’m getting a crick in my neck staring up at you.”
He didn’t smile.
A stab of guilt cut through her conscience. She didn’t blame him. Were she in his boots, she would take the lack of trust as a slap in the face.
“Sit down, Wrexford,” she repeated.
The words were barely more than a breath of air, but the earl must have sensed the change in her tone, for he did so.
Swoosh, swoosh. With a well-tailored whisper of wool, his broad shoulders settled against the upholstered back of the armchair. Muscles rippled beneath the soft charcoal-colored superfine, reminding her of a stalking panther. A coiled tension radiated from every pore.
“You deserve an explanation,” said Charlotte softly. “I know that.”
His expression was inscrutable. They both were good at keeping parts of themselves well hidden.
“That you’ve respected my privacy on this matter is . . .” Charlotte was unsure of how to go on.
A moment ticked by, and then a tiny twitch pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Actually, I haven’t. I asked Tyler to dig around for Locke’s connection to you. It didn’t take him long to unearth the answer.”
She waited.
He shrugged. “I took his copious notes—you know what a stickler Tyler is for research—and . . .” Again he hesitated.
“The devil take it,” she muttered, after he let the silence stretch out for an interminable moment. “You’re worse than Sheffield at drawing out a dramatic moment.”
“God forbid.” His rumbled laugh seemed to dispel the tension in the air. “I took Tyler’s notes and consigned them to the fire. Without reading them, I might add.”
Conundrums within conundrums. “Why?”
“Because it was an act unworthy of our friendship.”
Charlotte made a wry face. “Thank you—for making me feel smaller than a gnat on a flea’s arse.”
His eyes lit with a fleeting smile.
“Oh, Wrexford . . .” She looked away. “I’m so sorry. Cedric’s death was a terrible shock. And that Nicky may have . . .” A pause. “It’s confusing. I’ve been struggling to sort it all out.”
He rose and came closer. She closed her eyes as his palm pressed lightly against her cheek. “Then let me help.”
His touch seemed to still all the churning in her gut. “Thank you.”
The earl let his hand linger a moment longer, then returned to his chair.
“Cedric and Nicky are my cousins, and were my closest childhood companions. Of all my family, they seemed to understand me and how confined I felt by the gilded cage of my existence. They encouraged me to read, to explore ideas thought unfit for a girl.” Charlotte paused to steady her voice.
“When I confided my plans to elope, they gave me their pocket money and said to spread my wings and fly.”
“I see,” murmured Wrexford.
“They wished to keep in touch, but I soon stopped writing to them. I didn’t . . . I didn’t wish for them to worry about me.”
“I understand.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed away their friendship. But . . .”
“The past is the past,” he said brusquely.
She huffed a low laugh in spite of herself. “How unlike you to utter mundane platitudes.”
“Well, as you know, I have a great many faults.”
And a great many strengths.
“As do I. However, I suggest we put them all aside for now.” She shifted in her chair. “Please tell me what you’ve learned about Cedric.”
Wrexford hesitated. “Where are the Weasels?” he asked abruptly. “Their ears are better than those of a bloody bat, and while the details would likely not come as a shock to them, I know your sentiments about discussing man’s baser depravities in front of children.”
“They are at their lessons with Mr. Linsley,” replied Charlotte. “By the by, both of them are thriving under his tutelage. I’m grateful to you for suggesting him.”
He shrugged off the thanks. “Perhaps a rigorous regime of studies will help keep the little beasts out of trouble.”
She held back a smile. Despite his sarcastic needling, she knew he was very fond of the boys. “We have the house to ourselves as McClellan is out doing some errands. So, please, no more prevaricating.”
“Very well. According to Locke’s doxy, your late cousin was also sharing her favors,” began Wrexford.
An oath slipped from her lips.
“However, it seems neither of them knew it, so Chittenden can’t be accused of sordid depravity.” A pause. “However, my interview with the young woman revealed a different cause for concern.”
Charlotte listened with a sinking heart as the earl described the doxy’s mention of the strange marks on Chittenden’s body and the visit he and Henning had made to the morgue.
By the time he finished explaining about Westmorly and Nicholas’s misleading statement about the gambling debts, she could no longer deny what was staring her in the face.
“Much as I hate to admit it, brotherly jealousy may very well be the motive for murder,” she murmured.
“Given Nicky’s rant about Cedric getting everything by virtue of his being the older by several minutes, it might have triggered a fit of uncontrollable rage.
” Her hands knotted together in her lap.
“The mutilation certainly fits in with such a scenario.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’ve asked Sheffield to look further into Chittenden’s friction with Sir Kelvin Hollister, in case there is more to it than a romantic rivalry,” Wrexford counseled. “But, yes, there are a great many more questions that Locke needs to answer.”
His gaze turned searching. She could feel it poking and prodding into every tiny chink in her armor.
“I was able to arrange with the warden for a visit with him later this afternoon. But there’s no reason you need to come along. I’m perfectly capable of questioning him on my own,” continued Wrexford.
It was tempting. But giving in to self-serving weakness was merely another name for hypocrisy. Let that happen and she might as well toss her pen into the River Thames. She would be no better than any other of the silk-swathed scoundrels and liars in Town.
“Since when,” asked Charlotte, “have you known me to take the coward’s way out?”
“There is a first time for everything.” He was gentlemanly enough not to mention her swoon again.
“Hypothetically speaking, yes. But I’m not about to dance stark naked down Piccadilly Street or crown myself Queen of England, either, so we can set aside absurdities that aren’t going to happen.”
“There’s nothing absurd about feeling emotionally involved with a loved one,” he said quietly.
Charlotte sighed. It was true. Love addled the wits. It made one behave irrationally. “Be that as it may, if we try very hard, I think it’s possible to make ourselves overcome emotions.”
The earl’s eyes hadn’t left her face. “But at what cost?”
Damn him for asking a question I don’t dare contemplate.
Unclenching her hands, she looked down and started smoothing a crease from her skirts. As she did so, her fingers brushed up against paper. Hawk’s drawing, along with the packet containing the snuff, had slipped from the cushions to become tangled in the folds of sprigged muslin.
Lud, the earl’s revelations had chased all thoughts of her own discoveries from her mind.
“What have you there?” asked Wrexford as she carefully cupped the two items in her upturned palms.
“You were not the only one out looking for clues yesterday.” Charlotte quickly told him about her foray to Kensington Gardens, and the inquiries made by the boys.
With his usual scientific detachment, the earl studied the crinkles and smudges for a long moment before taking up the sketch and subjecting it to a more thorough scrutiny.
“Wellington,” he murmured.
Her eyes widened. “The duke?”
“No, the hat.” He refolded the sketch. “It’s called a Wellington.”
“I don’t suppose that helps.”
“Not particularly. Any number of hatters make the style.”
Charlotte now felt even more foolish offering the grains of snuff. “You needn’t bother looking at this.” She closed her hand around the clue. “It won’t be of any use.”
“The scientific method is to not make assumptions, even if common sense seems to indicate that you are right.” The earl held out his hand. “The workings of the world don’t always conform to expectations.”
She reluctantly gave him the pouched paper.
After a cursory peek at the snuff, he leaned closer.
Sniff, sniff.
Hope—irrational, though it was—flared to life. “The scent seems distinctive.”