CHAPTER 10
The soot-dark night air felt refreshing after the fetid heat of unwashed bodies and rancid oil lanterns.
She turned down an alleyway that branched out into a maze of footpaths after squeezing between two ancient wooden buildings.
A scudding of starlight fluttered over the rutted ground for just a moment before the clouds overwhelmed the feeble glow.
It didn’t matter. Charlotte knew the route by heart.
Mud squelched underfoot, and for a moment she was transported back to the days when her nocturnal prowlings for information to use in her satirical drawings were the key to her survival.
From up ahead came the scrabbling of a feral cat and the faint squeak of its victim.
“Eat or be eaten,” she murmured. Though these days, that stark choice no longer had real teeth.
Life certainly did take unexpected twists and turns.
As her words were swallowed by the gloom, old instincts kicked in, and she was suddenly aware that she wasn’t alone. The sounds behind her didn’t quite match the echo of her own footsteps.
She took an instant to gauge her options. Cutting back was out of the question, and bolting ahead was too risky—she couldn’t be sure of outrunning her pursuer. And with the buildings jammed together cheek by jowl, there were no openings allowing escape to another alleyway.
However . . .
Charlotte slowly lengthened her stride. She recalled that just after the next turn was a brick warehouse where the half-collapsed overhang of the neighboring building provided a way to scramble up to a narrow ledge and reach the roof.
From there, one could drop down to the other side and disappear into another web of alleys.
Assuming, of course, that the overhang was still there.
Her pursuer was keeping pace but didn’t sound any closer. Biding his time, no doubt . . . but with luck, she could gain an extra few yards head start by seizing the element of surprise.
Just as she rounded the bend, Charlotte broke into a run. The splintered section of overhanging roof was there, and taking care to time her leap, she managed to snag hold of it.
Splinters gouged her palms as she tried to pull herself up onto the broken shingles.
Damnation—my sedentary life has left me weak as a kitten.
A shout rumbled against the surrounding brick and wood as her pursuer caught sight of her ploy.
Damn! The thud of steps warned that he was closing in. Swinging her legs side to side for momentum, Charlotte tried again to heave herself up. Pain lanced through her palms, but her grip held, and her hips came up over the edge, allowing her to claw her way higher.
A hand caught her boot, but she shook it off.
Her pursuer cursed and grabbed again, his fingers once again seizing her heel.
Swallowing a spurt of fear, Charlotte tried to lash out again, but his grip was like a vise, pulling her down. She felt herself slipping . . .
A sudden crack sounded as something hard—a rock?—ricocheted off the back of her assailant’s head, knocking him off-balance and sending him tumbling to the ground.
Dear God, surely the Weasels hadn’t—
But there was no time for such distractions. She needed to stay focused on the moment at hand.
With a grunt of effort, Charlotte scrambled free of danger and up to the peak of the overhang, then crawled over to the brick ledge.
From there, the gaps in the crumbling mortar allowed her to climb the short distance to the roof.
Without a backward look, she raced across to the other side, dropped down to a low-slung shed, then to the ground, and took off running.
A stitch in her side finally made her slow to a walk as she reached the streets of Mayfair. Keeping to the shadowed passageways, she made her way to the back garden gate of their Berkeley Square mansion and let herself in.
* * *
The earl looked up from his reading as Charlotte tiptoed into his workroom.
“Drat,” she said. “I was hoping that you would be asleep.”
He eyed her torn jacket and filthy breeches. “I can see why.” He cocked an ear but heard no sound in the corridor. “Where’s Tyler? I was told the two of you went out together to attend a meeting in Seven Dials.”
“He was invited to stay and have a round of drinks with the radicals,” she answered. “We had agreed beforehand that I would head straight home if that happened.”
Wrexford held back a sarcastic retort. Her face looked unnaturally pale, and as she shifted her stance . . .
“Is that blood on your hands?” he asked calmly.
“Yes.” She drew in a shaky breath. “But might I explain everything after I go to the kitchen and wash the filth from the scrapes?”
“Sit,” he commanded. “I’ll be back shortly.” A hesitation. “Though I might suggest that you remove your stinking jacket and hat while I’m gone.”
He returned with a basin of steaming water, several soft cloths, and a jar of medicinal salve.
After putting them on a small side table and moving it close to her chair, Wrexford went to the sideboard and took a bottle of amber-dark spirits from one of its lower cabinets.
“As you know, Baz is a great believer in splashing a bit of whisky on a wound.”
“Heaven forfend that you squander your special Highland malt on a few trifling scratches,” replied Charlotte. It was said lightly, but he heard an undertone in her voice that made him uneasy.
For the moment, however, he took care to respond with an equal measure of humor. “Don’t worry. Tyler keeps a bottle of cheap swill tucked away for his own medicinal purposes. I daresay his scrapes are far worse than yours.”
She forced a brittle laugh.
Which made him even more concerned.
After uncorking the bottle, Wrexford crouched beside Charlotte and took one of her hands in his. She winced as he splashed a bit of the spirits on her palm and gently massaged it into the torn flesh.
“I know it burns,” he murmured, “but in this case, Baz asserts that pain is good.”
“Easy for him to say,” she replied.
He put aside the whisky and picked out several splinters before rubbing some of the herb-scented salve over the cuts. “Do you want to tell me what’s upset you? Or would you rather that I guess?” A pause. “My imagination will likely conjure up something far worse than what actually happened.”
That made her smile, though her gaze remained troubled. “You keep insisting that you’re ruled by facts and logic—empirical observation, not imagination.”
“For the most part I am,” he declared. “But not when it comes to my wife.”
A sigh signaled her tacit surrender. “My pride is more bruised than my body.” She made a face. “I’m upset at myself for failing to stay alert. My skills are getting rusty.”
Ah. In her youth, Charlotte had eloped to Italy with her drawing teacher in order to avoid being imprisoned in the gilded cage of aristocratic life, which offered her sumptuous pleasures and gorgeous plumage . . . but no freedom.
“Go on,” he encouraged, though he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.
“After the meeting, I did exactly as planned and set out to make a discreet return home through the spiderweb of footpaths that crisscross through the stews,” she explained.
“I know the way by heart, but that made me careless. I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. By the time I noticed that someone was following me, I had turned onto a narrow footpath, and it had me trapped on either side by buildings that offered no gaps between them through which to escape.”
His chest clenched as Wrexford fixed her with a searching stare, trying to spot some unseen injury that he had somehow missed.
Nothing. And yet, that didn’t assuage his fears. “What—”
“I had to go up,” she said, anticipating his question.
“I knew where there was a broken overhang that I could jump and reach, allowing me to scramble over to a slanted roof from which I could climb to the top of the adjoining brick storage building. From there, I was able to descend to a cart path and lose myself in the maze of alleyways near the Foundling Hospital.”
“Your pursuer didn’t try to follow?”
“He caught my boot, but by some miracle—don’t ask me how it happened—a rock sailed out of nowhere, knocking him to the ground.”
“The Weasels were tucked up in their beds when I arrived home just an hour ago,” he mused. “I don’t see how it could have been them.”
“Thank heaven,” she muttered. “Be that as it may, whoever decided to play guardian angel saved me. By the time my assailant recovered, I was halfway up the brick wall, using the gaps in the mortar as handholds to reach the roof.” A pause. “With his size and weight, he never would have made it.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“No,” admitted Charlotte. “I should never have been in such a precarious position in the first place.” Her shoulders sagged to a very un-Charlotte-like slump.
“My arms have no more heft than those of a rag doll. I could barely pull myself up over the edge of the overhang, a feat I’ve accomplished countless times in the past.”
“You’re out of practice,” he observed.
“Precisely!”
He might have smiled, but the look of distress in her eyes warned that it was no laughing matter.
“Wrex, my ability to transform into Magpie is important to me. It’s integral to my ability to unearth the secrets and hidden clues that allow me to keep the public informed on the issues that matter to their lives.
” She looked away for a moment, throwing her face in shadow.
“No one else cares about the great unwashed masses and whether they have the right to a modicum of fairness.”
“Magpie may fly less frequently, but that doesn’t mean—”
“I’ve grown too weak.” Though a mere whisper, Charlotte’s voice resonated with an aching vulnerability.
Wrexford rose in a flash and gathered her in his arms. “My love, you are the strongest person I know.”
“My body nearly failed me. If it again in falters in a mission, I may put you or the boys in danger.”