CHAPTER 10 #2
“I’ve no idea why you think that,” he replied curtly. “We are merely acquaintances. As for Lady Cordelia, I barely know her.”
“Your sister . . . I-I must have misunderstood.” Lady Arabella frowned but quickly recovered and attempted to smooth over the awkward moment.
“I do hope you’ll be accompanying your sister to more of these soirees, so we may all get to know each other better.
” She fluttered her lashes—David Mather was a very handsome man.
“And do bring your raffish friend—the tall, dark-haired gentleman with the interesting scar on his cheek.” A soft laugh.
“Mama and I were in our carriage, returning home from a supper party the other evening, and I couldn’t help but notice the two of you conversing near the corner of Hyde Park. ”
“You’re mistaken.” Mather’s voice was as sharp as his cheekbones. “You’ve confused me with someone else.”
Lady Arabella colored, but this time, she didn’t back down. “I study botany, sir, and I have a very good eye for detail. The moonlight was quite bright—”
“Perhaps you also have a very vivid imagination,” he suggested. “You ladies seem enamored of Mrs. Radcliffe’s horrid novels.”
“I don’t read novels,” replied Lady Arabella.
“Then perhaps you had imbibed too much champagne.” On that nasty note, Mather turned to his sister. “I really must be going, Susanna. As I told you, I have an engagement for later, and it wouldn’t do to be late.”
Miss Mather appeared mortified as he muttered a barely civil good-bye to the group and stalked off. “Please forgive David’s rudeness,” she apologized. “He’s been quite overset by the recent death of our cousin.”
“My condolences,” said Miss Greeley. “I wasn’t aware of your loss.”
“O-our families aren’t close,” stammered Miss Mather. “But David had formed a friendship with our cousin, and he’s taken it hard.”
Charlotte understood her reluctance to elaborate. Murder was something that touched the lower classes. It wasn’t a subject to sully the sensibilities of the beau monde.
“I’m so sorry. Was it sudden?” inquired Miss Greenfield politely.
“Quite,” answered Miss Mather, averting her gaze.
Silk rustled, the group’s comfortable camaraderie broken by the ugly incident. Someone coughed.
Darting a look at the far end of the room, Miss Mather gathered her skirts. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go pay my respects to the dowager Duchess of Wooster.”
Her departure couldn’t quite dispel the lingering pall of embarrassment, and after a few stilted pleasantries, the group drifted apart.
“One can’t help but wonder what provoked such an ungentlemanly outburst,” murmured Alison once they were alone. “Aside from grief.”
Charlotte merely nodded. Fear. She hadn’t missed the flash of fear in David Mather’s eyes at the mention of the dark-haired gentleman.
The question was why.
“Now that I’ve played my part as a polished and proper lady of the ton, might we take our leave?” she asked.
There was yet another role to play before the night was over.
* * *
“I fear that I possess precious little patience.” Sheffield paused as a guilty grimace tugged at his mouth. “And even less common sense.”
Wrexford had closed his eyes, allowing the warmth of the whisky to mellow his mood. With great reluctance, he raised a lid. “We’re all idiots, Kit.” Especially when it comes to love.
His friend forced a wan smile. “Yes, but some of us are more so than others.” He rose—a trifle unsteadily—and went to stand by the hearth. After staring for a long moment at the unlit coals, Sheffield turned and braced one arm on the mantel.
“I owe you an apology, Wrex. I let a recent promise take precedent over a longtime friendship. It was wrong—”
“Kit—” began the earl.
“No. Let me finish.”
Wrexford’s grudging sigh signaled him to go on.
“You trusted me, and I let you down,” said Sheffield. “You deserved my loyalty, and my honesty.” He shifted his stance. “I won’t make the mistake of prevaricating again.”
The mention of prevaricating caused Wrexford to feel a spasm of guilt. Keeping secrets, however well intentioned, was fraught with peril. Omissions tangled with misunderstandings, and suddenly trust, an oh-so-fragile bond to begin with, snapped.
“I owe you the truth, and if Lady Cordelia doesn’t agree, then, well . . .” Sheffield squared his shoulders. “So be it.”
“Since we are baring our souls,” interjected the earl. “I haven’t been entirely forthcoming with you, either.” Charlotte would likely tease him for allowing emotion to overrule reason. But in this case, he would gladly be hoisted with his own petard.
“So,” he added, “you may save your breath when it comes to explaining the business arrangements you’ve made with Lady Cordelia.
I know about the account at Hoare’s bank.
Griffin learned about it during the course of investigating the murder at Queen’s Landing and came to ask me some questions about it. ”
Sheffield appeared stunned. “But I . . . I can’t imagine how the two things have anything—anything!—to do with each other.”
In for a farthing, in for a guinea.
“Allow me to explain . . .” Wrexford gave a terse account of the murder victim’s relationship to Woodbridge’s banker, David Mather.
Sheffield turned pale as bleached muslin.
“That’s not all.” The earl forged on, determined to make a clean breast of it before he could change his mind. His friend deserved no less, no matter the consequences. “Lady Charlotte witnessed an incident at the ball . . .”
Sheffield listened in stark silence to the account of Cordelia’s unsettling meeting with her brother.
“We made the decision not to mention this to you until there was solid evidence that the murder is connected in any way to Woodbridge,” finished Wrexford. “We knew you were distraught about other things, and wished to protect you from further worry.”
A few fat drops of rain spattered against the window glass. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.
The earl then went on. “But good intentions often pave the path to perdition. So I’ve concluded that painful though the truth may be, it’s better than the alternatives.”
His friend didn’t react. He stared off into the shadows, seemingly lost in a fugue of his thoughts.
Dark ones, by the look of it. Perhaps he had made a mistake in being so brutally honest. Of late, his judgment had felt shaky.
“Kit?”
Roused from his reveries, Sheffield slowly turned and ran his fingers through his hair. “Ye gods. This changes everything.”
“There’s no need to sound so blue deviled. What we have are merely random bits of information. And as of yet, we’ve no reason to think that they all fit together.”
Sheffield pulled a fistful of folded papers from his pocket. “That’s because I haven’t yet shown you the letters I found in Woodbridge’s study.”
* * *
Repressing a shiver, Charlotte turned up her coat collar. The wind had shifted, driving fitful gusts of damp air up from the tidal pools. The grit-flecked chill prickled like knifepoints against her skin as the stench swirled up to clog her nostrils.
She shifted her stance, sliding her sodden boots deeper into the recessed niche between two buildings.
Like the others pressed cheek by jowl within the rookeries, they were a sorry jumble of drunken angles and crumbling walls.
Time seemed to be mired in the same viscous mud that was seeping through her soles.
Or perhaps it was merely the urgency of her own worries that had the minutes passing at a snail’s pace.
Charlotte blew on her hands for warmth, watching her breath turn to silvery skeins of vapor, which quickly dissolved into the gloom.
Annie Wright would be coming. But whether she could shed any light on—
A scuffling of steps snapped her attention to full alert. She waited a moment, allowing whoever had entered the narrow cul-de-sac to pass her hiding place before venturing a peek.
Swish-swish. The lone figure was already gripped in the thick-fingered darkness of the narrow alley. It was the soft rustle of skirts that told Charlotte it was a woman.
After slipping out from her niche, Charlotte darted forward, quickly narrowing the distance between her and her quarry.
With home just steps away, Annie Wright appeared to have relaxed her guard.
Head bent, the barmaid trudged around the corner leading to her own ramshackle building with nary a glance around to check her surroundings.
Charlotte came up behind her, close enough to reach out and grasp the fringe of the shawl wrapped around the barmaid’s head and shoulders.
“Miss Wright.”
Annie spun around and brandished a fist. A dribble of moonlight through the rotting shingles overhead showed she was holding a knife. “Get away from me,” she warned. “Take a step closer and I’ll gut ye.”
Charlotte raised her hands to show she had no weapon. “I just want a word with you.”
“Be off.” The knife cut a menacing dance through the shadows. “I don’t talk te strangers.”
“It’s important,” pressed Charlotte. “A friend of yours is dead, and—”
Steel flashed as Annie lashed out a wild stab. Charlotte dodged the attack with a lightning-quick spin and thrust out an elbow, knocking Annie off-balance.
“Sorry,” she muttered, seizing the barmaid’s wrist and twisting it behind her back.
A yelp slipped through Annie’s gritted teeth as her fingers spasmed, allowing Charlotte to wrest the weapon from her grip.
“Go ahead and kill me, ye bloody bastard.” The barmaid ceased struggling, but defiance crackled in her voice. “I ain’t saying nothing.”
A brave woman. Na?ve, but brave. If a hired cutthroat wished to extract information, she would soon be singing like a canary.
Releasing a small sigh, Charlotte stepped back and slid the knife into her pocket. “I’ve no intention of harming you.” Dropping her deep-throated voice, she added, “As I said, a friend of yours is dead, and I’m trying to help ensure his murder doesn’t go unpunished.”