CHAPTER 1 #3
“As I said, the world is changing.” Sheffield drank the rest of his whisky in one swallow. “And by God, we had better change with it.”
The earl rose and moved to the sideboard. “Let me pour you another drink.”
Sheffield waved him off. “Steam engines may be forged out of iron, but I am made of flesh and bone.” A grunt. “Every particle of which is aching like the devil right now. So I think I shall bid you goodnight and toddle off to my bed.”
“Let us summon the carriage for you, Kit,” said Charlotte.
“No, no.” He waved off the offer. “It’s only a short walk to my lodgings, and I need some fresh air to clear my lungs.”
Wrexford walked with him to the front door and then, lost in thought, slowly made his way back to Charlotte.
“Why the black face?” he asked as she looked up from straightening the books on his desk. “Aside from the smudges of soot on your chin.”
She forced a smile, but her gaze remained troubled. “I’m not quite sure.” A hesitation. “It’s just that . . . I had a bad feeling about the fire from the moment I set foot in Cockpit Yard.”
“Are you speaking from facts?” he asked. “Or intuition?”
The two of them had often argued over whether reason should overrule emotion. They still disagreed—often sharply—but Wrexford had come to respect her belief that logic didn’t always have an answer for the complexities of human nature.
“Let’s just say that I sensed an unseen specter of Trouble lurking in the shadows. And I fear that we haven’t seen the last of it.”
* * *
Taking the steps of the back stairwell two at a time, Raven—the older of the two former street urchins who were now officially the wards of Charlotte and Wrexford—reached the top landing and headed for the schoolroom, where his brother Hawk and their friend Peregrine were waiting.
“I think m’lady and Wrex are hiding something from us,” he announced, after quietly shutting the door.
The large iron-grey hound who lay sprawled on the rug beside the two boys pricked up his ears and let out a low woof.
“What?” asked Hawk, Raven’s younger brother.
“Dunno,” muttered Raven as he placed a book on one of the desks and joined them on the floor. “M’lady told me the fire was nothing to fret about when she returned home . . .”
It was Raven who had learned about the blaze while visiting with one of his urchin friends who swept a street corner near Cockpit Yard. He had quickly brought the news back to Berkeley Square, but Charlotte had forbidden him to come along with her when she went to see it for herself.
“But from what I heard just now, I have a feeling that something havey-cavey might be afoot.” Raven scowled. “She’s trying to protect us from the sordid things in life,” he went on. “As if we haven’t seen the worst of human nature.”
He and his younger brother had once been homeless orphans, fending for themselves in the squalid stews of London. But after a chance encounter with Charlotte, she had taken them under her wing.
“Oiy,” agreed Hawk. “She and Wrex ought to know that we’ve no intention of turning into proper little aristocrats.
” As for their first meeting with Wrexford, it hadn’t gone well—he had dubbed them the Weasels because Raven had stabbed him in the leg and Hawk had thrown a broken bottle at his head.
He had long since forgiven them because they had thought he was threatening Charlotte.
But to everyone’s amusement, the moniker had stuck.
It was now a source of mirth and, for the Weasels, a badge of honor.
“By the by, how do you know there’s trouble lurking?” inquired Hawk. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“No . . . not precisely,” answered Raven. “As I was looking for a certain book on mathematics in Wrex’s library, I couldn’t help but overhear Mr. Sheffield mention something suspicious about the fire.”
“Why does this particular fire concern m’lady and Lord Wrexford?
” asked their friend Peregrine—or rather, Lord Lampson.
Raven and Hawk had taken the orphaned heir under their wing when Wrexford and Charlotte had been drawn into a harrowing murder investigation involving Peregrine’s uncle and a devastating family betrayal.
Their bond forged—quite literally—by fire, the three boys had become the best of friends, and with things fraught among his own relatives, Peregrine had become an honorary member of their family, a situation that suited everyone.
He was spending the month of August with them before it was time for him to return to his schooling at Eton.
“Because,” answered Raven, “the building that burned down was Henry Maudslay’s laboratory.”
“Maudslay?” Peregrine’s eyes widened. “The brilliant inventor and engineer?”
“Oiy. Mr. Sheffield found it odd that some technical drawings seemed to have disappeared from a part of the building that was untouched by the fire. And we all know . . .” Raven made a sympathetic sound before continuing.
“We all know that inventors can be a tempting target because of jealousy or greed.”
Peregrine’s late uncle, who had specialized in designing advanced mechanical devices, had been murdered by someone who wished to steal his revolutionary innovation and sell it for a fortune.
Hawk gave a solemn nod and glanced at Peregrine before responding.
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“I think,” answered Raven, “that tomorrow night we should do a little sleuthing on our own around Cockpit Yard and see whether we can discover any helpful information.”