CHAPTER 9 #2
“Aye, we best be going,” said Raven, rising quickly. “Come on.”
Charlotte waited until they were out of the house before speaking again. When she did it was simply to issue a curt challenge. “Well?”
“I think you know why I’m here.”
She turned and busied herself with adding a few chunks of coal to the stove.
“You are angry.” A statement, not a question.
“I am curious.”
More thumps, and the metallic rasp of raking the embers to life. The door clanked shut.
Charlotte swung around and placed a fist on her hip. “I daresay you can be both.”
Wrexford acknowledged the statement with a gruff laugh.
She, of all people, understood the complexities and contradictions of human emotion.
“I daresay you are right. But anger seems a waste of time. While curiosity may yield some useful information. I had not realized that your tentacles reached into the inner sanctums of the aristocracy.”
“I warned you, no secrets are safe in London.”
“So you did.” He paused. “I simply assumed—”
“Assumed what, sir?” she cut in. “That you had purchased my silence?”
Strangely enough, the thought had never occurred to him. “Could I have done so?” he asked, half amused at his own lack of guile.
“Don’t toy with me, sir. This is no jesting matter.”
“I am well aware of that, Mrs. Sloane.” He had stood up when she entered the room. As she moved back toward the table, his shadow fell across her face, hiding her expression. “There has been another murder this morning.”
Charlotte sat down heavily, her face leaching of all color. “Who?”
“A man named Drummond. An acquaintance of Lord Canaday,” answered Wrexford. “And of mine, in case that was your next question.”
She sat still as a stone. He wasn’t sure she had heard him.
“Mrs. Sloane?”
“I mentioned him in my print. And now he is dead.”
“Given the timing, I think the killer had already decided to eliminate the fellow.” Wrexford was not at all sure of that. But beneath the cloak of cynicism, he sensed Charlotte still had a tender conscience. He didn’t wish for her to be plagued by guilt.
A current of air stirred the draperies over the kitchen window. The faded chintz whispered against the wooden moldings.
Releasing a pent-up breath, she said, “Sit down. We need to talk. I haven’t been completely forthcoming with you, Lord Wrexford.”
* * *
“You have my full attention.”
The earl sounded utterly calm. Bored, even. While Charlotte felt every tiny nerve in her body twitching with dread.
“Do go on.” The lordly drawl might well have been ordering a servant to pour tea.
Somehow that helped dispel her fear. “Shall I put on a kettle to boil?” she shot back. “And serve a plate of ginger biscuits?”
“I prefer almond.” The earl sat with a careless grace.
Despite the stool—it was, she knew, hideously uncomfortable—he looked completely at ease.
“Dare I hope that is what’s in the box? I recognize the markings as those of Gunter’s Tea Shop in Berkeley Square.
Their pastries are the best in all of London. ”
“Impossible man,” said Charlotte through gritted teeth, and yet she couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from tweaking up. “Do you take nothing seriously?”
Wrexford flicked a mote of dust from his cuff. “The world begs to be seen as absurd. And don’t try to deny it—that simple truth is your bread and butter.”
“There is nothing simple about the truth,” she replied. “As Lord Byron said, it is but a lie in masquerade.”
“Actually, he said it the other way around.” He smiled. “But I like your version better. The punch is aimed more squarely at one’s vitals.”
Once again, Charlotte was reminded of how dangerous he was. In ways she couldn’t begin to define.
“You have something to tell me, Mrs. Sloane,” Wrexford murmured after several moments of uneasy silence had rippled between them. “Shall we call a truce and refrain from further verbal sparring? I am not the enemy.”
Would that she could believe that. But trust was also a weapon, all the more lethal for how swiftly and silently it struck.
“A truce,” agreed Charlotte, wishing she didn’t find his face so interesting. There was arrogance plainly writ in every pore, and yet indefinable nuances that hinted at hidden facets. “We are both pragmatic, sir, and it seems we are in a position to help each other.”
He waited.
She wouldn’t have guessed patience was one of the earl’s virtues, given that he was known for possessing a hair-trigger temper. But once again he was surprising her.
“It’s difficult to know where to begin,” she went on.
“Perhaps it’s best to start with the murder of Holworthy.
As I told you at our first meeting, I saw the body right after the crime was committed.
I depicted the wounds and the burns to his skin with great accuracy in my drawing.
” A pause. “What I didn’t include were two other details. ”
Wrexford recrossed his legs.
“The first was a faint footprint I had spotted in the transept. It was fresh, and I suspect it was made by the killer.”
“What makes you say that?” he interrupted.
“Two reasons. The church is very old and riddled with drafts. An imprint in dust would not lie undisturbed for very long,” replied Charlotte. “And there was a side door there that was slightly ajar.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“Did not the Runner mention that as evidence?” She had been stewing over the question.
“No. According to him there was no evidence left at the scene to point to a culprit.”
“I may be the unwitting cause of that,” she admitted. “In our haste to leave before the authorities arrived, Raven and I must have scuffed it out.”
“Or Griffin is not as observant as you are.”
“His reputation is one of a man who is good at what he does.” Having committed to a certain degree of honesty, Charlotte made herself go on. “So I owe you an apology, sir. Had he seen it, he would have had good reason to dismiss you as a suspect.”
Again, he waited calmly, betraying no signs of impatience.
“The size of the print,” she explained. “It was made by a small foot—smaller than yours.”
“Could it have been made by a woman?”
She shut her eyes for a moment, recalling the memory. “My impression is no. The tread of the heel and the width of the foot all indicated it was a man’s boot.”
“Interesting.” Wrexford tapped his fingertips together. “Though at the moment we have no way of knowing if it will prove useful. I daresay there are a great many small-footed men in London.”
“Yes. But there was a distinctive mark on the heel—a star with the letter B centered in it was imprinted in the leather.”
He thought about the information for a moment.
“That sounds like the bootmaker’s mark of Burdock.
He’s one of the second-tier craftsmen. Good, but catering to a clientele who can’t quite afford Hoby.
” Pursing his lips, he added, “It’s interesting, but I’m not sure it’s of any real use.
That the killer is a member of the beau monde is not really a surprise.
The fact that he’s small-footed doesn’t help narrow the possible suspects—after all, small is a relative term. ”
Charlotte flushed, realizing how silly the detail must have sounded. “That’s not all. Far more important than the footprint, I found a scrap of paper stuck in Holworthy’s shirt cuff. I didn’t intend to take it—but we had to flee when the authorities arrived and somehow I did.”
At that, the earl straightened, his gaze sharpening in interest. “What was written on it?”
“A symbol, and below it, a string of numbers.” Alea iacta est, she thought to herself—the die is cast. Now was the moment when she must decide whether to throw caution to the wind. There would be no going back.
Without hesitation, Wrexford went right to the heart of the question. “Do you know what they mean?”
“I had no idea at the time,” answered Charlotte. “But in my work, I’ve learned to seize small things that may matter.” She met his gaze with a spark of defiance. “You may think it wrong, but survival tends to blur the fine lines of morality. For that I make no apology.”
She paused for breath. “But I am sorry that my impulse may have resulted in the Runner seizing on you as a suspect, rather than someone else. However, after I thought more clearly about the implications of taking evidence from a murder scene, I saw no way to turn it over to Bow Street without it being dismissed as a hoax, or risking being implicated in the crime.”
“As you have taken pains to point out, I have no right to be holier than thou.”
Their eyes remained locked. A test of wills? Charlotte had stood firm in the face of far more threatening men. She didn’t flinch.
Wrexford seemed amused by the moment. He deliberately shifted, and took a peek in the pastry box. “Gunter’s makes an excellent apple tart. Alas, I assume you are saving these for the imps.” He cocked his head. “Or is the one with the missing bite fair game?”
Charlotte rose and wordlessly fetched a plate.
“Bring a knife as well,” he murmured. “It seems only fair that we split it.”
In her experience, gentlemen rarely did what was fair regarding their dealings with women, she reflected. But the earl scrupulously divided the pastry into two equal portions.
“Forgive me if I eat like a savage,” he said, picking up one of the pieces with his fingers. “I’m famished.”
“I’m used to savages,” she quipped, and did the same. “There is bread and cheese if you wish additional sustenance.”
“Thank you, but I shall survive.” He popped the remaining pastry into his mouth. Unlike the boys, he waited until he had swallowed before speaking again. “I take it from your earlier statement that you now know the meaning of the paper you took from Holworthy.”
“I know what it is,” corrected Charlotte. “As to its meaning, I have no clue.” It wasn’t that she meant to be melodramatic, but she found herself needing to draw a deep breath before she went on.
“It’s a book marking, one that indicated where a volume belongs in a private library. The numbers indicate a place on the shelf. And the symbol is the mark of the owner. . . .”
Wrexford had gone very still. Yet the air seemed to thrum with an unseen force. Powerful muscle and wolf-sleek strength, coiled to strike.
“And that gentleman is Lord Robert Canaday.”
“You are sure it’s a mark from Lord Canaday’s library?”
“Quite,” answered Charlotte firmly.
“I trust you will understand,” said Wrexford softly, “that I feel compelled to ask you to explain how.”
“And I trust you will understand,” she countered, “that I feel compelled to refuse to reveal the exact reasons. You will have to take my word that I am telling the truth.”
“The truth as you know it.” He expelled an audible breath, the first sign that whatever hold he had on his volatile temper was beginning to slip.
“Something sinister is afoot here. Two men lie dead, each foully murdered. So before I step deeper into this serpent’s nest of twisted intrigue and vague innuendos, I would prefer to be sure that I am not chasing after the wrong clues. A mistake, as you can see, might prove lethal.”
Charlotte swallowed hard. It was a reasonable request, one she would make in his position. Yet she would not—could not—reveal the source of her certainty for it would put her own hard-won life at risk.
There was, perhaps, a compromise.
“Lord Wrexford, I am willing to show you the paper. You will see the crest on it, and I’m sure you have ways of confirming that it is indeed the marking of the Canaday estate library.”
He turned in profile, the lamplight catching the purse of his chiseled lips. He wanted more, but he could not have it.
“That is all I can offer,” said Charlotte. To do otherwise would make her too vulnerable.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“I told you, sir, I do what I have to in order to survive.”
“Get it,” he growled.
Damnation. She hesitated, now caught between a stone and a wedge of granite.