CHAPTER 11
The ensuing silence seemed to amplify all the tiny sounds in the room. The scrabbling of mouse feet behind the walls, the faint creaking of the rafters, the ragged hitch of her breathing . . .
He thinks me mad, thought Charlotte. And perhaps he’s right. Her usual dispassionate sense of detachment had been knocked to flinders on hearing Jeremy mention The Ancients.
Such a tastefully civilized name, and yet the very whisper of it had sent a chill coursing through her veins.
“I make no pretense of being objective, milord,” she announced, her voice sounding brittle as broken glass to her ears.
“My reaction is very personal—some might call it primitive, based as it is on visceral emotion. I don’t like or trust them, and so I am primed to see evil lurking behind their actions. ”
Wrexford crossed his legs. His boots, she noted, had a heavy spattering of straw-flecked mud marring the highly polished leather—strange how the mind seized on insignificant details as a distraction from difficult situations.
The seconds continued to slide by as if mired in molasses. His expression was a conundrum—a smile appeared to be waging a tug of war with a frown. Charlotte didn’t trust herself to decipher its meaning.
At last, his gaze turned from some distant point in the gloom.
“Death,” he said, “is not a cerebral subject that one contemplates from afar.” Though his voice held an edge of mockery, there was an undertone of raw emotion she hadn’t heard in him before.
“One’s reaction to it does tend to be personal. ”
“Which does not make it right or rational.”
“True,” agreed the earl. “But I have great respect for your powers of perception, Mrs. Sloane. If you think something is dreadfully wrong, then it likely is.”
Charlotte was surprised at how relieved she felt by the fact that he didn’t find her crazy. “So, how do we go about proving it?” she said in a low voice.
Wrexford considered her question for a long moment.
“Let us order the facts we have now. Your husband was lured back to London and invited to join The Ancients by Stoughton—for what reasons we don’t yet know.
He began to earn a little money, but you began to notice unsettling things about him, including unexplained paint on his hands, and an alarming change in his behavior.
And then signs of acid burns and death.”
She nodded.
“And then there is Holworthy’s murder, which also involves acid and a connection to The Ancients through Canaday and the bookmark you found.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “We have a great many pieces of a puzzle. The question remains, how do we begin fitting them together?”
“Slowly and methodically, as in a scientific experiment,” he answered. “First of all, I need to visit Henning and see whether he’s found anything unusual about Mr. Drummond’s corpse.”
“How do you know the body was brought to Mr. Henning?”
“My valet is useful for more than merely ensuring that my cravats have the perfect amount of starch,” answered the earl. He held up the library marking. “Might I keep this? The next step will be to pay a visit to Lord Canaday’s estate in Kent.”
Charlotte nodded. It made sense for him to have the piece of paper.
“I will also take a closer look at the fragments I found in Drummond’s laboratory.”
“I thought you considered them a mere coincidence.”
He hesitated. “They probably are nothing.”
“Why is it that I’m beginning to sense you don’t believe that?”
The earl evaded her question by ignoring it.
“And then I want to learn a little more about what goes on at the Royal Institution. I pay little attention to its connection with the social swirl of London, but as science and its new wonders have become the darlings of Society, it’s worth a closer look.
Power and knowledge can be a potent combination. ”
The world of lords and ladies was closed to her, and yet she chafed a little at finding herself left standing outside the gilded gates, with no way to help in the hunt for the truth. Unlike the earl, she had no prestige, no influence, no favors to call in. She had naught but her pen.
“A moment, milord,” she said quickly as he rose and reached for his hat. “About the murder this morning—describe the scene for me.”
A scowl scudded across his face, clouding the austere angles of his face.
“Look, not only would it seem strange if A. J. Quill did not comment on the latest death, but it also serves our purpose to keep attention focused on the crimes,” she explained before he had a chance to protest. “Serpents prefer to slither in the dark, so to shine a relentless light on their doings may provoke them into making a mistake.”
Charlotte paused for thought. “I’ll spend the next few days whipping up a lurid interest in this latest murder, and I shall start a series that focuses on The Ancients.”
“You mean to poke a stick in the nest of the vipers?” he asked in a flat tone.
“Your valet has his particular skills and I have mine, sir. Satire can be a powerful weapon. We know its members use their prestige to keep their activities shielded in secrecy. They won’t like public scrutiny.
It may force them to try to cover up their tracks,” she replied.
“And cause them to make an errant move.”
“Or cause them to coil and strike at their tormentor.”
“It’s a risk I am willing to take.”
“You have courage,” conceded Wrexford. He blew out his cheeks. “Too damnably much of it for your own good. A woman is supposed to—”
“Supposed to be seen and not heard?” interrupted Charlotte. “Like you, milord, I have little interest in conforming to the rigid expectations of my station in life.”
The barb seemed to prick just enough to silence further warnings.
“And just remember, I’ve been forthcoming in helping you. I expect you to do the same.”
“I am paying you a good deal of blunt,” he reminded her.
“And I,” responded Charlotte coolly, “am affording you the means by which to save your neck. So I’d call the exchange an even one.”
His expression remained unreadable, but there seemed to be a momentary rippling beneath the flat opaqueness of his eyes. He hid his feelings well, but she had honed her skills at seeing the subtle signs that most people missed. Her survival depended on it.
The earl was wavering. She had but a moment to sway him to her side.
“You came to me because you were convinced that with my help you could discover the real culprit. That hasn’t changed. Together, we can smoke him out, but only if you trust me with what you know.”
“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of . . .” The skin tightened over his sharp cheekbones. His mouth thinned.
“Honor,” he finally finished, the word barely louder than the whisper of the breeze stealing in through the cracked casement. “I don’t want your blood on my hands.”
“Be damned with honor,” said Charlotte. “It’s a bloody hollow notion you high-born gentlemen trot out only when it suits you.” She tilted her head back, forcing him to meet her gaze. “I want justice.”
An oath slipped through his clenched teeth.
She waited, keeping still and silent.
A moment passed, and then another. His stubbornness, she realized, was as iron-willed as her own. Meum est propositum in contumax—my resolve is unyielding. No wonder things were a constant struggle between them.
Finally, he relented, releasing a pent-up breath, along with another curse.
“Very well. But you seek it at your own peril.”
Charlotte didn’t bat an eye. “Describe the laboratory and the position of Drummond’s body,” she said calmly, reaching for a notebook and pencil.
He grudgingly did so.
“You are an astute observer, milord. Not many people are.” The pages snapped shut. “We shall make a formidable team.”
Wrexford set his hat on his head and tugged down the brim to a jaunty angle. Perhaps it was just a quirk of the shading, but it appeared he was trying to disguise a smile.
“And don’t forget, I expect to be supplied with the details on your future encounters, enough to craft a titillating drawing,” she went on. “I can, of course, find them out on my own, but it would save me time and bother if you would do so.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Mrs. Sloane.”
“Not as hard as the king’s hangman.”
He cocked a silent salute and sauntered off without further comment.
The room seemed to lose a little of its warmth as the front door opened and shut. A draft, she decided. The air outside had taken on a chill bite.
Charlotte watched the momentary swirl of tangling shadows, then roused herself to rise and reset the lock. Despite her show of nonchalance to the earl, she was careful to take precautions.
Lord Stoughton had paid her no attention once she had made clear during their first encounters that his carnal glances were not welcome.
For men like him, women had no God-given talents save to serve a very primitive physical purpose.
There was no reason to think he would ever connect Anthony or her to A.
J. Quill. But it would be naive to underestimate the depths of his depravity.
He might not have murdered her husband outright, but she was sure that the metaphorical knife bore his bloody handprints.
Caught up in such melancholy memories, she retreated to her desk and began to draw.
Lost in laying in lines, crosshatchings, and color, Charlotte didn’t look up until the scrape of the bolt sliding back broke her concentration.
Rolling the stiffness from her shoulders, she forced a smile, unwilling to let the boys see how reliving Anthony’s ghastly last days had left her feeling utterly expended.
“How did your lessons go?”
“I read a whole page on King ’Enry the Eighth aloud without making a mistake!” chirped Hawk. “And Mr. Keating showed us a globe, and what a werry tiny place England is!”
“Very,” corrected Charlotte gently. “What a very interesting report.” To Raven she asked, “And you? How did you find it?”