CHAPTER 23
“Given the events of the past evening, isn’t it rather early for you to be up and about, Lord Wrexford?”
“I could ask the same of you, Mrs. Sloane,” he replied dryly. When she didn’t move from blocking the doorway, he added, “Might I come in? Or am I persona non grata for corrupting the tender morals of children?”
Heaving an inward sigh, Charlotte stepped back into the foyer and gestured for him to enter. It was ungracious to feel angry with him. She would never have learned the truth about Anthony without his resolve and resourcefulness.
But perhaps that was part of her mixed emotions. She didn’t like feeling beholden to anyone.
“I thought aristocrats never rose until well after noon,” she murmured as he followed her into the main room.
“By now you should know I rarely do what is expected of me. A flaw, I know, but there you have it.”
She relented and allowed a faint smile. “I neglected to thank you for your efforts. You were impressively intimidating, sir. Had I been facing your fearsome phiz, I would have been quaking in my boots.”
“Bollocks,” quipped Wrexford. “You have never been the least intimidated by me. It’s very lowering.” He looked around. “Where are the weasels? Sleeping the blissful sleep of Innocents?”
She strangled a laugh. “You really must stop calling them that. They are no worse than other lads their age.”
“No other lads their age would dare stab me in the leg, or cosh me on the head with a bottle.” He was smiling. “But I admit, they are clever little beasts.”
“As for where they are,” Charlotte explained, “I’ve sent them out on an errand.” She decided not to mention the new drawing they were taking to Fores’s print shop. No reason to provoke an argument.
Wrexford stopped and sniffed the air. “But not before they had an excellent breakfast. Eggs and gammon, by the scent of it.” His gaze strayed to the half-finished loaf on the table and held there. “Lucky lads. I, on the other hand, left my house without so much as a crust of bread.”
“Surely you have a cook at your beck and call.”
“Alas, unlike me he keeps lordly hours. But then, there is no rest for the wicked.”
Impossible man. Charlotte wasn’t yet sure whether he took anything seriously.
But she did owe him a debt of thanks.
“Sit. I assume you have something you wish to discuss, so we might as well talk while you eat.” Charlotte moved to the stove and set a frying pan on the hob.
The familiar ritual of cooking would help ease the awkwardness of finishing her thanks.
It would be easier to leave the words unsaid, but she prided herself on not shirking from unpleasant truths.
At least she could do it with her back turned to him.
“I still do not condone your having enlisted Raven and Hawk in such a dangerous plan without first consulting me.” Crack, crack—two eggs plopped onto the cast iron, setting off a satisfying sizzle in the grease from the frying gammon.
“But your actions, however unorthodox, served to cut through the knot of unanswered questions regarding both your conundrum and mine. I . . . am grateful for your help in learning the truth.”
She added several slices of bread to the pan. “And for the meting out a degree of justice for what was done to Anthony. Revenge may be an ugly sentiment, but it gives me a measure of satisfaction to know his tormentors have not gone unpunished.”
The eggs bubbled and turned brown around the edges. Charlotte slid them onto a plate, along with the crisped meat and bread. “My husband was naive, and perhaps not as strong as he should have been. But that isn’t a crime that deserves the penalty of death.”
Wrexford accepted his breakfast without comment and dug in with gusto. She busied herself making tea, unsure whether to feel relieved or piqued at his silence.
Words or no, Charlotte was acutely aware of his presence in the room.
The dappling of early morning light, the creak of a chair, the cozy click of cutlery—there hadn’t been a man sharing the mundane moments of everyday life here since Anthony died.
The same, and yet so different. There was a devil-may-care grace to Wrexford.
He was comfortable with who he was, and that confidence radiated from every pore.
Was it disloyal to notice? Repressing a guilty twinge, she poured boiling water over the tea leaves. It was merely a dispassionate observation. As A. J. Quill, she had learned to look at the world around her with unflinching honesty.
“Do you take sugar?” Steam curled up from the spout as she placed the pot on the table.
“No.” He looked up. “I am not a man who requires any sweetness.”
An oblique message? Charlotte noted a fleeting glimmer in his eyes but it was gone too quickly for her to read.
The earl went back to soaking up the remaining yolk of his eggs with a bit of bread.
And yet he must have sensed her indecision, for a moment later he added, “We’ve both helped each other, Mrs. Sloane.
The ledger is balanced—you need not be distressed by thoughts that you owe me a debt of gratitude. ”
“I . . .” She took up a cloth and wiped away some errant crumbs.
“Now that we’ve settled accounts, we have more important things to discuss.” Cutting off any further talk of personal matters, he quickly explained about identifying the ground green glass in Lowell’s compound.
“Will you take all this to the Runner? The evidence now seems overwhelming as to who is responsible for the murders.”
He shook his head. “I don’t wish to take the chance that Griffin will interpret things differently.
Time is of the essence. It’s imperative for us to locate the secret laboratory, not only to catch Lowell in the act, but also to prevent him from accomplishing his ultimate objective.
To that end, I have Tyler searching for any information on German wine warehouses. ”
He set down his fork and propped his elbows on the table. “I need you to think very carefully, Mrs. Sloane. Is there anything you remember about your husband that would give us a clue as to where he was working?”
The question caused her chest to clench.
She had been so concerned with Anthony’s mental state that it had never occurred to her to wonder about anything else.
She had, until last night’s revelation, simply assumed he had been telling the truth about spending his time away from home at the clubhouse of The Ancients.
Now who is the na?ve fool?
Charlotte mutely shook her head.
“Come, you have a rare gift for noticing the small details,” he pressed. “You’ve seen something. You just have to remember it.”
She forced herself to think back on those terrible days. But her brain refused to focus. The only image in her mind’s eye was a spinning, swirling blur of shapes and colors.
Her stomach lurched, and she felt the sour taste of bile rise in her throat.
“Mrs. Sloane.” Henning’s rough-cut burr penetrated the front door, saving Charlotte from her failure. “We need to talk.”
She hurried to allow the surgeon entrance.
Sheffield was with him, his look of grim concern lightening somewhat on spotting the earl. “Thank God you’re here. Tyler sent me to warn you,” he said in a rush. “You can’t return home. Griffin is waiting there—with a warrant for your arrest.”
* * *
“Bloody hell,” swore Wrexford. “Just when the pieces of this infernal puzzle have finally come together.” Frowning in thought, he asked, “Did Griffin give a reason? I doubt he would have dared make the move without some new piece of evidence.”
“He said he has an incriminating letter,” answered Sheffield.
“One addressed to the Institution’s board of governors in which Drummond says he overheard you admitting that you had lured Holworthy to the church in order to silence his attacks on you.
It seems that Lowell found it behind the work counter when he was supervising the carpentry repairs to the fire damage. ”
“Diabolically clever of him,” muttered Wrexford. “He just needs to keep Griffin occupied until he’s made his final move.”
“Any idea what that might be, laddie?” asked Henning.
“No,” he conceded.
Sheffield cleared his throat. “As to that, I’ve been thinking—an admittedly rare occurrence, I know—and an idea came to mind.”
Wrexford shifted impatiently. “Go on.”
“Well, there was a lecturer of logic at Oxford who used to repeat an old Latin adage when trying to solve a certain type of conundrum: Cui bono.
“Who benefits?” murmured Charlotte.
The earl stopped his fidgeting.
“Yes, precisely, Mrs. Sloane,” agreed Sheffield, giving her a quick, curious look before going on. “So I asked myself the same question in regard to a percussion cap for firing weapons, and the obvious answer is the military.”
Well reasoned, Kit, thought Wrexford. He had always assumed that Sheffield slept through all the droning of their dons.
“The thing is, if Lowell had been working on it for our government, there might have been great secrecy—indeed, I’ve heard rumors that Humphry Davy nearly lost an eye experimenting with explosives for our war effort at a special laboratory in Tunbridge—but no need for murder and skullduggery.”
“The rumors are correct,” interjected Wrexford.
He had been privy to the private details.
“Davy was mixing chlorine and ammonium nitrate, based on a formula given to him by Andre Ampere. It was for the Royal Engineers to use in blowing up the siege fortifications of cities on the Peninsula. But it proved far too dangerous to handle.”
“My point is, if Lowell isn’t working for our side, might he be working for the French?
” said Sheffield. “The Little Corsican would likely pay an emperor’s ransom for anything that might help turn the war back in his favor,” explained Sheffield.
“Look, it’s not always easy being a younger son in an aristocratic family.
One often resents the power, prestige, and money that goes to the heir simply by virtue of a quirk of birth.
What better way to avenge the unfairness of it all than to strike at the system?
Revolutionary France rewards ability, not the degree of blueness in one’s blood. ”
A prolonged silence followed. Henning and Charlotte looked to the earl, waiting for a reaction.
“Right. It’s likely a foolish conjecture,” said Sheffield, lifting his shoulders in apology.
“No, it’s likely a brilliant one, Kit,” replied Wrexford, giving himself a mental kick as he recalled the billets doux written in French that he had seen in Lowell’s desk drawer.
They had appeared to be love notes making assignations for a clandestine liaison.
But they could very well have disguised a more sinister meaning.
“The one thing missing is motive, and you’ve hit on a compelling one. ”
“Be that as it may,” pointed out the surgeon, “if we can’t find Lowell, all our fancy conjectures are worth no more than a pile of horse dung.”
“Lowell is clever but he’s not infallible. He will have left a telltale clue. We just have to find it.” The earl fixed his gaze on Charlotte. “I’m thinking about what it could be. As is Mrs. Sloane.”
Charlotte had quietly seated herself at her desk during Sheffield’s explanation. She now had pen in hand and was sketching random doodles on a sheet of paper.
Perhaps, Wrexford mused, she was trying to draw divine inspiration from the familiar feel of the sharpened quill. The alchemists of old had understood an elemental truth about human nature. Symbols and talismans possessed a mystical power.
“Any ideas yet?”
She didn’t look up.
“Think harder. We haven’t much time.”
Henning uttered a low oath. “Don’t badger the lassie. I’m sure she is doing the best she can.”
“Aye,” agreed Sheffield.
“That’s not good enough! She must do better,” began the earl, but the faint jiggling of the door latch caused them all to fall silent.
A hand signal from Wrexford sent his two friends to flank the inner doorway. Grabbing his pistol from his coat pocket, he moved swiftly into the entrance foyer.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charlotte flinch at the click of the hammer cocking. It was followed a moment later by a faint scrape of metal as he eased the bolt open.
Every muscle tensed, Wrexford waited for a moment, ear pressed to the blackened oak.
More scrabbling at the outside latch, iron rasping against iron.
Wrenching the door open, he pivoted, aiming in that instant of surprise to strike the intruder with the butt of his weapon.
“Hell’s teeth,” swore Wrexford, dropping to his knees just in time to catch Raven as he stumbled over the threshold.