Chapter 5
Charlotte had no wish to subject herself to Lord Stanley’s questioning.
Instead, she concealed herself behind a cluster of matrons, and, thankfully, when he surveyed the crowd, he failed to spot her.
She was further relieved that, as she passed him at the threshold of the Bamber residence upon their departure, he did not recognise her then either, allowing her to escape with the other guests.
At last, somewhat more relaxed, she settled into the carriage as it rattled and jolted along the cobbled London streets.
Charlotte sat pressed against the door, staring out at the passing gaslights, while her family filled the confined space with restless chatter. Within, the air was thick with theorising.
‘I cannot believe Matthew Stanley was murdered tonight,’ Camelia said with the kind of delight usually reserved for new gowns. Her tone carried theatrical horror, but the grin tugging at her painted lips betrayed her. ‘At a masquerade, no less! How very gothic!’
She perched on the edge of the seat, her peacock feathers bobbing dramatically as the carriage lurched.
A sharp jolt sent her sliding, forcing her to grab the strap and compose herself with a dainty flourish.
‘Oh! My stars, the streets in this dreadful city—one would think the roads were made of potholes.’
Charlotte rolled her eyes skyward. ‘I do not think it appropriate to be so gleeful over a man’s death,’ she said quietly, her voice nearly lost beneath the rattle of the wheels.
Three pairs of heads swivelled towards her in perfect synchrony, like a panel of judges.
Camelia’s tone was sweetened venom. ‘And why are you so concerned about him, may I ask?’
‘Yes, Char,’ added Clara, echoing her older sister, ‘why must you always contradict everyone? It’s the greatest scandal of the Season! Even Mama says so.’
Charlotte murmured, ‘I did not realise decency was considered a contradiction.’
‘Girls, girls, please,’ Mrs Walker snapped, fanning herself briskly. ‘Charlotte, keep your opinions to yourself. I am quite displeased with your behaviour tonight. Your sisters are perfectly within their rights to express themselves.’
Camelia and Clara exchanged matching, triumphant smirks. Both were blonde, with perfect skin and dainty figures—beautiful by the standards of the ton, and the very image of their mother in her youth.
Mrs Walker, now somewhat plumper, lamented her fading beauty, yet took comfort in seeing it so perfectly preserved in her daughters.
Charlotte, by contrast, possessed brown, unremarkable hair and a figure deemed unfashionably curvaceous.
Her features were pleasing enough, yet she considered herself easily forgettable.
Her friends praised her soulful eyes; Charlotte, long accustomed to her mother and sisters’ contrary opinions, saw nothing special in them.
As if an unmemorable face were not disadvantageous enough, her lamentable taste in fashion did her no favours—though she remained blissfully unaware of it.
She often wondered whether her mother favoured her younger sisters because they resembled her, while Charlotte did not. The thought made her draw a quiet sigh.
‘Besides,’ their mother continued, her ostrich plumes quivering, ‘you should be worrying about securing a husband, not moralising about murders. Lord Haverley waited half an hour for you, and you never even appeared!’
‘Mother,’ Charlotte said through her teeth, ‘I have told you before—I have no desire to marry Lord Haverley. He is crude, lecherous, and his children are—how shall I phrase it politely?—unholy terrors. He sweats profusely and smells of onions.’
Mrs Walker gasped, her fan snapping shut like a pistol shot. ‘Charlotte! How ridiculous. He is as rich as Croesus and of a title besides! You should count yourself fortunate. There are girls far prettier than you who would die for such a chance.’
‘Oh, I daresay they would die,’ Charlotte muttered, ‘though whether from excitement or his cologne is debatable.’
Clara giggled until her mother silenced her with a glare.
Mrs Walker huffed. ‘Your head is filled with nonsense—romantic nonsense your father encourages. You should be grateful Lord Haverley even looked at you.’
Charlotte’s fingernails dug half-moons into her gloves. ‘I would rather remain unmarried forever than be married to that man,’ she said softly.
Her mother gave a small, indignant laugh. ‘Look at your sisters—both younger than you and both married. And look at you: four Seasons gone, and nothing to show for it but misadventures and headaches. You are four-and-twenty, Charlotte. Practically ancient.’
‘Yes, Char,’ Camelia added, with mock sympathy, ‘Papa is already concerned about his debts, and here you are wasting his funds on gowns and failed introductions.’
‘Then why have my brothers-in-law not brought you up to Town, instead of leaving Papa to bear the expense?’
Charlotte regretted the remark the moment it left her lips. All three flew into an indignant temper.
‘Mama brought us here to chaperone you, and in return you accuse our husbands of stinginess?’ Camelia returned sharply.
In truth, Charlotte suspected their husbands desired a little respite from them—and from their exuberant spending—and had found convenient excuses to remain in the country rather than accompany them to London.
Charlotte turned towards the window, blinking hard. ‘I never asked for Seasons. Mama insisted. I would much rather have remained at home.’
‘Ungrateful girl!’ Mrs Walker cried. ‘After all I have done for you—London, lessons, balls—and you throw it in my face! Do you imagine I undertake all this for my own amusement?’
Charlotte thought it prudent not to answer, as the truth—that her mother did, very much, for her own amusement—would not be well received.
She pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the city blur past in ribbons of light. Her mother’s sharp words continued to ring in her ears until Charlotte, as she so often did, retreated into herself and let them pass over her like a storm.
At last, the tirade ebbed into brittle silence.
‘I heard,’ Camelia said, as though Charlotte were not present at all, ‘that Mr Matthew Stanley was Lord Stanley’s cousin, who was next to inherit the baronacy, until matters were thwarted last year.’
Clara asked, ‘How so?’
‘He had been abroad, you see—somewhere in the Ottoman Empire—and disappeared. Everyone believed him dead, and the title was expected to fall to his cousin, Mr Matthew Stanley. Then, after nearly seven years—just before he was to be legally declared dead—he returned and claimed everything.’
Charlotte said nothing.
Instead, she replayed the words she had overheard in the garden. It made sense now. The young fool must have spent extravagantly, fully persuaded he would inherit the barony. And when the true heir returned unexpectedly, it would have come as a most bitter shock.
What, she wondered, had Wolf meant when he said they had chosen the boy to manage operations at Alderley?
No one in that carriage would ever imagine that she, Charlotte Walker, had been the invisible witness to the entire affair: the hapless girl who had saved a life, witnessed a murder, and quite accidentally stumbled into a secret society.
‘I wonder who the girl in yellow was,’ Clara said at length, ‘I would wager Miss Pennington.’
‘No, she was dancing with Lord York—I saw them,’ Camelia said. ‘Perhaps one of the Harrow sisters? They are forever chasing titled gentlemen.’
‘It does not matter who she was,’ Mrs Walker declared.
‘Falling all over Lord Stanley in such a manner—like some hoyden, and with not a shred of propriety! Quite disgraceful. I am hardly surprised she went on to murder the poor man. Girls nowadays have no sense of decorum. In my day, I should not have dreamt of setting foot in a card room, masked ball or no.’
Clara nearly choked in excitement. ‘Murder? Mama, really?’
‘I heard it from Lady Dalrymple herself,’ Mrs Walker said with the certainty of someone who considered hearsay a branch of theology. ‘The stable boy saw a woman in a yellow gown fleeing the scene. Mark my words, the ton will unmask her soon enough.’
Camelia laughed. ‘How thrilling! The first female murderer in the ton.’
Charlotte listened in mounting horror as she was accused of murder by her own family. She shrank into her corner. She adjusted her skirts to hide her muddy and wet slippers.
Perhaps her invisibility, she thought with a bitter twist of irony, was for the best. Who knew that her family’s habitual dismissal of her would become her salvation?
Still, a restless guilt nagged at her ribs. Perhaps Lord Stanley deserved to know the truth. But how to accomplish this without bringing ruin upon herself?
An idea bloomed. She would discuss it with her father. He would know what to do.
Charlotte worried at her lower lip for the rest of the journey home.
At last, the carriage wheels ground to a halt outside the Walker townhouse. Charlotte exhaled softly as her sisters flounced inside ahead of her, all rustling silk and eager gossip, while she slipped away down the corridor towards the library.
The room was lined floor to ceiling with leather-bound volumes, a pair of deep armchairs set before a generous fire that crackled and glowed. Father was there, just as she had hoped—reclined in his favourite armchair by the hearth, spectacles askew, a book slipping from one hand.
‘Papa,’ she whispered. ‘How are you feeling? Is your fever any better?’
He looked up at once, smiling—a warm, unguarded expression that always softened something inside her. ‘Ah, my darling girl. Back from the masquerade, are you? Did London’s splendour dazzle you?’
She crossed the room and pressed a hand to his brow. ‘You haven’t touched the tincture cook made.
‘It tastes as though it were scraped from a dockside barrel,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘A little cold never harmed anyone.’
‘Drink it,’ she said firmly, arms folding across her chest.