Chapter 10 - Charlotte
Charlotte
Breaking into Penrose’s study should have terrified her more than it did.
Instead, as Mr. Fletcher closed the door behind them, Charlotte became aware that her pulse was racing in a way that had very little to do with fear.
What they were doing was reckless, the consequences of discovery worse than anything she had risked before, and yet what occupied most of her attention was the man standing beside her.
The steadiness of him. The inexplicable, entirely irrational feeling of being safe.
“Wait here.” He brushed past her, his hand finding her elbow for just a moment.
The warmth of his fingers reached her through the damp fabric and she thought, without meaning to, of those same hands around her ankle earlier, gentle in a way that had caught her entirely off guard. Heat crept up her neck, and she was grateful for the low light.
“I need to draw the curtains. Any servant passing outside would see us.” His silhouette crossed in front of the window. She heard his careful footsteps, a soft curse when his shin found furniture, then the long whisper of heavy curtains being drawn, the last of the silver light vanishing.
His steps came back across the room and stopped somewhere beside her, close enough that she could hear the quiet steadiness of his breathing.
“What are we searching for?”
Charlotte hesitated. She’d been asking herself the same question for days, and the honest answer was that she didn’t fully know.
She’d heard enough in that corridor to understand she was frightened, but not enough to understand why.
Blackmail implied a secret, and she couldn’t think of a single thing her family had done that was worth the word.
And even if the pieces had fit together into something she could say aloud, would she say it to him? She barely knew him.
But he had followed her without conditions. Hadn’t hesitated at the window or demanded explanations. He was simply here, and that, she decided, had to count for something.
“Documents,” she said finally. “Property deeds, perhaps. Anything bearing my family’s seal. Look for blue wax with the impression of a rose. You’ll know it when you see it.”
He was quiet for a moment. “We’ll need light first.”
“Try the desk.” She moved forward carefully, hands outstretched until her fingers found solid oak. “He must work here in the evenings. There should be a candle or lamp.”
Her hands swept across the surface, encountering stacks of papers, the cool metal of an inkwell, leather-bound ledgers and then—there. A candlestick, waxy residue on its brass base.
“Found one.”
She heard him move to stand beside her, heard his hand sweep the desk until it struck something near the candlestick. “Convenient of him to leave everything ready.”
A moment later she heard the scratch of a match. The flame bloomed between them, sudden and bright enough to make Charlotte blink. When he touched it to the wick, golden light spilled across the desk.
“Now then. Let’s see what Lord Penrose is hiding.”
They worked in tense silence, Charlotte taking one side of the desk while he searched the other. Her fingers moved through correspondence, bills of sale, property deeds for various Penrose holdings. Nothing bore her family’s seal. Nothing even mentioned the Fairmont name.
“Anything?” she whispered after several minutes.
“Financial records. Investment documents.” He closed a drawer with barely a sound. “All Penrose business. Try the bottom drawers. That’s where men usually keep things they’d rather not have found.”
Charlotte pulled at the next drawer. It didn’t budge.
“Locked.”
“Of course it is.” Mr. Fletcher moved around the desk and lowered himself to both knees beside the drawer, studying the lock briefly before tilting his head up to look at her. “Do you have any hair pins you could part with?”
Charlotte stared at him. “Hair pins?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Just two.”
She reached up, more bewildered than anything else, and extracted two. He took them with a quiet thank you, bent them into slightly different shapes between his fingers, and turned back to the lock.
Charlotte watched with growing fascination as he worked. His hands moved with practiced precision, face intent with concentration, and she found herself noticing, not for the first time, that he was distractingly good-looking. After a moment, the lock clicked open.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
He rose to his feet, handing her pins back to her. “I had a rather diverse education, Miss Fairmont. My tutors were quite… unconventional.”
She wanted to ask more, wanted to know everything about this man who picked locks and seemed entirely unbothered by helping her commit a crime. But now wasn’t the time.
The newly opened drawer held more promise than the others—deeper, more carefully organized. Charlotte pulled out stack after stack of documents. “Here,” she said, handing half to him. “Help me look through these.”
They took the remaining documents to the floor, Charlotte’s skirts pooling around her as she worked through each page. Mr. Fletcher did the same across from her without a word. Page after page, and none of it bearing anything she recognized.
She must have missed something. Had to have.
Gathering the pile to go through it once more, she shifted her weight to resettle, and regretted it immediately.
Whatever numbness had been keeping her comfortable was gone, replaced by sharp, climbing pins and needles from ankle to knee that made crouching any longer impossible.
She needed to sit somewhere, properly, but the chairs had been swallowed by the dark and the only thing visible was the desk.
She pushed herself upright, moved to it, and hoisted herself onto the edge, papers settling across her lap as she held each one close to the candle.
There was nothing.
The rustling from below stopped.
“Nothing?” Mr. Fletcher’s voice came from much closer than she’d expected.
Charlotte looked up to find him standing directly in front of her, close enough that her knees nearly touched his legs.
She let out a long breath and leaned back on her hands, tilting her face toward the ceiling.
Every muscle ached. Hours of cold and fear and darkness had hollowed her out completely.
Her cloak slipped from her shoulders, the fabric falling open to reveal the nightgown beneath, and she heard the sharp intake of breath before she’d even registered the movement herself.
When she lifted her head again, he had already turned away, one hand shoved through his hair, the muscle in his jaw pulled tight.
“Mr. Fletcher?”
“We should—“ He stopped, clearing his throat, still not looking at her. “Check the bookcases. People hide documents between book pages. Or behind them.”
He stepped back quickly, putting distance between them.
Charlotte gathered her cloak and watched him go with a frown.
A moment ago he had been right in front of her, and now he was halfway across the room, putting distance between them with a speed she hadn’t anticipated and wasn’t entirely sure what to make of.
“Yes. Of course. Which—“
She froze, cutting herself off.
Footsteps in the corridor. Heavy and deliberate. Growing closer.
Their eyes met for half a second before he was already moving, crossing to the candle and pressing the flame out between his fingers, plunging the room back into blackness.
But Charlotte couldn’t move. Her feet had rooted themselves to the floor, her entire body locked in place as panic seized her throat. They needed to hide. She knew they needed to hide, but the fear flooding her veins had turned her limbs to stone. Which way had they come? How could they possibly—
Something caught her arm in the dark, his hand closing around it. The touch chased back some of the panic threatening to overwhelm her, and when he tugged softly, her legs finally remembered how to move.
She stumbled after him, barely staying on her feet, before he stopped and she heard the soft click of a latch.
The faintest sliver of moonlight crept in from the edges of the curtains, just enough to make out the dark shape of a closet set between two bookcases.
She hadn’t noticed it during their search, but he must have seen it when he’d drawn the curtains.
A hand pressed her gently down by the shoulder and he settled himself beside her, easing the door back with careful movements.
It had nearly reached the frame when the study door groaned open from across the room.
His hand stilled against the wood for just a moment before he drew it back, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Through the sliver, a faint warm glow began to seep in.
Charlotte brought one hand slowly to her mouth, concentrating on keeping her breathing quiet and even.
She heard a drawer scrape shut, the soft rustle of papers, and her mind went immediately to every careless thing they’d left behind—every drawer they hadn’t closed, every document left where it shouldn’t be.
Her other hand moved toward the door. If whoever was out there started looking for things out of place, the gap would be as good as a confession.
She reached to pull it closed, but fingers encircled her wrist and drew her hand back down before she’d made contact with the wood.
She turned to Mr. Fletcher. He was closer than she’d realised, his expression unreadable in the dim light but his eyes intent, fixed on hers.
He gave the smallest shake of his head, and she understood his reasoning without words.
A latch clicking shut in a quiet room would announce them far more plainly than a thin strip of darkness.
She gave a small nod and he settled their hands into the space between them, his fingers still wrapped around her wrist, eyes never leaving hers.