Murder at Half Moon Gate

by Andrea Penrose

  “Which begs the question of how she came to be part of your household.”

  “She’s Tyler’s cousin,” he replied. “Apparently she made some sort of mistake in her past—I know not what, nor do I care. And when he asked me if I might consider hiring her so she could get out of Scotland, I was happy to do so. It’s my belief that everyone deserves a second chance.”

  A second chance. Charlotte flinched, her boot catching in a crack and causing her to stumble. How much had he already guessed about her past?

  “Steady.” Wrexford caught her arm.

  A mirthless laugh nearly slipped from her lips. Steady? Of late, it felt as if her life had been wrenched loose from its moorings and was spinning-spinning-spinning in a whirling vortex of dangerous crosscurrents.

  Suddenly feeling dizzy and disoriented, Charlotte hurried down the last few stairs and flung open the door to the back alleyway.

  Rain was spattering the rough-hewn cobbles, forming dark puddles of water over the uneven stone. A sharp gust tugged at her hat, pulling free a tendril of hair that danced in and out of the silvery drops. Hugging her arms to her chest, she lifted her gaze to the sky and drew in great gulps of salty air. The sting helped her shake off the fugue of panic.

  I am stronger than fear. As the wild thumping of her heart slowed, Charlotte found her eyes held by the ever-changing play of grey against grey. There was a stark beauty to the infinite range of hues and the way they never stood still. Mixing and moving, the effect was subtle, but all the more intriguing for it. Gulls winged through the breeze-ruffled mist, storm-clouds scudded across the pewter-dark patch of horizon peeking up from behind a warehouse. She held herself still, soaking in the sense of calm and feeling the chaos within her begin to subside.

  * * *

  Wrexford let her go, slowing his steps to allow her a moment alone. He sensed the tension thrumming through her body, and the very un-Charlotte-like confusion pinching at her face. In truth, his own emotions weren’t on a very even keel. Being within kissing distance of death brought a certain clarity, he supposed.

  But what he had seen had left him a little shaken.

  On reaching the doorway, Wrexford paused to watch the quicksilver wisps of vapor dip and dart through low-hanging roofs of the facing buildings. It was, he reflected, strange how one’s own deepest thoughts played the same taunting games within the cracks and crevasses of the mind. Hide-and-seek. He didn’t often care about chasing them. But during the few fleeting moments of Charlotte’s hug, the oddest sensations had taken hold of him.

  He had found himself acutely aware of how perfectly they fit together, even though all their individual shapes and contours were so very dissimilar. A conundrum, to be sure. As was the fact that the closeness had felt good in ways he couldn’t begin to define. It wasn’t sensual in the erotic sense of the word. For that, the words could come easily and glibly to his tongue. It had been something deeper. An elemental connection between them that contradicted logic, given that they lived in such different worlds.

  Love. Perhaps that was the simple answer that cut through all the complexities.

  The sharp crunch of her boots shifting on the scattering of pebbles brought Wrexford out of his musings. He took a tentative step out into the spitting mizzle just as her voice broke the silence between them.

  “You’ve told me that you men of science think everything in the universe is in constant motion—the sun, the moon, the stars, the tide . . . the hearts that thump inside our chests.” she said. “Constant motion, which means constant change—it’s an elemental law of nature.”

  He saw her profile pinch in a pensive frown.

  “So, it seems ironic that change is so terrifying to us.”

  “The world is full of beautiful contradictions,” responded Wrexford. “Perhaps someday we will have rational answers for all its workings. But I rather doubt it. Some things simply defy logic.” He allowed a wry smile. “Which to my way of thinking is all for the good, as rules are meant to be broken.”

  She chuffed a laugh, though it rang a little hollow. “Now you are speaking like an artist.”

  “I think we’ve both come to understand that there’s never just one way of looking at a conundrum.” He took a step closer to her. “What is it that has you so terrified?”

  “The past,” whispered Charlotte. “The future.”

  “Fears often lose their terror when they are shared.” He waited a long moment and then, after releasing a to-hell-with-the consequences sigh, drew her into his arms. “Perhaps that’s because love has the power to keep them at bay.”

  “L-Love,” she stammered. “B-But you don’t believe in love!”

  He pressed his mouth to her cheek, a throaty chuckle reverberating against her skin. She tasted of salt, and something far more exquisitely sweet. “My dear Charlotte, it’s occurred to me that I may not have gathered enough empirical evidence to come to a definitive conclusion. So I concede that the subject may deserve further scientific study.”

  “You?” She drew back, surprise widening her eyes. “Are you saying you’re willing to be open-minded about emotion?” Her expression quickly turned unreadable. “I find that hard to imagine.”

  “I beg to—” he began, only to fall silent as her lips feathered against his.

  “You’re much too arrogant, Agamemnon,” she whispered.

  “And infuriating,” murmured Wrexford after taking his time to savor their closeness. “Not to speak of annoying.”

  Once again, he was acutely aware of how, against all reason, their every subtle contour and curve fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. Even all his sharp edges seemed to find their perfect niche.

  “By the by, I think my name is Aloysius.”

  “Is it?” A nibble tickled at the corner of his mouth. “I could have sworn it was Alexander.”

  It was several long moments before either of them spoke again.

  “Speaking of names . . .” Wrexford slowly framed her face between his palms. “Don’t you think it’s time to tell me your real name?”

  “Talk about change—that would truly change everything,” she replied softly.

  “No it wouldn’t.” he countered. “A name is merely a name. Who you are—your passions, your courage, your kindness, your strength—is already intimately familiar to me.”

  “I . . .” Her sigh was quickly swallowed by a gust of salty air.

  Wrexford waited. Charlotte had taught him patience. Along with a great many other things. The world, both physical and cerebral, looked different through the lens of their friendship. Color, perspective, conceptual ideas—all took on subtle changes he never would have seen on his own. She challenged herself to push past the expected. Which had helped shake him out of his own complacency.

  “I . . . I think perhaps you’re right,” she finally said. “Love does seem to make all of life’s challenges a little less frightening.”

  He smiled. There, they had both said the word ‘love.’ Granted, in a somewhat oblique way. But it was a start.

  One step at time. Wherever the journey led, it would be . . . interesting.

  * * *

  Charlotte stepped back, needing some space between them in which to give up her secret. “My name is Charlotte Sloane,” she began. “But I was born Charlotte Sophia Anna Mallory.”

  “Mallory.” His brow furrowed. “That would make you—”

  “The daughter of the Earl of Wolcott,” she confirmed. “But if you ask my family, I have ceased to exist, all traces of me pruned from the ancestral tree.”

  “For what heinous crime?” asked Wrexford.

  “Eloping to Italy with Anthony Sloane, my drawing teacher.” A pause. “I had just turned seventeen.”

  “Ah.” He maintained a solemn expression, but she saw a glint of unholy amusement dancing in his eyes.

  “Oh, fie, Wrexford. Here I have just bared my soul to you. Don’t you dare laugh at me!”

  “I’m not.” However, his lips twitched.
“I’m simply surprised, given your imagination, you didn’t do something more spectacularly explosive to make your rebellion.”

  Charlotte gave a wry grimace. “Give me some credit. I was barely more than a girl. And I promise you, for a young lady that was quite explosive enough.” My life as I knew it was blown to flinders.

  How to explain that mad, devil-be-damned decision?

  “You see, even at that age, I knew I was different. I couldn’t bear the idea of living my life as a perfectly proper young lady—a pasteboard cutout, painted in naught but insipid pastel shades.”

  She watched a flicker of his emerald eyes flash through his dark lashes. “Not when the very depth of my being craved bright, bold colors.”

  Wrexford smiled.

  “I would have faded to nothing and crumbled to dust being cooped up within the rigid confines of a gilded cage.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Yours is the sort of spirit that needs the freedom to spread its wings and soar.” A pause. “Does your family know you are back in England?”

  “No. And they wouldn’t want to know. I am a stain on their pristine pedigree and—” Charlotte paused on catching the odd little twitch of his lips. “I know, I know, my decisions must strike you as madness. You’re far too rational to have ever listened to your heart instead of your head.”

  “Perhaps some day,” drawled Wrexford, “I’ll tell you the story of how I made an utter fool of myself over a very pretty but very mercenary young lady.”

  “You?” She shook her head. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Oh, believe it.” He gave a sardonic smile. “My brother tried to make me see what was happening . . . Ah, but love is blind.” A pause. “No doubt because so many of us mortals have pulled Cupid’s damn arrows out of our arses and flung them back into his eyes.”

  Wrexford has been hurt by love? The day was rife with revelations. Which in turn opened up other questions . . .

  “What a pair we are,” she replied softly. “I can’t help but wonder—”

  A sharp whistle rose from the head of the alleyway before she could finish. She looked around to see Raven snap an urgent wave before darting back into the shadows.

  “Further questions will have to wait. We had better get moving,” murmured Wrexford.

  Charlotte turned and fell in step beside him. “I’m not ready to share my secret with the others quite yet,” she said after several strides. “I need some time to think about how it—”And whatever it was that just happened between us “—will change the life I’ve made for myself.”

  “We’ll find a way to muddle through it all,” he answered calmly. “Yes, there are unknowns and uncertainties. But you have friends to help you through them.” The squall had blown through, allowing a peek of sunlight to break through the clouds. “And after all, a little mystery is what keeps life interesting.”

  “Mystery.” She slanted a look at the chiseled angles of his profile and hint of humor lurking in the depth of his gaze—and suddenly the future didn’t feel quite so daunting. A smile quirked at the corners of her mouth. “Let us hope that in our case, mystery doesn’t always keep appearing in the form of a dead body.”

  Wrexford let out a low laugh. “As to that, m’lady, we shall just have to wait and see.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  One of the many reasons I love writing Regency-set mysteries is because the era has so many parallels to our own time. Society was changing—and at such a rapid pace that it was very frightening to many people. The old ways of doing things were being questioned in nearly all aspects of life—the traditional social order was changing, women were beginning to demand equal rights, and workers were flexing their newfound economic muscle. Art, music, and literature were changing as well, reflecting a new emphasis on individual expression. And across Europe, the Napoleonic Wars were reshaping borders and countries.

  In short, everything was in flux.

  As in our own world, technology was a big reason for all the changes. In fact, the Regency era is considered by many to be the birth of the modern world. Scientific innovation was a powerful catalyst for reshaping the way people lived, and it’s one of the main themes I enjoy weaving into the plots of my Wrexford & Sloane mystery series.

  In Murder at Half Moon Gate, steam engines lie at the heart of the mystery. My inventor, Elihu Ashton, is fictitious, but the ramifications of the changes steam engines were creating were very, very real. They were powering the start of the Industrial Revolution—factories were starting to mass produce goods, which in many fields made the old traditions of handmade craftsmanship obsolete. And while mass production generated great profits for the factory owners, machines were putting people out of work. As a result, labor unrest and violence, as mentioned in Charlotte’s cartoons, were a serious issue of the time, and the radical Luddites—named after Ned Ludd—did exist. (The name is still used today to describe people who are opposed to new technology. However, my “Workers of Zion” are merely the creation of my own imagination.) Like my fictitious Charlotte, many of the satirical artists of the era dealt with these conflicts, and their visual images capture the fears and bitter differences of opinion concerning “progress.”

  New innovations in steam power were, as you can imagine, very profitable as they revolutionized productivity. And so, as I describe in my book, a patent on a specific technological invention was incredibly valuable—as it is in our day! Inventors were very secretive, and the competition could be cutthroat to be the first to file for a patent and win the rights to profit from the innovation. (And yes, as in our day, it’s no surprise that lawyers were very much involved.)

  James Watt, and his partner Matthew Boulton pioneered the development of steam engines for commercial use. Watt’s patent for a condenser made his new engine far more efficient than the old Newcomen engine. My own fictitious inventor also creates a new engine improvement, and while I take liberties with the valve innovation, which didn’t actually occur until early Victorian times, I like to think that a brilliant scientist could have come up with the idea years earlier than it did in real life.

  For those of you interested in reading more about the Regency period, The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815– 1830, by Paul Johnson, is a wonderful magisterial overview of the world and how it was changing in the early 1800s. And for those of you interested in steam power and patents, The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention, by William Rosen is a fascinating resource.—Andrea Penrose