Betsy’s eyes went to Lord Durnham, then back to her, wide with surprise.
“Hurry.”
Betsy gave a nod and disappeared, and Charlotte looked after her, the sight of an empty doorway far more appealing than the questions on Lord Durnham’s face.
“Who is Luke?” From the corner of her eye she saw him put down his cup, stretch his legs out as if he had all the time in the world.
She needed to let him know his time was running out.
“Luke Bracken is the man who sent that footpad last night.” She lifted her head, made sure she had his full attention. “He is the man who is planning a way to kill you.”
9
There was no mistaking that Charlotte Raven was serious.
“Kill me?” Edward raised an eyebrow. “That sounds overly dramatic.”
“Were you asking questions of me a day or two ago? Or rather, did you pay others to?” She spoke, not with outrage, but some other more intense, more focused, emotion.
Edward frowned. So much for discreet inquiries. “I did.”
“Your men are all dead.” Seeming unable to keep still, she stood up and walked to the window. “So you might want to keep that slightly condescending tone from your voice, Lord Durnham. And start considering that I may be right.”
His mouth fell open. He forced it closed again. “Dead? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Have you heard from any of them?” The challenge in her voice was unmistakable. As was her conviction.
Edward did not doubt for a moment that she truly believed they were dead. “No, I haven’t. They are due to report to me tonight.”
“Well, you’ll be in for a long wait.” Her voice trembled. “If you know of their families, I would appreciate it if you would give me their addresses. And then both you and I will be contributing a generous sum to their widows.” She lifted her head, and glared at him as she spoke the last sentence, expecting him to protest.
“If a crime has been committed, and you know of it, why haven’t you reported it?” He stood, too, suddenly, and she froze, almost shrinking away from him. It disturbed him.
“I know only that they are dead. I do not know where they died, or the hand that killed them.” She did not look away as she spoke, and even though he knew she was lying, and she knew he knew, she did not so much as flinch.
“You would protect their killers?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” She turned away, looked out the window, her back stiff.
“If they are dead”—and he was suddenly beginning to believe they were—“they were agents of the Crown, and their deaths will be investigated.”
“Agents of the Crown?” When she spun to face him, her face was white. “Why? Why did you do it? What could you possibly wish to know about me you could not just have asked?”
“Would you have answered?”
She bit her bottom lip. “No.”
“But you told my sister.”
She stiffened in surprise at that, her eyes going wide, and Edward shrugged. “She would not tell me, either. So do you blame me for trying to find out on my own?”
Charlotte crossed her arms over her breasts. “If those men weren’t dead, if they could have made their meeting with you tonight, they would have told you nothing you could not easily have found out for yourself. What you probably already know. They were asking in all the wrong places, and if they had asked in the right ones, they’d still have ended up dead.”
“How do you know this?” Edward had to force himself not to swear. “How could you possibly know where they asked their questions?”
“I have a little army around me, Lord Durnham.” She smiled, but it was cold, and searingly alone. “No one comes near me or asks about me who isn’t vetted, and checked, and either allowed to go on their way … or not.”
Edward stared at her. “Who does this?”
“My old lover. The boy who sat watch over me while I slept as a child, who fought off anyone who tried to touch me, and who was sent to Old Bailey because he struck out at someone who did me harm. The person to whom I owe my life.”
“Why are you not with him, then?” The question exploded from him, because he did not want some other man to have this claim on her. It was wrong that she appeared free, able to give her affections where she chose.
“He wants that very much. But I … I do not love him that way. I never did. To me, he has always been my family.”
“But you called him your lover?” He knew this was the most inappropriate conversation he had ever had, and yet, he had to have the answer.
She dipped her head. “I think I can be forgiven, Lord Durnham. I certainly have forgiven myself, if there is anything to forgive. I became Luke’s lover because it was the only thing he wanted, and it seemed wrong to deny him when he had done so much. I was twelve years old.”
She had shocked him, which made her anger at him even stronger. Did he live in such a cloistered little world, this ignoramus? She had thought him more real, more insightful, more grounded than the idiots who attended the balls and soirees of the ton.
If he spent just one hour in the rookeries, or half an hour talking to the boys imprisoned in the Bailey, or the Hulks, he would know boys took lovers, had girls who kept house in the small corner of a room they might have for themselves, girls who tried to keep their little place, pay the rent on it, while the boys were in prison.
When you had to earn your living like an adult, go to prison like one, too, then you behaved like one in all areas of your life. Even if you were only twelve or thirteen. That was how it worked. That was how reputation and pecking order were established.
“Would you please leave.” She eventually turned from the window, away from the horses walking placidly by in the high summer heat, to face him.
He hadn’t moved. Was still sprawled in his chair, his eyes closed, a frown etched deep in his forehead. But she’d seen the look on his face as she’d told him about Luke. There was shock there. And something else. Horror. Whether for her, or for Luke, or simply the situation, she didn’t know.
Shouldn’t care.
“Where are you from, that you are mixed up in this?” He didn’t open his eyes.
“The rookeries, just like Luke. I’m no lady, Lord Durnham.”
“You pretend to be.”
“She does not pretend.” Catherine stood in the doorway, and her eyes were hard when they looked at Durnham. He sat straight in his chair at the sound of her voice.
“My Charlotte is more lady than most of the overdressed, overstuffed women of the ton, Lord Durnham. And I will not have anyone in this house who says otherwise.”
Durnham’s lips thinned. “You are right. What I said is inexcusable. I should have more control over my temper and I apologize.”
Catherine stared him down with cool, cool eyes. Walked past him and sat at her usual spot. “You sister is tending Ned in the nursery. Perhaps you’d like to go to her?”
He rose slowly. Reluctantly. He had been maneuvered out of the room, and did not like it one bit. He gave a half bow and left.
Charlotte let her shoulders slump, and heard Catherine rise behind her, felt the cool, soothing touch of her hands on her neck.
“Luke is going to kill him.” She leaned forward and let her forehead rest against the sun-warmed glass of the window.
Catherine touched her cheek and leaned over her. Kissed the top of her head. “You will have to stop him. This is not the usual witless idiot. Lord Durnham strikes me as a man who is very dangerous. Maybe as dangerous as Luke. And he has powerful connections.”
“The way Luke is now …” She shuddered. “I’m not sure that won’t make him more eager. He seems to want to die.”
“No.” Catherine stepped back. “He thinks if he is rash enough, you will offer yourself up to stop him.”
Charlotte flinched, and turned slowly. Was that what he was doing? He had certainly done it before, and she had been young enough to fall for it. T
o be manipulated. “I should leave,” she said, and stood. “I should leave to go somewhere else. I would like to go to Italy, or France, but with the war, that’s obviously impossible. Perhaps the Lake District, or Scotland?”
“You think that will stop him?” Catherine tapped a long, slender finger to her lip. “Would he leave Lord Durnham alone?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No. He would still kill him. If I could get a promise from him not to, though, maybe I should leave.”
“You would trust his promise?”
Charlotte looked across to Catherine and nearly wept. “I would once have said yes. Now … I don’t know.” She wanted to run, or ride, there was so much boiling inside her. She hugged herself. “His injury is worse. He could barely walk to me last night without crying out. His lips were almost white with pain. I wonder how much of his rage is fueled by agony. Bitterness.”
“You sure it isn’t a play for sympathy?”
She shook her head. She knew why Catherine asked but she had seen Luke when he’d come back from the Hulks. She knew this was all too real. And one more thing that lay between them that he would not talk about.
There was a furtive knock at the door, and Charlotte turned. Saw Betsy standing, flushed and flustered, in the doorway. “Kit couldn’t find Luke. He’s not at Tothill Road. No one would say where he’s gone.”
“Did they refuse to say, or don’t they know?” It would make a big difference, because there were some she could force to speak.
Betsy’s eyes went wide. “Kit didn’t say.”
“Thank you.” Charlotte watched her walk away, dread sinking deep, sharp claws into her chest; they curled inward, holding her close.
“What will you do?” Catherine sat still and afraid. Afraid for her.
“Keep Lord Durnham close to my side.” She glanced out the door, the way he had gone. “Until we find Luke, until I can talk to him, it’s the only way I can keep him alive.”
10
“Where are you going, my lord?” Charlotte Raven stepped in his way, a slim green-and-white-clad obstacle to a quick escape. He could not get into his phaeton unless he moved her bodily.
His fingers twitched.
“Home.” He took a step closer, to crowd her. “Not that it is any of your business.”
She said nothing to his rudeness, simply stared at him for a moment and then turned her head to the stables. One of the stablehands was watching them from just within a stall.
Another, older man stepped out of a small room to one side, and he saw her shoulders relax a little. “Gary.” She kept her eyes away from his. “Lord Durnham will be staying with us for a few days, to visit with his sister. Would you have his horses stabled and his carriage put away until they are needed?” At last she turned to look at him. “Or would you rather have Gary return them to your own stables, and we can take you home when your visit is over?”
He could not help that his mouth fell open. He closed it with a snap.
“Ah, your horses are most likely fussy.” The smallest spark of humor lit her eyes and was gone. “Gary, rather arrange for his lordship’s horses to go to their own stables.”
“Right you are, my lady.” The stablehand stepped up beside him and held out his hand for the reins although his eyes were on Charlotte. He exchanged a look with her that Edward could only describe as mischievous.
Charlotte grinned back, her face transformed for an instant from inhospitable desert to an English summer garden.
This was not the man who’d accompanied her to the gin house in Tothill Road, though. He knew the stable boy watching them from the stall was the one who’d gone with her. The wiry strength of him was unmistakable.
Edward handed the reins over with an easy movement.
Charlotte held out her arm. “Shall Gary take a note with him for your butler to send round some clothes, my lord? Seeing he’ll be going anyway?”
“Before that, I’d like a word.” Edward was not having an argument with her in her stable yard. Especially as it was clear the men listening were more than just servants.
“Of course.” Her lips twitched as his hand closed over her arm, and he wondered if she had any idea how angry he was.
He led the way to the back garden.
“You can start snarling now,” Charlotte whispered near his ear, making him jerk away. “They can’t see your face. Although I’m sure they’re listening, so you’ll have to keep your voice down.”
He kept his gait smooth, but inside he stumbled. “Do you always live like this? Afraid of what they’ll see?”
She put out a hand, let her gloved fingers brush over the thick velvet of pink rose petals that lined their path. It occurred to him that he had never seen her without gloves that came to above her elbows or long-sleeved gowns, no matter how hot the weather. “I forget, sometimes, how much of my life it controls.” She pulled a handful of petals off an overblown rose and rubbed them between her fingers, releasing their scent. “Gary is loyal to me, but Kit—he’s Luke’s ears and eyes here. Some of the house servants, too.”
“Even though you pay their salaries?” He looked behind him, before the path swung sharp right, toward the back of the house, and blocked the stable yard from view. Kit watched them, leaning on a broom.
Edward tightened his grip on her arm and swung her through an arch of climbing roses, into the cool shade of the hedge that surrounded the garden in a wall of green.
“Luke might give them extra.” She shrugged. “Or it may be because I’m not really one of them anymore. Luke’s probably got more money than me, but he’s kept to the rookeries. He doesn’t put on airs.”
He looked at her and raised a brow, and she laughed softly.
“I can simper with the best of them, Lord Durnham. You wouldn’t recognize me at one of the balls you never attend.”
He shook his head. “I doubt that’s true.”
She lifted her hands as if in defeat. “Perhaps. I turn down as many invitations to dance as I accept. I can’t help looking at the men who approach me and wondering if they would think my dowry is worth bringing themselves to Luke’s attention.”
“And does it?” He stopped completely. He had to force his hand not to shake.
She frowned, and he cleared his throat. “Does it bring them to his attention? And how so, if you don’t tell him?”
She shivered in the deep shade of the hedge, and he led her out onto the lawn, into the sun again. “Oh, this end of London is Luke’s patch. He’s got servants on his payroll everywhere. How do you think he found out about your men asking questions?”
He was such a fool. He had not thought of criminals being so organized, but why not? “You make him sound like a lord of crime.”
She raised her face to his, startled. “I thought you understood. That is what he is.” She turned away and neither of them said anything for a moment. He could still smell the sweet perfume of the rose petals, crushed where her hand had become a fist, and looking down on her face, at the dark lashes against her cheek, some emotion rose up in his chest, so intense, so huge, he was stunned. He was still holding her arm and his hand trembled against the fabric of her sleeve. He let go of her and stepped back to put space between them.
He’d thought himself incapable of anything this strong.
“I will not hide behind your skirts, Miss Raven. And I will not let a thug rule my life as he seems to do yours.” He spoke gently, and she lifted those dark blue eyes to his, then cut away to study the lush, green grass of the lawn.
“You really don’t understand.” She let the petals drop and gripped her hands together. “This is not about pride. This is about your life. In the last few months, things have been getting …” She paused and looked back toward the stables as if Kit could still see them. “Getting worse. I truly fear he is capable of murder.”
“According to you, he’s already murdered my men.”
She lifted her shoulders. “Men asking questions in his patch, that’s fair game, to
him. Someone paying me too much mind? Until now, he’s limited himself to filching them in the street.”
She used the word filch instead of rob deliberately, he thought, broadened her accent on purpose. Trying to push him away, make him understand she was truly of another world. It was too little. And much too late.
He let it pass for now.
“You may owe this man something, that you let him rule you like a despot, but he doesn’t rule me. And I am far from the youngbloods and dandies of the ballrooms.” He took another step away.
“Are you?” Her words could have been a taunt but were not. She was serious. “Have you spent your life fighting hard just to stay alive? Been thrown in the equivalent of a pit with hardly any food and way too many people, most of them much bigger than you?” She straightened her spine and lifted her head. “Luke and his boys—I—have lived like that, Lord Durnham. I worked from dawn to dusk with barely a meal to sustain me and so little pay that there was literally no way for me to ever better my circumstances legally. I was a slave in all but name. Luke and the men in his gang, they have been thieving and yes, killing, since they were children. It was either that or die themselves, and where you might hesitate, or think something through, they will not. They will act, act hard, fast, and they will not think twice about your death. It will not weigh on their minds.”
She was trying to protect him. Either scare him off or give him the best advice she could.
He thought of the hours he’d spent learning to fight, and the desperation he’d felt when he’d first begun, to never be helpless. But the edge was off him now. When he’d hired the footpad who’d once tried to accost him to teach him street fighting, he’d had the beatings his stepfather had given him in mind. But his stepfather was in his power these days, old and dependent on Edward’s largesse.
He didn’t have the same fire in his belly. And as Charlotte pointed out, these men faced life and death in every fight they threw themselves into. Had been tempered in a much hotter furnace than he’d ever faced.
The Emperor's Conspiracy Page 5