“She’s right.” Edward began to walk again. To the fireplace and back to the window. The atmosphere had gone from anger and hurt to genuine puzzlement, though, and Charlotte was glad for the change. “What could my stepfather want to know in secret that he could not ask me directly?”
Charlotte had wondered the same. “Emma says he was in touch with Geoffrey. Gave him investment advice and so forth. I thought he may have been spying on Emma and the boys for Geoffrey. I even wondered if Geoffrey might try to force her to hand the boys back to him, if Frethers was the only way out he could see. He would have had the law on his side, as the boys’ legal guardian.”
“Hmm.” He considered what she said, the sound he made at the back of his throat vibrating through her, and she forced her knees and thighs together with an edge of desperation she would usually associate with fear. “My stepfather knows full well what I thought of my brother-in-law.” He paused. “He knew I would never allow Geoffrey access to my sister and her children if I could help it, whether I knew what Geoffrey planned to do to his own sons or not.”
“Would Geoffrey have told your stepfather what he planned?”
Edward shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought any man would admit to something like that. He is more likely to have claimed to want his family back.”
“At least he can’t have them anymore.” Charlotte stood and walked to the far window. Looked out at the front street.
“No. Although I doubt my stepfather knows that yet. Perhaps I should go and tell him.” His voice was level, but Charlotte looked across to him and his mouth was tight and his eyes narrowed.
She turned back to the window. “You could save yourself some time, and just walk out into the street.”
“What do you mean?” Edward joined her, and his warm breath brushed the back of her neck.
She gripped the curtains with one hand, made herself stand perfectly still. “Your stepfather’s spy is back in his place. Watching the house again.”
15
His stepfather had interfered in his life from the moment his mother had married the bastard. The beatings, the cold disdain, that he could have borne. But the constant meddling, the way Gerald Hawthorne had snatched every enjoyable thing from him, and forced him in directions he did not want to go, had ignited a leaping, raging fire in him that had never abated.
He had thought it banked down now he was in control, rather than Hawthorne, but it had begun to consume him from within since Charlotte had told him about the spy.
Edward knew he was hanging on to civility by a thread, fighting back a rage so hot and black, he wanted to choke.
The boy who crouched on the pavement, near where he himself had stood only a few nights ago, watching the house, leaped to his feet and was out of grabbing distance before they were halfway across the street.
“What are you doing back here?” Charlotte called to him.
The child smirked. “Talking highbrow again, now there’s a nob to ’ear you?”
Charlotte smiled. “I don’t need to worry about it with him, so I’ll go gutter, if you like?”
“Don’t mind me.” The boy lifted his chin and stood in a good imitation of a dandy preening, and the anger loosened its hold on Edward’s chest a little. This boy was not responsible for Edward’s stepfather’s actions. He was a baby. No more than six or seven years old.
“Why are you back so soon?” Charlotte asked again, and the boy rubbed finger and thumb together.
Edward pulled a crown from his pocket and held it up. Waited. Saw the moment the child realized how much it was.
He strained forward, like a dog held back on a leash. “Just following ’is lordship.” He jerked his head toward Edward and Edward realized he knew him, had seen him a few times already, and not just in the last few days.
“How long have you been following me?” Edward flicked the coin high in the air, caught it in his fist.
“Since day before yesterday, m’lord.” The boy kept an earnest, honest face.
“And you report my activities to the coachman behind a gentlemen’s club, Miss Raven tells me.”
The boy slid a look at Charlotte, one Edward couldn’t read. He nodded.
“Which club?”
“White’s, sir.”
Edward shook his head. “You’re lying.” He flicked the coin again. “You’ve been following me for longer than just yesterday. I’ve seen you on and off since last week. And the only man who rides in a coach with my crest on it is not a member of White’s.”
The boy tried to look offended, then gave up and shrugged.
“Are you bamming us?” Charlotte asked, and she sounded colder. Harder. “Want some money for nothing?”
“No.” The boy sounded so indignant that despite the situation, Edward had to swallow a laugh. “It’s just … I weren’t supposed to be seen.” For the first time, the child looked uneasy.
“What’s your name?” Edward was tired of thinking of him as “the boy,” but he shook his head, his lips pressed tight together.
Edward sighed, held the crown between finger and thumb. “What can you tell me?”
The boy flicked his gaze between them and Edward realized they’d lost him. Whatever he’d been threatened with was strong enough to make him think twice about playing a double game.
He turned and ran.
“Wait.” Edward found himself throwing the crown at him, sensed Charlotte’s quick frown. The boy spun, darted forward, and scooped it up.
He stared at Edward, then down at the coin in his hand. “It’s Twigs,” he called, walking backward. He did a little jig, lifting his legs and kicking them out, then he turned and ran, disappearing around the corner.
“Twigs?” He turned to Charlotte as she came up beside him. “What does that mean?”
She was smiling. “It’s his name. Because of his legs. They’re like twigs.”
“He was afraid.”
She nodded. “But unless he’s part of a gang, and the contract to spy on you is through the gang leader, he’ll be all right now.”
“How?” Edward watched her face, at the satisfaction on it.
“You gave him a crown.” The eyes she lifted to his were shining. “That’s more than he’ll ever have seen at one time. He can go to ground good and proper with that.” There was a vicarious satisfaction in her voice, as if she were putting herself in Twigs’s place and chuckling to herself at her good fortune.
Her hair shone like a raven’s wing in the sunlight, and he wanted to touch it. “Do you take your surname from your hair? Because it is like a raven?”
She smiled, full of amusement, but her cheeks flushed pink, as well. “I never knew my surname, only my first name. The lads decided to choose one for me. I was only clean enough that they could tell what color my hair was a couple of times, but yes, it reminded them of a raven’s wing.” She shrugged. “We saw enough dead ones in the chimneys, anyway. We felt a connection to them. A camaraderie. You’d look at a dead raven, lying curled up in the soot, and think it could be you. Might be you, one day.”
He lifted a hand, forcing it not to shake, and brushed her cheek. “I missed seeing you these last two days.”
She blinked, and he wondered why he had said that. Cursed himself for it. Then slid his fingers up until they were buried in her hair.
“I was worried about you,” she said. “Worried that Luke would do something.”
“As far as he knows, there is nothing between us.” He buried his fingers even deeper, and she turned her head so her cheek rested in his palm and let him take the weight of her head for a moment. Then she lifted her own hand and curled her fingers around his, pulled his hand away, and glanced at it, eyebrows raised, head cocked to the side.
And suddenly he recalled they were in the street, and that he had touched her as intimately as a lover. That they stood with hands entwined.
He wondered if he’d lost his mind.
“He knows now, at any rate,” she said. She did no
t release his hand. “And he is coming for you. It isn’t a matter of if, only a matter of when.”
As he looked down at her, he understood her old lover for the first time. Because now, like Luke, if anyone stood in his way with her, he would bring them down.
Harry was asleep, lying in abandon with his arms thrown above his head. Too small to understand that his father was dead.
Ned was sleeping, too, but he was curled up on himself, deep under the covers, the position so protective, Emma’s throat ached at the sight of him.
James lay stretched out, under the blankets but with eyes wide open. They were fixed on her, glittering with tears he would not let fall. “If we’d been at home, Daddy would still be alive.”
Emma shook her head, forcing herself under control so she could answer. “Daddy went hunting whether we were there or not. It would have made no difference.”
“Why did we leave? Perhaps Daddy was missing us, and that’s why the accident happened. He was thinking of us, and didn’t see—”
“No.” Emma was firm. “The man who shot the gun was the one not thinking about what he was doing, not Daddy. And it was because of Daddy that we were here in London.” She would never let him think they were to blame by their absence. And if Geoffrey had committed suicide, there would be time enough, after the wounds were less raw, to explain to him later.
“I wish …” James’s voice broke on a sob that ripped her heart out, threw it down, and stamped on it. “I wish we could have been there to see him a few more times. I didn’t even say goodbye properly.”
Emma crouched down beside him and gently stroked the hair back from his forehead, silent tears tracking down her cheeks. “I love you, James. And Daddy loved you, too. And I know he knows that you miss him.” She sat until the muscles in her legs burned, her hand cupping his cheek, until at last he fell asleep.
She rose, taking a step toward the bed she’d had made up in the nursery. She did not want her children to sleep alone for the next few nights. She needed them near her.
But the idea of sleep was almost repugnant.
She was as wrung out as a wet bedsheet. The news had drained her—of energy, of the anger she had been nursing toward Geoffrey since she’d left their estate. She felt nothing. Did not want the dreams and thoughts and worries that she knew would crowd her head when she closed her eyes.
A soft knock came at the door, and she opened it with relief.
Charlotte stood outside, a small tray with a steaming cup of tea in her hands. Emma stepped out and closed the door.
“Can you sit with me while I drink?”
Charlotte nodded and turned, walking down the passage to the snug red and brown sitting room at the top of the stairs. She set down the tray and took a seat, and Emma forced herself to do the same.
“James is so confused. He thinks we should have been there. He feels if we had been, Geoffrey wouldn’t have died.” She tried to lift the cup to her lips but it shook too much and she set it down again.
“If you had stayed, James, Ned, and Harry would not have been there anyway. They’d have been with Frethers, being raped. And their father would have been the one who sent them there.” Charlotte’s voice was neither angry nor annoyed. She spoke in a matter-of-fact manner that forced Emma’s head up.
She couldn’t hold Charlotte’s gaze, and stared down at the low table. “I know that.” At last, she was able to lift the cup and take a sip. “I know that. But I cannot explain it to James.”
Charlotte pressed her lips together. “No.”
Emma wondered what she was thinking. Perhaps that at James’s age, she had been working for years as a sweep, had been beaten, starved, and perhaps raped herself.
Then Charlotte smiled, and Emma realized she was wrong. Charlotte did not begrudge her children their innocence. “They have a mother who loves them, and an uncle who will protect them. They will come through this, Emma, and they will thrive.”
Because she was overcome, and knew that if she tried to respond the tears that had fallen silently until now would come out in a wailing, keening mess, Emma forced herself to lift the cup again with shaking fingers and take a deep sip.
“Excuse me, my lady.” Betsy stood at the door, wringing her hands, and Emma saw Charlotte go pale.
“What is it?”
“Kit ’as something to tell you.” The maid would not look in Emma’s direction.
“Can’t it wait?” Charlotte murmured, and Betsy shifted uncertainly.
“It’s sort of a confession.” She grabbed her apron and twisted it in her hands. “Will you come?”
Charlotte rose and touched a gentle hand to Emma’s shoulder. “Shall I come back after?”
She shook her head. Their conversation had made clear what her guilt and sadness had muddied. Geoffrey had betrayed them, and while she had never wished him dead, she had no cause for regrets.
She watched Charlotte follow Betsy down the stairs, her tread weary, and wondered if Charlotte was able to work her magic on herself as easily as she seemed to do in others.
16
“That boy you spoke with today.” Kit launched straight into speech as Charlotte stepped out of the back door with Betsy.
He had been leaning against the wall but he pushed himself upright and walked a little way from the house. Charlotte followed, happy to have this conversation out of the hearing of the other servants.
“What about him?” Charlotte tried to see his face, but the night sky was still overcast from the storm of the afternoon, and his features were in shadow.
“You spoke with him the other day, as well.”
“Yes.”
“I had one of the lads Luke pays to hang around the back of the house follow him the first time you spoke to him. Just wanted to know what he was up to.” Kit spoke stiffly, and she knew it was because he was telling her something Luke wouldn’t like.
She hadn’t known he paid boys to hang around the house to follow people if needed. But she wasn’t surprised. “And?”
“He went back to a small private club near St. James’s Square. I know where it is, but not the name.”
That was good. They could confirm if it truly was Edward’s stepfather having them watched. “Thank you, Kit. That will help.”
“Help with what?” His tone was sharp. Far too sharp for a stablehand to his mistress, and he spun from her with a curse. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I don’t know what I am at the moment, your mistress or your friend, but I can take a sharp word or two without too much harm done. The boy says he was sent to watch Lord Durnham, and knowing the club will help narrow down who is behind it.”
“He wasn’t watching Lord Durnham.” Kit turned back to face her. “At least, not since you spoke to him. He came back to the house; he didn’t go anywhere near the nob. Luke’s lad brought in some extra watchers, and they set themselves up in a net around the house as far as two streets away.”
“Why?” As she uttered the question, she knew the answer.
“Luke wanted to see who was having you watched.”
“It may not be me being watched. Lady Holliday was here to escape her husband. He made a deal with Frethers over his three boys—”
Kit swore viciously, cutting her off. “I didn’t know that.”
“No,” she said wryly. Kit had no foundation to assume she would tell him her secrets. “I think her husband enlisted the help of her stepfather to watch her, maybe watch Lord Durnham, as well, and see if there was a chance to take the boys back.”
“’Twas his right to have them. Why didn’t he just make her?”
“Two reasons. He felt guilty about it. Before his wife knew and confronted him, he could fool himself into believing Frethers would look and not touch. But also because he knows Lord Durnham would fight him every inch of the way, and Durnham has more standing and considerably more funds than he does. Snatching them would have been far easier.”
“You’re talking about this like it’s n
ot a problem no more.” Kit cocked his head to the side.
“Lady Holliday’s husband died yesterday. Edward brought the news this afternoon. Unless Frethers is completely mad, he’ll not touch the boys now, without the father complicit.”
Kit spun a full circle, deep in thought. “Then why’s there new watchers?” He was talking to himself, and Charlotte grabbed his shoulders to stop him.
“What do you mean, new watchers?”
“The boy’s gone. But there are men watching now. Mostly wounded ex-soldiers.”
“The stepfather probably doesn’t know Lady Holliday’s husband is dead. Edward plans to tell him this evening.”
Kit gave a nod. But there was something in his face. A panic, which sent a thin, cruel hand of fear groping for her heart.
“What is it?”
“It’s Luke.” He looked away. “He thought—” Kit scrubbed his hands over his face. “He thought it was the nob, Lady Holliday’s brother, watching you. And wiv ’im following us the other night …” His words trailed off to nothing, sucked into the humid, damp hum of London on a high summer night.
“What is Luke going to do?” She spoke each word as if they were ripped from her, as if she did not have the air.
“I’m sorry.” When Kit turned back to her, his eyes were stark with fear. “He’s plannin’ to take care of ’im tonight.”
Gerald lived in a very carefully chosen house. Edward knew his stepfather had always been one to carefully weigh the odds, and Summer House was the perfect balance. Elegant and with a very good address, to make it eminently acceptable to polite society, but small and sophisticated, rather than large and domineering, with a much smaller price tag as a result.
He’d made it easy enough for Edward to pay for this little jewel, tucked neatly between two larger town houses.
Perhaps the only thing that had stuck in his stepfather’s craw was that Edward had bought the house in his own name. Gerald had been barely able to grit out his thanks when he worked out that the house was not his, free and clear.
The Emperor's Conspiracy Page 8