by Sarah Sokol
"Damn and blast," she whispered. She tried to speed up her steps as she crossed the hallway. Before she could get out of sight, the door opened all the way to reveal two familiar figures.
Oliver spoke to the butler, smiling pleasantly and handing over a card, but Ben...
Ben's dark eyes fixed right on Charlotte. And oh, what a shock; he did not look pleased.
Chapter Seventeen
The Good Little Boys
The butler's voice droned on in no particular hurry, and the sluggish pace grated at Ben's patience.
"I realize you had an appointment, my lords, but I am afraid I must ask you to wait here. He had some unexpected callers, you see."
"Lord and Lady Kenward, is it? We are friends, I'm sure they would welcome us to join them," Oliver said with a benevolent smile.
Ben barely listened to the exchange, keeping his gaze fixed on the corner where that woman had disappeared. It had only been for a moment, but he knew it was Charlotte. It could only ever be her.
"Well then, let me speak to Lord Hastings, and I will show you in if he agrees." The butler's voice may have a wobble, but his nerves clearly didn't. He stared down Ben and Oliver with an expression so fierce it looked as though he might try and challenge them to a duel if they crossed him.
"Fine, it is fine," Ben cut in. Oliver could wheedle all day if he were allowed. "We'll wait. Thank you, sir."
"Call me Derrington," the butler replied with a low bow. "Excuse me, my lords."
Ben waited for Derrington to shuffle off down the hallway again, leaving them in the foyer with the loudly ticking grandfather clock. What was it with clocks in waiting rooms? As if time didn't pass slowly enough.
"Well, that's rather inconvenient," Oliver began.
"Charlotte is here," Ben interrupted. Derrington was officially out of sight, so he began striding down the long hallway in the opposite direction, where the lady had fled.
"Well of course she's here, likely with Lady Kenward. Ben! For god's sake, you can't just charge off into people's private homes!" Oliver lowered his voice to an urgent whisper as he hurried to catch up to Ben.
"No, I saw her snooping. I know a guilty face when I see one, and she was giving me guilty face," Ben said with what might be categorized as an evil smile. Perhaps he'd been wrong last time in his righteous anger, but not this time.
This time, he knew for certain, and he only grew more sure when he rounded the corner and saw the door to the earl's office ajar, and the flash of a pastel pink skirt. He dashed forward the last few steps and pushed open the door.
"Ah-hah!" He pointed to the crouched figure of Charlotte, bent over one of the drawers in the polished desk.
She glanced up, the light from the large office windows filtering over her features, and revealing what was indeed a decidedly guilty expression. "Ben? Oliver? What a lovely surprise."
"I know you know that I saw you. Don't play innocent. What are you doing? Snooping in Conclave affairs? I could arrest you for this."
"He couldn't," Oliver assured Charlotte with a smile, adjusting his cravat. "He'd call the constables, and they would arrest you."
She was a little pale in the cheeks but stood up and thrust her shoulders back with admirable courage. "You wouldn't. You said it yourself, Oliver, you are my two oldest friends."
"And you said we weren't," Oliver continued, smile still placid.
"All right. Very funny." Charlotte huffed a sigh and stepped back from the desk, lifting her fingers. "I was just poking around. This drawer is locked with what looks like some sort of magic, anyway. I don't suppose you know how to unlock it?"
Ben couldn't help it. His ears pricked up and he felt the overwhelming desire to show off a bit. He was always looking a fool in front of Charlotte; would it be so bad to look as if he knew what he was doing for once? He stepped forward to her side and leaned over to inspect the indicated drawer.
"I shall just keep an eye out for Derrington," Oliver said and poked his head out of the office door.
"Please do." Ben brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. The glyphs were painted, carved, and engraved in gold on the dark polished wood, curling in intricate swirling designs up and around the lip of the drawer. If they were broken without the right gesture or word to release them, it would probably set off some sort of explosion or alarm.
It was an intricate locking spell, one that each member of the Conclave learned, then modified for their own purposes. Ben had seen enough of them; he knew he had the skill to unlock it.
"Yes, it's magic," he said, and straightened back up. Turning to Charlotte, he crossed his arms. "What do you want in there, anyway?"
"I just have a feeling that list you all were talking about is there." She lifted her big green eyes to meet his, and he immediately felt the connection hum to life between them. He was drawn in, pinned by her attention. "I can't be the only one who doesn't trust Hastings."
"She may have a point," Oliver mused from his place at the door. "He's been hiding it because he thinks we'll do nefarious things with it, but we know we shan't, and we don't know if he is, so why not?"
Ben wavered. There was no real reason why not. He could pop open the drawer, peek, and then have the meeting anyway, with Hastings none the wiser. Knowledge was power, and he needed all he could get to maintain his grip on this investigation.
"Fine," he muttered. "You may be right. Even if the list isn't there, something important is, clearly. And he is a suspect. But I need time. Charlotte, you go out and distract the butler and Hastings. Keep them from noticing we're gone. I'll need at least five minutes, more if you can."
"What?" she protested in dismay. "Why can't I stay? I want to see the list too."
"Absolutely not. We need your help with distraction. If it is related to Avery, I give you my word I will tell you what you need to know."
Charlotte continued staring up at him for another long moment, lips parted as a complex swirl of emotions filled her gaze. "Fine," she said on a weary exhale, dropping her eyes and shaking her head. She backed away from Ben, around the desk and across the elegant carpeting to the office door. "I will go be your distraction. But I expect information. Your word as a gentleman."
"Indeed." Ben gave a low bow, mostly to stop himself from calling her back. God, he really did turn into a complete idiot when she was around.
Oliver opened the door for Charlotte, who clutched at her stomach, fixed a sickly look on her face, and departed.
"I won't even ask," Oliver murmured as he watched her go. Then he turned back to Ben and lifted his brows expectantly. "Well? Just showing off, or can you really do it?"
Ben grunted and bent back down to study the glyphs. Fumbling in his satchel, he located a small bottle of lavender oil and pulled it out, dabbing a few droplets on his thumb and forefinger.
The key was to trace the glyphs back in reverse. First, figure out which had been carved before the others, the base of the spell. The symbol for fire, easy enough, but modified to give some sort of electric shock too.
So, Hastings did have a nasty side.
It was complex, but Ben knew he could do it. Tuning out everything, the warmth of the sunlight, the sweet scent of lavender, even the sound of Oliver breathing, he focused completely on tracing the intricate design with his fingertips. The wood and metal shone bright under the oil, and the more intricate the glyphs became, the more powerful the arcane hum filling the air until Ben's skin was tingling with it.
With one last flourish, he completed the design. He knew it was right when there was a high-pitched whine that culminated in a small snap, and the drawer popped open a few centimetres.
Oliver pushed up from the wall. "I say, you've done it."
"Yes. But just another moment." Ben eased one fingertip down to touch the secondary catch on the drawer. A small hook connected to a glass bottle of something likely terrible, poison or acid, was rigged inside the drawer too. A secondary trap. Hastings was nasty and clever. He drew the hook out of place,
then opened the drawer one centimetre at a time until he was able to get a glimpse of what was inside.
It was a thick stack of at least fifty pages of parchment, ink-blotted and wrinkled. On the pages were written names, hundreds of them, some with stars next to them, some circled, some with no markings at all, in no discernible order. Excitement caught at Ben's breath and he whipped out his notebook.
No time to study and ponder. He had to copy over as many of the names as he could in what time they had left. Hurriedly he began scribbling in his notebook, only the names circled or starred. They must be important to Hastings for some reason and there were far fewer of those.
He felt Oliver approach from behind to peer curiously over his shoulder, but he didn't stop.
"Parchment looks like it's been through a lot," Oliver remarked, picking up one of the pages Ben thrust aside.
"Keep those in order," was Ben's only response.
"Molly Fields... Roger Thorn... Jackson Preed... Anna Johnson?" Oliver glanced up, brows drawn together in thought. "Don't recognize any of these names. Just a load of commoners, no society folks in the lot."
"Strange," Ben grunted as he continued writing. "Surely they can't all be commoners. Unusual for a commoner to be able to afford the study of magic, black or otherwise."
"Actually, remember that book I mentioned? The one about blood magic?" Oliver set the parchment back down and wandered to the door, peeking out again. "It states that to use blood magic you don't really need to study. It just comes naturally."
"So you're saying these people are born to be black magic practitioners," Ben said grimly. "This many? Hundreds, perhaps thousands of names?" One of the names caught his eye as he wrote it down, and his quill hesitated on the page. John H. Turner. Why did that name sound so familiar?
"Well, sort of, I suppose. They haven't talked about black magic in the book yet, only blood magic," Oliver said slowly.
"They are one and the same," Ben murmured. There was a long pause in which the only sound was Ben's quill scratching against paper.
Then Oliver spoke again, his tone caustic and bitter. "What about precious Charlotte? You know she has power, yet she never studied. What if she has blood magic, eh?"
"We don't know what she can do or how." Ben dismissed the idea with a shake of his head and returned to writing.
"I do. I've seen it." Oliver stayed in his relaxed pose leaning against the wall, but his tone was still sharp. "She reached right into my head and whisked away one of my migraines. I'd never seen anything like it before. It was like she shared her soul with me."
"What? What are you on about?" Ben finally gave up on copying over more names. He had about thirty of them written down in barely legible scribbles, but that one name, John H. Turner. That was something he could investigate. Figure out why it rang such a bell. "Hang on a moment. You saw Charlotte's magic at work? And you didn't say?"
"Yes, I did. And I'm telling you, it's something new and different. I'm telling you, there are new and different things in magic that the Conclave is too bloody stubborn to see!" Oliver's voice was rising and he had to force it back down to a whisper, eyes bright with passion.
Ben studied his cousin's unfamiliar expression. He looked almost fevered, zealous, a far cry from his usual laid-back demeanour. "I... I see," he said.
He did not see, but this wasn't the time or place for further discussion. "I want you to tell me more of Charlotte's power. Later, after our meeting with Hastings. I want to hear every detail."
"Yes, fine. Fine." Oliver mustered a smile, taking a deep breath and smoothing his palms down the front of his jacket. "Now clean up everything you did here and put it back as it was. We've got to go back out to the foyer and pretend we've been good little boys."
Chapter Eighteen
The Urgent Note
"Well that was a bloody waste of bloody time," Charlotte muttered under her breath as the carriage lurched and rattled back towards the Kenward townhouse.
"Charlotte!" Sophie sounded shocked. "If you're going to swear you ought to at least be creative about it."
"Right, sorry. Pigeon-livered ratbags."
"Much better. Did you not get what you needed?"
Charlotte sighed and tilted her head back. "Ben and Oliver interrupted me. So no, I didn't learn anything new."
"Well. That's disappointing." Sophie sighed too and rested her head on Hollis' shoulder. "It is a good thing we are having sponge cake and strawberries for pudding tonight. I have a feeling we shall all need it."
"Indeed, the best thing for indigestion," Hollis said with an encouraging smile at Charlotte.
"Holly, for God's sake, she hasn't really got indigestion." Sophie shook her head but nestled in closer to her husband.
"It was a joke, dear," Hollis said mildly before settling into silence as his hand stroked his wife's hair.
Charlotte smiled and turned her head to look out the window, affording them all the privacy she could. They were so sickeningly sweet together. She wondered if they still would be after thirty years of marriage. She hoped so.
She'd had barely a moment when passing Ben in the hallway of Hastings' home to send him a questioning glance. He'd had his five minutes, indeed she believed it had been more like ten, so he must have something to share. But he had just whispered that they would talk later, and for now she had to be satisfied with that. He was a man of his word, or at least, he always had been before.
By the time they reached the Kenward home once more, Charlotte had wondered and worried herself into such a sour mood, she wasn't faking the stomach-ache any longer. She felt as if her insides were tied in knots and intended to take herself straight to her room.
However, when they reached the door they were greeted by an anxious butler, who handed over a note which had apparently been brought by special courier. "The lad wished me to inform you that it was exceedingly urgent, and he had been paid handsomely to ensure it reached your hands as soon as possible, my lady."
"Thank you." Charlotte felt the knots in her stomach twist even tighter as she accepted the note and unfolded it. The seal and hurried masculine handwriting were familiar and filled her with dismay.
My Dear Charlotte,
I ask you will attend Margaret as soon as you are able. I am only a grieving father, no physician, but I believe this could be the end. She has fallen into a fainting spell and will not wake. Please, come if you have any care for us at all.
Regards,
Henry
"What is it?" Sophie laid her fingers gently on Charlotte's shoulder. "You look quite stricken, dear. Is everything all right?"
"It's Margaret," Charlotte whispered. "Today was to have been our appointment and I told them I could not come. She's taken a turn for the worse. I must go."
"Go?" Sophie frowned, but as she met Charlotte's eyes her protest faltered. "Of course. Of course, you must go."
"I shall fetch Duncan and make sure he's got the coach ready," Hollis offered. His dreamy expression had hardened to one of intensity and concern. Perhaps this is what Sophie saw in him, a core of steel under the soft wrapping.
"Thank you. Yes, that would be - thank you." Charlotte quickly stuffed the note into her reticule. "I should pack a bag."
"Yes, get your things," Sophie said, pressing her fingers to her cheeks. "Do you need me to come with you, darling?"
"What? No, no. Of course not. You should stay. I'll be back in no time at all." Charlotte lifted her skirts and charged up the stairs towards her room. "Everything will be fine."
"Are you certain?" Sophie huffed and puffed as she ran up the stairs after Charlotte. "What if... something goes wrong? Won't you need... someone?"
"I shall be perfectly well." Charlotte burst into her room and began stuffing objects into her travel case. A book, a mirror, a petticoat-- "Oh blast it, I've got all this at home."
Sophie arrived a few steps behind. "Will you stay there?"
"Yes, I'll go straight to Henry's to see Margaret, then sle
ep in my own bed tonight. I will write to you if I am delayed but otherwise expect I shall return as soon as possible. I am onto something for Avery's murder, I can tell. Even if the worst should happen, I cannot let it stop me from coming back and finishing this."
"All right. I do wish you'd let me come. Or at least let me make you a snack for the road. Perhaps a meat pie and some of that sponge cake?" Sophie once more trailed behind Charlotte, back out the bedroom door and down the stairs.
"I'm sure Agatha will have something I can scrounge up," Charlotte replied as they reached the foyer once more. Duncan was there, tugging at his cap and shifting from foot to scrawny foot.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes. I'm certain. I could hardly eat anyway," Charlotte said. "Is everything ready, Duncan?"
"Yes milady. Take your bag?" The boy whisked her nearly-empty satchel from her hands and made for the front door. "Got Arkle all ready to trot."
"Very well." Charlotte started for the door as well, but was halted by Sophie's arms flinging around her waist and squeezing, knocking the breath from her lungs.
"I hope everything is all right," Sophie murmured, the words muffled against Charlotte's shoulder. "Come back soon. I miss you already. Be safe. Travel well. Don't let--"
"Everything will be fine," Charlotte said with a laugh, squeezing her back. "See you soon."
She made her way out the front door with brisk steps, rushing past Hollis who gave her a wave and a passing, "Safe travels!"
Duncan was waiting there to open the carriage door for her and help her in. She barely had time to whisk her skirt inside before the door was closed and latched behind her. She peered out the window, watching Sophie and Hollis waving as once more she found herself lurching through the streets of London.
It was already approaching dusk. On a day like this, clear, but with clouds rolling in that promised rain tonight, the sunsets were vibrant and full of beauty.
Too soon, however, the pink, orange and golden sunlight faded. The clouds drew over the sky like a grey blanket, the rain began to spatter down, and Charlotte was left alone with her worries. She wanted to find Avery's murderer more than anything in the world. It was disturbing that even now as she rushed towards a dying child, she found herself almost more anxious about what she was leaving behind in London. Ben, Hastings, Oliver, even Sutcliffe; there was something they were all hiding from her, and it was connected to Avery.