The Perils of Presumption (The Conclave Series Book 1)

by Sarah Sokol

  In which case, who did the deed? And at what point did he confess to Charlotte that he didn't think they had caught her brother's killer after all? Would it ruin the progress they had made?

  This was the reason he had stayed alone for so long, with only his garden for company. Add other people into the mix, and life instantly became murky. More beautiful, more fulfilling, more interesting, maybe, but also infinitely more frustrating.

  "There it is! Oh, Duncan, do go faster, would you?" Charlotte called out.

  The boy grinned, tugged his cap and gripped the reins. The carriage rattled faster down the winding lane, and Ben glanced up in surprise to find that his moody thoughts had brought them all the way to the Whitcomb estate.

  He sped up to keep pace with the carriage and drew in a few deep breaths of fresh country air. It really was lovely out here, with the wide meadows stretching out to either side, pale green grass broken by patches of wild pink corncockles, cuckoo flowers and purple pyramidal orchids. There were areas of standing water where the rain collected, unable to soak further into the muddy earth, but the warm afternoon sun would soon fix that.

  The estate itself was immaculately kept, with a welcoming atmosphere despite the dark memories associated with it. Ben rode ahead to open the wide iron gate, then nudged Merlin aside to make way for the carriage to arrive at the front door.

  When Ben finished closing the gate behind them, he urged Merlin towards the front door as well. However, as he arrived, he was surprised to see Charlotte already being helped down from the carriage by a strange man.

  The man was clad in rough trousers with his shirt undone around the neck and wrists, and he had his hands wrapped around Charlotte's waist as he lifted her down. Her fingers braced on his shoulders, and the tableau seemed frozen in time before Ben's eyes.

  "Thank you," Charlotte said once she was set down.

  The man stood back, a warm smile lighting his brown eyes as he looked her up and down. "Wasn't expecting to see you again so soon."

  "Yes, well, I received an urgent note from Agatha that I should come back." Charlotte lifted her brows. "It wasn't from you again, was it?"

  The man laughed self-consciously. "No, I swear, it wasn't my paranoia this time."

  There was an awkward moment of silence, then Charlotte glanced up and smiled at Ben. "Oh, and Lord Winters was kind enough to escort me. Ben, this is Henry Ward. Henry, Lord Benjamin Winters."

  Ben unclenched his fingers from around the pommel of his saddle and dismounted, striding forward towards the man. So, this was Henry. Much younger and more rugged than Ben had let himself believe.

  "Pleasure," he said briefly.

  Henry extended one hand and they shook, both holding on a little longer than strictly necessary. "Likewise."

  The silence lingered again, only broken by Duncan's cheery cry of "Get on now!" to the horses as he began driving the carriage away towards the stable. Charlotte shifted from one foot to the other, her fingernails worrying at each other. Ben stared at Henry, and Henry stared at Ben.

  Finally, to the relief of all, Stephen popped out of the front door. "Hallo, little miss Lottie. You came, the missus told me you would, I should've known she'd be right. She's always right, remember that, gentlemen."

  Ben had met the grizzled coachman before and liked him very much, so he gave a respectful bow as the older man approached. "Stephen, good to see you again."

  "Lord Winters, thank you for escortin' our lady back home again," Stephen said. "Hope you don't mind, miss, but Henry came around offerin' to help, and he's been handy with the sick cows especially."

  "Ah, that explains it then," Charlotte said with a smile. Was it just Ben, or did she look a little relieved? "Thank you, Henry."

  "Of course, neighbours must look out for each other," Henry said, bowing. "However, I'm afraid I have to be getting back. Charlotte, now that you're home, would you be able to come see Margaret? After you take care of the animals and settle in and all that. She's just been developing some rashes and shortness of breath over the past two days."

  "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Charlotte took a deep breath and nodded. "Of course, I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with her last visit as I would have liked."

  "Good. Good." Henry shot a glance up at Ben, then back to Charlotte. "And might I request that you come alone? It's just, Margaret being so delicate of constitution. We don't want her to become upset if she is exposed to strangers."

  Charlotte's brows drew together in a puzzled frown. "Oh. Of course, you know Margaret best, I will follow your wishes."

  "Thank you." Henry gave her a low bow and a cursory nod to Ben. "Then I look forward to your visit soon."

  "I look forward to seeing Margaret again," Charlotte answered and returned the courtesy.

  Stephen looked up at Ben, nudging his cap back from his forehead. "You any good with animals?"

  "Er, not particularly." Ben looked up at Merlin and rubbed his velvet nose. "This old fellow and I get along all right, but otherwise I'm no expert."

  "Best you stay out of the way, then." Stephen gave him a wry grin and wrapped his arm over Charlotte's shoulders. "This one will be up to her elbows in horse shite, sure and she'd prefer you not see her that way, eh?"

  Charlotte laughed and nudged the coachman in the ribs. "Stephen! But Ben, he is right. Why don't you take care of Merlin and then go in and ask Agatha to make you some tea? Feel free to make yourself at home, even take a nap if you wish. You look exhausted."

  Ben hesitated. On one hand, that Henry fellow had been helpful, and he felt a drive to match and exceed everything Henry offered Charlotte, just to prove he was a better choice. And yet, he really wasn't that good with animals. And he wanted to respect Charlotte's wishes. And Charlotte had said he could sleep. He would so dearly love to sleep.

  "Thank you," he said finally with another bow. "I think I will. Don't hesitate to call for me if I am needed."

  "Of course," Charlotte murmured. She bobbed him a quick courtesy, then tugged at Stephen's arm, and the two of them departed to the stables.

  Ben sighed and turned back to Merlin, stroking the horse's cheek. "Well, let's find you a place in the shade, old fellow. I'd turn you out in the pasture, but I hear the water might have gone foul. Can't have you getting sick on me, too."

  As he worked to brush Merlin down, find an easy place for the horse to stand and graze, and fetch a bucket of water for him to drink, Ben contemplated Henry. As a rival, on paper it seemed Ben had more to offer. He was childless, fairly wealthy, with a good position in court, and a title. But it didn't seem like Charlotte really gave a fig for any of that nonsense. It was something he liked about her, but also made him terribly nervous.

  If she didn't care about good prospects, it meant a Henry Ward was as good to her as a Lord Benjamin Winters.

  He shook his head, as if the movement could shake his head free from a mire of uncertainty and jealousy at the same time. Charlotte was a wonderful woman who deserved someone she loved. Whoever that might be.

  "Well, Merlin, suppose I ought to go make myself useful." Ben gave his horse another pat on the rump, then started towards the house.

  The front door opened into a well-lit front foyer, and Ben could hear distant sounds of a woman's humming and pots bashing against pans. Likely Agatha, and he wouldn't bother her yet. He could see the comfortable sofa awaiting him in the sitting room, but despite his exhaustion he felt too restless to sleep.

  If Sutcliffe truly didn't kill Avery, then he could use this time to discreetly re-examine Avery's notes. He'd wager they were still sitting in the same crates he'd delivered a few weeks ago.

  Peeking this way and that for stray servants, he slipped down the hallway and into the dark, abandoned office where Avery had lived and worked. There were piles of ledgers and Charlotte's estate papers on the desk, but otherwise it was preserved as it had been a year ago.

  There were the two crates of notebooks and spell components, stacked on the floor wh
ere he'd left them. Ben heaved one up onto the desk and pried the top off. He began to sort through the papers and diagrams until he found the small velvet-lined box in which they had placed the quill.

  It had been a long time, over a year since he had seen it. He sighed and sat down in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk. Carefully lifting the lid, he pulled out the quill between his thumb and forefinger.

  It was smaller than he remembered. The tip came to a sharp, wicked point, and there were two glyphs carved on the shaft. Ben and tilted it to the light. One was intended for radiance, and one for steadiness of hand. Nothing elaborate, Ben had spelled plenty of quills with the same purpose.

  The feather itself was black, but there were hints of brown and specks of white scattered along the length of it. Not a raven feather, as he had assumed originally.

  He pulled out one of Avery's notebooks and flipped forward to one of the diagrams, the beginning of a new design for a protective spell. He compared the quill to the tiny, neat scribblings in the book.

  It was difficult to see the details of handwriting from the shaft of a quill. Still, side by side, Ben could see every stroke of each glyph on the quill matched the strokes of the notebook. Neat, clean, no-nonsense, without flourishes or extra useless glyphs.

  This quill, the one Avery had been clutching when he died... he had made it himself. Avery had crafted this instrument.

  It wasn't one of Sutcliffe's.

  Ben let his head fall into his hands. "Damn."

  Chapter Thirty

  The Deadly Fruit

  Charlotte groaned and stretched her aching back before climbing out of the rapidly cooling bath. The last thing she wanted was to strap herself into a corset again, but she still had much to do before she slept.

  She sat down upon her bed and drew up her legs, examining the wounds on top of her feet. Still fresh, but already beginning to scar. It was fitting, perhaps, that she was now marked externally by the killer, as surely as she had been marked internally by her brother's death itself so long ago.

  Wrapping her feet as quickly as she could with soothing balm, she began to tug on a fresh set of clothing. Even though he was downstairs, separated from her by several closed doors, there was still a heightened awareness of Ben that hummed through her. It was odd to be naked knowing he was in the same building as her. Sort of intimate, even though he had already seen her that way thanks to the Evil Bastard.

  A small smile tugged at her lips. She was too tired to question it, too tired to keep going around and around in her own head. She was just glad to have a friend near, after such a trying day.

  At least the animals were all right. She had managed to heal all of them, pushing back whatever had been festering inside, causing them nausea and digestion issues. They were all resting, now, and on a strict diet of corn and other grains gentle on the system.

  Hopefully, she would have the same luck with Margaret. Sometimes she wished that along with her power, she had more knowledge of medicine and biology. She read occasional books on anatomy, but it was exceedingly difficult to find any in-depth education on the subject as a woman. It would help so much in situations like these, when all she could see was darkness. She could have no way of knowing what caused it or how to avoid it in the future.

  Well. The exhaustion dragged too heavily upon her brain to contemplate such things further tonight. She ought to just be grateful she was able to help at all, even if she didn't understand what it was she was helping with. Pushing up from the bed, she grabbed the walking stick she had commandeered from Stephen and leaned heavily on it, limping down the stairway.

  There was little sound aside from the far off, faint murmurs of Stephen and Agatha in the kitchen. Taking care of the animals had made day creep into evening, and the shadows were long in the front sitting room, but there was a faint glow of light coming from Avery's office at the end of the hall. Charlotte started down the hallway and peered through the door, smiling at the tableau before her.

  Ben hunched over the desk, his hair wildly askew and a deep frown between his brows. There were stacks of books on either side of him, and he flipped through the pages, then paused to scribble in his own notebook occasionally. The sight reminded her so strongly of Avery that tears sprang to her eyes, and she sniffled.

  At the sound he sprang upright, closing the notebook. His stance relaxed once he saw her, and he immediately began trying to straighten the papers on the desk. "Charlotte, hello. How are you? How are the animals? All is well?"

  The frown line between his brows didn't disappear, and she had a momentary urge to smooth it with her fingertip. "Yes, they should be fine as long as we manage to figure out what went wrong. Until then, the poor things won't have free access to that pasture, but at least they'll be alive."

  "That's what matters," Ben agreed.

  He seemed almost shifty, distracted, his eyes darting away from hers. That wasn't like him. Charlotte's eyes fell to the desk once more, and she spotted Avery's quill under a pile of papers. "What is going on?"

  He sighed and pushed his hands through his hair, leaving it even more wild. "You should sit down."

  Charlotte frowned but hobbled forward and took the chair where Ben had been seated. She could feel his residual body heat lingering in the leather and snuggled into it. "I repeat, what is going on?"

  He leaned over and planted his palms on the desk, nodding at the quill where it lay in its case. "That. It's not one of Sutcliffe's, look at it closely."

  Charlotte removed the quill from the box and tilted it this way and that, examining it in the warm glow of candlelight. She had held one of Sutcliffe's quills in her hand, had stared at it for hours before drifting to sleep in London. The differences between the two were plain as day.

  "How did we miss this?" she whispered.

  "All we thought about was that he was found with the carved quill in hand like the others," Ben answered, shoving himself off the desk and beginning to pace back and forth in the small room. "It never even occurred to me until Sutcliffe's denials. I think Avery made that one himself, probably for his own purposes. He must have just happened to be holding it on the night he died."

  "He always did like to work late," Charlotte agreed, feeling numb. "But... But it still could have been Sutcliffe. The quills were just to keep an eye on his intended victims. He could still have killed Avery."

  "I don't think so." Ben stopped and turned to her, remorse clear on his face. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I wasn't sure, Oliver kept saying his phrasing was careful enough, he could be trying to trick us. But in truth, we both know Sutcliffe was under the influence of a spell when he said he didn't kill Avery. He couldn't have been lying."

  Charlotte bit her lower lip, unsure how to react. On one hand, she had already been having difficulty accepting Sutcliffe's capture, the finality of it all. It was almost a relief to know her feelings were justified. That it really wasn't over. On the other hand, she was exhausted, emotionally and physically. She had wanted to believe it was over so much.

  Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath and stood up. "Thank you for telling me."

  Ben stared at her, startled. "What? I mean, you're welcome. I know you must be angry with me."

  "No. I am not angry." Charlotte didn't have it in her to smile anymore, but she stepped around the desk towards Ben. "Do you plan to stop seeking his killer?"

  "Never, until I have him," Ben said. "I promised, after all. A gentleman never breaks his word."

  "Then everything will be all right," Charlotte replied. She reached forward and took Ben's hand, feeling his pulse pounding as she clasped his fingers between both her palms and squeezed. "We'll work together, and we'll find him."

  Ben stared down at their clasped hands, then looked back up to her with a quizzical smile. "Why are you acting so odd?"

  She lifted her brows. "By 'odd,' do you mean perfectly calm and rational?"

  He chuckled and tugged on her hand, bringing her a step closer st
ill. "Well, yes, to be frank. I thought you would hate me. I feared you would."

  "Thank you for being honest despite your fears, then." Charlotte felt strangely breathless. "It's important to me. This is upsetting news, but it's all right when I know I can trust you."

  "Of course," Ben murmured, and his eyes drifted down, over her face as if memorizing every inch. When his gaze fixed upon her mouth, Charlotte swallowed hard, sure she could feel the weight of his attention there, parting her lips, pulling her inexorably closer.

  She wanted him. With a flash of heat and feminine certainty, she knew she could have him. All she had to do would be to lean forward, brush her lips against his, and more of those delicious sensations would be hers for the taking. Her fingers could sink into his hair, she could hear those low, fervent moans he seemed unaware of making, they could sink down together and...

  And what? She didn't know what. Make love? Sophie had described it to her, to the tune of shocked giggles and pink cheeks, but it was different here in reality. It was more... real. More frightening. More mysterious.

  "Margaret," Charlotte whispered finally. Her last defence against this wave of feeling. "I should go see to her before it gets too late."

  Disappointment flashed in Ben's eyes, but he nodded, releasing her hand. His rough, calloused fingers slid across her palm and made her shiver again, but she forced herself to step back, then back again, nearly stumbling over a pile of books.

  "I shall escort you, of course," Ben rumbled, stooping down to collect his hat, coat and cane.

  "Oh, no, that is quite all right. You should find Agatha for some supper and she can show you to a spare bedroom," Charlotte said.

  "I insist," Ben said, meeting her gaze as he planted his hat upon his tousled hair. "I want to have a look at her for the possibility of magical disease, and anyway... You should have someone to look out for you, Charlotte. If all you've got tonight is me, then so be it."