by Sara Reinke
* * * *
They sat together on the side of her bed. “They cannot get away with this,” Reilly said, his brows narrowed, his hands closed into fists. His sorrow and shock had waned to frustration and anger. He stood, sucking in a sharp, pained breath, and paced restlessly. “There must be something we can do, some way out of this. There must be.”
“If you can think of one, let me know,” Charlotte said. “I have wracked my mind witless and cannot come up with anything.”
“You said he is in debt,” Reilly said, turning to her, wincing as the movement pained him. “Caroline told you he is facing debtor’s prison, his spending is so out of hand. Mother must not know of this. She would never consent to see you marry a man in such straights. She—”
“Caroline also told me Lord Essex would not see me know disgrace or debt for James,” Charlotte said. “He will take care of me as James’s wife, if only to protect his own familial interests. Telling Mother of James’s debts might delay the wedding, but only until she speaks to the earl and he tells her this himself. He will be here tomorrow. Caroline said he is traveling from London tonight.”
Her voice faded at this, her brow arching suddenly, thoughtfully.
“Still, a delay is better than naught,” Reilly said, pacing again. “It would gain us some time, at least, even if only a few hours, to figure out something better. If debt will not discredit Roding enough in Mother’s regard, then we will simply need to find something else— something worse—that will. The man has employed that bastard Cheadle to his service. Given Cheadle’s reputation, it has to mean there is more between them than this—something rotted. I know it. I can fairly well smell it.”
Charlotte looked up at him, watching him stride briskly back and forth. “Reilly…” she said.
“Cheadle is a thief-taker,” Reilly said. “He makes a living turning bandits in for reward money. Perhaps James hoped to learn the trade, to split reward monies with Cheadle. Cheadle’s purse is padded while James tenders back his debts.”
“Reilly,” Charlotte said, but again, Reilly was lost in his own thoughts and paid her no heed.
“That cannot be it,” Reilly said, shaking his head. “If that was what James had in mind with Cheadle’s service, they would have seized upon it by now, from the moment they suspected me, Lewis, and Will were the Black Trio. There is a big enough bounty offered for us that they should have at least been fairly tempted.”
“Reilly…”
“If they were not,” Reilly mused, pausing in mid- step. “It means there must be something better, tempting them the more.”
“There is,” Charlotte said, and Reilly turned to her, his brows lifted in surprise. “There is something better to tempt them,” she whispered, her eyes round. “There is James’s inheritance.”
Reilly blinked at her, startled. Charlotte stood. “After we were robbed, one of Cheadle’s bags was delivered here by mistake,” she said. She went to her writing table and rifled through Cheadle’s knapsack, finding the copy of Improvement of the Mind. “I found this,” she said, flipping among the pages until she found the gazette clipping. She carried it to her brother, holding it out to him.
Reilly held it toward the lamp and read the note jotted in the margin. “‘Suitable for our needs?’” he murmured.
“And there was this besides,” she said, turning pages swiftly against her thumb until she found the second note. Reilly looked at this one, too, with undisguised interest. “I thought it implied a meeting of some sort, that perhaps James was seeing a lover in Epping. I had hoped so anyway, to prove to Mother that he is a cad. Una and I went to the Wake Arms together to see. He did not meet a woman there. He met Julian Stockley and Camden Iden.”
“Stapleford and Hallingbury?” Reilly asked, his brow arching.
“I had not given it much thought until just now, because I had convinced myself that this note…” She tapped her fingertip against the gazette clipping. “… meant that threatening to frame or expose you as the Black Trio would be suitable to make me marry James. But now…”
Charlotte sighed heavily, frustrated about her rather conceited misreckoning. “It has nothing to do with me,” she said to Reilly. “It has to do with Lord Essex. I heard the four of them talking in Epping— James, Cheadle, Julian, and Camden—and they mentioned someone traveling the north highway from London by dusk on Saturday, and reaching Beech Hill by ten o’clock. They spoke of meeting there at nine-thirty.”
Reilly met her gaze, his expression grim. “They are going to murder Lord Essex,” he said.
“And make it look as though the Black Trio are to blame,” Charlotte said. “Camden Iden is in debt himself. James must have offered him a generous sum to help, and you know what people say about Julian Stockley.”
“He poisoned his father,” Reilly said, and she nodded.
“Who better to help James murder his own?” she asked.
Reilly frowned. “Those bastards,” he whispered.
“Roding and Cheadle would keep their peace as long as you marry Roding—until the vows are proffered, that is.”
Charlotte blinked. Reilly had just broached something that had yet to occur to her, and she stared up at her brother in horrified aghast. “They will see you hang anyway,” she whispered.
“No matter what,” Reilly said, his brows furrowed deeply. “They mean to turn us over anyway in the end, and this time with the murder of Lord Essex to our credits.”
He brushed the flap of his justicoat aside and reached into his fob pocket, withdrawing his watch. “What time is it?” Charlotte asked.
“Nearly forty past eight,” he replied, tucking the watch into his breeches again. “How swiftly can you ride to Theydon Hall?”
“At a full gallop and not keeping to the highway?” she said. “Forty minutes, maybe less.”
“Go,” Reilly told her, nodding his chin in imperative. “Get Lewis and Will; have them ride hard for Beech Hill and meet me there. I will be waiting for them.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I do not know,” he said. “Not yet, at least. I will think of something.” He nodded again, motioning her toward her door. “Go,” he said. “As fast as you can, Charlotte. We are running out of time.”