The Emperor's Conspiracy (20 page)

Anyone could have seen them, it was true, but most likely if a gossipmonger of the ton had, she’d have heard about it already. She took a risk. “Your watchers reported that, did they?”

He narrowed his eyes. “We know all about you, Miss Raven. And if you don’t do as we say, I’m afraid Lord Durnham will know about you, too. Everything.”

She stared at him blankly. They were blackmailing her? How unfortunate for them it was with secrets she had already told.

And finally, she realized, she was face-to-face with one of the mysterious men Luke and Edward were so concerned
about. No matter what, now she would have to find out what this was about. They had forced her to it.

“And we won’t stop with Lord Durnham.” He watched her, searching for a sign of dismay. “The rest of the ton will learn it, too. You will be a social pariah.”

That threat held some power, she conceded. Not for herself. She felt an inexplicable relief at the thought of being beyond the pale in society. But Catherine would feel it. Would be made unhappy by it, and she did not want that. “What is it you know?” Charlotte wondered if his answer would give her some clue as to who had blown on her.

She had never asked any of her friends from her days in the rookery to keep quiet about her past. It was an unwritten rule from where she came from that no matter what, no matter the crime, you didn’t blow the gaff on one of your own.

It jolted her to realize some may no longer consider her one of their own.

“Your mother,” he hissed, seemingly goaded by her lack of reaction. “The bastard daughter of a whore. Lady Howe must have been mad to take you in, and how she came to, I can’t imagine.”

Charlotte’s mind raced. His words shocked her, jolted her more than he must realize. She had thought he would bring up her work as a sweep, her association with Luke, but her mother? Yes, her parentage was just as damning, but it had been so long since she’d thought of her mother. Of all the things to make a scandal with, her mother seemed the least of it. There were far bigger fish to fry, when it came to her, but Tavenam had not mentioned them.

This did not smack of a rookery betrayal. It held a very upper-class taint.

“What do you want from me, in exchange for your silence?” she asked.

Her cool tone seemed to infuriate him. His face turned a dark puce, and he puffed like a pair of bellows. “You’re a cold little number, aren’t you? We want to hear whatever Lord Durnham has discovered regarding a certain matter he’s investigating. We want his notes on it copied, we want his thoughts on it conveyed. Everything that he tells you, we want to know.”

At last Tavenam got a strong reaction from her. She took a step back and bumped against the pale gold silk-covered wall. Anger pricked her, sharp and hot. Again, it was not what he was expecting.

“I cannot give you that which I have no access to.” She spoke clearly. “I have only been to his house twice, once with his sister, and this morning, to hear news of his sister, and both times, I was never left alone, and certainly didn’t have access to his notes. He does not discuss any matters of his business with me; in fact he refuses even to admit that he works for the Crown.” She lifted her hands before her. “How can I be of any help to you?”

Tavenam sucked in a breath through his teeth. This was not what he wanted to hear. “Find a way. Use what charms you have, allow him to take you to bed, I don’t care. If you want to keep this life, Miss Raven, you will have to work for it, whatever that work entails.”

“Charlotte?” Catherine’s voice cut through Tavenam’s low-pitched diatribe, startling him. “Lord Tavenam, you seem most worked up about something. Whatever can it be that you disagree with my ward so strongly about?”

Tavenam stepped away from her, sent Catherine a violent look, and stalked away without responding.

Charlotte watched him go, watched him carefully reconstruct his habitual air of bonhomie as he made his way to a group of men standing beside the card room.

Were they part of this, too? Or merely his acquaintances? She made a note of those whom she knew or had been introduced to.

“What is it?” Catherine pitched her voice low. “He looked ready to kill you. I’m sorry I left you alone so long. I was too busy chatting with Lady Crowder to notice what was going on.”

This always surprised her, Catherine’s willful habit of seeing her as a well-brought-up lady of the ton. A woman who would have fainted dead away after a conversation such as she’d just had with Tavenam. A woman who needed a chaperone. Despite herself, she smiled.

“Stop that.” Catherine drew her farther away from the dance floor.

“Stop what?”

“That pitying way you have of looking at me, when you think I’m being foolish in protecting you. You deserve the same respect and protection as every other woman here. Never forget that.”

Charlotte lifted a hand and touched Catherine’s face, sorry that she was wearing gloves and could not do it skin to skin. “I love you, Catherine.”

Catherine made a little hiccup of sound and fumbled in her reticule, then brought up a handkerchief. “You always surprise me, Charlotte. You have given me more than I have ever given you, and you must never forget that.
Never
.”

There was a stir at the entrance to the ballroom, and Charlotte glanced over Catherine’s shoulder to see what it was about.

Catherine gave a tiny sniff and dabbed at her nose. “Now what did that horrid little man say to you?”

“I’d rather not worry you with it,” Charlotte said, frowning at the knot of people that had formed by the door. “I can sort it out without your having to …” She trailed off.

Breaking free of the crowd, shaking them off like a dog shaking off water, was Edward.

And as he walked straight toward her, she suddenly wondered, who in the ton had been talking about her past?

She had only told three people of good society—Catherine, who would never say anything; Emma; and Edward himself.

How had Lord Tavenam gotten his information?

25

E
dward shrugged off the crowd and saw Charlotte standing to one side of the dance floor with Lady Howe. She was watching him with that cool look of hers.

She was in a pale blue gown with white satin gloves, her hair piled high on her head in a complicated style. His very own Ice Queen, in this, the hottest summer in London he could remember. The reserve and detachment on her face was certainly a bucket of cold water.

He almost stumbled, and wondered if the floor could be uneven.

The way she stood, the look in her eye, made him want to grab her again and kiss her until nothing was left but supple, warm compliance.

It had not gone that way this morning, but that had been on the heels of the angry insult he had thrown at her, and he hoped—prayed—that she had wrenched herself away and ran out of anger, not revulsion or disgust.

He had a chance with anger.

She and Lady Howe waited for him, and the look on Lady Howe’s face was so set, he almost stumbled again. The lady looked like a tiger with a threatened cub, and as dangerous.

“Ladies.” He bowed.

“Lord Durnham.” Lady Howe eyed him with displeasure, and Edward could tell she was thinking about the last conversation they had had together, where he had insulted Charlotte and Lady Howe had come to her defense. “I will speak plainly. Charlotte has been inveighed against once this evening, and I will not have it again.”

He narrowed his eyes. “By whom?”

Charlotte grinned at him, her haughtiness momentarily gone. “Only you can insult me, and no one else?”

“No, not even me.”

The music started up, a quick polka, and he indicated to the dance floor. “Would you dance with me?”

Charlotte hesitated, and then shook her head. “I have not had much practice, I’m afraid.” But it wasn’t that. He could see she was lying.

He stared at her.

“Lady Crowder is beckoning me,” Catherine said with exasperation, and Edward turned. His hostess was indeed trying to attract Lady Howe’s attention. “I’ll be back in a moment.” With a dark look at him, Lady Howe moved away, and Edward realized Lady Crowder would be wanting
details of why Edward had decided to come to her ball after he had refused every other invitation for the last five years.

“Why don’t you want to dance with me?” he asked Charlotte, seizing with both hands the precious seconds Lady Crowder’s curiosity had given him.

His question forced a surprised laugh from her. Then she narrowed her eyes, the Ice Queen again. “You would dare ask me that? After what you suggested this morning?”

He took her hands in a movement so fast she did not have time to draw away, and drew her close. “I’m sorry.”

She tugged her hands free and fiddled with her fan, but did not flick it out.

“Apology accepted. Your stepfather did seem very shocked and afraid. Even I was racking my brain to remember if I knew him.”

He was glad she hadn’t implied his apology should also be for the kiss. He would never apologize for that.

“The question is, who did he think you were?”

She said nothing for a time, turning to watch the couples on the dance floor. When she turned back to him it was with steady, serious eyes.

“Have you been talking about me? To your friends, perhaps?”

He frowned. “No.”

She watched his face, as if to discern the truth from it. “Do you know if Emma has?”

He shook his head. “Not while I was with her.” The music
came to a stop and they remained silent until it started again. “Why do you ask?”

She flicked her eyes briefly in the direction of a small group of men. One of them was staring at them, then turned away, pretending disinterest. “That’s Lord Tavenam.” She spoke in a quiet murmur, and he bent his head to hear her better. “He just tried to blackmail me, with the threat of exposing the circumstances of my birth to you specifically and the ton in general. I have only told three people in these circles the truth of that—Catherine, Emma, and yourself.”

Much as he wanted to look in Tavenam’s direction, he forced himself to turn his back, to face Charlotte fully. “What did he want for his silence?”

She looked down at her fan, flicked it open and shut. “He wanted me to report on everything you know about the affair you are investigating. He told me to copy your notes, relate every word you spoke about it to me.”

He almost turned then, but managed to keep his gaze on her. “How were you to get it?”

“I asked him the same.” She smiled up at him, a hint of a blush on her cheeks. “He told me to let you take me to bed, if that would do it.”

He could not hide his shock, and the fierce, hot anger that washed over him. And beneath it all, an intense interest in doing just that. Taking her to bed. He should be ashamed of himself, but he found that shame was the last thing he felt.

Her eyes widened a little, and her blush deepened. “So what will it be, Lord Durnham? Will it taking sleeping with you to finally discover what this is all about?”

C
harlotte watched Edward’s fists curl, and she could feel the control he exerted on himself not to turn back to Tavenam. There was violence in his eyes.

She had also seen a brief, heart-stopping flash of lust when she’d asked her question, and however angry he was at Tavenam’s suggestion, he clearly would not turn her away from his bed if she wanted to go to it.

She had never wanted a man before. Not even when she’d become Luke’s lover. She’d never enjoyed it, had tolerated it only because it was what he wanted from her, and seemed so little to give for all he had done for her.

Since he’d been taken to the Hulks, she’d never been with another man, had never considered it, until now.

She swallowed hard at the thought.

“You suspect either Emma or myself of betraying you? Why not one of Luke’s people, or your servants?”

“It could be them, but the way he spoke, only of my mother, and mentioned nothing about my time as a sweep, or Luke’s lover …” She shrugged. “It seemed a very upper-class outrage, to me. If I’d been snitched on from the rookeries, it would have been more detailed.”

He looked at her thoughtfully.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t think you told him yourself;
he wouldn’t have threatened to expose me to you if he already knew that you know my secrets. That is where his whole plan fell down from the start. But if you or Emma had told a close friend, and they had passed the information along without mentioning you—that occurred to me as a possibility.”