The Emperor's Conspiracy (23 page)

Jess gave them a nod as they passed through the pit and up, still sweeping away the rubbish from the night before.

Charlotte stepped into the street, her eyes taking in all of it. The mud and filth, the dilapidated houses, the woman curled around a gin bottle in the gutter. And over it all hung the stench of hopelessness.

“You’re not to feel guilty.” Gary spoke so angrily, she jerked.

“She’s right, though.” She lifted a helpless hand toward the houses on the other side of the street. “I don’t want to be back here. Not for anything. Not even Luke.”

“Luke’s responsible for this.” Gary started walking, so fast she had to skip to keep up, and even Kit had to lengthen his stride.

“You know he’s not.” She couldn’t accept that. It had been like this since she could remember. Luke had nothing to do with it.

“Luke could pay some of the people in this street to clean it up. Make it decent. And give them a daily wage, besides. He could move his people and himself to a better area. But he won’t. He likes living in the stews. It helps him get his hate on good an’ proper when he needs it to justify whatever it is he’s planning—looking at the poverty and the stink around him.” Gary stopped suddenly. “He’s suffered. No question. All of us ’ave. And we shouldn’t forget it. But to wallow in the mire, just to remember it—that’s wrong, Charlie. Wrong. When he’s got more money than ’alf the nobs in the ton? It’s evil, almost.”

Charlotte looked back down the street and a hot breeze, like fetid dragon’s breath, blew in her face.

“Best thing I ever did, takin’ the job you offered me,” Kit told her. “This place gets a grip on you, don’t easily let go. It’s all tied up with family, and friends, and loyalty. But holding yourself down ain’t the same as helping others up. Like you’ve done, Charlie. How many from here ’ave you helped up? And how often do you see ’em down here now? Never, most like.”

She’d known it, had thought it many times, but suddenly that knowledge freed her.

Luke was bitterly reliving the past, over and over. The pit in the gin house, with its echoes of the Hulks; the grim reality of the stews.

He’d fashioned a new jail for himself, all of his own making. He could escape whenever he wanted, and yet he chose to remain.

But she did not.

She turned her back on it and walked home to Catherine.

28

“L
ord Durnham, good morning.” There was the most minute censure in Lady Howe’s greeting as she entered the withdrawing room where the elderly butler had left Edward to wait.

“I apologize for the early call.” Edward sketched a bow to her, wondering how blunt, how honest, he could be. “I walked rather than take my carriage, and came by a backstreet. I entered the house through your kitchens so I wouldn’t be seen.” Betsy, Charlotte’s maid, had let him in, and had led him through to the front of the house with speculation in her eyes, but none of the shock or rude curiosity he’d expect in the servants of other members of the ton.

“I agree this is early for a call, but why would you go to such lengths to not be seen? Most people will still be in bed, anyway.” Catherine cocked her head to one side and gave him the hard, sharp stare of a thrush contemplating a worm.

“I seem to have caused a stir last night at Lady Crowder’s ball. And my name is being linked to Miss Raven’s—”

“That isn’t
her
fault.” Catherine drew herself up, as if ready for battle.

“It is mine, and mine alone.” He spoke calmly, soothing the lioness. “But something was pointed out to me last night, something that affects Miss Raven very much, and I wanted to talk to you both about it without causing further harm.”

“Harm to Charlotte?” Catherine indicated a chair with a sweep of her arm.

He didn’t want to sit, but forced himself to after she had sunk down onto a small sofa.

“Is she here? Can you call her, and I can tell you both together?”

Catherine shook her head. “She is out with Gary and Kit—I suspect visiting Luke, and you’re somehow to blame for that, as well, I think.” She twisted her lips in a parody of a smile. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since you set foot into this house, Lord Durnham.”

He didn’t react to her statement, his mind still spinning over Charlotte visiting Luke the morning after he’d told her all about the guinea smuggling.

“How loyal is Charlotte to Luke? To her old friends in Tothill Road?” If the question was more blunt than he’d meant, he couldn’t help it.

Lady Howe studied him, cool and unhurried. “Loyal enough.”

“Would she betray …” He struggled to think what he
was to her. A friend? A potential lover? An acquaintance?

He was torturing himself.

“Charlotte is loyal to all her friends, Lord Durnham. If she considers you as such, she will do nothing to betray you, everything to help you.”

He could only hope that was so. And why should she consider him a friend, when it came down to it? What had he done but tear down all the defenses she’d put in place and expose her to the world?

“There is no man in this house,” Catherine said into the silence. “So I’ll ask you as Charlotte’s guardian. What are your intentions, Lord Durnham?”

“My intentions are to remain in Miss Raven’s company as much as possible for as long as she will tolerate me.”

“That—” Lady Howe leaned back on her sofa. “That was an excellent reply. I think I see …”

“See what?” He was watching her for any hint of whether she was pleased or not.

She shook her head. “What is it that you think will harm Charlotte? You may as well tell it to me, and then to Charlotte later when she comes in. I have to go out in fifteen minutes, anyway.”

“There is a bet. Entered into the book at my club shortly after last night’s ball. It wagers whether I’ll propose to Charlotte or take her for my mistress.”

Lady Howe gasped, and stood, unable to contain her distress sitting down. “Are you in the habit of taking young unmarried women of the ton as your mistresses, sir?”

“No.” His answer was short, as he stood, too. “And as far as I’m aware, Charlotte’s reputation is impeccable.”

Catherine gave a sweep of her head, as if that went without saying.

“I came to say that I will be extremely circumspect with Miss Raven from today. I will pay court to her, but only in the most proper way, and I think it best we are never alone.”

“I don’t know I want you near her at all.” Lady Howe paced to the window, then turned back to him, fear in her eyes.

“That would only fuel the gossip more, surely? And do her reputation no good, either, if I suddenly gave her the cut, after spending every minute I was at Lady Crowder’s ball in her company.” What he said made sense, but he had the feeling he was fighting for his life in this conversation. He would not suffer a ban on Charlotte’s company, no matter what Lady Howe decreed. And he was not sure which of them would win, if Charlotte had to choose between them. He had a sinking feeling it would not be him.

He would be relegated to the same hell as Luke.

Catherine lifted her hands to her cheeks and thought. Then gave a tiny nod. “You’re right. But no more arriving at balls and sweeping my ward out into the garden.”

He had to turn from her, had to clench his fists in front of his body where she would not see them, as her words evoked images that set his heart pounding and made his mouth dry. “No.” He struggled to keep a guttural note from his voice. “I won’t do that again.”

“Do you know who made the bet?” Catherine stood straight again, composure back in place.

“No. But I intend to find out.”

There must have been something in the way he said it that satisfied her, because she gave a nod and the warm smile she sent him held a hint of the fires of hell. “Good. Make sure you do. And I would like his name, myself.”

He realized that whatever plans he’d had paled in comparison to hers. She looked like an avenging fury, and he thought he might like to be present when she meted out whatever revenge she was planning behind those pretty blue eyes.

C
harlotte came into the breakfast room from the garden, lifting Betsy’s cap off her head as she stepped through the open French doors, and came to a sudden stop.

Edward looked up from reading the paper, the movement slow and deliberate, and she noticed a half-drunk cup of tea near his elbow.

“Oh.” Her eyes flicked round the room, looking for Catherine, and then settled on him again. “Good morning.”

He stood, and she had an urge to touch him that was so strong, she clenched her hands, pulled herself up as tight as she could.

“Lady Howe.” His voice came out like wheels over gravel and he cleared his throat. “Lady Howe invited me to wait for you. She had an appointment.”

Charlotte nodded. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” She started
taking off her gloves, recalled he was watching her, and tugged them back on. “What has happened?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without gloves,” he said, his gaze on her.

What did it matter? He knew most of her secrets anyway. She pulled at the fingers and slid the thin cotton things off her hands, then draped them over the back of a spare chair with Betsy’s cap.

He made no sound, gave no indication of shock. She looked at her hands herself and flexed her fingers. She was used to the hundreds of scars, but it would shock most highborn men or women, she knew. “You were going to tell me why you’re here so early?”

He raised his eyes from her hands. “Yes, I was.”

“Do you mind if I help myself to breakfast, I haven’t had any yet, today? And will you join me?”

“Please go ahead. I’ve eaten already.” He stood, waiting patiently for her to finish adding things to her plate, and only sat when she did.

“What is it?”

But he was looking at her hands again.

“Should I put the gloves back on?” Her words were like a whip crack, jerking him to himself.

“Who did that to you?”

“Not who, what.” She began to smear butter on her toast, suddenly starving. “Chimneys, Lord Durnham. Lots and lots of chimneys. I used my hands to keep myself from falling down them, or to shimmy up them, and they were often rough, and
sometimes very sharp. And because no one cleaned the wounds properly, or treated them in any way, they healed badly with a lot of scarring.” She took a bite of toast and grimaced. She’d forgotten the bramble jelly. She glanced up at his face and with a sigh, held her hands out again. Wriggled her fingers. “They’re a lot better for the years of idleness and creams I’ve had in Catherine’s house. You wouldn’t have believed how bad they looked when I first came here.”

“Where were you? Earlier today?” It wasn’t a demand, or harshly spoken, but intense all the same. He held himself stiff, not relaxed in her company at all.

“I was in Tothill Road.” She took a sip of coffee and spooned on some bramble jelly.

He did not respond for a moment. “To tell Luke what I’d told you about the smuggling?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Dammit, Charlotte. Did you go to talk to him about it?” The words burst from him in a hot, bitter rush, and she froze, her eyes meeting his.

It was not anger in his eyes, but pain.

“No. I went to ask him for information on his part in it, to give to you. But he wasn’t there.”

He did not relax. “Would he have told you?”

She shrugged. “Maybe he would. Maybe not. I thought to give it a go.”

Edward seemed to struggle with himself. “Thank you for trying.”

“I did more than try.” She took a bite of toast again, and
made a sound of appreciation that brought his eyes to her mouth. “Some of Luke’s men told me where to find a man who used to be involved until a month or so ago. He might be persuaded to talk if we offer him enough money.”

He leaned back in his chair, arms folded in front of him, every inch the arrogant lord. “We?”

She stared back. “All right. Me.”

He came out of his chair so explosively, she started and nearly overset her coffee cup.

“I don’t want you mixed up in this.”

She gave him a look of incredulity. “I
am
mixed up in it. And you won’t get within sniffing distance of this character, your lordship. It’s come with me, or let me go alone.”