Once Again a Bride (18 page)

Sir Alexander nodded. “I think he must.”

A note was duly written and dispatched. But they did not wait to begin a thorough search, going over each piece of furniture inch by inch, including the undersides and the backs of drawers. In the end, defeated and dusty, they had only the letters and a lost collar stud from under the wardrobe. “No real help,” concluded Charlotte, disappointed.

Sir Alexander didn’t seem to hear. “I am very suspicious of this wall,” he murmured, gazing at the partition that had been added to the room. “When a man as devious as my uncle seems to have been adds a wall, can he have resisted…?” He ran his fingers along the narrow panels that sheathed the lower half, pressing and prodding.

He was right, Charlotte thought. Henry loved his secrets. But, for one thing, he would never want to bend over them. She surveyed the top part of the wall. It seemed to be smooth plaster, painted in stripes as broad as her forearm of lighter and darker blue. She had thought the scheme strange when she first saw it, out of keeping with the utilitarian nature of the room. Was there a crack parallel to the top of the door frame? Wavering candlelight made it hard to judge. She went to the section of plaster on the right of the door and pressed along the edge of the stripe, the top of the wainscoting, the jamb. Something gave, and three feet of the stripe opened, revealing ranks of narrow shelves fitted into the thickness of the wall.

“Good for you!” said Sir Alexander. He picked up a candlestick and brought it over. They peered inside together.

A small object rested on the lowest shelf. Charlotte took it out. The light gleamed on an oval of amber as large as her palm. A delicate insect floated within it. She heard Sir Alexander’s breath catch. “That, or something exactly like it, belonged to my grandfather. It was always in his study in Derbyshire. He used it as a paperweight.”

Charlotte put it back as he reached to a higher shelf. Their hands brushed in passing. He took down a china cup; gold rimmed the base and lip. “I believe this comes from his club. I’ve seen such settings when I lunched there with friends.”

Something glittered on the top shelf. She couldn’t quite see. Charlotte stretched up. “There’s a fork,” she said incredulously. She tilted it in the dim light, revealing a monogram.

Sir Alexander bent nearer. “That is a piece of my parents’ wedding silver,” he said, sounding outraged. He held the candle closer.

Charlotte replaced the fork and retrieved an enameled snuffbox. It rattled. The lid resisted her fingers, then sprang open to reveal a chunk of polished stone, brightly veined with red.

The top shelf is full of earrings,” said Sir Alexander from his superior height.

“Earrings?”

“Single ones. No pairs.” He reached up and retrieved them.

Charlotte gazed at the glitter of jewels in his hand. “No!”

“What?” asked Sir Alexander.

“That lapis one is mine. One of my favorites. Lucy and I looked everywhere for that earring. Last fall.” They’d ransacked her room and examined every part of the house where she’d been. Charlotte had even dared to interrogate the other servants, who’d sneered at her and tried to convince her that Lucy had stolen it. And through it all, Henry had stood silently by and said nothing. Charlotte shivered. He’d gone into her room when she wasn’t there, into her jewelry box. He’d fingered her things. Had he noticed that she often wore the blue earrings? Had he remembered that they’d been her mother’s? Had she even told him that…?

“Do you recognize any of the others?” The evenness of his voice calmed her a little.

“No.” She picked it out. “I’m taking it back.” Her tone dared him to object, but he didn’t. How had Henry gotten so many women’s earrings? No women visited, and he… but what did she know about where he went and who he saw? “He was a thief. A sneaking thief.”

“He stole from people who were important to him, somehow.”

“I wasn’t important to him,” objected Charlotte. “Except for my money.”

“My uncle was a benighted fool!”

The emotion in his voice silenced Charlotte. She became acutely aware of his shoulder brushing hers. The room seemed warmer suddenly. “Things from his father… his brother. Did he get on with your father?”

“When they were young… I don’t know. Father was five years older. They were both sent to Eton, and I never heard that they didn’t get along. But when my Aunt Bella started her lawsuit, my uncle said he thought she was quite right, and if she were successful, he would do the same. Father was very angry.”

“This was…?”

“Almost fifteen years ago now. You must understand that my aunt and uncle received substantial legacies when my grandfather died, and more when my grandmother followed him three years later. My father did inherit the estate, but he was expected to make his income from managing it well. The liquid assets went to them, which didn’t keep my aunt from accusing Father of deception, forgery, and a dozen other things,” he finished bitterly.

Charlotte shifted uncomfortably. It sounded dreadful, but Lady Isabella had been so kind to her. She contented herself with saying, “Henry would do anything for money.”

“Wait, there’s one more here.” Sir Alexander reached high again. “No, not an earring, this is…”

“My father’s!” Charlotte almost wailed. She stared at the watch fob of sapphire bound with silver, her throat tightening. “My mother gave it to him the day they were married. He thought he’d lost it; it broke his heart. And I…” She’d been so impatient, so unfeeling. His memory lapses were common by then, and she’d blamed him for misplacing a precious remnant of her mother. Henry—damn him, damn him!—had visited around that time, she remembered.

All the regrets, humiliations, disappointments of the last year burst upon her in one great wave. So much lost, such… cruelty. Yes, it was cruelty. What else could you call it? A sob shook her, and the tears descended—unstoppable. They racked her chest, so intense she swayed on her feet.

Sir Alexander’s arms enfolded her, drew her in, held her close. She leaned; she let her head sink on his shoulder, and she cried. The sneers, the rages, the cold night hours when she’d blamed herself for all of it drove those tears. They poured out of her, bitter salt, and his embrace held it all. Safe, it was safe to cry, here and now. She wasn’t alone. She allowed herself to give way completely for the first time since this nightmare began.

She couldn’t have said how long the tears lasted. It seemed long, and yet just a little while before self-consciousness returned. The shoulder of his coat was wet. “I… I’m sorry.” She tried to pull away.

“What have
you
to be sorry for?” he answered gently. Charlotte looked up, into green eyes full of compassion—and something warmer. She felt the hard muscles of his body pressed against hers. Heat vanquished the last tears. She raised a hand to his cheek, touched it softly. His eyes flared. His arms tightened. She pulled him down to her.

The kiss was like the last time, and different. The revelation of touch returned, the sheer physical joy that his lips could rouse in her. But this time, something deep within Charlotte leapt and melted. It was more than a kiss; it was being kissed by
this
man. She would never get enough—how could one get enough?—of this glory. It was everything she’d been denied; it was life itself.

She slipped her free hand under his coat—up over his chest, along his ribs. His body was an undiscovered country, a call to explore the heights of sensation. His lips drew her on, fired every inch of her. She was not going to endure an existence that lacked physical passion, Charlotte vowed. She had made mistakes, taken wrong turnings, but she was not going to miss out on something so sweet, so intoxicating.

The knocker on the front door echoed up the stairs. Footsteps padded in response. They sprang apart.

“I… ah…” Sir Alexander cleared his throat.

Charlotte was breathless.

“Most likely Hanks,” he said hoarsely.

She could only nod.

“He… ah… yes. He must see these items.”

“I will not give him my earring!”

“I don’t see why you should.” He seemed about to speak again, but the footsteps approached relentlessly. The two of them stepped back into the Roman bedroom. Charlotte longed, impossibly, to touch him again. Sir Alexander cleared his throat. “I… ah… I cannot imagine wanting to occupy this room. It’s like the ancient sites one visits in Italy, empty and… lifeless.”

“Yes.” It was exactly what she’d felt. “No shred of comfort or vitality.”

They looked at each other. Sir Alexander’s green eyes seemed to hold all the vibrancy missing from the stark chamber. Charlotte was exquisitely sensitive to his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the sheer impact of his masculine presence. In this moment, he seemed the antithesis of Henry in every possible way.

Tess brought the Bow Street Runner into the room. His sharp gaze darted here and there, cataloging every detail. Charlotte’s hackles rose, and she wished she hadn’t consented to have him in her home. She clutched her earring.

Sir Alexander told him what they’d found. “You should ’a waited for me,” was the terse reply. After that, he ignored them, going over the bedchamber and dressing room like a hound on the scent. He noted down the names in the letters and wrote careful descriptions of the items in the secret cupboard. When he came to the earrings, Charlotte stiffened. She still held her own concealed in her fist. Sir Alexander met her eyes and said nothing.

In the end, Hanks looked disappointed. “I’ll pay these gent’lmen a visit,” he said, tapping the pile of correspondence. “Mebbe they’ll say something different from the others. A falling-out among thieves, like.”

He didn’t look enthusiastic. Charlotte shivered on a surge of fear and dislike. He didn’t believe he was going to find anything. He still thought she was the most likely culprit.

“I wondered about Seaton,” said Sir Alexander. “He seemed very eager to wash his hands of my uncle’s affairs. A man of business would usually want to stay involved, gain a new client, perhaps.”

Hanks nodded. “Aye, there’s a fine little weasel.”

“You’ve spoken to him?”

“Once I found him, which weren’t easy. An old hand at covering his tracks, I’d say. I don’t doubt that he knows these fellows.” He tapped the letters again. “I wager he was paid to introduce them, and raked off a fine bit of cash from the dealings, too.”

“If Henry discovered he’d been sold faked antiquities,” said Charlotte, refusing to be intimidated, “he would… I can hardly explain how furious he would have been. He devoted heart and soul to his collection. He would have threatened Seaton—anyone—with exposure, disgrace, the… the full force of the law.”

Hanks nodded again. He hadn’t looked directly at her since he arrived. “Yes, ma’am. And Seaton and all would ha’ threatened right back, to tell the world he was a fool—ignorant and easy to dupe. That they would put it about that his ‘collection’ was a load o’ rubbish. Seems to me, from what I’ve learned, that Mr. Wylde wouldn’t ha’ cared for that overmuch. I’m thinking he would have backed down.”

Charlotte remembered Henry’s love of being the expert, the connoisseur. He’d sneered about fellow collectors who bought unwisely; he’d told stories of mocking them to their faces.

Hanks slipped his small notebook into a coat pocket. “Here’s the matter in a nutshell. Like I told you before, it don’t appear that a footpad killed Henry Wylde in the course of a robbery, accidental, I mean. But, say, someway, that is what happened.” His pale eyes narrowed. “I’d be able to get word of it, see? I got ways of finding out. People don’t want to be on my bad side.” He rocked on his heels and gazed out the window. “Murder for hire’s somethin’ else, o’ course. Deeper waters. Still, criminals ain’t smart, mostly. I shoulda been able to hear somethin’. But I squeezed and squeezed and come up dry.”

“And what is that supposed to tell us?” demanded Sir Alexander.

“That it weren’t a criminal which done it. Like I said, a killin’ like this looks personal.”

Charlotte felt cold.

“You tell me Mr. Wylde didn’t have no friends, and he didn’t visit with his family…”

“My cousin Edward saw him at his club,” Sir Alexander interrupted.

Hanks looked aggrieved. “You never told me that.”

“Of course I did.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but you did not.”

“Well, I am telling you now,” replied Sir Alexander stiffly. Anger showed in the lines of his face.

Hanks’s notebook came out again. “That toffee-nosed feller at the club didn’t care to speak to me. Mebbe you could tell him that he should…?”

“This is ridiculous!” exclaimed Charlotte. “Edward did not kill Henry.”

Finally, Hanks looked at her. His expression made it obvious that he thought he was gazing at the person who had somehow accomplished the deed. And that he was determined to prove his suspicions correct.

She’d forgotten this, Charlotte thought, when she was summing up her reputation in society. Not only widowed and penniless, but a suspected murderess. Indeed, she had no reputation to lose.

Alec sat at his desk without really seeing the piles of papers there. It was late, and the house was quiet, and he was thinking about Charlotte. He thought of little else these days, despite the many calls on his time and attention. He neglected his work; he lost the thread of conversations in memories of the enticing scent of her, the feel of her soft curves against him, her lips demanding and yielding. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. And if that had been all… ah, if only that had been all. He could have dealt with desire. One way or another. He didn’t think she would be averse; she’d given him reason enough to think quite the opposite. The image of Charlotte naked in his bed quickened his pulse.

But desire wasn’t all. Charlotte—the idea of her, the reality of her presence—attracted every nuance of feeling, as the Earth’s gravity drew each object down. Whatever he did or thought, she was somehow woven in. He was pulled and pulled with an inevitability he resented and mistrusted. He was
not
“falling in love.” He
would
not. Alec stood and began to pace his study. He despised the phrase and everything people seemed to mean by it. “Falling in love” brought idiotic decisions and a lifetime of regret. It seemed to make people stupid, laughably credulous. His case was quite different. He was moved by desire and… compassion perhaps, respect, warm regard. What paltry words. Damn it all to hell!

Edward, he’d meant to think about Edward. Alec returned to his desk, sat down again. He needed to talk to his cousin, and he didn’t want to. He didn’t like him. Had he ever liked him? Whether he had or not, when he saw him drape his arm along the back of Charlotte’s chair…

Edward. As young children they’d been closer, while Alec and his family were fixed at their grandparents’ home. Edward had lived nearby and often visited. Later, they’d encountered each other once a year at the Christmas holidays, after Alec’s parents moved to an estate inherited by his mother down toward Leicester. They could have visited more often, but the tensions of the senior Wylde household were intolerable. And his father wasn’t a man for visiting. He hadn’t cared for people much, Alec thought, beyond his wife and children. It occurred to him there was some similarity to Uncle Henry in that—far less extreme, of course—really quite different. The idea was ridiculous. His father had cared about his tenants, who were nothing at all like a collection.

After their grandfather died, when Alec was nine and Edward twelve, they’d seen each other even less. On the face of it, they should have had much in common. Older parents—Alec’s father had been thirty-seven when he’d set out to find a suitable bride. He’d done it for the sake of an heir to the baronetcy, but in the end, Alec thought, his parents had been contented. Or perhaps he’d just been told that his mother didn’t miss London seasons, was happy with her gardens and her four children. He couldn’t actually know; she’d died of complications of childbirth when he was eleven years old. Had that marriage simply been too short for unhappiness? The thought chilled him.

He did remember his mother as a warm presence, games on the lawn, reading at bedtime. But mostly, he remembered Frances, who’d come to stay right before his mother died. Frances had certainly seemed happy; that he could recall. She’d been more than kind to all of them, serene and competent until—well, until his father died. Since then, she’d gone moody and unpredictable. Had she been in love with his father, Alec wondered suddenly? He’d never imagined such a thing, not even once. As he thought of it now, he felt dizzy with memories realigning, assumptions turning on their heads. What people called love so often seemed something else entirely; yet here was a nameless, unacknowledged thing that might well have been love. What else had he failed to notice? Why was he noticing now?

He shook his head. He was thinking about Edward. Edward had also lost a parent young. His father died when he was ten, right before he went off to Harrow. Why had Aunt Bella sent him there? The Wyldes went to Eton. They would have become better acquainted at school. He shrugged. They hadn’t. Then, Edward hadn’t bothered with university. He’d come to London and established himself in society with the careless grace that Alec sometimes envied and sometimes despised. By the time Alec arrived, his cousin was a fixture, and only too ready to laugh at a young man’s awkwardness among the
ton
.

Alec knew he was never at his best around Edward. His cousin brought out every vestige of self-doubt that was in him. He remembered a Christmas twenty years ago, when Edward had lured him into singing a song before the family. It was to have been the two of them; Alec, reluctant, definitely in the secondary role. But Edward had led him to the center of the room and then vanished. Standing in that circle of expectant adults, at a loss, had been excruciating; it still made him flush to think of his grandmother’s open mockery, his father’s embarrassment.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Alec said aloud. How had he gotten bogged down in the past? He reached for a pen and the inkwell and dashed off a note to his cousin. The visit was not a choice but a necessity. Edward would most likely refuse to see Hanks. And Charlotte’s position was insupportable. He sanded the wet ink, folded the page, and addressed it. Leaving the note on the hall table for delivery in the morning, he went upstairs to bed.

***

Edward Danforth’s rooms in Duke Street were precisely what a young man on the town would desire, Alec thought at eleven the next day. The large sitting room combined comfortable furniture and relaxed untidiness—a toasting fork on the hearth, a litter of invitations on the table, an assortment of bottles ready for a convivial evening. An open door revealed a spacious bedchamber with a dressing room beyond. There was no dust, just bachelor clutter—no females to watch over, nothing to consider but his own wishes and pleasures.

Edward lounged in a broad chair, one leg draped over the arm. “To what do I owe the honor of a visit, cuz?” It was his usual tone, implying that Alec was too serious, a touch tedious, and of course, amusing.

Alec gritted his teeth. “I came to talk to you about Uncle Henry.”

“That old bore?” Edward picked up a snuffbox and turned it over in his fingers.

“He was killed,” Alec pointed out.

“Well, I do know that.”

“We need to discover who did it.”

“We?” His cousin raised an elegant brow. “I mean, of course it’s outrageous. Footpads running rampant in the streets, and so on. But it isn’t really our business to deal with them.”

“I disagree. I have hired a Bow Street Runner…”

“There you are then.”

“He is having difficulties getting information.” Alec didn’t want to tell him about the accusation against Charlotte; he didn’t trust his cousin not to repeat it. “That is why I wanted to ask you about Uncle Henry. You saw him often at his club?”

Edward sighed and put the snuffbox down. “We’re both members. If I happened to run into him, I’d say a few words. Mama was always after me to do it. She thought he’d leave me his money. Favorite nephew and all. You know how she is about inheritances.” He gave Alec an arch look, which he ignored. “It made sense, so I went along.”

“So you had expectations?”

Edward shrugged. “I thought there was a chance. I was the oldest of his nephews, if not a precious Wylde, and I listened to him drone on about his blasted antiquities every now and then. Lord, how he could talk.”

Somehow, Edward’s manner always annoyed him. Alec was certain he knew that and did it on purpose. “Perhaps you thought it was a long wait for the legacy?”

His cousin laughed in his face. “Are you asking if I sneaked out after Uncle Henry and attacked him in the street? On the off chance he meant to leave me something? Really, Alec! I’d no idea you had such an active imagination.”

Alec, watching him, could see only amusement in his face. Everything was amusing to Edward. He didn’t seem to care a great deal about anything.

“It would have been a fine joke on me if I had, eh?” He shook his head. “A museum! Only Uncle Henry could imagine that anyone would want to come and see his musty old bits.”

“Which turned out to be fakes, practically worthless.” Alec tried to peer beneath his cousin’s smooth surface, without success.

“Really? So if he had left them to me, I’d have been disappointed. Particularly if I’d killed him for them. Fortunate thing I didn’t.”

“Indeed.”

Edward laughed again. “A fine joke on him, though. He spoke about that rubbish as if it were a king’s ransom. The old fellow must be writhing in his grave.” His cousin leaned back, crossed his leg over a knee. “The thing I can’t believe is that he got Charlotte to marry him. Where did he find her?”

Like his mother, though not as actively, Edward gathered bits of gossip. Alec didn’t want to answer, but he had no real excuse to refuse. “He corresponded with her father. They met at Bath, where her father often went for his health.”

“Bath? What was Uncle Henry doing at Bath? Ah, he went there to snag Charlotte, I suppose. Can’t blame him. Taking little thing. And well endowed.”

Alec couldn’t help stiffening. He saw Edward notice it with a sly smile.

“Dowried, I mean. She says he spent a tidy sum that was hers.”

“Indeed,” was all Alec could find to reply. Again.

“Pretty now that she’s better dressed,” Edward insinuated. “A lovely package altogether. Did you find her so when she was staying at your house?”

He used that tone to goad him. Alec knew it, and still his muscles tightened further. “Did Uncle Henry ever say anything to you that would help solve his murder?”

Edward looked at him with half-lidded eyes, like a cat who was considering whether to continue tormenting an unresponsive mouse. Finally, he shrugged. “Good God, I never listened to him, Alec. Couldn’t bear it. All that tedium, and he let me charge the wine he drank to my tab. Aren’t uncles supposed to treat you?”

Why had he expected anything from Edward, Alec wondered? His cousin thought only of himself.

“Although… he did say something rather odd a few months ago.”

“What?”

“He offered me some advice.” Edward raised his eyebrows at the absurdity of the notion. “Told me never to rely on people, no matter how long I’d known them or what the relationship might be. No one could be trusted.”

“That’s all?”

Edward nodded.

“Had he been talking about antiquities dealers? Perhaps he’d discovered some deception?”

Edward frowned, then shrugged again. “No idea. I told you, I couldn’t listen to him for more than a minute. Had to think of something else or go mad.”

Alec tried other questions, but Edward remembered nothing useful. When he began to twit Alec about turning up at parties when Charlotte was in attendance, Alec took his leave.

He returned to a house that felt rather empty. Anne was out at a dancing class, Lizzy on a visit arranged by Aunt Earnton, Frances somewhere, elsewhere. For him, there were the piles of paper on his desk and the frustration of a wasted morning.

***

Lady Isabella had invited Charlotte to accompany her on a round of morning calls, to “extend her education” in the ways of society. Charlotte had accepted out of politeness and gratitude, and curiosity. Lady Isabella’s kindness to her had been such that she would do whatever she asked. And she was interested in seeing the
haut
ton
in all its aspects. However, as the morning wore away, it seemed that the visits were chiefly designed to gather and distribute bits of gossip. Stories heard at one house were retold at the next, in exchange for other tales that could be carried on to a further drawing room. She soon noticed that those who had nothing new to offer a hostess were less valued callers—the poor in social currency.

The morning might have been more interesting, she admitted to herself, if she’d been acquainted with the people involved and their histories, as everyone else seemed to be. But she wasn’t. She was also a novice in the language of looks and gestures that embellished these conversations, implying much more than was said for those in the know.

They ended at Mrs. Prine’s house. Squeezed between two mansions, it was even smaller than Henry’s, though in a far more fashionable neighborhood. The inside was like a jewel box, each element lovely and obviously chosen with care. Charlotte complimented their hostess as they were ushered into a parlor hung with gold brocade, and Mrs. Prine looked pleased.

The two older women began to pool the gleanings of their mornings, not only exchanging tales but also dissecting them in an almost professional way. As they decided between themselves which calls they would make on the morrow, Charlotte was reminded of two generals planning a campaign. She had no doubt they would find out whatever they wanted to know.

Tea arrived, and the two turned their attention to Charlotte. “You know, my dear, you really must order a few more gowns,” said Lady Isabella. “You can’t be seen in the same ensemble too many times.” Mrs. Prine nodded her agreement.

“I can’t afford any more,” Charlotte admitted, clearly shocking Mrs. Prine—whether because of her poverty or her willingness to speak of it she didn’t know.

Lady Isabella waved this away like an unpleasant smell. “As to that, one must… allocate. Some small economies at home—invisible—can help you support a creditable appearance.”

Mrs. Prine nodded again, and Charlotte wondered what she knew about it. Everything in her house was obviously costly. Neither of these women could have any idea of what it was like to watch every penny.

“I’m sure my modiste would be quite accommodating in extending credit,” Lady Isabella added. “I can speak to her…”

“No. I will have to make do with what I have. Mrs. Trask… that is, I know a good seamstress, and we are going to see if we can alter some of my old dresses to make them more modish.” This idea had emerged when she found Mrs. Trask at her fancy work, completing a dress for one of her granddaughters that might have come from the finest shop on Bond Street.

Mrs. Prine looked scandalized, far more shocked than she’d been by any gossip they shared. Briefly, Charlotte considered telling her that the seamstress was her cook, but Lady Isabella seemed annoyed, so she kept this to herself.