“But—”
“I won’t let you kill him.” He kissed her brow, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “I won’t let you throw your life away.”
“Yes, but if something happens. If we know he killed her yet something happens in the courts and he isn’t sentenced, what then?” She stilled. She couldn’t live if her sister’s killer went unpunished. Charles had to know that. He had to know this wasn’t something she could move past. Move on from like nothing had happened.
He cupped the back of her head and forced her gaze to meet his. “That won’t happen. We’ll find the evidence we need to bring him to justice.”
“But what if we don’t?”
He slid his eyes shut. Weariness ringed them, and her heart ached. What she’d done, what she was doing, it didn’t only affect her. She knew this. And yet, she couldn’t stop.
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
She swallowed, the back of her throat thick. It wasn’t what she needed to hear. Her future was still mired in uncertainty.
But she hadn’t lost Charles’s affections, at least not all of them. She rested her head against his shoulder.
And in this moment, that was enough.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Everyone in London seemed to have a bloody smile this afternoon. Or a cheerful greeting. Charles took Cassie’s elbow and guided her out of the path of an animated trio out for a stroll. The agency carriage paced the two of them down the street, their driver whistling a jaunty tune.
“Beautiful day,” one of the ladies in the trio called out.
He gritted his teeth. The day was far from beautiful. Nothing had gone right. First, he hadn’t been able to convince Cassie to stay at home while he investigated Mr. Lincoln. Oh, she’d agreed readily enough, but there’d been that look in her eye, the one that said that just as soon as he turned his back she’d be gone.
He didn’t want to imagine what sort of trouble she’d get up to on her own, not when she had a new target to focus on. So he’d taken her along.
Second, they learned naught but good about Lincoln from his colleagues down in Whitehall. Lord Wiltshire kept an office there that only Lincoln ever seemed to use. His fellow secretaries, assistants, and aides to the lords in Parliament had only compliments for the man. Mr. Lincoln was bright and studious. He was diligent in his duties. Many other members of Parliament had tried to steal his services away from Wiltshire, but the man was loyal.
“Do we have to walk quite so quickly?” Cassie leaned heavily against him. “I do believe you’re wearing the soles right off my boots.”
He grunted, but slowed his pace. “Sorry. I think better when I walk.”
She tilted her head, squinting one eye. “I have never found that to be the case. You think quite well in all sorts of positions.”
The back of his neck heated. It was because of some of those positions that he preferred to walk. Being in an enclosed carriage with Cassie right now was a trial he didn’t wish to endure. His body had become too familiar with hers. His mind still didn’t know what to make of everything it had learned about the woman over the past few days, and until he sorted that out, it was best to keep the easy intimacy from their relationship.
He loved her, but sometimes that wasn’t enough. He didn’t know if he could live with a woman who had no compunction over killing. The thoughts she held about revenge were a wedge between them.
The thoughts she planted in his head were worse. He considered his approach of putting people in their appropriate boxes. He’d thought it was efficient, sorting people and then abiding by the norms of society in how to treat them. What it truly had been was easy. Cassie spoke of transferring responsibility to the state, and that was what he did, but with society. He let culture dictate his interactions because it was undemanding, a convenient guide, not because it was necessarily right.
“His lodgings aren’t far from his office.” Unbidden, his feet quickened their pace once again. He didn’t want to consider what else he could be wrong about. “Around this corner and we’re there.”
Cassie sighed, but hurried to keep pace with him.
“Let’s start there.” Charles jerked his chin at a small grocery across from Lincoln’s apartments. “It’s astonishing what a grocer can pick up on a customer’s habits.”
They waited until the store was empty of shoppers. It was more of a nook, gouged into the side of a building, no more than ten feet across by five feet deep. Leaving the man who ran the grocery with unimpeded views of the street and the buildings beyond.
“Sir, I am Mr. Charles Strait and this is Miss Moore.” Charles handed the grocer one of his agency cards. “Might we ask you a few questions?”
The man rubbed his palm across his stained apron as he examined the card. “Agency for Discreet Inquiries? What’s this about?”
“We have been tasked with finding a man to whom a small inheritance has been left.” This was a favorite tactic of his when trying to gather information on a suspect. Most people were eager to assist someone in acquiring a windfall. Others allowed their envy to loosen their tongues to spill the most dreadful secrets as to why their suspect was unworthy of such good fortune. “A Mr. Clive Lincoln. Do you know a man with that name?”
“Of course.” The grocer handed the card back. “He lives right over there. You don’t need to speak with me. You just need to wait until he comes back home.”
