“How much of that,” she asked quietly, “was I not meant to hear?”
Something tightened painfully beneath Edward’s ribs. “Charlotte—”
“How much?” she repeated.
Christopher stepped back at once, instinctively granting her space. Edward came around the desk but stopped short of reaching for her.
“We have found irregularities,” he said cautiously.
Her eyes flashed. “I heard enough.”
She stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind her. “What did he do? Do not soften it.”
Edward did not raise his voice. “There is a ledger entry. A large payment made to men in Hawthorne Hollow shortly after your parents’ carriage overturned. Witnesses place William in the area that same week.”
The words seemed to strike her physically, and her spine stiffened.
“He said he was investigating,” she said bitterly. “Investigating.”
“He may have been,” Christopher said quietly. “From the inside.”
Charlotte turned on him with unfiltered fury. “So he paid them? Paid men to sabotage my parents’ carriage? To frighten them? To extort them?”
“We do not know that,” Edward said sharply. “Not yet.”
She looked at him then—not wounded, not weeping, but blazing.
“You already believed it,” she said. “You would not have sent Lord Christopher if you did not.”
Edward met her gaze and did not lie. “Yes.”
The admission fell heavily between them.
“And Thomas?” she asked.
“There are rumors of prior dealings,” Edward replied. “Nothing more.”
“Rumors are enough to stain a reputation forever.”
He could not argue that.
Christopher cleared his throat. “We are close to something, Miss Fenton. But not close enough.”
She folded her arms tightly across herself, as though holding her composure in place. “You should have told me,” she said to Edward.
“You had just collapsed.”
“That does not make me fragile.”
“No,” he answered evenly. “It makes you human.”
The tension in the room sharpened. No one moved.
“We leave for Lady Amelia’s gathering within the hour,” Edward said at last. “We will not allow William to think we are shaken.”
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “I am not shaken.”
Edward almost believed her.
