Delaney cuffed him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”
He looked past the hardness in her eyes and saw kindness.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Thank me by never mentioning this conversation again.” She headed for the door, slamming it behind her.
Jack was about to depart when Campbell appeared, steaming cups in hand.
“Thought you could use a cup o’ my brew before you go,” the butcher said.
“That is kind of you, sir.” Gratefully, Jack downed the strong, bitter tea.
“That’ll put hair on your chest, eh?” Campbell clapped him on the shoulder. “Everything all right? You look a might worse for the wear.”
“Just a temporary problem. One I plan to fix.” Jack set down the empty cup. “Thank you for the tea.”
Thirty-Six
That evening, Charlie headed over to the Hadleighs’ home to prepare for the night’s expedition. She was exhausted for she hadn’t slept after the confrontation with Jack. After a bout of crying, she’d pulled herself together and left for the manufactory. She’d wanted to count the guards and observe their patterns in preparation for tonight. Truth be told, she’d also needed the distraction.
The last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts.
Or to be alone at all…which, it seemed, she was destined to be.
She shut out the morose thoughts. She wasn’t going to allow Jack to send her into a spiral of grief and loss again. How could one grieve a lover one had never really known? The Jack whom Judith Courtenay had accused of being a rapist, manipulator, and murdererwas not the man Charlie thought she knew.
Even with all the damning evidence, she had expected, nay prayed, that he would have some explanation. Some perfectly reasonable response to it all. Instead, he hadn’t denied any of it…well, except for forcing Judith. Yet his claim that “she wanted it” was too familiar to Charlie: it was the refrain of men who blamed their victims for the assault.
All these years of running an investigative society has obviously not improved my judgement. The irony curdled her stomach.I was the one who was taken in, over and over. Who was played a fool. Who fell in love—again—with a man who may be a predator.
While Charlie struggled to believe that Jack was capable of evil, why would Judith lie? At this point, Charlie was too drained to sort fact from fiction; she needed to get through the mission tonight. Arriving at the Hadleighs’, she managed to put on a smile. The smile became genuine when she saw Livy and Hadleigh’s pretty dark-haired toddler, Esmerelda, clinging to her papa’s knee.
“Esme was supposed to be off to bed,” Livy said. “But she insisted on staying up to say goodnight to her Aunt Charlie.”
Charlie bent to be eye-level with Esme.
“I am honored, Lady Esme,” she said.
Esme’s eyes, green like Livy’s, studied Charlie.
“Aunt Char-wee go bed too,” Esme announced. “She look ti-werd.”
Out of the mouths of babes.
“All right, dearest,” Livy said hastily. “It’s off to bed with Nurse now.”
“Want Papa.” Esme held up her arms to His Grace. “Papa readbeststory.”
Smiling, Hadleigh scooped her up and tossed her into the air, to her giggling delight. With a stab of pain, Charlie realized she’d had daydreams about this sort of scenario with Jack. In her fantasies, he’d been a doting papa, one determined to give his children the paternal love that he, himself, had never known.
“One story, poppet. Then it’s bedtime.”
“Two,” Esme wheedled as Hadleigh carried her out. “I want two stories, Papa!”
“She is a handful,” Livy said ruefully.
“She is adorable and takes after you.”
