Charlotte closed her eyes for an instant. “Do I dare use my art to try to smoke out the murderer?”
A provocative headline might stir up enough questions among the public and government to prod the murderer into making a fatal mistake. And she could envision the perfect one:THERE’S AN ELECTRICITY CRACKLING THROUGH THE HALLOWED HALLS OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION AS NEW QUESTIONS SWIRL AROUND THE MURDER OF LORD CHITTENDEN!
By the grace of God, the strategy had worked in the past, but it was a dangerous move, one that could do great harm if her intuition was wrong. Science was still looked on by many with great suspicion—a witch’s brew of frightening theories and incomprehensible experiments that challenged the familiar beliefs of the past.
Wrexford would not thank her for throwing oil on the fires of fear that burned deep in the hearts of conventional thinkers.
Choices, choices.
It was one thing to be willing to sacrifice her own future in the battle to save Nicholas from the gallows. But did she have a moral right to blacken the reputation of London’s most august scientific institution by making scandalous innuendoes?
Backing off from the idea—at least for the moment—Charlotte wiped her pen clean and retreated to a safer subject for the drawing she owed to Mr. Fores. A hint that her cousin had an alibi for the night of the murder might provoke public opinion to wonder whether the evidence was strong enough for the judges at the Old Bailey to convict him. It was the sort of titillating speculation to set all of London’s tongues to wagging, from the stinking slums to the glittering mansions—
“Oiy, you ought te be sleeping.”
Raven’s chiding drew her out of her brooding. She looked around to see him standing in the doorway. “So should you.”
He cocked a saucy grin. “Me ’n Hawk ain’t fancy ladies who need hours abed and a jar of Olympian Dew to preserve the delicate bloom of our complexions.”
She laughed in spite of her troubled mood. Several weeks ago, she had done a satire on the sudden popularity of highly dubious—and highly expensive—facial potions that had taken hold with the ladies of the beau monde. “No, your secret is mud, which is likely as effective as Olympian Dew’s fiddle-faddle. Perhaps we should take to selling ‘La Boue de St. Giles’ and become rich as Croesus.”
“You’re not supposed to sayain’t,” counseled Hawk as he moved out from behind his brother. “It ain’t proper English.”
Raven made a rude sound.
Ignoring the teasing, Hawk hurried to where Charlotte was seated, a plume of steam fuzzing his face as he held up her favorite mug. “We thought you might like some tea.”
Her throat tightened on seeing the uncertainty in Hawk’s eyes. With the murder and the topsy-turvy changes in her own life, she felt a stab of guilt over how little attention she had paid to the boys lately.
Charlotte took the mug from his hands and set it on the tabletop. “Thank you,” she murmured as she enfolded him in a fierce hug. “Forgive me. I . . . haven’t been myself lately.” Perhaps because she was struggling to sort out just who Lady Charlotte Sloane was.
“S’all right,” said Raven as he shuffled over to her worktable. “We know you’re worried about your cousin.”
“And yer wery busy being a fancy lady,” piped up Hawk. His pronunciation tended to lapse when he was worried about something.
“To the devil with being a fancy lady,” she replied, ruffling his hair. “I must on occasion wrap myself in silks and satins,but I promise you, that will never change who I am . . .” She blinked back a tear. “Or what is most precious to me.”
Raven was watching her intently. “You ain’t gonna faint again, are ye?” It was said lightly, but she could tell that for all his nonchalance, he, too, was looking for reassurance that their cobbled-together family was not in danger of breaking apart.
“Watch your tongue, Weasel,” she retorted, choosing to mimic Wrexford’s caustic chiding of the boys. “And stop mangling the King’s English, or no jam tarts for a week.”
They exchanged horrified grimaces, but their eyes lit with laughter.
Charlotte kept her arms around Hawk, savoring his warmth and all the familiar little knobs and juts of his skinny body. All too soon, he would too big to cuddle in her lap.
Shifting his stance, Raven picked up one of her pencils and twirled it between his fingers. “You should show her the drawing you did today,” he said to his brother. “Mr. Linsley was very impressed, m’lady.”
“I would very much like to see it!” she exclaimed.
Hawk pulled a small notebook from his pocket—she had recently purchased it for him, along with several miniature sticks of artist’s graphite—and shyly thumbed through the pages. “It’s just a plain gillyflower that I saw in Covent Garden Market on the way to our lessons. I had to rush so I wouldn’t be late.”
Finding the sketch, he flattened the spine and handed her the book.
“Why, it’s . . .” Charlotte’s voice trailed off. The lines were quickly drawn and yet they deftly captured the exuberant curls of the petals and delicate arch of the spikey leaves.
“It’s magnificent,” she murmured. “You’ve made it come to life.”
The praise brought a flush of pink to his cheeks.
