Metal rattled, followed by several loud thumps.
Packing,realized Charlotte. Her maid was packing up the various household items in the pantries that would be moving along with them to the earl’s townhouse on Berkeley Square.
The clench in her chest slid down and turned into a knot in her gut.
It wasn’t that she was having second thoughts about marriage. Wrexford was . . . Wrexford. An impossibly complex man who had found a home in her heart in ways she couldn’t begin to explain.
A smile touched her lips. He had recently drawn up an elaborate scientific equation, showing a bewildering array of chemical symbols and notations to explain the natural phenomenon of Love.
Thank heaven a sense of humor softened his steel-edged sense of logic.
And yet . . .
Refusing to wallow in self-pity, Charlotte flung off the covers and began her morning ablutions. A splash of cold water helped clear her head. Fear was a natural reaction to change, she told herself.
“Wrexford will likely have a formula to explain that as well,” she murmured, finding the thought lifted her spirits. Yes, there were concerns about giving up her hard-won independence. The act of marriage stripped a woman of so many rights. In the eyes of the law, she became her husband’s chattel, with no more rights than a hound or a horse. One would have to be a ninnyhammer not to worry over such a momentous loss of freedom.
It all came down to trust.
Charlotte shucked off her night rail and dressed quickly in one of her ink-stained work gowns. Wrexford had pledged that he would never rattle the legal leg shackle that bound her to his whim. Indeed, he had insisted the marriage articles include the settlement of money—quite a generous amount of it—in an account under her control. It would, he had pointed out, give her the freedom to live very comfortably on her own should she ever decide that their life together didn’t suit her.
Freedom.He had taken pains to hand it to her on a platter.
She sighed. Her inner fears had never been about his actions, but rather her own. She knew in her heart he would never ask her to give up the things that mattered most to her. Her passions. . .
Her pen.
Her breath caught in her throat. What if marriage made her shy away from certain issues? In the past, nothing was safe from her sense of justice and fair play.Be damned with the consequences—fear played no part in her decisions.
And now?
Ah, that was the crux of the conundrum. Becton’s murder had raised the unsettling question of moral choices. It was exactly the type of crime that cried out for A. J. Quill’s attention. The Royal Society was a well-respected organization, with a reputation for doing good. But if there was also a dark side to it, someone needed to shine a light on it.
“So, why am I hesitating?” Charlotte whispered, even though she knew the answer. Wrexford was a member of the Royal Society. He respected their mission, seeing them as one of the bright lights of scientific progress, and had friends among their leaders. Poking her pen into their symposium would do damage, even if the crime had nothing to do with the organization.
Choices, choices. What is the right thing to do?
It was a question she always asked herself. But now, she couldn’t deny that how her actions affected Wrexford had crept into her considerations . . .
She took a seat at her dressing table, taking a long, hard stare at herself in the looking glass.
Ha—as if she didn’t know that only one answer would allow her to face that reflection every day.
Dropping her gaze, she quickly took up her brush and made short work of pinning up her hair.
McClellan—who served as both lady’s maid and housekeeper-cum-drillmaster for their eccentric little household—looked up from the wooden box she was packing as Charlotte entered the kitchen.
“Awake from the dead, are we?”
“That’s not overly humorous, Mac.” She had no doubt that over breakfast Hawk had explained about the murder.
“That bad?” The maid was already up and pouring a mug of coffee from the pot set on the hob.
“Actually, as murders go, the victim wasn’t nearly as gruesome as some of the other bodies we’ve tripped over,” responded Charlotte. “Bless you,” she added after taking a swallow of the steaming-hot brew that had been thrust into her hands. “That’s ambrosial.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“I . . . I don’t remember.”
