“Oh, come.” A sigh. “Surely I can think ofsomethingto ridicule. Scandal and secrets are my bread and butter.”
Alas, her mind, like the paper, remained blank.
She tried to concentrate. Her thoughts were usually well focused, sharpened, no doubt, by the fact that peace and quiet put no pennies in her purse. But this morning they kept waltzing to their own tune, spinning and twirling like the dust motes dancing in the gold-flecked light.
Dancing.The word stirred a different sort of flutter in her belly.
Waltzing with Wrexford, she mused, had been oddly wonderful. . . though, of course, those two words made no sense together.
“But then, neither do the two of us,” murmured Charlotte, then reminded herself that work must take precedence over personal lollygagging. She reached for her quill and penknife and began shaping a sharp point.
And yet her damnable wayward brain seemed to have another idea in mind.
Wrexford.His name—like his physical presence when he sauntered into her pleasant little parlor—seemed to shove all else from her thoughts. She wasn’t precisely sure how that had come to be. At first blush, he wasn’t a gentleman to make a girlish heart flutter.
Irascible. Arrogant. Sarcastic.His scientific mind valued cold-blooded logic over tender sentiment.
Putting aside her newly sharpened pen, Charlotte picked up a pencil and began to doodle. But as with most things in life, such a starkly simple first impression had given way to a far more nuanced portrait. She stared down at her caricature, with its sinuous curls of too-long hair—the earl was always in need of a barber—and subtle shading that softened the hard line of his jaw. Strange how comfortable she had become with the austere planes of his face. Rather than just the starkly chiseled edges, she now saw all the subtle contours and vulnerabilities that made him . . .
That made him Wrexford.
Their relationship had taken a number of twists and turns, the way all too often darkened by danger. And of late, it had taken a new spin . . . one that still seemed to have both of them off-balance. Perhaps if in the future they stopped tripping over dead bodies, they could begin to sort out their personal feelings.. . .
“The future? Ha!” Shoving aside her musings, Charlotte crumpled the sketch and drew a fresh sheet onto the blotter. “I had better concentrate on the present.”
After several long moments, a sigh of relief slipped from her lips as she suddenly remembered the bit of gossip McClellan, the redoubtable woman who served as both maid and general taskmaster in their little household, had mentioned at breakfast. A highwayman had apparently accosted a carriage last night on Hounslow Heath and robbed the lone traveler of a princely sum of valuables.
That the victim was the notoriously eccentric Duchess of York, wife of the king’s second son, would delight the masses, who, along with having a soft spot for the romantic image of a dashing highwayman, loved nothing more than to laugh at the follies of their betters. The duchess’s marriage was not a happy one, and she had taken up residence at Oatlands, the family estate in Surrey, where she lived alone, with a vast menagerie of animals to keep her company.
She was said to be particularly fond of her pugs and pet monkeys.
Repressing a grin, Charlotte reached for her paint box and began mixing a batch of garish colors. Already she was imagining the drawing’s composition—the carriage, with drooling dogs peering from all the windows and a capering monkey dressed in a footman’s livery throwing a coconut at the pistol-wielding highwayman. After all, the public needed to laugh as well as ponder the serious issues that often resonated in her satire.
With a few quick pencil strokes, she drew in the basic outlines, then reached for her pen. . . .
A loud pounding on the front door nearly caused Charlotte to spill the inkwell.
“Now what?” she murmured after expelling a harried sigh.
“Oiy, oiy!” cried a reedy voice as McClellan admitted the caller. “There’s been a ’orrible murder down by the wharf where de rich skivvies bring in their puffers from the east!”
* * *
“Hold your horses, Skinny,” called Charlotte as she hurried down the stairs. The rail-thin streetsweep, never easy to understand under the best of circumstances, tended to mangle his vowels when he was excited. “And please repeat what you just said—at a walk, not a gallop.”
“Oiy,” snorted the lad in frustration. “Ye didn’t skibble wot I jez sed?”
Charlotte smiled at McClellan. “Perhaps ginger biscuits would smooth out the rough edges of Skinny’s tongue.”
The boy was part of a small band of urchins—all friends of Raven and Hawk from their time of living on the streets—who regularly gathered information for Charlotte. Their eyes and ears had also proved invaluable in previous murder investigations.
“Indeed,” agreed the maid. “I daresay a jam tart and a cup of sugared tea would help, as well.”
“Aye, that would do the trick.” Skinny’s pronunciation was suddenly greatly improved.
Charlotte looked down at the boy’s muck-encrusted shoes and gave a mental wince before saying, “Excellent. Now come have a seat in the parlor while McClellan fetches the refreshments.”
“Where’s Raven and Hawk?” asked Skinny as he scampered to one of the pillowed armchairs, leaving a trail of dried dung on the carpet.
