“I can’t help but wonder . . .” McClellan’s eyes narrowed as she served them each a generous helping of eggs. “What unholy mischief were you up to last night?”
“We did nuffink!” said Hawk.
Charlotte felt a skittering of unease. The boy’s pronunciation tended to lapse only when he was nervous.
“We were looking at some difficult mathematical problems,” said Raven.
The thought of numbers, and having to update her ledger with the monthly accounting of income and expenses, made her head hurt even more. “Better you than me,” she muttered, breaking off a bite of toast. Though, numbers, she decided, were the least of her worries. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go work on the drawing that’s due to Mr. Fores at the end of the day.”
The boys didn’t look up from their plates.
Another unsettling sign.
McClellan set down the empty frying pan. “I can brew a tisane if you’re feeling poorly.”
“I’m merely preoccupied,” replied Charlotte. She would, of course, have to tell Wrexford what she had learned last night.
Once in her workroom, Charlotte quickly scribbled a note to the earl. Then she shifted a sheet of drawing paper onto her blotter and let out a guilty sigh. Of late, she hadn’t been giving her work the thought it deserved.
“I know . . . I swore I wouldn’t lose my edge,” she whispered in response to the accusing glare of the blank page. If personal problems began to take precedence over keeping the public informed on the issues affecting their lives, then . . .
Then I don’t deserve to hold my pen.
With that in mind, she pushed aside her own concerns and made herself focus. The price of bread had taken a recent upturn, and she had heard whispers that certain politicians might be profiting from it.
Charlotte quickly rose and called down to Raven and Hawk. After handing over the note for Wrexford, she took up a pencil and began to sketch.
* * *
“Interesting.” Tyler slowly paged through the drawings, taking his time to study the details. “The draftsmanship is impressive, and the construction of interlocking gears and levers ingenious.” He looked up. “However, I haven’t a clue as to what is it.”
“But the dials with the numbers, and the equations in the margins of the paper, must mean something,” mused Wrexford. “Could it be a device for doing sums? Addition, subtraction, multiplication . . .”
The valet raised his brows. “The idea is certainly not a new one. It’s been around for centuries.” He thought for a moment. “Leonardo da Vinci did a sketch for such a device. Then, of course, there’s Blaise Pascal’s Pascaline and Gottfried Leibniz’s Stepped Reckoner from the seventeenth century, though Leibniz’s design never worked properly—”
“I simply asked for your humble opinion,” muttered the earl, “not a history lesson.”
“In that case,” replied Tyler with an aggrieved sniff, “yes, it’s a distinct possibility.”
Turning his gaze back to the drawings, Wrexford frowned. “Be that as it may, it still begs the question of why Lady Cordelia had them in her possession.”
The silence stretched out for several minutes before Tyler cleared his throat. “Some ladies have hobbies, like embroidery. Is she, perchance, mechanically minded?”
“Not that I know of.” But clearly, he was ignorant about a great many things concerning his friends and acquaintances.
“You might ask Mr. Sheffield.”
Wrexford gave a grim nod. Yes, but whether he would get a straight answer was an entirely different question. For all his faults, Sheffield had always been unflinchingly honest, often to his own detriment. His new slyness was more worrisome than the earl cared to admit.
He knew Sheffield hated the helpless feeling of having no funds of his own. The prospect of making money was a powerful allure under any circumstances, and a force that could twist one’s morality.
“Damnation,” he muttered under his breath. There had been no time to discuss the discoveries with his friend last night. However, he fully expected a confrontation at any moment—
“Your pardon, milord.” His butler’s discreet cough drew him from his brooding. “But you have—”
“Show Sheffield in,” he muttered with a resigned sigh.
“Actually, it’s Master Thomas Ravenwood Sloane, milord,” replied Riche, maintaining an expression of solemn formality. The Weasels, whose muck-flecked untidiness and guttersnipe language had greatly offended the butler on their first few encounters, now never passed up the opportunity to announce themselves with their high-and-mighty official monikers. “And his brother, Master Alexander Hawksley Sloane.”
