Feeling a spurt of relief—a coward’s reaction, he conceded—Wrexford waved for the boys to enter.
“M’lady wants for you to pay her a visit this afternoon,” announced Raven, handing over the note.
“You shouldn’t read a missive that isn’t meant for your eyes,” he chided, unfolding the paper.
“We didn’t!” protested Hawk. “That would have been ungentlemanly.”
Tyler cleared his throat to smother a laugh.
“She told us to come here straightaway, because she hoped you would be free to come take tea with her,” added Hawk in explanation.
“Tea,” repeated the earl. The way the past few days had gone, he might prefer to be served hemlock. “Thank you. Please tell her I’ll be there.”
Raven had moved to the desk and was looking intently at the mechanical diagrams.
“Think hard, lad,” said Wrexford. “Do you have any idea of why Lady Cordelia had these drawings in her desk?”
The boy shook his head.
“Does she perchance have a penchant for—”
“Making things?” suggested Tyler. “Could they be her own sketches for some whimsical apparatus that she intends to build for herself?”
Raven scrunched his face, carefully considering the questions. “She’s never mentioned anything like that.”
Frustrated, the earl kept pressing. “Then if they’re not hers, have you any ideas of where she got them or what she’s doing with them?”
“No, sir,” answered Raven quickly.
Too quickly.And with a certainty belied by the flicker of doubt in his eyes.
Wrexford decided not to challenge him on it. Life had become much more complicated for the boys as well as for Charlotte. Loyalties were now interweaving and overlapping. He didn’t want to risk snapping any of the fragile threads.
“Well, then, we must attack the conundrum from a different angle.” Moving around his desk, the earl went to stand by the hearth. The day was warm, and the coals lay unlit in the grate, shadows dipping and darting through the dark chunks instead of flames.
Were the recent unsettling mysteries really linked? Or were they all seeing specters where there was naught but a simple ripple of air? It was tempting to see connections. But as Wrexford pondered all the evidence they had at hand, logic argued against it.
C. Hoare & Co. was a private bank of excellent repute and handled money matters for a number of aristocratic families. That the dead man’s cousin worked at the same establishment where Woodbridge had his finances was really not as much of a coincidence as it might seem at first blush. As for Woodbridge’s muddy boots . . . Bloody hell, like moths drawn to a flame, a great many wealthy young men found the lure of London’s less salubrious parts irresistible.
The voice of reason carried a knife-edge clarity.And yet the whisper in the shadows of his conscious thought refused to be silenced.
Logic . . .
As an idea suddenly leapt to mind, Wrexford turned abruptly and gathered up the drawings. “Tell Sheffield I’ll meet him—”
“Meet me where?” His friend halted in the doorway, looking uncertain of whether he was welcome to join the others.
“A thought occurred to me on where I might learn more about the drawings we found,” answered Wrexford. “I’ll be back within an hour or two.”
“Might I come with you?”
Yes or no?The earl sensed his reply would profoundly affect their friendship.
“Of course.” He squeezed past Sheffield and gave a curt wave for him to follow. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you that the meeting will likely involve a lot of boring scientific habble-babble.”
It was only a short walk to Albemarle Street and the Royal Institution, whose lecture hall and laboratories drew many of the leading scientific minds in Britain. The earl led the way up the stairs, bypassing the area devoted to chemistry and heading up to the workrooms housing the . . .
Tinkerers.
