Sheffield turned pale as bleached muslin.
“That’s not all.” The earl forged on, determined to make a clean breast of it before he could change his mind. His friend deserved no less, no matter the consequences. “Lady Charlotte witnessed an incident at the ball . . .”
Sheffield listened in stark silence to the account of Cordelia’s unsettling meeting with her brother.
“We made the decision not to mention this to you until there was solid evidence that the murder is connected in any way to Woodbridge,” finished Wrexford. “We knew you were distraught about other things, and wished to protect you from further worry.”
A few fat drops of rain spattered against the window glass. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.
The earl then went on. “But good intentions often pave the path to perdition. So I’ve concluded that painful though the truth may be, it’s better than the alternatives.”
His friend didn’t react. He stared off into the shadows, seemingly lost in a fugue of his thoughts.
Dark ones, by the look of it.Perhaps he had made a mistake in being so brutally honest. Of late, his judgment had felt shaky.
“Kit?”
Roused from his reveries, Sheffield slowly turned and ran his fingers through his hair. “Ye gods. This changes everything.”
“There’s no need to sound so blue deviled. What we have are merely random bits of information. And as of yet, we’ve no reason to think that they all fit together.”
Sheffield pulled a fistful of folded papers from his pocket. “That’s because I haven’t yet shown you the letters I found in Woodbridge’s study.”
* * *
Repressing a shiver, Charlotte turned up her coat collar. The wind had shifted, driving fitful gusts of damp air up from the tidal pools. The grit-flecked chill prickled like knifepoints against her skin as the stench swirled up to clog her nostrils.
She shifted her stance, sliding her sodden boots deeper into the recessed niche between two buildings. Like the others pressed cheek by jowl within the rookeries, they were a sorry jumble of drunken angles and crumbling walls. Time seemed to be mired in the same viscous mud that was seeping through her soles. Or perhaps it was merely the urgency of her own worries that had the minutes passing at a snail’s pace.
Charlotte blew on her hands for warmth, watching her breath turn to silvery skeins of vapor, which quickly dissolved into the gloom.
Annie Wright would be coming. But whether she could shed any light on—
A scuffling of steps snapped her attention to full alert. She waited a moment, allowing whoever had entered the narrow cul-de-sac to pass her hiding place before venturing a peek.
Swish-swish.The lone figure was already gripped in the thick-fingered darkness of the narrow alley. It was the soft rustle of skirts that told Charlotte it was a woman.
After slipping out from her niche, Charlotte darted forward, quickly narrowing the distance between her and her quarry. With home just steps away, Annie Wright appeared to have relaxed her guard. Head bent, the barmaid trudged around the corner leading to her own ramshackle building with nary a glance around to check her surroundings.
Charlotte came up behind her, close enough to reach out and grasp the fringe of the shawl wrapped around the barmaid’s head and shoulders.
“Miss Wright.”
Annie spun around and brandished a fist. A dribble of moonlight through the rotting shingles overhead showed she was holding a knife. “Get away from me,” she warned. “Take a step closer and I’ll gut ye.”
Charlotte raised her hands to show she had no weapon. “I just want a word with you.”
“Be off.” The knife cut a menacing dance through the shadows. “I don’t talk te strangers.”
“It’s important,” pressed Charlotte. “A friend of yours is dead, and—”
Steel flashed as Annie lashed out a wild stab. Charlotte dodged the attack with a lightning-quick spin and thrust out an elbow, knocking Annie off-balance.
“Sorry,” she muttered, seizing the barmaid’s wrist and twisting it behind her back.
A yelp slipped through Annie’s gritted teeth as her fingers spasmed, allowing Charlotte to wrest the weapon from her grip.
“Go ahead and kill me, ye bloody bastard.” The barmaid ceased struggling, but defiance crackled in her voice. “I ain’t saying nothing.”
