After composing herself with a watery sniff, she quickly went on. “I was hoping you would accept me for who I am. Your unwavering support is the reason I dared to follow my heart all those years ago, no matter where it led. And now that we’ve come together again, I don’t wish for there to be any secrets between us. You’re too dear to me.”
“I should hope you know you can trust me,” replied Alison stoutly.
“I would trust you with my life.” Charlotte gave a wry smile. “In fact, I just have—that is, my life as I know it. If I had to give up my pen . . .” A chill seized the nape of her neck at the thought of it.
“Thank you, my dear. I’m so glad you decided you could confide in me.” An impish glint flashed in the dowager’s sapphirine eyes. “I confess, I’m relieved to learn why I never drew A. J. Quill’s notice. It made me feel quite low to think that I was losing my fire.”
Alison regripped her cane. “But never mind that right now. You said that you wished to ask me a favor.” She leaned forward. “How can I help?”
CHAPTER 13
Paper crackled as Wrexford refolded the banking list Was the knife yet another black mark against Woodbridge? Or . . .
He drew in a pensive breath. And released it in a low snort. “Is it just me, or do you also smell a rat?”
Tyler took a sip of his brandy. “The odor is definitely teasing at the nostrils.” He turned the glass in his hands. “But if it was planted, who did it? And why?”
“I don’t know,” admitted the earl. “And yet why would Woodbridge be so stupid as to leave such a distinctive weapon at the scene of the crime?”
“Perhaps he simply panicked.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Wrexford. “Especially if he didn’t come to the rendezvous with the intention of committing murder. He and Peabody might have quarreled and it turned ugly, or the clerk might have threatened him.” His brows drew together in thought. “Or perhaps the highborn gentleman seen arguing with the clerk is David Mather, not Woodbridge, and the knife belongs to him.”
“You think Mather might have murdered his cousin?” Tyler raised a skeptical brow. “Over a woman?”
“Lady Charlotte witnessed an ugly incident involving Mather, which seems to indicate he has secrets to hide.” The earl recounted what she had told him. “There are any number of reasons why two relatives—one born to aristocratic privilege and one born to modest means—might quarrel.”
The valet pursed his lips, in thought. For several long moments, the only sound in the room was the muted hiss of the burning coals. “Very well. I’ll check on whether Mather’s family crest includes a lion rampant.”
Wrexford closed his eyes, trying to force the amorphous clues into sharper focus. “Something just doesn’t strike me as right about the murder being a matter of jealousy. I keep coming back to the connection between Woodbridge, Mather, Peabody. There has to be something other than a woman tying them together.”
Trust your intuition.Charlotte’s frequent exhortation teased at his conscious thought. And suddenly another idea popped to mind.
“Money,” he muttered. “Perhaps Peabody had learned something from Mather about Woodbridge’s finances and was using it to blackmail him.”
Tyler’s brows drew together. “An interesting possibility.”
“Or perhaps the two of them were in league on the blackmail scheme and then quarreled over the money . . .” The earl rose and began to pace.
The coals crackled.
“I think you should track down Griffin and see if he’ll consent to let us borrow the knife for a short time. Apparently, he had Henning look at Peabody’s corpse right after the murder to see if the killer had left any telltale clues as to his identity.” Basil Henning, an irascible surgeon and longtime friend, ran a clinic for the poor in the slums of Seven Dials. His skills at healing were matched by his uncanny ability to make the dead give up their secrets. “Now that we have a weapon, Henning may be able to tell us whether it was the one used to kill Peabody.”
Tyler set down his glass with a martyred sigh. “Alas, no rest for the weary, I see.”
“Indeed not.” Wrexford turned abruptly to retrieve his coat. “Damnation, I need to pay a visit to Lady Charlotte and inform her of these latest twists. She sensed that Annie Wright was holding something back. If the barmaid knows something, be it the jealous rivalry or the blackmail scheme, we need to speak with her—and quickly.”
“You think she might be in danger?” asked the valet softly. “From whom? Woodbridge?”
“The threat of having one’s nefarious schemes exposed is certainly a motive for murder,” he answered. “And one man is already dead.”
* * *
A rush of gratitude welled up in Charlotte’s throat. To once again have her great-aunt as a confidante made all the uncertainties she was facing seem a little less daunting. “Wrexford needs to visit Cambridge, and I wish to go as well,” she explained. “And short of locking him in some deep, dark dungeon, Raven will likely find a way to follow us. You see, we fear that Lady Cordelia and her brother have become enmeshed in something dangerous . . .”
The dowager listened in rapt silence as Charlotte explained about her friend’s disappearance and the unsettling clues discovered at Woodbridge’s townhouse.
“Wrexford and Sheffield intend to stay at the earl’s estate while they seek to locate the elusive professor,” continued Charlotte. “It occurred to me that if the boys and I travel with you, it would be perfectly proper for us to pay them a visit. A country house party of sorts, though sleuthing would take precedence over frivolous entertainments.”
