Clasping her hand over her mouth, Charlotte refused to give these men the pleasure of hearing her scream. She could not let fear overtake her. If she were to survive, she needed her wits.
“Makes it more fun, don’t it, Charley?” Eddie laughed, the sound incongruously high despite the fiend’s muscle-laden body.
Tears of fear streamed down Charlotte’s face. They sounded so close. Frantic, she glanced over her shoulder. Charley and Eddie were only a few steps behind her. The taller man’s hard blue eyes were latched on to her body, not her veil-covered face. He must have noticed her looking, and his expression darkened into salacious interest.
Charlotte acted on instinct. She turned sharply and sped across the street, even though there was really no place to flee. Suddenly, the thud of wheels filled the narrow thoroughfare. Charlotte smashed herself against the crumbling plaster of a half–tumbled down building as a black hackney coach careened between her and the ruffians.
The door to the conveyance slammed open, and Hannah stood there, her hand outstretched, her face as fierce as the legendary Boudicca. “Get inside now. Be quick about it.”
Charlotte didn’t hesitate. She immediately grabbed her cousin’s hand and leapt. When she awkwardly half landed in Hannah’s arms, she saw anger and not welcome on her relative’s face. Surprised by the fierceness of Hannah’s countenance, Charlotte took an awkward step to the side and tumbled onto the seat across from Sophia. Like a predator, Hannah sprang forward and practically pounced into a sitting position beside Charlotte.
“What in the bloody hell were you attempting back there?” Hannah didn’t even raise her voice. She didn’t need to. Not with the ferocious whisper that snapped from her lips like the snick of a riding crop whistling through the air.
“I—I was, uh, lost,” Charlotte said in a hurried rush. Nervously, she licked her lips, hoping Hannah and Sophia would accept the rather thin explanation.
“You were following two customers of the Black Sheep, likely to your death! You promised us that your ownership in the Black Sheep wasn’t a thrill-seeking lark.” Hannah shoved her face into Charlotte’s, but this time Charlotte held her ground despite her limbs trembling with suppressed emotions. Anticipation. Frustration. Anger. Delayed fear. All those sentiments pounded at her, threatening to shake her apart.
“Helping run the Black Sheep is not a game to me!” Charlotte’s voice had become as hoarse and as harsh as her cousin’s. “Haven’t I proven that? I’ve helped make the back room a success. You know I’ve brought in my share of patrons. We’re already making a profit—and a nice one too.”
“Yet you chased our customers!” Hannah protested.
Charlotte could feel her cousin’s hot, angry breath sweep across her own flushed skin.
“Are you worried I’ve scared them away? I promise that I had good reas—”
“I’m afraid you’re going to get yourself attacked or murdered!” Hannah did shout this time, and her words took Charlotte aback. Not because of the content but because of the note of actual concern in Hannah’s voice.
“I—” Charlotte had no earthly idea how to respond, and she hazarded a glance at Sophia. The other Wick cousin sat watching them, her expression intense but otherwise betraying nothing.
“Does it excite you to flirt with the seamy underbelly of life?” Hannah demanded, her rage returned. “Stay in your gilt sphere, Cousin. Stop consorting with thieves and killers.”
Hannah’s rapidly shifting emotions had sent Charlotte’s careening too. The acceptance she’d felt at Hannah’s show of concern burned away in the flames of renewed fury. “If I don’t make the acquaintances of criminals, then I am going to end up married to a homicidal husband who has already murdered two wives. I need to prove one of Lord Hawley’s crimes. That’s why I was following those ruffians. I saw the viscount with them two days ago.”
Hannah’s entire body jerked. “Hawley is not a man to be trifled with. What you are attempting is more than dangerous. It is foolishly deadly.”
“Then what am I to do? Marry him?”
“Refuse,” Hannah said. “Refuse just as my mother did when her parents arranged her marriage.”
Charlotte rubbed her temples, wishing it could all be so simple. “I have no dashing pirate waiting to whisk me to safety. I may live in a world of gilt, but that is all that it is—a gilded, glittering surface masking the iron bars keeping me caged.”
“Do not speak to us of being confined by the circumstances of your birth,” Hannah snapped. “Especially not to Sophia. Both ofour families have had to fight for their place in the world but none more than hers.”
“Power is something taken from my people, not given to us,” Sophia said, her voice quiet but ardent. “The countries of Europe murdered my mother’s Taíno ancestors and claimed their lands, which the invaders cleared using the forced labor of my mother’s African forebearers. My people’s work, their lives, their very essence, are what fuel much of the lavish existence of the British upper and middling classes. That ill-begotten wealth comes from New World plantations and merchant vessels with their human cargo and goods wrought by blood. And my people are left with ashes. Yet, somehow, we still manage to create, to produce, to live, to dream. If we can survive with nothing, you can too with the power that you possess.”
Pain and guilt ripped through Charlotte. She had not meant to discount the Wick cousins’ experiences, especially Sophia’s. For all her philosophical reading about the human condition, she had never truly wrestled with the horrors of the slave trade or its connection to the luxuries of coffee, spices, tobacco, and so many of the aristocratic pleasures.
“By no means do I think my cosseted existence can begin to compare with what the peoples of the New World and Africa have suffered. I am fortunate in so many ways—ways that I am just now considering. Yet I am also like a treasured doll—told what clothes to wear, the posture to assume, the words to say. Above all, I am seen as incapable of making my own decisions. What power do you think I have?” Charlotte asked in genuine confusion.
“Plenty.” Sophia’s brown eyes flashed with a commanding golden light. “Society’s perception of your fragility is your very strength.”
“Pardon?” Charlotte asked.
“If you swoon, what happens?” Hannah asked hotly.
“People would coming running over to help, I suppose,” Charlotte surmised. “A doctor might be summoned.”
“What if Sophia fainted?” Hannah asked.
