She berated herself for her outburst, but that impossible man had said such dreadful things—assuming she was a scheming harpy, a common flirt. She could scarcely bear it. Her cheeks burned with the echo of his words. He might be a lord, but he had the manners of a boot boy.
Awful man.
Charlotte almost regretted saving his life... almost. Still, she admitted, however grudgingly, as undeserving and ungrateful as he was, no one deserved to be murdered.
Her instinct was to turn back and make Lord Stanley listen to reason, but she doubted he would grant her a private audience under any circumstances. No, he would merely assume she was attempting to “ensnare” him once more.
It was only a matter of time before the humiliation in the card room leaked to the rest of the party. She could already feel the ripple of whispers fluttering through the air. Ladies were darting furtive glances and muttering behind their fans.
‘I heard she fell on him—actually fell,’ a red-haired debutante giggled.
‘Desperate times,’ another tittered.
‘If she wished to be in his arms, there are simpler ways,’ someone said, and the laughter that followed was sharp enough to draw blood.
Charlotte placed her gloved hand over the coffee stains on her bodice, forcing herself to smile as though she had not heard. If the ton fed on scandal, she had just become their evening’s feast.
‘She tried to snare the Ice Baron, who does she think she is?’ one of them said quite loudly. ‘It seems they let anyone attend masked balls nowadays.’ Laughter erupted again.
So, he had a reputation. Of course he did. Cold, handsome, insufferable. Charlotte felt like a goose among swans, and no matter how she held her head high, her eyes burned with unshed tears. Luckily, no one had yet uncovered her identity—but she was skating on thin ice.
She tried to disappear into a particularly crowded area of the ballroom, but her sobs were rising uncontrollably. Her throat tightened, her chest heaved. Blinded by tears, she pushed through a set of double doors and out onto the terrace, seeking a few moments to collect herself.
The air outside was cool and sharp, easing the worst of her swelling emotion. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a memory surfaced—the stables.
The older man had said he would be waiting in the stables.
No one had believed her when she claimed someone was trying to murder Lord Stanley. Well, she would get proof. And she would throw it in the Ice Baron’s perfectly chiselled face. At the very least, she would try to uncover the identity of the ‘Wolf’—the true architect behind tonight’s assassination.
Then she hesitated.
Should she involve herself further? The haughty lord certainly did not want her help nor credit her warning. Would it not be wiser to return to her mother, endure her sisters’ scorn, and pretend none of this had ever occurred? She considered it—she truly did—but her conscience refused to comply, forshe knew, however accidentally, that she had stumbled upon something far greater than herself.
If she had heard correctly, this shadowed group was responsible for the abductions of innocent girls. And in her heart, she knew she would not be able to forgive herself if she turned away now.
Her father had always said courage was not the absence of fear, but the defiance of it. Well, her knees were certainly trembling, but her heart refused to retreat.
The Stag might be a misguided youth, but Wolf was a different creature altogether. She recalled his last words:If you fail or are caught, you will be silenced forever.
Had she inadvertently stopped one murder only to be responsible for another? Was Stag in danger now—because of her?
Charlotte’s eyes widened at the direction of her thoughts. She needed to get to the stables—at once. After all, what fool would openly follow men she suspected of murder? The sheer audacity of it seemed almost its own protection. The Wolf would never expect anyone stupid enough to try. And that, Charlotte realised, gave her the advantage.
Whether it was her convoluted logic—or fear and humiliation finally driving her to recklessness—Charlotte slipped after them into the night without hesitation.
She forced herself to descend the stone stairs once more and followed the outer wall of the mansion. The shadows thickened as she moved farther from the well-lit terraces. For one absurd moment, she imagined what her friends would say if they could see her now—skulking across Lord Bamber’s perfectly manicured lawn in the dark. Grace would insist she turn back immediately, whilst Anne would likely commit the entire affair to paper for a future novel.
Behind her, the music dwindled into a ghostly echo, and the laughter of the ballroom dissolved into silence. The grass soaked through her silk slippers with a miserable squelch, and the hem of her gown grew heavy and sodden. Her mother would be apoplectic at the state of them. But her gown was already stained with coffee—there would be no escaping a tongue-lashing now.
She followed the sounds of horses and the smell of manure and oiled leather, which eventually led her to a large outbuilding—the stables. Several drivers had congregated near a building at the far end of the row, their voices drifting faintly through the night. Lantern light flickered through the slats of the stable doors, glowing gold against the black.
She paused just short of one of the side doors, her pulse hammering.
What am I doing?
The enormity of her plan crashed over her all at once. What had seemed daring moments ago now felt utterly foolhardy. The Stag had seen her interfere; if he had warned the older Wolf, she could be in danger too.
A twig snapped behind her.
