Page 3 of Affair

For a moment the world seemed to waver and shift around her. The sound of carriages rattling past in the street was distant and unreal. The familiar shape of the hall and the staircase took on the quality of an eerie illusion.

Ariel’s door opened at the end of the corridor. “Charlotte? I heard voices. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Charlotte held the empty pistol against her thigh so that her sister would not see it. She turned slowly and summoned a shaky smile. “Yes, I am fine, Ariel. Winterbourne came home drunk, as usual. We argued a bit. But he has left the house now. He will not be back tonight.”

Ariel was very quiet for a moment. “I wish Mama was still here. Sometimes I am very frightened in this house.”

Charlotte felt tears sting her eyes. “Sometimes I am frightened, too, Ariel. But we shall soon be free. In fact, we shall take the stage to Yorkshire tomorrow.”

She hurried toward her sister and put one arm around her. She pushed the pistol deeper into the folds of her nightgown. The cold iron burned against her thigh.

“You have finished selling the silver and what was left of Mama’s jewels?” Ariel asked.

“Yes. I pawned the tea tray yesterday. There is nothing left.”

In the year since their mother’s untimely death in a riding accident, Winterbourne had sold off the best pieces of the Arkendale jewels and most of the larger silver items in order to pay his mounting gaming debts.

But when she had realized what was happening, Charlotte had stealthily hidden a number of small rings, brooches, and a pendant. She had also tucked away bits of the silver tea service. During the past few months she had surreptitiously pawned them.

Winterbourne spent so much of the time in an inebriated state that he did not even realize how many of the household valuables had disappeared. When he did, on occasion, notice that something had gone missing, Charlotte informed him that he, himself, had pawned it while drunk.

Ariel looked up. “Do you think that we shall enjoy Yorkshire?”

“It will be lovely. We shall find a little cottage to rent.”

“But how will we live?” Even at the tender age of fourteen, Ariel displayed an amazingly practical streak. “The money you got for Mama’s things will not last long.”

Charlotte hugged her. “Do not fret. I shall think of a way to make a living for us.”

Ariel frowned. “You will not be obliged to become a governess, will you? You know how terrible things are for ladies in that career. No one pays them very much and they are often treated very shabbily. And I shall likely not be able to stay with you if you go into service in someone else’s house.”

“You may be certain that I shall find some other way to support us,” Charlotte vowed.

Everyone knew that a governess’s lot was not a pleasant one. In addition to the low wages and the humiliating treatment, there were risks from the men of the household who considered the governess fair game.

There had to be another way to support herself and Ariel, Charlotte thought.

But in the morning, everything changed.

Lord Winterbourne was found floating facedown in the Thames, his throat slit. It was assumed that he had been the victim of a footpad.

There was no longer any reason to escape to Yorkshire but there was still a need for Charlotte to invent a career for herself.

She received the news of Winterbourne’s death with vast relief. But she knew that she would never forget the monster with the compellingly beautiful voice that she had encountered in the hall.

Midnight: The coast of Italy, two years later

“So, in the end you chose to betray me.” Morgan Judd spoke from the doorway of the ancient stone chamber that served as his laboratory. “A pity. You and I have much in common, St. Ives. Together we could have forged an alliance that would have brought us both undreamed of wealth and power. A great waste of a grand destiny. But, then, you don’t believe in destiny, do you?”

Baxter St. Ives clenched his fingers fiercely around the damning notebook that he had just discovered. He turned to face Morgan.

Women considered Judd to be endowed with the countenance of a fallen angel. His black hair curled naturally in the carelessly stylish manner of the Romantic poets. It framed a high, intelligent brow and eyes the impossible blue of glacial ice.

Morgan’s voice could have belonged to Lucifer himself. It was the voice of a man who had sung in the choir at Oxford, read poetry aloud to enthralled listeners, and charmed high-ranking ladies into bed. It was a rich, dark, compelling voice, a voice shaded with subtle meanings and unspoken promises. It was a voice of power and passion and Morgan used it, as he did everything and everyone, to achieve his own ends.

His bloodlines were as blue as the ice in his eyes. They flowed from one of England’s most noble families. But his elegant, aristocratic mien belied the true circumstances of his birth.

Morgan Judd was a bastard. It was one of the two things that Baxter could say they truly had in common. The other was a fascination with chemistry. It was the latter that had brought about this midnight confrontation.

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