Page 65 of Affair

He paused near the large burning lens stand. “What has that to do with this?”

She gave him a very direct look. “It was your idea to announce this fraudulent engagement of ours and it was the engagement that brought Miss Post to my door with her wild tale. Therefore, I do not see how you can blame me for what transpired. To be perfectly blunt, it was all your fault.”

Baxter began to feel hunted. He seized on the one thing that for some irrational reason irritated him the most. “Our engagement is not fraudulent.”

“Indeed. What would you term it?”

He searched for words. “It is a stratagem.”

“I fail to distinguish much difference between a stratagem and a fraud.”

“Well, I can bloody well tell the difference,” he said. “Or have you forgotten already that our engagement is designed to allow us to move in Society for the purposes of discovering a killer?”

She turned the straw bonnet absently in her hands, her expression suddenly thoughtful. “And a very clever ruse it has proven to be. Only consider. We have got our first real clue thanks to your little stratagem, as you call it.”

“What clue?”

“Don’t you see?” Her eyes sparkled with renewed excitement. “When I confronted her, Miss Post as much as admitted that someone had employed her to visit me in the guise of your pregnant paramour. She would not tell me who had done so, but it was evident that her task was to destroy my faith in you.”

“Obviously.” Baxter got a sinking sensation in his stomach. Any number of gently bred women would have believed Miss Post’s outlandish story.

“Someone went to great pains to end our so-called engagement,” Charlotte continued. “We must ask ourselves why anyone would go to such lengths.”

Baxter shoved his fingers through his hair. “Bloody hell.”

“It would appear that someone does not want the two of us to form a close association.”

“Calm yourself, Charlotte. I doubt very much that this episode with Miss Post has anything to do with our attempt to discover a murderer.”

“What do you mean?”

He exhaled slowly. “I suspect that you were merely the victim of someone’s notion of a malicious practical joke.”

Charlotte stared at him. “But who would play such a hoax?”

“The first person who comes to mind is my bloody-minded half brother.”

“Hamilton? That’s ridiculous.”

“A few days ago, I would have agreed with you. There is no great affection between Hamilton and myself, but I had not realized until this morning that he might be …” Baxter hesitated, still dubious of his own observations and conclusions. “Envious of me.”

“Envious?”

Baxter recalled the bitter expression he had seen in Hamilton’s eyes when he had described his willful destruction of his copy ofConversations on Chemistry. “I know it makes no sense, but I got the impression today that he harbors a personal grudge against me.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” Baxter admitted. “His mother would have influenced his view of me, of course. Maryann has always detested the verysightof me for obvious reasons. But I believe there may be more to Hamilton’s dislike. Something beyond the perceived insult to his mother, I mean.”

“What reasons?”

“His ill will toward me may have to do with the fact that my father and I spent a good deal of time together working on chemical experiments.” Baxter grimaced. “Apparently Father went so far as to inform Hamilton of my small venture on behalf of England during the war. And he once forced Hamilton to read a book I wrote. Hamilton seemed to resent all that.”

“I see.” Understanding lit Charlotte’s eyes. “A younger brother might be jealous of an older brother who had garnered much of their father’s admiration and attention.”

Another kind of emotion, the old, familiar, cold sensation, rippled through Baxter. It had an oddly calming effect. He knew this feeling well. Unlike the restless anger, this was something he understood and could control. “Hamilton got the title and the estates. What more can he want? It’s not my fault that he didn’t share Father’s interest in science.”

“No, it’s not your fault, but to a very young man it could be a reason for envy.” Charlotte frowned. “However, I cannot see Lord Esherton stooping to such a vicious piece of mischief as hiring a woman to ruin your engagement.”

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