Page 73 of Affair

Baxter smiled. In the deep darkness of the unlit cab he could barely make out Charlotte’s face. The hood of her cloak shrouded her features.

He still was not quite certain how he had allowed himself to be convinced to bring her along tonight. Blackmail threats aside, she had a way of achieving her own ends, he thought. A strong, formidable woman, indeed. Perhaps that was one of the reasons on the growing list of why he was so attracted to her. She was definitely not the sort to succumb to a fit of the vapors or burst into tears whenever she wanted her own way. She stood toe-to-toe and insisted upon what she viewed as her rights.

As difficult as Charlotte was proving to be, there was something to be said for a strong-minded female, Baxter decided. With Charlotte, a man did not have to waste a great deal of unnecessary time and energy catering to a lot of damned delicate feminine sensibilities.

She had not complained of the fact that he had made love to her on a laboratory workbench, for example. He suspected that many women would have taken deep offense. He had to admit that the setting had lacked something in terms of romantic ambience.

On the other hand, she was the one who had labeled the passionate interlude an experiment, Baxter reminded himself. He supposed he should have been relieved that she had not placed too much importance on the event, but for some reason he could not stop brooding about it.

With each passing day, Charlotte was becoming increasingly adept at disrupting his calm, orderly existence.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“Go into The Green Table and drag Hamilton out here to the carriage, where I can speak to him in private.” Baxter removed his eyeglasses and placed them in the pocket of his greatcoat.

“Why are you taking off your spectacles?”

“Because I would prefer that no one take any notice of me. Those who know me are accustomed to seeing me in eyeglasses. I wish to keep this matter a private one between Hamilton and myself.”

“I understand,” Charlotte said gently. “It is a family thing, is it not?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“But how will you be able to find Hamilton in the crowd without your eyeglasses?”

“A friend of mine, the Earl of Masters, is something of an inventor. He designed an interesting watch for me.” He pushed open a window curtain far enough to allow a shaft of weak moonlight to enter the carriage. Then he removed his pocket watch and snapped it open. He held the watch close to his eyes as though trying to make out the time the way a man did in a shadowed room. He gazed at Charlotte through the glass watch cover, which was, in fact, a single lens.

“How very clever,” Charlotte said. “A sort of quizzing glass.”

“Masters is a clever man. He designed some of my chemical apparatus for me.” Baxter closed the watch and put it back into his pocket. He reached for the door handle. “Don’t suppose it’s worth one more attempt to talk you out of being present when I question Hamilton?”

“Save your breath, sir. I was the one who actually spoke to Miss Post, after all. If Hamilton is guilty of this mischief, which I doubt, I have some questions of my own for him.”

“I feared as much.” Baxter got out of the carriage. He turned back as a thought struck him. “I have a question of my own concerning Miss Post’s visit to you.”

“What is it?”

“What with one thing and another, I overlooked one very odd piece of this business.”

“Yes?”

“Why was it that you did not believe Miss Post’s tale? What made you think that she was not my cast-off paramour?”

Charlotte gave a ladylike snort. “Don’t be ridiculous, Baxter. You would never abandon some poor woman who was pregnant with your child. Such a callous action would be completely out of character for you. Whoever sent Miss Post to me with that wild tale obviously did not know you well.”

Baxter studied the line of her firm, straight nose, which was just barely visible beneath the hood of her cloak. “I think it far more likely,” he said softly, “that whoever commissioned Miss Post to act her role did not knowyouwell, Charlotte.”

He closed the carriage door before she could respond.

He glanced back once as he went down the street toward The Green Table. She would be safe, he thought. The coachman from Severedges’s would keep an eye on her.

In spite of the unpleasant scene that lay ahead, he found himself smiling a little as he walked through the light, swirling fog. Most ladies would have believed Juliana Post’s outrageous story. It was an all too common tale. Women alone in the world very often fell prey to the cruel seductions of men who had few qualms about abandoning them once the liaisons became inconvenient.

In the course of her extremely unusual career, Charlotte had become better acquainted than most of her sex with the dark side of masculine nature. Her view of men was pragmatic to the point of cynicism. It would have been quite natural for her to have believed the worst that Miss Post had to tell her. Yet she had not given a moment’s credence to the lie.

Baxter savored that thought as he approached the steps of The Green Table. For some reason that he did not want to examine, it was of vital importance to know that Charlotte had believed in him when faced with such damning evidence. Surely she had some spark of genuine affection for him that went beyond a mere desire for passionate experimentation.

A carriage rumbled to a halt in front of the gaming hell just as Baxter reached the steps. Loud laughter and coarse jokes sounded from the cab. The vehicle’s door slammed open and five young, drunken dandies spilled out onto the pavement. One of them lost his balance on the wet ground and wound up planted on his rear. His friends found his predicament hilarious.

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