Page 59 of Murder on Black Swan Lane
“I’m deadly serious. Confine your risk taking to the gaming tables. Our unknown adversary is dangerous.” The earl suddenly realized that Sheffield had likely not heard of Drummond’s demise. “There was another murder this morning, and likely connected to Holworthy, though I cannot yet connect how or why. But I intend to do so.”
Tyler cleared his throat. “As to that, milord, I have just recalled that there is an important lecture taking place at the Royal Institution tomorrow. Davy is delivering further thoughts on his Bakerian Lecture, which drew such accolades. All of the members will likely be in attendance, along with most of the beau monde.”
“A good place to begin,” mused the earl
“I’ll come along,” volunteered his friend. “Two pairs of eyes and ears may prove useful. I will, of course, need to know what we are looking for.”
Wrexford hesitated. “I—”
His reply was cut off by a soft knock on the door. “Forgive the interruption, milord,” intoned his butler, the dark oak making the man’s murmur even more muted. “But the man from Bow Street is here. And he is demanding to speak with you.”
Wrexford went to the decanter and filled a glass with a dark amber malt from Scotland. “Sláinte,” he muttered to his friend, raising a sarcastic toast. “To yet more chaos and confusion raising hell with my peaceful existence.”
“He is being very insistent, milord,” pressed the butler.
“Lucky you,” murmured Sheffield.
“Show him to the Blue Salon.” The earl tossed back a swallow. “I shall be there in a moment.”
* * *
Charlotte put away the bread remaining from breakfast and poured herself a cup of tea. The boys had scampered off after the simple meal, leaving the house quiet. A fresh sheet of drawing paper lay ready on her desk, ready for the idea that had come to mind in the midnight hours. And yet, after the first few desultory lines had been sketched in, she set down her pencil, too distracted to focus on the task at hand.
Anthony. Alchemy.
When she had laid her husband’s body in the grave, she had tried to bury the memories of that terrible ordeal—and her terrifying suspicions—along with him, God rest his soul.
But recent events had brought them back to life. Ghostly whispers begging for justice to be done. A part of her was afraid to listen. She had managed to scrape out a niche for herself here in London, one that kept food on the table and a roof over her head. Dare she risk destroying all she had worked for by challenging gentlemen of power and influence? Gentlemen who could, with the flick of a finger, quash her like a bug.
“And yet, dare I risk living with my conscience if I choose prudence over principle?” whispered Charlotte. Wrexford had counseled caution, and she knew he was right.
But her head had rarely listened to her heart. Passions had always been the ruling force of her life, that fierce force of emotion that bubbled like liquid fire through her blood, that burned through reason and restraint like a flame through dry tinder.
Ironic, really, that she understood all too well the power of alchemy. Mix together the right combination of volatile elements and its sorcery cast a potent spell.
Huffing a sigh of surrender—a tiger was a tiger and could not change its stripes—Charlotte pushed aside her paper and rose to fetch her cloak.
Despite the spitting rain and swirling fog of the storm-tossed morning, the twenty-minute walk through the puddled streets did nothing to dampen her ardor. Casting caution to the wind was no more a choice than breathing. Arriving at a shabby brick building backing onto a back alleyway, she entered through the unlocked door and hurried down the ill-lit corridor to the back office.
A rumpled Henning looked up from his untidy desk, a look of grim resignation winking behind the lenses of his spectacles. “I feared you might be paying me a visit, lassie. I don’t suppose I can convince you to let the past lie buried.”
“No,” replied Charlotte. “Not with demons alive and sauntering streets, their evil hidden beneath a thin veneer of well-tailored and smooth-as-silk lies.”
“Pay no heed to the rumors and gossip. Wrexford is a clever fellow, and tenacious as a bulldog when he has a bone between his teeth. I know him from the Peninsula. He’ll not shy away from bringing the truth to light, whatever it may be.”
“He’s an aristocrat,” she said softly. “Bonded by the blue blood of his class.”
Henning shook his head. “Nay, lassie. The earl possesses rather heretical views on the absurdity of inherited privilege.” The surgeon paused to flick a bit of ash off his sleeve. “And a great many other subjects. As I said, don’t underestimate him. He tends to surprise people.”
A challenge. She was used to that.
Charlotte met his flinty stare with a show of steel. “As do I, Mr. Henning.” A faint whiff of sparks and sulfur seemed to crackle in the air. “Whether or not you’re right about His Lordship, I’ve learned over the years to rely on no one but myself.”
He shuffled slowly through his papers. “It’s a pity you’ve had to learn so hard a lesson.”
“I have little patience with pity,” she replied a little sharply. “The strong survive. It’s as simple as that.”
Her answer appeared to amuse him. A twinkle flashed in his shrewd eyes. “You have grit, I grant you that.”
