An Improper Situation (Sanborn-Malloy Historical Romance Series, Book One) (39 page)

Charlotte blanched and nodded. She vividly remembered the day that Teddy had fallen out of the large tree in their front yard.

“He was all of nine years old,” she said aloud, thinking of how he’d punctured his hand on a sharp rock. He hadn’t cried then or when her mother cleaned and dressed the wound. “It’s a crescent-shaped mark in the palm of his right hand.”

“
That scar and that hand now belong to one Jeremy Dawson,” Reed announced.

“
Who was he supposed to have murdered?” she asked, feeling a little dazed.

“
It says here that he took the life of Arthur Harvey, a seaman, three months ago. Well that explains why I didn’t hear about the case,” Reed added.  “I was in Spring City.  The body

was discovered by the docks, on Rowe’s Wharf, not too far from my house, actually,
” Reed told her, thinking over what businesses were in that area.

“
The murder went unsolved for one week and then Jeremy Dawson was deposited on their doorstep with a nasty bump on his head and the murder weapon in his coat pocket. They also found papers on him indicating his identity.”

“
Good grief,” Charlotte exclaimed, “what an obvious setup. Someone at the station must have wondered who’d hit my brother and left him on the steps. Of course, if no one knew him in town and he had papers on him to indicate an identity, then they would not believe anything that he told them.”

“
Especially with the murder weapon—it was a knife, incidentally—on his person, no doubt covered in his fingerprints and his alone. His motive was supposedly simple theft.” He lay the open file down.

“
I wonder why someone wanted your brother to be put away. It says here,” Reed continued, “that the prosecuting attorney pressed for the death penalty, or, at the very least, a life sentence to Charlestown.”

“
How did Teddy end up at the hospital?” Charlotte asked, a wave of terror going through her at how close her brother had come to hanging.

“
The judge decided that the bump on your brother’s head and his unvarying story that he was not Dawson but Thaddeus Sanborn from Colorado persuaded him to seek a psychiatric consultation.”

“
But why didn’t they simply check out his story? They could easily have telegraphed to Spring City where I would have corroborated his identity, or what about our county clerk’s office where our birth records are on file?”

“
What about his own aunt living ten minutes away?” Reed added, continuing to leaf through the thin file. “Ah ha. It states here that his entire story was checked, yet nothing and no one could confirm it.”

“
But that’s impossible, unless—”

“
Unless the officer assigned to check his story lied.”

“
And that officer is?” Charlotte asked.

“
A Sergeant Sheffield. I’ve heard his name before around the courts, but nothing particular comes to mind. I’ll check into it. Perhaps someone is paying him off.”

“
Either that,” Charlotte said, “or he is the worst detective in the entire police force. I’ve a notion to go find this Sergeant Sheffield and tell him exactly who I am and who my brother is.”

Reed stood up.
“You’ll do no such thing. I’d say that whoever did this to your brother knows his real name and who he is, and in that case, knows you, at least by name. Your presence in Boston, not to mention here at the police station, puts you in danger. Doubly so, if the culprit already knows that you’re working on an article that takes you anywhere near the hospital.”

He took hold of her hands and fixed his gaze on her.
“Charlotte, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“
Neither do I,” she told him, swallowing hard at the emotion on his handsome face.

“
Then be a smart woman and listen to me There is nothing more you can do today. I’m going to take you home, and I want you to stay there until I come for you myself. Hopefully, with your brother. And whatever you do, Charlotte,” he squeezed her arms, “don’t go out with
anyone
, unless I’m with you. All right?”

His tone was scaring her into behaving in a less than independent way, but for the moment, she didn’t mind Reed looking after things.

“Reed . . .” She wanted to ask him more about his plans, but his lips came down on hers and sealed off her words. The kiss was necessarily brief but its impact reached clear to her toes.

“
Don’t fight me on this, Charlotte.”

She shook her head.
“No, Reed, I won’t.”

*******

It was with some trepidation that Charlotte watched Jason alight from a carriage that pulled up outside Alicia’s house just before supper. She felt as drained as the empty tea cup that sat beside her.

Though the children had wanted her to play with them, she’d been unable to leave the window seat in the front room, clinging to Reed’s promise to return should he learn anything else about her brother. She felt as if she would jump out of her skin with the waiting.

When Jason looked up at her aunt’s front door, Charlotte hesitated only a moment, before hurrying to the door. It was just possible, despite Reed’s doubts about Jason, that he had, indeed, learned something concerning Teddy.

Gerald was nowhere about, as she opened the front door and hurried down the front steps.

“Jason, thank goodness. Did you find out anything?”

To her relief, he nodded.
“I did, but it’s . . . confidential.” He glanced around, then over Charlotte’s head. “I think you’d better step into my carriage so we can discuss this in private.”

She looked at the house, Reed’s warning echoing in her ears. She thought she saw Alicia at the upstairs window, but couldn’t be sure that it hadn’t been the play of the setting sunlight on the panes.

“Jason, come in and you can tell me over tea.”

“
There is no time for that. Your brother is not at the Lunatic Hospital any longer,” he said, darting his glance to the great windows at the front of her aunt’s house, “but we must move quickly.”

“
Where is he?” she began.

“
Please, Charlotte, just step into my carriage, and I will explain everything. It’ll only take a moment.”

Again, she felt unease, but she shook her head. Her nerves were on edge, but this was Jason, after all.
“Alright, but I must warn you that I am not in the best frame of mind at the moment. And I don’t appreciate the additional suspense.”

“
Oh, dear,” his face fell with concern, but he took her hand and helped her to step up into the carriage.

As Charlotte sat down, it occurred to her that, even though this was Jason Farnsworth, III, from an upstanding family, as her aunt kept reminding her, that she would much prefer be in her Alicia’s parlor while she heard whatever he was about to tell her.

Before she could suggest this once again, he seated himself opposite her and rapped on the roof with his cane. With a sudden lurch, the vehicle started to move.

“
What on earth are you doing, Jason? I am not in the mood for games.”

“
No games, Charlotte,” he assured her before his face lost its veneer of gentlemanly good humor as quickly as one closed a shutter. “I’m taking you to your brother.”

“My brother!” she exclaimed. “Jason, I don’t understand.”

He shook his head, his eyes bright, as he gazed at her, almost with mirth. His continued silence alarmed her.

“Jason, please. What’s this all about? I demand you tell me now.” The prickling at the nape of her neck was a warning coming too late.

“
You demand?” He laughed, but his amusement didn’t resemble Reed’s warm laughter; the sounded more like the harsh brakes of a railway car. “In case you haven’t noticed, you are in no position to demand anything. But out of the kindness of my heart, I am taking you to him, then the two of you can perish together. It’s the least I can do.”

She wasn’t sure if she’d heard him right. A moment later, as he fixed on her a stare that turned her blood to ice, she was sure. He was behind this whole mess and, like an idiot, she had simply walked out of her aunt’s house and stepped into his carriage, despite Reed’s warnings. Without even a struggle.

It occurred to her then that the carriage had not been his usual gaily colored one, emblazoned with the family monogram. Of course, he would not use his own vehicle for whatever dastardly plan he had.

“
Oh, I can see your thoughts tumbling as keenly as Swiss clockwork in your head,” he said with a thin smile. “Fortunately for me, you didn’t do a little more thinking first. I am glad the shay incident didn’t work. I regretted it almost as soon as I’d arranged it.”

She realized with dawning horror that Jason had tried to kill her with the runaway carriage even before she’d made her discovery at the asylum—the very thing he had hoped to avoid by murdering her. And she had foolishly suspected Helen.

He grinned and nodded at her stunned expression. “Oh, but what a stroke of luck that your Mr. Malloy was there to catch you. Still, I cherished how you turned to me in your time of trouble, not knowing that, all the while, I could snuff you out at my will.” There was little emotion in his words except the overtones of gloating.

“
Your brother indicated that you were somewhat reserved, not to mention intellectually forward, but I think you’re a lively creature. In other circumstances,” he leaned forward to caress her cheek and she drew back as far as she could against the seat, “we could have had a wonderful time together, I’m sure.”

Charlotte turned and bit him.

Without hesitation, he slapped her hard across her cheek. She didn’t cry out but sat there stunned. It was the first time violence had been perpetrated against her in her entire life. And it filled her with some fear but mostly anger.

She resolved then that, come what may, she would not let this brutish man destroy her life—just when she had found such happiness with Reed and the children, and even with her Aunt Alicia. This was not the time to die.

“Don’t make things unpleasant, Charlotte.”

“
Then don’t touch me again.” Her voice was as icy as his gaze.

He stared hard at her through narrowed eyes, and then nodded.
“There’s not much time left anyway. We’re almost there.”

Where was there? she wondered. They had not gone far. She could smell the sea air strongly now, and it occurred to her that the Farnsworths were a merchant family—
codfish aristocracy
, as Reed had called them, though she knew his contemptuous words had been for Jason, alone, and not his entire family. In any case, they most probably had a warehouse on the docks.

Her mind was whirling now as she thought of the seaman’s dead body on the docks, and of her brother’s innocence. It occurred to her that Jason had sought her out as soon as she’d arrived in Boston, and then she had gladly told him all about the article she was working on, including her intention of going to the Lunatic Hospital. And all the while . . .

“I’m certain your warehouse will be secluded at this time of the evening; just as it was when you murdered Arthur Harvey,” she said, watching his eyes open wide for the briefest instant. It made her feel better to unnerve him with even her small piece of the puzzle. Then he smiled lazily at her.

“
I imagine it will be, and perhaps there will be time, after all, to indulge in our baser passions once we get there.” Without warning, he prodded her skirt between her legs with the gold-headed cane he still held.

She shuddered and pushed it away.
So much for unnerving him.
Next time, she would keep her mouth shut. If there was a next time.

Jason’s carriage drove between the open warehouse doors, which then closed quickly behind them. The buildings’ windows had been blocked with boards on the inside, making hanging oil lamps the only source of light.

As Charlotte emerged from the coach, she could see Thaddeus held between two burly men.

“
Teddy,” she cried out, running to him, as he struggles to free himself, a reddened bump on his temple evidence that he’d been manhandled.

“
Let him go,” she demanded, feeling wild with anger and fear.

At Jason’s nod, the men released his arms, which he wrapped around Charlotte as she held onto him tightly. She could scarcely believe he was real, his heart beating under her cheek.

“Charlie, Charlie,” he murmured into her hair. “I was beginning to think I’d only dreamt I’d seen you.” She had started to think the same thing and was so glad he was there in her arms and not locked in that dismal cell—until she realized he would be safer if he were still at the hospital.

“
Put them in the spice store until the ship arrives.”