The Emperor's Conspiracy (11 page)

The wind was coming up, and the boys’ hoops raced ahead of them, Ned’s flying out into the street.

The sky darkened, and Charlotte lifted her face to the sky as Emma called to Ned to stay out of the road. The clouds that tumbled and boiled over the sun were purple and bruised, and the air that gusted over her was a hot, blowsy tart with drunken mayhem on her mind.

Leaves and papers, and all three of the boys’ caps went airborne, and Charlotte saw a flick of movement in the narrow alley between two houses on the other side of the square again.

Whoever crouched there, watching, was closer to the boys than either her or Em, and a sudden fear clutched her, that Frethers may still be determined to have them, or their father may still be determined to hand them over.

Why else watch them, otherwise?

She began to run, not the fleet-footed dash she’d been capable of in her childhood. Hampered by skirts tugged and twisted by the gusts, and shoes that were the height of fashion but ridiculous for anything but a slow walk, she called to the boys, and saw their attention was still on Ned’s hoop, which had halted its mad dash for freedom, and had finally fallen over, to lie in the middle of the road.

A carriage came round the corner, and Charlotte sensed the moment Ned decided to retrieve the hoop before it was crushed.

“Stop!” Her shout was ripped away by the wind, lost in the tossing branches of the trees as they began to whistle and shake. Ned reached the paved edge of the square. She put two fingers to her lips and gave a piercing whistle that cut through the noise.

The boys turned to her, eyes wide, and in the street, the carriage rolled to a stop, and Edward jumped out of it.

He walked to where the hoop lay and picked it up, his eyes never leaving her.

She hadn’t seen him since yesterday, and Charlotte did not understand the sensation that gripped her at the sight of him. As if she were a lightning rod, waiting for the storm above to strike. As if she had lost all control over her life and was thrown into chaos.

She ripped her gaze away from him, to where the watcher had been, but there was no telltale shadow anymore. Whoever had been there had slipped away.

When she turned her attention back to Edward, he had given Ned his hoop and was walking toward her.

The first heavy drop of rain hit her cheek, and she flinched.

Emma came up to her side, gesturing for the boys to come to them, and then stopped. “What is it?”

She was talking to Edward, and Charlotte raised her eyes at last to meet Edward’s bleak gaze. The world dropped away from her and she swallowed.

The rain started to fall with a sudden sizzle of sound, drumming off the roofs and paved street. The boys whooped, running wild.

Edward flicked a look over his shoulder, to determine if the boys were occupied enough not to hear. “I’m sorry, Em.”

Charlotte could hardly hear him over the hammering rain.

Emma frowned. “What is it? What?”

Edward took her hand. “Geoffrey’s dead.”

14

E
mma sat on the couch in Catherine’s sitting room, a blanket around her, pale and shaking as a victim of influenza. Her rain-plastered hair only added to the impression.

A drop of water ran down the side of Edward’s forehead, over his cheek, and clung to the edge of his jaw. He shook it loose and rubbed the towel Catherine had given him through his hair.

Catherine poured Emma a cup of tea, loading it with sugar, and he nodded in approval as his sister took a sip.

Charlotte was with the boys, settling them into the nursery with some afternoon tea and cakes, and he missed her strong, unshakable calm. He did not know what to say to Emma. He was not only not sorry about his brother-in-law’s death, he was glad.

Catherine knelt at Emma’s feet, holding her hand. Edward knew they had only met since Charlotte offered Emma a place in this house, but looking at them, he wouldn’t know it. They seemed old friends.

“How did he die?” Emma asked suddenly, her eyes searching his face, and Edward shifted uncomfortably.

“Shot. His body was found in the woods behind the house. It may have been a hunting accident.” That is what the magistrate was calling it. Edward wondered whether it was suicide.

Emma went still. “He was deep in debt. He planned to clear it by selling the boys to Frethers, but I took them away. I took away his only way out. Perhaps he realized there was no getting out of it, this time. Could he have … ?”

There was silence in the room, and Edward watched as his sister curled in on herself. He wanted to shout that the worthless bastard did not deserve even one tear to be shed for him, but he kept his mouth clamped shut. As far as he was concerned, if Geoffrey had taken his own life, it was probably the most honorable thing he’d ever done.

“What is wrong with me?” Emma looked at him with an aching uncertainty. “I can’t find it in me to grieve for him. I don’t want to forgive him. All I can feel is rage at what he was going to do, and relief I will never have to see him again.”

Edward let out a long-held breath. Catherine looked up at him and shook her head.

“He recently gave you no reason to feel otherwise. You may one day think back fondly on some of your moments, but that is in the future, if at all.” She rose to her feet and smoothed a hand over Emma’s head.

The way she spoke, with a deep sense of knowing, made Edward wonder for the first time the circumstances of Catherine’s
own marriage. Why she had never remarried, although she could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen years older than Charlotte herself.

“He may have killed himself, but Geoffrey was never one for discomfort. He would have had to have been lower than I’ve ever seen him before for the idea to hold any appeal. And I have seen him very low.” Emma rocked in place, and Edward stared at her, trying to work out her meaning.

“You think he may have shot himself accidentally, or been shot by one of his friends?”

Emma shook her head. “No. I was thinking more along the lines of murder.”

“W
hat do you make of Emma’s suspicions?” Edward would not sit. Instead he prowled and paced, turning the large, simply furnished sitting room into a zoo cage. His constant movement was getting on her nerves, but Charlotte held on to her irritation.

She could see Edward was simply unable to do anything else.

The rain had stopped, and late afternoon sunshine poured through the windows, bringing his tense, drawn face into sharp relief.

She recalled Emma’s reaction when Charlotte had first asked to speak to her about Frethers, back at her country estate. How Emma had assumed Charlotte was there to speak to her of something else. Something she was afraid of. Perhaps
that is what prompted her thoughts of murder. But that was not Charlotte’s secret to tell.

When she raised her head, she saw Edward was finally still, but not the still of calm—rather, the still of the tiger before it pounces. “You know something.”

She shrugged. “I know nothing. But I may have picked up a sense that something was wrong, that Geoffrey was involved in something that made Emma afraid, and I can only say you’ll have to ask Emma. I may not be right.”

The look he sent her should have burned her where she sat. He turned away, furious.

“I truly
don’t
know. But I would not tell you if I did; you’re quite right. It is for Emma to tell us both.” She paused. “Did you know your stepfather sent a spy to watch this house the day before yesterday?”

Her swift change of subject was like a jolt of lightning in the room. He froze, then stared at her.

“The little bugger tossed a brick at your matched set. Nearly made the one on the left lame.”

“How do you know it was my stepfather?” Edward crossed his arms over his chest.

“I caught the spy and bribed him.” She shrugged. “He didn’t know it was your stepfather but mentioned the carriage of the man who hired him had the same crest as yours. Emma says the only man with use of your carriages is your stepfather.”

“She’s right.” Edward began to walk again. To the fireplace and back to the window. The atmosphere had gone from anger and hurt to genuine puzzlement, though, and Charlotte was
glad for the change. “What could my stepfather want to know in secret that he could not ask me directly?”

Charlotte had wondered the same. “Emma says he was in touch with Geoffrey. Gave him investment advice and so forth. I thought he may have been spying on Emma and the boys for Geoffrey. I even wondered if Geoffrey might try to force her to hand the boys back to him, if Frethers was the only way out he could see. He would have had the law on his side, as the boys’ legal guardian.”

“Hmm.” He considered what she said, the sound he made at the back of his throat vibrating through her, and she forced her knees and thighs together with an edge of desperation she would usually associate with fear. “My stepfather knows full well what I thought of my brother-in-law.” He paused. “He knew I would never allow Geoffrey access to my sister and her children if I could help it, whether I knew what Geoffrey planned to do to his own sons or not.”

“Would Geoffrey have told your stepfather what he planned?”

Edward shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought any man would admit to something like that. He is more likely to have claimed to want his family back.”

“At least he can’t have them anymore.” Charlotte stood and walked to the far window. Looked out at the front street.

“No. Although I doubt my stepfather knows that yet. Perhaps I should go and tell him.” His voice was level, but Charlotte looked across to him and his mouth was tight and his eyes narrowed.

She turned back to the window. “You could save yourself some time, and just walk out into the street.”

“What do you mean?” Edward joined her, and his warm breath brushed the back of her neck.

She gripped the curtains with one hand, made herself stand perfectly still. “Your stepfather’s spy is back in his place. Watching the house again.”

15

H
is stepfather had interfered in his life from the moment his mother had married the bastard. The beatings, the cold disdain, that he could have borne. But the constant meddling, the way Gerald Hawthorne had snatched every enjoyable thing from him, and forced him in directions he did not want to go, had ignited a leaping, raging fire in him that had never abated.

He had thought it banked down now he was in control, rather than Hawthorne, but it had begun to consume him from within since Charlotte had told him about the spy.

Edward knew he was hanging on to civility by a thread, fighting back a rage so hot and black, he wanted to choke.

The boy who crouched on the pavement, near where he himself had stood only a few nights ago, watching the house, leaped to his feet and was out of grabbing distance before they were halfway across the street.

“What are you doing back here?” Charlotte called to him.

The child smirked. “Talking highbrow again, now there’s a nob to ’ear you?”

Charlotte smiled. “I don’t need to worry about it with him, so I’ll go gutter, if you like?”

“Don’t mind me.” The boy lifted his chin and stood in a good imitation of a dandy preening, and the anger loosened its hold on Edward’s chest a little. This boy was not responsible for Edward’s stepfather’s actions. He was a baby. No more than six or seven years old.