Chapter 13

After taking Charlotte back to The Pelican, Anthony made his way toward precisely one of those dark alleys she had wished to drive down together. He left his horses and some coin with the ostler at the nearest inn, then went the rest of the way on foot.

“And ye’re sure there was nothin’ inside?” Harris asked once they were seated at a corner table at The Rook’s Nest.

“Entirely certain,” Anthony gritted through clenched teeth.

Harris frowned, hand on his tankard of ale.

“You think I am lying to you?” Anthony asked.

“No, no. It’s only ... the information I had was from Marlowe himself.” His lips pressed together, and his forehead furrowed. “Very nearly got hanged myself gettin’ that diary.”

He brought his gaze to Anthony’s again, determination there. “We’ll solve this case yet. No need to be in the doldrums.”

“I have every expectation you will set this aright.”

Harris nodded quickly. “Aye, and I shan’t accept a farthin’ until I’ve brought you somethin’ you can use.”

That was certainly a relief, for Anthony’s pockets were increasingly light. So much so that part of him wished to marry Charlotte just for the five hundred pounds his aunt had promised. Would it be so terrible to be married to her? It would be a lively marriage, certainly, which had its merits. And perhaps she was not so very prickly as she seemed—the moment he had witnessed with her mother seemed to support such an idea. Not that he wanted a weepy wife—or any wife at all.

But, in theory, if he were to marry at some future date, he would wish for a wife who loved him down to her very bones, despite all of his flaws; a woman who felt the full range of human emotion, who would fight for him and be loyal to him the way he would fight for and be loyal to her.

But he was not convinced such a woman existed—or that he would recognize her if she did. He had thought Miss Baxter the pinnacle of feminine perfection, but when he lost the money he had invested in Drayton’s scheme, he had lost her attention along with it.

As for Charlotte Mandeville, she was as far from loving him down to her bones as she could be. He had claimed they were engaged to safeguard her reputation, but by the time they managed to break off the betrothal, it was Anthony’s reputation that would be injured beyond help. She was determined to make him out as some sort of Byronic figure.

It made him sick. But he intended to give as good as he got.

Anthony took a last sip of ale and rose to his feet.

“Ah,” Harris said. “Forgot one thing.”

“What?”

Harris smiled broadly, displaying a couple of missing teeth. “Congratulations on your engagement, sir.”

Anthony nearly turned on his heel and left without another word. But even Harris couldn’t know of the ruse. Anthony might have asked how he was already aware of the engagement, but he didn’t waste his breath. The man had ears everywhere. It was why Anthony had hired him.

“Thank you,” Anthony said with effort.

“Hadn’t pegged you as the marrying kind.”

“Nor had I,” Anthony replied truthfully. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a dinner engagement to prepare for.”

“With ... her?” He raised his brows significantly, a knowing smile trembling at the corner of his lips.

Anthony nearly told him the whole truth then and there, if only to wipe that ridiculous expression from his face. “Yes.” He tossed a coin on the table. “You know where to find me when you have any information at all.”

He strode out of the public house, sincerely hoping Harris’s determination would lead him to something they could use. Lord Drayton was so dashedly well-connected, so aggravatingly wealthy that it was nigh on impossible to get anyone to inform on him. It was why they’d had such high hopes for the diary. It was supposed to contain Marlowe’s written record of a conversation where Drayton had essentially admitted to what he had done, thereby clearing Silas’s name.

But alas. It had been too good, too convenient to be true. Why Marlowe had claimed such a thing was a mystery to Anthony. But the man was dead, so a mystery it would remain.

Harris had counseled Anthony not to be in the doldrums, but his impatience was growing, and along with it, the fear that perhaps he never would be able to clear Silas’s name.

The thought didn’t bear entertaining. Failure was simply not an option.

“How did you become acquainted?” Tabitha asked as the Mandevilles, the Yorkes, and Aunt Eugenia ate from the array of desserts on the table. “We have not attended any parties or events in an age.”

Anthony shot a glance at Charlotte, wondering whether it would be wisest to take charge of answering.

“We met at the inn,” Charlotte said before he could utter a response. She was looking more than usually handsome this evening, with a small pink ribbon threaded through her dark hair. Her clothing was neat but simple, leaving the attention to be centered, rightfully, on her face.

It seemed strange that the two of them had gone out earlier and were now dining in this intimate setting, when, in a matter of weeks, they would part ways and perhaps never speak again.

“Outside of the inn, to be more precise,” Anthony said, intent on participating in the narrative this evening—if not taking hold of it entirely.

Charlotte’s gaze flitted to him.

Anthony tried to make his smile look like the indulgent type an enamored gentleman might wear. “She was on the pavement when I first saw her from across the road. I immediately took note of her—how could I not?—but it was when she darted into the road that my attention was well and truly caught. Without regard for her own safety, she rushed in front of several carriages and carts.”

Eyebrows went up around the table, and everyone stopped their eating. Even without looking at her, Anthony could feel Charlotte’s eyes fixed on him.

“She was saving a kitten that had wandered into the street.”

“A kitten?” Lillian Mandeville paused with her utensils suspended over her plate, directing her baffled gaze at Charlotte. “You detest cats.”

Charlotte shot Anthony a look that told him she would wring his neck when they were next alone. Why did that prospect send a little thrill through him?

“I cannot say I blame you,” Aunt Eugenia said as she reached for more sauce for her pudding. “Temperamental little things, aren’t they? You never know whether they will curl up on your lap for an interminable nap or send their claws through the gauze of your new gown.”

“I can’t abide the creatures,” Frederick said. “What induced you to risk your life for it, Miss Charlotte?” Despite his dislike of cats, he was evidently impressed by her selflessness.

Anthony fixed his gaze on her, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Yes, what was it?”

She took a long drink before responding. “I suppose it was how utterly pathetic it looked. I seem to be drawn to such creatures.” Her gaze flitted to Anthony.

“In any case,” he continued, the delight of revenge coursing through his veins, “I rushed after her, narrowly avoiding a cart stacked high with barrels as I brought her and the kitten to safety.”

“Sadly,” Charlotte interrupted, “the little critter was entirely ungrateful. She left me with more than a few scratches. A mean little thing she was, intent on doing me harm.”

Another significant and unamused glance at Anthony had him suppressing a smile with difficulty. “I helped tend to Charlotte’s wounds in the inn, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Then you owe your life to this good man, my dear,” Mama said, looking at Anthony as though he was an angel just dropped from heaven.

“So,” Tabitha said, her eyes narrowed as she looked at Charlotte, “your insistence on fetching the post was, in fact, because you were going to meet him.”

“I confess I find it all a bit baffling,” Lillian said. “Charlotte saving cats and carrying on a clandestine courtship ... I feel I hardly know you.”

“We often assume we know more of our family members than we truly do,” William said.

Anthony had no trouble identifying what was implied by his brother’s comment. William harbored a great deal of resentment toward Silas. The two of them had never seen eye-to-eye, and the divide had grown since their father’s death, when William had taken it upon himself to protect the family legacy—something Silas had little patience with.

“Indeed,” Anthony said in a hard voice.

It grated him more than anything that he couldn’t correct everyone’s opinions about Silas. But this was Anthony’s battle to fight. He was the one responsible, and he was the only one who believed Silas. Once he had evidence his family couldn’t deny, he would prove what had truly happened that night. But until then, secrecy was of paramount importance. If word spread, Drayton would take measures to ensure any existing evidence of his wrongdoing was destroyed. Anthony needed to lull him into a false sense of security by saying nothing to defend Silas.

Aunt Eugenia set down her spoon and looked around. “What do you all say to a bit of dancing? We have three young men and three young women.”

“And no music,” Frederick commented.

Aunt Eugenia raised her brows until they risked disappearing beneath her scarlet turban. “Do we not? I still play quite proficiently, I’ll have you know. And if Mrs. Mandeville is willing to turn pages, we will get along quite well.”

“More than willing,” Mrs. Mandeville confirmed.

“Then it is settled,” Aunt Eugenia said, rising from her seat.

“After port, then,” Anthony said.

His aunt waved an impatient hand. “No port. You drank my reserves dry last night. Besides, who needs port when there is dancing to be had?”

“I do,” Anthony said, but perhaps Aunt Eugenia was beginning on the road to deafness, for she gave no sign of hearing him.

She led them into the drawing room, instructing Anthony and his brothers to move the few chairs while two servants were summoned to roll up the rug.

Aunt Eugenia spread out her skirts as she took a seat at the piano, Mrs. Mandeville standing beside her.

“Now,” Aunt Eugenia said, “what shall we dance to?” Her smile grew. “Ah, I know just the thing.” She rifled through the sheets in the mahogany cabinet beside the piano as Anthony moved the final chair out of the way. “A waltz. It is becoming all the rage, you know.”

Anthony paused with the chair legs hovering over the floorboards. His gaze darted to Charlotte, whose face was full of chagrin. This was as unwelcome a development to her as it was to him.

It was just like Aunt Eugenia to make a choice that would force all the young people in the room into intimacy. She positively delighted in helping others tiptoe along the line of propriety.

Aunt Eugenia ordered Lillian and William to be partners, and Tabitha and Frederick to be partners, and the six of them took their places in the middle of the floor.

By then, Charlotte seemed to have resigned herself to the task at hand. Across the set, she smiled at Anthony in a way that made him narrow his eyes in suspicion. Before the music began, she walked over to him, went on her tiptoes, and whispered in his ear, “I just wished to remind you that you are madly in love with me.” The words tickled his ear and made something strange course through him.

“A needed but not entirely welcome reminder,” he whispered right back.

She wore the same smile as she stepped back to her place in the small set, but he was beginning to recognize that Charlotte carried her mischief in her eyes.

Anthony bowed, and she curtsied, and before he knew it—or was prepared for it—they were pressed together in a way that made it all but impossible to look anywhere but those mischievous brown eyes.

“I wanted to give my personal thanks,” she said, “for that gripping story you recounted at the dinner table.”

Pain shot through his toes as she crushed his shoe with the heel of her slipper.

“Oh dear,” she said, eyes wide as an innocent babe’s. She was anything but that. “Forgive me.”

He smiled through gritted teeth. “I couldn’t allow their ignorance of your heroics to continue when you were so kind to inform them of the depth of my feelings for you.”

“And yet you fashioned yourself the hero of the cat story in the end, as well, didn’t you? Saving the poor creature and me from all those carriages.”

He slipped his arm around her waist, and she followed suit as they began twirling, their faces a matter of inches apart.

“What can I say?” Anthony said. “I was as moved by your helplessness as you were by that of the cat. Much about your description felt ... familiar. What did you say? About the cat being entirely ungrateful and leaving you with scratches? A mean creature, intent on doing you harm? Something like that, was it not?”

She struggled against a smile, making victory flash through him like lightning.

“I still possess evidence of my run-in with those claws,” he said, pulling back his sleeve enough to show the faint marks which remained from her nails.

Her cheeks tinged with pink. “Perhaps you should take more care. You nearly undid us with that story,” she said, though there was no rancor in her voice. “My sisters are well-aware, as you heard, that I have no liking for cats.”

“As are my brothers well-aware that I am not the type of man to throw himself at the feet of a woman and stalk her like prey.”

“Perhaps not motivated by love, but you did appear at my door unannounced and unwanted, threatening me unless I conceded to your demands, all of which made me feel very much like prey.”

“I was desperate,” he said, annoyance pricking him at the reminder of how little good any of it had done him.

“Speaking of which,” she said, drawing even nearer. “I need your help.”

He tried to ignore the sweet scent that enveloped him with every movement she made. “And what, precisely, do you call the service I rendered you last night?”

She pulled back. “You mean claiming we were engaged?”

Through the corner of his eye, Anthony glanced at the others to see whether they were watching. “You are in love with me, remember?”

Her nostrils flared, but she regained control of her expression, smiling without humor. “You truly do fancy yourself a hero. And I your little kitten.”

“With the claws of a tiger,” Anthony replied.

She gave a scoffing laugh. “Very well. If you are such a hero, you will help me with the subject of my next caricature.”

Anthony’s face screwed up.

“Madly in love, remember?” she said.

With a sigh, he adjusted his expression to something more pleasant. “Why do you need my help?” They began to spin about the room again, each with a hand around the other’s waist, one hand held above their heads. “You have done well enough without me before now.”

Charlotte took a moment before responding. “I need your help because I only wish to target those who deserve it.”

Anthony searched her face. Did she think he merited the caricature she had drawn? He could only assume so. She made no secret of how little she thought of him.

“Surely,” she said, “you can think of someone who deserves that their dealings or foibles should be made more widely known.”

Anthony’s mind went immediately to Drayton. No one deserved to be publicly flogged more than that man. Of course, Anthony wanted a great deal more than for the man to simply be humiliated. He wanted Silas’s freedom. But that was not within reach—nor was he certain it was even possible anymore. Why not use the resources he had to hit back at the devil?

But no. Anthony couldn’t settle for such a paltry victory. Neither did he wish to alert Drayton to the fact that he was being watched.

“Give me a moment to think,” he said.

Charlotte nodded as they finished the last figures of the dance.

Aunt Eugenia insisted on another song, and another one after that. Before she could command a fourth, Frederick insisted he must say goodnight on account of wishing to be present to watch the proceedings in Parliament first thing in the morning.

Charlotte capitalized on the opportunity to plead their excuses, as well, pointing to their journey back to Stoneleigh in the morning.

They all bid farewell to one another and safe travels to the Mandevilles, and Anthony walked them to their awaiting carriage.

“Well?” Charlotte said to him as her sisters climbed in. There was no stated question, but Anthony knew what she was asking.

He hadn’t yet given her any information for her caricature.

“I will write to you,” he said, pushing the matter off until some later time. Feeling the gazes of his aunt and Miss Mandeville upon him, he took her gloved hand and brought it to his lips. He pressed a kiss there, then straightened and looked at it with a small smile, brushing his thumb along the covered nails. “My little kitten.”

Charlotte tried and failed to suppress a smile as she pulled her hand away. “Goodnight, Tony.”

He chuckled softly as she stepped into the carriage, and soon, she was gone.

Good riddance, he thought. But he didn’t truly feel it.

“I mislike her returning home,” Aunt Eugenia said as they watched the carriage turn and disappear at the end of the street.

“Why?” Anthony asked. Misgiving suddenly crept into his stomach. What would be expected of an engaged couple, madly in love? Stoneleigh was not so far that Anthony had an excuse to go a fortnight without seeing his betrothed. Should they be spending a great deal of time together?

“I want her near so I can keep an eye on things. It would be like you to make a muddle of things somehow, and I like Charlotte.”

Anthony’s brows pulled together. “Do you?”

She gave a definitive nod as she availed herself of his arm to help her up the steps. “Almost better than I like you.”

“Well, that is not saying much, is it?”

But it was. Aunt Eugenia could be both exacting and eccentric in her taste, for clothing, food, and people.

And yet she liked Charlotte.

That made one of them, at least.