“When is the trial?” asked the earl.
“A date has not yet been set,” answered Tyler. “But I imagine the hangman is already preparing a noose.”
Mr. Locke’s guilt certainly seemed assured. The evidence was glaringly clear. And yet . . .
Wrexford tapped his fingertips together. In his experience, crimes were rarely quite so tidy.
“Do you wish for me to continue investigating Lord Chittenden’s background, milord?” A pause. “That is, the late Lord Chittenden.”
“Yes.” The answers he was seeking lay hidden in the past. And now, more than ever, it was imperative to find them. “And with even greater urgency, if you please.”
Tyler, to his credit, retrieved his sodden hat and, after snapping a quick salute, hurried off.
The earl rose and began to pace. On passing the assortment of beakers and canisters arrayed on the work counter for the next phase of his experiment, he exhaled a harried breath. The demands of chemistry—precise timing and measurement, objective observation, results based on facts, not theory—appealed to his sense of logic. There was an order to science. Rules applied.
He liked the cerebral challenge of figuring them out.
Emotions were messy. Unpredictable.
Though there was a certain commonality, he admitted wryly. Both were capable of exploding in one’s face.
“Bloody hell.” Much as he wished to putter away with his powdered ores and acids, he couldn’t in good conscience keep what he had learned from Charlotte. She needed to know.
Though he doubted she would thank him for it.
“Ah, well, no good deed goes unpunished.” After fetching his hat and coat, he extinguished the Argand lamp on his desk and quit the room.
* * *
Through sheer force of will, Charlotte managed to ink in a detailed picture of the scene—the graceful symmetry of the marble structure, the ominous shadow, the slumped body. It was a strong piece of art, compellingly moody and menacing without showing the horrible details. After the addition of crimson highlights and a suitably scandalous headline, she knew it would sell well.
Mr. Fores would have no cause for complaint.
As for her own feelings, she felt she had danced along a razor’s edge, somehow maintaining her balance in spite of how much it hurt. She could only pray some good would come of it.
A flutter of cheery color caught her eye, drawing her out of her musing. Earlier, the boys had come to her workroom and presented her with a bouquet of flowers to brighten her spirits. Charlotte knew she had frightened them with her momentary swoon. Opening one’s heart to another did not come without perils.
A glance back at her drawing hammered that point home.
Grief cut like a knife, but Charlotte was determined to counter it with a more positive force. She had enlisted Raven and Hawk to make inquiries on whether any of the denizens of the streets around Kensington Palace had noticed anything odd on the night of the murder. Urchins, kitchen maids, street sweepers, night soil men—those who toiled in anonymity were never noticed by the upper classes, but they missed very little of what went on around them.
Charlotte depended on their sharp eyes and ears for her work. She was often better informed than Bow Street on everything that went on in both the high and low neighborhoods of London. She prayed it would prove the same in this particular case.
After adding the splashes of color to her drawing, she carefully rolled the finished art in a length of oilcloth and set it aside for the boys to take to the engravers when they returned home.
Turning her thoughts from Cedric to his brother, Charlotte considered how best to contact him. It wouldn’t be difficult to learn his address if he was living in London. But then—
“Mrs. Sloane?” McClellan gave a tentative knock on the door. “His Lordship has returned, and wishes to have a word with you.” A pause. “He says it’s important.”
Charlotte felt her insides clench. The pain still felt too raw to share. But to refuse to see him seemed lily-livered. Whatever the complexities of their relationship, neither of them had ever taken the coward’s way out of a confrontation.
“I shall be down in a moment,” she replied. Drawing several deep breaths, she sought to steel her spine.
He was standing by the bank of windows, his back to the doorway. Charlotte hesitated before entering the parlor, trying to discern his mood from the chiseled angles of his silhouette. His dark hair, always too long and too wind-snarled to be fashionable, fell over the collar of his coat. The expensive fabric and exquisite tailoring of clothing accentuated the broad stretch of his shoulders and the long, lithe lines of his legs.
He had a careless grace that fit him like a second skin. And yet, he appeared tense.
“To what do I owe the honor of a second visit, milord?” she asked, hoping to sound calmer than she felt.
He turned slowly, and though his face was wreathed in shadows, his eyes seemed to hold a strange uncertainty.
“Please have a seat, Mrs. Sloane. I’d prefer not to have to save you from smashing your skull against the floor for a second time today.”
A frisson of alarm shot down her spine, but she hid her reaction beneath a sardonic smile. “I daresay you’ll take great amusement for the next little while in needling me over that little display of weakness.” The swoosh, swoosh of her skirts whispered over the carpet as she moved to the sofa. “Now that you’ve had your fun, might we get down to the real reason for your visit? Unlike you, I must work for my bread.”
His expression remained solemn.
Charlotte’s uneasiness ratcheted up another notch. The earl rarely sheathed his sharp sense of humor.
“Be assured, it gives me no pleasure to bring you further news on the murder.” He settled himself rather stiffly in the facing armchair. “But I decided you wouldn’t thank me for it if I held back new information.”
Her hands fisted together in her lap. “Go on.”
The earl took a moment to recross his legs. “Griffin has made an arrest. A bloody knife and . . . other incriminating evidence was found in the man’s rooms, leaving precious little doubt as to his guilt.”
“Who?” Her voice sounded strangely disembodied to her ears.
Again he responded with a very un-Wrexford-like hesitation. His gaze seemed to ripple with sympathy before he answered. “The Honorable Nicholas Locke.”
A fresh wave of nausea washed over her.
“Locke is the younger brother of the victim,” added Wrexford softly. “But I daresay you know that.”
Charlotte swallowed hard, trying to banish the acid burn of bile in her throat. “Griffin’s wrong,” she rasped.
He remained tactfully silent.
“Nicky would never harm Cedric.” Her hands, though clenched, were shaking. “Never.”
“A porter at the Palace overheard a rather violent argument between the two brothers as they were leaving the soiree,” responded Wrexford. “One in which Mr. Locke railed at the unfairness of Lord Chittenden inheriting everything, simply because he had the good fortune to pop out of the womb first.”
“The porter could very well have misunderstood,” she insisted. “Or is making it up to appear important.”
“Perhaps,” agreed the earl. “Though Griffin, as you know, is very careful and methodical about his investigations. And damning evidence was found in Mr. Locke’s rooms at the Albany Hotel.”