Charlotte was filled, not with triumph, but with relief.
There was a reason that she had been so interested in her irritating rival. Magical enchantment explained every fascinating lift of her chin, every flutter of her eyelashes, every time that Charlotte found herself watching her just a little too closely or hanging on each word just a little too long. Her reason for finding Valentina so intriguing was simply magic.
Charlotte was good at reading gamblers and she watched carefully for tells, so she noticed from the beginning the little nervous motion that Valentina regularly made towards her hat. At first, Charlotte had thought it was a deliberate vanity, something Valentina used purposefully to draw attention to her exquisite hats and remind everyone around her what she did and why she was famous. Then she thought that perhaps it was merely an unconscious twitch. But she’d swiftly realized that it was more purposeful than that, and that Valentina was deliberate when she did it, fully cognizant of the motion, but careful about not calling attention to it.
“Is it an allure spell?” Charlotte prodded as she leaned forward onto the table so that Valentina would hear her lowered voice. “Do you enhance your beauty with it? Make your speech more interesting than anyone else’s? You vixen! And you said that I played unfairly. A pot and kettle moment if ever I saw one.”
“This hat is only for memory,” Valentina said softly. “It anchors memories for the purposes of research and debate.” She was so adorably flustered, and it was so refreshing to see her looking caught by surprise that Charlotte had a moment of sympathy for her.
But sympathy would not forward Charlotte’s cause, and she had to think about herself first. “The Inspector would be very interested in this information,” Charlotte suggested slyly. “You’d lose your business license, husband or no.”
“I don’t sell my spells,” Valentina said with quiet dignity. “I only sometimes include them with hats I sell.”
“A bald-faced technicality,” Charlotte pointed out. “It might not save you or your business. And the press would be bad.”
“You should know all about bad press,” Valentina retorted, her eyes flashing. “I am sure that there are stories that you would also not wish to have shared.”
Was it just a lucky guess, or had Valentina dug up information about her debts to the Underground? Charlotte hesitated too long and knew she’d given herself away when Valentina’s head tilted. “Expensive horses, you said? Or perhaps other vices?”
To Charlotte’s own surprise, she almost told Valentina everything, sorely tempted to unload her troubled tale in entirety. At the last moment, she forced a laugh and leaned back in her chair with choreographed carelessness. “You should have been an Investigator, rather than a milliner. There’s no law that an Investigator be married.” She grinned at Valentina. “Your secret is safe with me. I won’t breathe a word about it.”
“What are you asking in return?” Valentina’s voice was chilly, but Charlotte thought there was a note of fear to it.
This was her chance. She could ask Valentina to withdraw her suit of Lord Jamison. She could ask Valentina directly for money and bypass Lord Jamison altogether—Charlotte’s debts to the Underground were probably casual spending money to the woman, if the rags were right; not only was Valentina successful in business, but her late husband had been fabulously rich. Charlotte could wipe out her obligation, start new with a clean financial slate, maybe find a permanent cabin on a cityship sailing somewhere warm. Valentina didn’t have anything damning on Charlotte, even if she had guessed uncomfortably close to the truth; Charlotte was the only one with leverage here, and her accusation could be easily proved by the supernatural authorities.
“Nothing,” Charlotte said softly. “I ask for nothing.”
“No one asks for nothing,” Valentina retorted. “The people who say they do not are asking more than anyone else.”
Charlotte could not admit that she simply couldn’t bear to be the downfall of Valentina. The milliner was an inspiration, a woman successful in a man’s world on all of her own terms. Probably there was some long game she could play, she could try to string Valentina along. Blackmail her, even. But she unexpectedly admired the woman and honestly wished her no harm.
“Simply give up on your terrier pursuit of my dirty history,” Charlotte said. “Assume the worst and let it lie.”
Valentina was quiet, frowning, and finally nodded.
Charlotte pretended to go back to her reading, but she was disturbed by the realization that she unexpectedly felt that Valentina assuming the worst of her was more terrible than telling her the plain truth.