Darkness had fallen. The wind gusting along Old Bond Street had a damp, icy edge to it, as if sleet would soon follow. Marcus lengthened his stride, impatient to get back to Grosvenor Square. What news? What news? The question rang in his head with each step.
He strode faster. Berkeley Square. Mount Street. Charles Street. Albin was almost trotting to keep up. Mews opened like the mouths of caverns on either side of the street. Ahead, the lights of Grosvenor Square beckoned. What news? What—
A dark shape lunged at him, grabbed him, slammed him to the ground. The impact forced all the breath from his lungs.
“Sir!” Albin cried.
Instinct took over. Marcus snarled and kicked and fought to free himself from his attacker’s grip, fought to breathe.
He was aware of movement in the darkness—a second assailant. Something whistled in the air and struck the cobblestones alongside him with a loud thwack.
He heard Albin yelling, heard the whistling sound again. Something smashed into the cobblestones a second time. Chips of stone flew up, stinging his face.
The ability to breathe returned. Marcus’s lungs filled. His attacker’s smell—sour sweat, ale—brought a rush of memory: St. James’s Park.
A shout bellowed from his throat. Marcus broke free and surged to his feet, grabbing his assailant. By God, you’re not going to get away this time. They swayed, wrestling, grunting.
Yells and running feet echoed in the mews. Bobbing lantern light splashed over them.
His attacker wrenched free and shoved him. Marcus lost his balance—a fraction of a second only, but it was enough. He fell to one knee. By the time he pushed upright, the man was gone.
Lantern light fell on two grappling figures—Albin and the second assailant. Marcus grabbed the man’s arm, swinging him towards the light. An object rolled beneath his feet and he lost his balance for a second time, falling backwards, sprawling on the cobblestones.
A groom and a coachman in livery ran up, lanterns swinging in their hands.
Marcus sat up. “God damn it.”
Albin crouched at his side. “Are you hurt, sir?” The lad’s face was pale, his voice high with anxiety.
“Only my pride, Albin. Only my pride.” He climbed to his feet.
“You’re bleeding, sir.”
“Am I?” Marcus put his hand to his brow, where something warm trickled. He turned to the coachman and groom. “Thank you. We’re much obliged to you.”
“Footpads!” the coachman said. “Here, and at such an hour!”
Marcus bent and picked up his hat. Something had flattened it.
Albin bent, too. “They had a cudgel.” He held out a stout length of wood.
Marcus dug in his pocket and gave the coachman and groom each a golden guinea. “Thank you for your intervention.”
“What’s this city coming to?” he heard the coachman mutter as both men departed, leaving them in darkness.
“They could have killed you, sir,” Albin said, worry trembling in his voice.
“Nonsense.” Marcus pulled out his handkerchief and blotted the blood trickling on his brow.
“It’s not nonsense, sir! They could have killed you!”
“I’m not so easily killed,” Marcus said, but in his study five minutes later, with his flattened hat and the cudgel lying on his desk, he wasn’t quite so certain. If that blow had caught his head . . .
“They weren’t footpads, were they, sir?”
“I think they were two of the men from St. James’s Park.”
“Waiting for you.”
“I walk that route back from Jackson’s two or three times a week. Same time, same place.” Marcus picked up the cudgel, noting the gouges where it had struck the cobblestones. “Did you wrest this from him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Albin didn’t appear to hear the words. He leaned forward, his hands planted on the desk. “Sir, do you think it’s coincidence you were attacked the day after Mr. Langford wished you dead?”
Marcus hefted the cudgel, feeling its weight, considering Albin’s question.
“And do you think he needed money yesterday to pay whoever had burned down the conservatory?”
Marcus frowned, placing the events in order in his mind: the arson, Phillip’s need for money, his refusal to give it to him, the attack. “It’s possible.”
But did Phillip hate him enough to engineer his death?
Of course not.
Marcus gave himself a mental shake. “No one’s trying to kill me. Intimidation, that’s all it is.” He laid the cudgel down alongside his hat. “Now what’s your news?”
“You need to have that cut dressed, sir.”
Marcus sat on the corner of his desk, amused. “May I remind you, lad, that it’s I who give the orders, not you?”
“But you’re hurt, sir.”
“A scratch. Nothing more.” He pushed away from his desk, crossed to the decanters, and poured them both a brandy. “Now sit.” He pointed to an armchair. “Tell me.”
Albin obediently sat. He clutched the brandy glass and took a deep breath. “This afternoon, after I’d taken my belongings to Chandlers Street . . .” He gulped a mouthful of brandy. “I was approached by a lady who said she had some information for you. The names of the men who burned down the conservatory.”
Marcus lowered his glass. “What?”
“She said she’d give you their names, sir. If you would meet with her face to face.”
“Who is she?” Marcus demanded. “What’s her name?”
Albin shook her head. “She wouldn’t tell me, sir.”
“What does she look like?”
Albin hesitated, then shook his head again. “She was veiled, sir.”
“Young, old—”
“Young.”
“What payment does she want? Did she say?”
Albin gulped another mouthful of brandy. He choked, coughed, cleared his throat. “She didn’t say, sir.”
“Where am I to speak with her? Here?”
Albin shook his head. “She said . . . if you’re willing to meet her . . . she’ll inform me of the time and location.”
“She won’t come here?”
“No, sir.”
Marcus picked up his brandy again. “If I’m willing? How will she know that?”
“I’m to leave a message for her this evening, sir. At my lodgings.”
“She’ll go to Chandlers Street, but she won’t come here?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
Marcus sipped his brandy, considering Albin’s news from all angles. “It’s a trap,” he said finally.
Albin shook his head. “I don’t believe so, sir. She wishes to help you. Her sincerity was most evident.”
Marcus frowned at him. “You believe her?”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcus turned his brandy glass in his hand. Then he shrugged. “Very well. Tell her I’ll meet with her tonight.”
“Tonight? But . . . but . . . but you’re hurt, sir! Wouldn’t tomorrow be—”
“Restrain your nursemaiding tendencies, lad. I’m fine.” Marcus drained the brandy and stood. “And now you must excuse me.” He needed to wash away the sweat and blood.
Marcus came downstairs an hour later to find his study empty. He poured himself another glass of brandy and sat at his desk, turning the cudgel over in his hand. For the past six months he’d been trying to discover who was behind the vandalism—and in three days Albin had discovered three clues. The men in Tewkes Hollow. The trail leading to Cripple Lane. The mysterious veiled lady.
Marcus laid the cudgel on his desk. He sipped the brandy. Anticipation hissed in his blood. The answers were almost within reach. Soon they’d be close enough to touch. He’d know who. He’d know why.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Albin entered the study and closed the door.
Marcus lowered his glass. “Well? Will she meet with me tonight?”
“The Earnoch Hotel at eight o’clock, sir. The room will be in the name of Brown.”
The hiss of anticipation became stronger, fizzing in Marcus’s blood. “Is that her name? Brown?”
Albin nodded.
A little after seven o’clock, Charlotte climbed the steps to the Earnoch Hotel, carrying a valise and wearing the face she’d worn in Aldgate. The hotel was in a backstreet off Piccadilly, an unassuming establishment for people of modest means and quiet habits. “I booked a room for Brown.”
The landlord barely glanced at her. “Fred,” he said, beckoning to a servant. “Show Mr. Brown to room seven.”
“I requested that a bath be ready—”
“Water’s already heated, sir. Ned’ll bring it up for you.”
Charlotte followed the servant up the staircase. Her heart thudded uncomfortably against her ribs.
The room was plainly furnished with a bed, a table and two chairs, and a washstand. A hip bath stood behind a screen. Once it was filled with steaming water, she locked the door and stripped out of Albin’s clothes. Her hands trembled and her palms were damp with nervousness.
I want to be me. Charlotte.
The room became blurry, the edges of the furniture indistinct. Me with good vision, she amended, and everything came into focus.
Charlotte bathed quickly and dressed in the only gown she’d brought to London. Her best gown, the one she’d worn to church, of faded blue wool, with a high neckline and a narrow flounce at the hem. Then, she packed away Christopher Albin’s clothes and pushed the valise well under the bed.
She stood in front of the mirror. Her face stared back at her. Brown hair, brown eyes, a scattering of freckles.
She needed to be pretty for Lord Cosgrove.
Charlotte closed her eyes, building an image in her mind of how she wanted to look. Nothing like the earl’s dead wife. Raven-black locks. Green eyes. Lush rose-red lips. Ivory skin unblemished by freckles. As full a figure as her gown would allow.
The itch of magic crawled over her skin.
Charlotte opened her eyes. A stranger looked at her from the mirror.
She stared at her reflection, unsettled. The lustrous black hair and emerald-green eyes, the alabaster skin and rosy lips, the ripe breasts pressing against her bodice—it wasn’t who she was. It was wrong. False.
But the earl would like it. He’d want to bed her.
She glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes until Cosgrove arrived.
Charlotte paced the room, twisting her hands together, listening to the clock tick. Her lungs felt as if they were shrinking. With each minute that passed, it became harder to inhale, to exhale.
She wanted this—so why was she so afraid?
Because it was a terrifying intimacy. To be naked with a man. To have sex with him.
Footsteps came down the corridor. Was it Cosgrove? Was he early?
Panic squeezed the air from her lungs. I can’t do it.
The footsteps passed.
Charlotte turned away from the bed and stared at the mirror, wringing her hands. Her outward beauty should give her courage. It was a mask, a barrier. The intimacy she was afraid of would be as false as the face she was wearing.
But somehow, that knowledge didn’t make her feel better.
This encounter was a lie, a charade. Lord Cosgrove didn’t deserve to be deceived like this.
A sense of wrongness swelled inside her. It pushed up her throat like bile.
Charlotte stared at her beautiful reflection and came to a decision: if she did this, she did it as herself. No false faces. As few lies as possible.
She changed back into herself. Her image in the mirror blurred.
Charlotte adjusted her eyes and looked at herself. Familiar. Ordinary. He won’t want to bed me.
There was another alternative: she could give Lord Cosgrove the Smiths’ names and not ask for anything in exchange. And let my lust fester and grow until the earl notices—and dismisses me.
Charlotte turned away from the mirror and stared at the bed, twisting her hands together.
No, she would conquer her lust for him. And she would do it as herself.
Charlotte fastened her hair at the back of her head. No sleek curtain of ebony-black hair—just plain brown hair in an ordinary chignon. She looked at herself again in the mirror and closed her eyes in despair. He won’t want me.
She heard footsteps in the corridor.
Charlotte swung around. There was something wrong with her heartbeat: too high in her chest, too fast, too loud.
Someone knocked on the door.