Chapter Fourteen

He stood in a darkened doorway, watching the people pass him by, his face shadowed by his top hat. But she knew exactly who he was. She would know him anywhere.

Charlotte’s heart pounded right down to her toes. She swallowed through a dry throat, her feet fixed to the ground. She couldn’t move even if she wanted to.

He hadn’t seen her. He was gazing in the other direction. She followed his gaze and realized with a sick feeling that he was watching a gaggle of female servants gathered together, clutching their baskets as they talked and laughed.

They had no idea who was watching or what danger they were in.

People jostled about her, knocked into her shoulder, muttered for her to get out of the way.

He turned his head, and she saw his full face.

Jacob thought she was running away from her aunt.

But she was really running from this man.

Her cousin.

Edmund, Lord Morris.

His gaze flickered past her, stopped, returned, considered, and moved on.

What was he doing here? Was her aunt here as well? Charlotte yanked her gaze from him long enough to search the area for a straight-backed, thin, black-clad woman with a perpetual scowl. But she wasn’t there. It was silly to even think of her aunt going to the market. That was for the servants and far beneath her.

So how had Edmund escaped the house without his mother?

He never went anywhere without her. She wouldn’t let him.

Slowly Charlotte backed up a step, like someone trying to escape an angry bear. Don’t startle him. Don’t make him look this way.

If he knew she was here, if he saw her dressed like this, he would tell his mother because Edmund told his mother everything. She’d put the fear of the devil in her boy from the moment he’d been born, and what a horrible ordeal that had been, bringing the ungrateful lad into this world. Charlotte had heard the story an endless amount of times.

She supposed that Edmund had heard it even more.

He was a strange-looking man. Even in the shadows people sensed it and steered clear of him. He’d inherited his mother’s height and her slim build. His arms were abnormally long, his head larger than average. His eyes were close set, and his ears stuck out from his head like pitcher handles.

His mother often remarked on his strange looks, berating him as if it were his fault. So many times Charlotte had wanted to defend him.

At first, she’d felt sorry for her cousin and had tried to befriend him, but he had only folded in on himself and slunk away.

Eventually Charlotte had stopped trying. Edmund hadn’t seemed to want to be her friend, and Charlotte’s actions had only enraged her aunt.

Edmund’s attention seemed to come back to her, and he took a step out of the shadows. Panicked that she’d been discovered, Charlotte acted on instinct and ran. She bumped into a finely dressed gentleman who tried to keep her from falling.

“Whoa there. Is something wrong?”

“No. Thank you,” she said, breathless with fear. She shrugged out of his grasp and ran across the street, forgetting to look for traffic, dodging a horse that suddenly appeared. It made her think of Jacob and how she just wanted to be back at his home.

She should have never left the safety of his townhouse.

She wanted Jacob.

She glanced over her shoulder. There were many strange looks, but no tall, peculiar-looking man running after her. She slowed her pace, out of breath, heart hammering more from fear than from running. A few more checks over her shoulder and she was convinced that Edmund had not recognized her. It had been a coincidence that he’d even looked her way.

By the time she made it back to Jacob’s street her heart was beating at a more normal pace and her hands had stopped shaking, but the fear remained, not as sharp but there nonetheless.

Jacob was sitting on his front step, reading the newspaper. He looked up and smiled at her, and she smiled back, relieved that he was there. Relieved that she had trusted her instincts about him. The sight of him washed away the residual fear like a spring rain, and suddenly her world righted itself. In the back of her mind, she knew that wasn’t a good thing, but right now she didn’t care. She just wanted to be near Jacob.

He folded the newspaper and stood. “Mrs. Smith said you had gone for a walk but that you had left a while ago. I searched the park but couldn’t find you.” His worried eyes combed her face. Could he see that she’d had a fright?

“I walked farther than I planned and ended up at the market.” She was relieved that her voice didn’t tremble.

“You didn’t go see Cotton?”

“Not today.” Yet, seeing Edmund convinced her that she should have gone to Cotton. She needed to get out of London.

She followed Jacob into the house and up the steps to his study where she settled into the window seat and watched him pour himself a drink. She thought it strange that they already had their little rituals like this. Had he had these rituals with his wife? She was strangely jealous of a dead woman who had experienced Jacob’s love.

He set the newspaper he’d been reading on a small table, close enough that she could read part of the headline. Frowning, she leaned over to snatch the paper and unfold it. The bold headline read that another headless body had been pulled from the Thames.

Number five.

Five women pulled from the river.

Five women without heads.

Five women who had probably died horrific deaths. Who had suffered needlessly.

“They found another one,” Charlotte said.

“The city is in an uproar. Politicians are blaming the police for not finding this monster. The police are running around with very few clues and nowhere to turn. The female servants are refusing to leave their employers’ houses. Some are quitting and going back to the countryside.”

She skimmed the article, but it provided very little new information.

“How do you know all of this?” she asked.

He appeared flustered, a rose tinge covering his cheeks as he shrugged. “I have friends who know things.”

Charlotte folded the paper and stared out the window. She wanted to go to America to escape. To be free. But would she be free? Or would she be haunted by the images of these five women?

Glassy eyes.

Twisted body.

Severed head.

Charlotte walked among the debris of body parts, her lungs heaving in despair as her heart pounded in fear and anger.

No.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

“Charlotte! Charlotte, wake up. You’re dreaming.”

She sat up with a gasp to find Jacob leaning over her. Still lost in her dream, she made a noise of part fear, part surprise. Quickly he straightened and took a step back, his arms out to his sides.

“You were screaming,” he said.

His hair was sticking up in the back. There were creases on his cheek where his head had pressed against the pillow and his robe was haphazardly tied, and he looked so warm and safe and alive. With a strangled cry she catapulted toward him. He caught her with an oomph.

“You’re trembling,” he said.

She put her head against his chest, not caring if this was improper. It felt so good to be held.

“It was just a dream.” He smoothed her hair down.

She pressed her nose into his dressing gown and inhaled his spicy, clean scent.

His hand moved up and down her back, like what a mother would do to soothe her baby, but it made Charlotte shiver and tremble more.

“Charlotte, you’re worrying me. Please tell me this was just a dream.”

She pulled away but not far enough to leave his embrace, just enough to sniff.

Jacob tightened his hold on her, as if he didn’t want to let her go. And she was perfectly fine with that.

“It was just a dream. An old dream that I used to have when I was younger. It’s nothing.”

“I think it’s far more than nothing.” He looked worried.

“Truly, Jacob. I’m fine. You can go back to bed.” But she didn’t step out of his embrace, didn’t make an attempt to move away. And he didn’t loosen his hold on her.

He looked down at her with that same look he’d had when he’d kissed her. And she wanted him to kiss her. God help her, she wanted to be kissed again. She wanted him to kiss the fear out of her, to make her tremble in something other than terror.

So she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. She wasn’t good at kissing, having only done it once before, but she hoped he understood her intentions.

And he did. For a moment he seemed frozen, and then he kissed her back, moving his hands up her spine until they cupped her face as he devoured her lips and she drank him in, learning how to kiss properly.

And that trembling did change to something else, something she couldn’t name. Something her aunt would have called sinful but Charlotte called delightful.

With great reluctance Jacob pulled away from her, and she made a sound of disappointment and regret. Jacob kept his hands on her shoulders to steady her.

“We can’t do this,” he said a bit breathlessly. “This isn’t right. You are my guest. I promised…” He licked his lips. “I promised Suzette that nothing untoward would happen.”

“Suzette?” Her mind was foggy like the banks of the Thames on an autumn morning. What did Suzette have to do with him kissing her? Suzette could care less what Charlotte did with Jacob.

Jacob let his hands fall from her shoulders, and suddenly Charlotte was cold again.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

“Sorry for what?” Please, oh please don’t say you’re sorry you kissed me. She thought her heart would shatter if he regretted kissing her.

He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in all different directions. His eyes were bright, his lips red from kissing her, and she suspected that the bulge in his robe was a pleasant side effect.

For once she didn’t care about propriety or sin. Damn her aunt and her damned righteousness.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered. What she really meant was keep kissing me until I forget everything.

“Let’s go into the study. I’ll pour some brandy and we can talk.”

Without waiting for a response he turned to leave her room, forcing her to follow.

From a corner of the couch where she had curled up, she watched him stoke the fire and pour them both a healthy glass of brandy. Alcohol was not allowed at her aunt’s house, and she was surprised that it both burned and warmed her tongue and stomach.

Not like Jacob’s kisses did, but it would have to do. Now that they were out of her bedroom and on separate ends of the couch, her blood had cooled and she was not as feverish to keep kissing him, to possibly do things that could get her in trouble.

What if they had intercourse and she became pregnant? Going to America was going to be difficult enough. It would be ten times more difficult with a baby.

“Do you want to tell me about the dream?” he asked from his end of the couch.

She hesitated, because she didn’t want to tell him, and yet part of her did. “I don’t think it’s a surprise that life with my aunt was not pleasant.”

“I gathered that.”

“She’s a cruel woman who overly relies on religion to excuse her actions. She believed that if she didn’t correct my sins, then I would go to hell. It was her personal mission to make sure I made it to heaven.”

“I think you were already in hell.”

“I’ve never thought about it that way, but you might be right. She certainly made my life hell.”

“Did she beat you?” he asked softly.

“Sometimes.”

“I’m so sorry, Charlotte.”

“When she would force me on my knees to pray, I would pray to my father to deliver me out of her grasp. When that didn’t work, I eventually stopped praying. It was my silent revenge against her. She could make me kneel there for hours, but she couldn’t force me to pray.”

“I’m impressed with your fortitude.”

“It was the little things that kept me sane. The not-praying. The secret letters to Sarah. And I started plotting my escape.”

“And that’s why you ran to the rookery.”

She didn’t correct him. She didn’t tell him that it wasn’t her aunt who’d made her run to the rookery—that the rookery had not been in her plans at all. But things had changed quickly, and she’d needed to escape, and it had been the only thing that she’d hoped would work. Aunt Martha would have known to look for her at Sarah’s.

“I stole a set of silver candlesticks,” Charlotte said. Another sin to add to her long list. “And I pawned them. I know I didn’t get what they were worth, but I didn’t care. I paid our rent out of it and hoarded the rest for my escape to America.”

“And then I came along.”

“And then you came along.” She tried to smile, but it fell short. The sticky residue of her dream was still present, mixed with the intoxicating kiss they’d shared. It was an odd, confusing combination.

America. Jacob.

She wanted both, but she couldn’t have both.

An earl couldn’t move to America, and she couldn’t stay here.