Chapter Four

Two days after her discussion with Suzette, Charlotte lounged inside the doorway of the apothecary, shoulders slouched, hands in her empty pockets. She was across from the spot where she had almost been trampled by the horse, trying to pretend that she wasn’t looking for him. Damn Suzette for putting the idea into her head and damn herself for wanting to see him one more time.

Why?

Why are you torturing yourself, you foolish girl? You’re in hiding, dressed like a vagrant lad. He’ll never give you a second look.

But he’d been so nice. He’d been a stranger who hadn’t overlooked her or walked a wide circle around her. He’d seen her as a person. And he’d been concerned for her as a fellow human being.

She had far more important things to do than moon over a man—like make a decision once and for all on what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She’d been putting it off, telling herself she was far too busy simply trying to survive, but really that was all a lie. She didn’t want to think about her future because it frightened her.

“Move on. Come on now. Get going.” A constable in his tall blue hat pointed his truncheon at her, coming short of poking her with it.

Charlotte scurried just far enough away to placate the constable but close enough that she wouldn’t miss him.

If he walked this way again. She was so foolish for wanting to see him.

She leaned a shoulder against the rough wall of the entrance to an alley, shooting a look behind her to make sure danger wasn’t lurking in the shadows. The only thing back there was a lone tomcat that reminded her of her cousin Edmund. She shuddered and forced that thought from her mind.

Another thing she didn’t want to think about.

There had been a few times, while living in the rookery, that Charlotte had wondered if it had been worth it—running away, hiding. But then she thought of her cousin and her aunt, and she knew she couldn’t go back. She’d take the dangers of the rookery over her own family any day.

A top hat bobbed through the crowd, catching her attention. She slipped from the alley and this time looked both ways before crossing the street. There was no horse to fall under, so she hurried across, stepping up behind the man who had rescued her.

He walked with casual elegance, in a way that indicated he had a destination in mind. Where are you going? Home? To a family? A wife and children?

She imagined a little girl with bouncing, shiny chestnut hair and a boy with the same shaped face, brown eyes, and thin nose. The picture made her heart hurt a little. She was jealous of his wife, for having a husband who came home to her every day, who loved her and their children and the life they’d built together.

Charlotte despaired of ever having that sort of life. If she were still living with her aunt, the old woman would run off any man who turned an eye toward Charlotte. Aunt Martha hated all men, even her own son.

But Charlotte yearned for what her parents had had. A true love. A love that defied everything—societal restrictions, family loyalty, and parental pressure. Sometimes the thought that there might be a man out there who could give her the love she desired had been the only thing that had kept her going during the dark days after her father’s death when she’d been forced to live with her aunt.

Her rescuer was whistling a jaunty tune that tickled her memory, but she’d had very little music in her life since Papa had died. Music had not been allowed in her aunt’s home. It called to a man’s baser instincts.

He tipped his hat to a woman dressed in a beautiful gown that reminded Charlotte of spring grass. The woman smiled and tittered at him. Charlotte glowered at her, but the woman didn’t see Charlotte as she brushed by her.

The man jogged up the steps of Brooks Gentleman’s Club, leaving Charlotte behind to dawdle along the street, looking longingly up at the elegant building.

As she stood there, two more gentlemen climbed the steps, talking quietly, dressed more elegantly than her man.

Her man.

Ha!

Aunt Martha had been right. Charlotte was a foolish girl.

…

Oliver was already waiting for Jacob when he entered the club for their next Mayhem Meeting. Except for the murdered girls—a tragedy to be sure—there had not been many mysteries for them to solve. He was hoping that the latest batch of newspapers would provide more opportunities to take his mind off his life.

“Before we go on,” Armbruster said, in lieu of a welcome, “Mother sends her greetings and wanted me to tell you that you haven’t called upon her recently and she’s quite miffed with you.”

Jacob grinned. Armbruster’s mother was a formidable woman, but she’d always had a soft spot for Jacob. Maybe because he was the only stabilizing influence in her son’s life.

“I will amend that right away,” he said as he took his seat.

“Please do,” Oliver said drily. “I’m weary of hearing about it.” He paused. His gaze flickered away. “She wants to have a thing,” he said, low enough that Jacob strained to hear. “In your honor.”

“A thing? What is a thing?” Jacob’s heart beat erratically.

Armbruster waved his hand lazily in the air. “You know.”

“I do not know. Please explain this thing. Good God, man, not a ball. Please tell me not a ball.”

“I don’t think it would be as grand as a ball.”

Jacob covered his face with his hands “Why?”

“She thought it would be a good way for you to enter Society as the Earl of Ashland.”

His hands dropped as if they were weighted, and he glared at Armbruster.

“You have to acknowledge it at some point, and really, it’s getting a bit odd that everyone knows but you haven’t said anything. I think Mother’s idea is a good one.”

Armbruster’s mother loved everything about Society. She was both admired and feared by other matrons, and her balls were second to none. Jacob knew he had no choice, especially if she’d already made up her mind.

“Oliver, if you are any sort of friend, you will dissuade your mother from this terrible idea.”

Armbruster laughed, a true humorous laugh. “Come now, Jacob. We both know one doesn’t merely dissuade her. It’s best just to go along with her plans. Besides, you owe her, and don’t think she won’t make you pay with your presence at your own ball.”

Jacob’s heart sank. This was the price he was to pay for the favor he had asked.

Charlotte Morris’s disappearance had sunk its ugly claws into Jacob’s imagination. There was only one person who could get the story on Lady Morris and hopefully, Miss Charlotte Morris as well.

Oliver’s mother, the Dowager Lady Armbruster.

He had not thought she would stoop so low as to force him to attend a ball as payment.

“Your note only asked me to find out what I could about a Baron and Baroness Morris and their niece, the lovely Miss Charlotte Morris,” Armbruster said. “But your note failed to tell me why you needed this information.”

With a reluctance that Jacob was surprised to feel, he pulled the sketch of Charlotte Morris from his pocket and handed it to Armbruster, then shifted in his seat, not liking how closely Armbruster scrutinized the picture, nor the look of appreciation in his eyes.

“Very fetching, but why do you have a sketch of her?”

“Upon the advice of a mutual friend, Lady Morris asked me to find her niece. Said she was missing.”

“But you don’t take missing person cases.” Armbruster laid the sketch down on the small table between them.

“The baroness did not seem to care.” Jacob’s gaze strayed back to the sketch—the high curve of Miss Morris’s cheek, the delicate shell of her ear peeking out from the riot of curls falling across her shoulder.

“From the way you’re looking at that picture, I surmise that you haven’t been able to stop thinking of the lovely Miss Morris. She’s a very becoming young lady.”

“Looks don’t matter to me.” Jacob pulled his gaze away, realizing he’d revealed too much. He did not want Oliver to suspect that he was interested in Miss Morris. Because he was most assuredly not interested other than to find out what had happened to her.

“It’s been five years,” Armbruster said softly.

“And?”

“And that’s a long time to be alone.”

“I’m not like you, Armbruster. I can be without female companionship for more than forty-eight hours.”

Armbruster’s steady gaze bored into Jacob, making him shift in his seat. “Your wife—”

“Cora. Her name was Cora.”

“I remember her name, Ashland.”

Jacob felt as if his face had gone numb. He hadn’t expected Oliver to mention Cora. Armbruster never spoke of Cora, and neither did Jacob, for that matter. He thought of her. Not as much as when his grief had been so all-encompassing that he hadn’t wanted to get out of bed. But he thought of her more than occasionally.

“All I’m saying is that it’s normal for you to be attracted to someone else.”

“I’m not attracted to Charlotte Morris,” Jacob said a little more forcefully than necessary.

Oliver held his hand up in surrender—or placation—Jacob didn’t know, but his anger deflated and left him feeling hollow.

“Fair enough,” Armbruster said as he leaned forward to tap the sketch. “Do you want to know what I found out about Miss Morris?”

Jacob was loath to admit that his entire body was straining to know more about Charlotte Morris. Who was she? Why had she left her aunt’s home? What type of person was she?

He nodded curtly, afraid to betray his intense desire for knowledge of this woman who, less than a week ago, he hadn’t known existed.

“It seems that Charlotte Morris is related to me in a way.”

Jacob sat up straighter. “You’re related to the Morrises?” Good Lord, he couldn’t imagine that dried-up, humorless woman related to any of Armbruster’s family.

“Charlotte’s mother was Lady Harriet Stafford, daughter to my mother’s second aunt or some such thing. I dozed off at this point because Mother does like to go on and on about the family tree.”

“Stafford,” Jacob murmured, his mind working furiously. “As in the Marquess of Chadley?”

Charlotte is related to a marquess?

“It seems Lady Harriet defied the family and wed a George Morris, brother to this Lord Morris. His brother was a baron, but George was not even knighted. Nothing. He had no title, no wealth, nothing to recommend him to the daughter of a marquess. So of course, the relationship was forbidden.”

“Of course,” Jacob murmured, caught up in the tale.

“Lady Harriet and George ran off together. Married at Gretna Green. Less than a year later poor Harriet died during childbirth, leaving George with a brand-new daughter and no wife.”

Jacob suppressed a shudder. The situation was all too familiar to his own story. But Armbruster was caught up in the telling of his tale to notice.

“Sixteen years later George passed away, and Charlotte became the ward of Lord and Lady Morris.”

“But why didn’t the marquess claim Charlotte?” Jacob asked.

“He’s a stern fellow, according to my mother. Refused to forgive Harriet for running off like she did. Wouldn’t even forgive her after her death and wanted nothing to do with her child.”

“Harsh.”

“Quite.”

“So George Morris died,” Jacob said, “and Charlotte went to live with her aunt and uncle. Something happened while she was living with Lady Morris, and she ran away.”

His mind was in sleuth mode, like when he and Armbruster were trying to solve one of their mysteries.

“She would be coming up on twenty years old now,” Oliver said. “She could be like her mother and has fallen in love with someone Lady Morris found unsuitable.”

“I have a feeling Lady Morris finds everyone unsuitable.”

“Mother had occasion to meet Lady Morris, years ago,” Armbruster said. “When Lord Morris was still alive. Some sort of social engagement benefiting a charitable organization. Mother couldn’t remember the details.”

“Shocking,” Jacob murmured.

“I agree. Mother tends to remember everything. She said Lady Morris spoke very little, looked disapproving most of the night, wore the most regrettable black gown that covered every bit of skin, and refused all food and drink.”

“Doesn’t believe in alcohol?”

Armbruster shuddered. “Unimaginable.”

“Quite.”

“Apparently Lord Morris died a few years ago. A sudden illness.”

“And Lady Morris was left to raise Charlotte.”

“And her son.”

Jacob raised a brow. “Lady Morris has a son?”

“Edward. Or Edmund. Something like that.” Armbruster sat back and sipped his port while Jacob mulled over this new information.

“This is all very interesting,” Jacob said. “But it doesn’t tell us why Charlotte suddenly left or where she would have gone.”

“There is one person who might know. Charlotte’s best friend is Lady Sarah Crawford. She and Charlotte were friends before Charlotte was forced to live with her aunt.”

“And you think Lady Sarah can shed light on Charlotte’s whereabouts?”

“I think it’s a good place to start. If anyone knew Charlotte well, it would be Lady Sarah.”

Jacob nodded thoughtfully, his excitement turning to trepidation at what he might discover. Maybe Charlotte didn’t want to be found. Maybe Charlotte wanted to stay hidden.

Or maybe Charlotte Morris needed help and didn’t know where to turn.