by Emily Larkin
Abruptly, the tavern door opened. Charlotte flinched from the roar of noise, the stink of fetid air.
A man came out and urinated, clutching the wall with one hand to steady himself, and staggered back into the tavern.
Charlotte hesitated. Should she wait to see if the runner emerged?
The door slammed open again and disgorged half a dozen men, unshaven and unwashed, reeling with drink. She backed away as one vomited noisily into the gutter. The others seemed inclined to brawl, shoving each other, throwing punches. Metal glinted in the moonlight: a knife blade.
Charlotte fled back down the street. Behind her, someone bellowed, an animal sound, full of rage.
* * *
Breakfast was in the back parlor, a housemaid apologetically informed her, because the windows in the breakfast parlor were broken again. Charlotte thanked the girl and went downstairs.
Lord Cosgrove was already there. His plate held a sirloin and several poached eggs. He glanced up from the newspaper he was reading. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, sir.” Charlotte crossed to the serving dishes lined up on the sideboard. The mingled smells made her mouth water. She spurned the kippers, piled her plate high with sausages, bacon, sirloin, and eggs, and sat opposite the earl. Christopher Albin had a significantly larger appetite than Charlotte Appleby.
They ate in silence, the earl reading his newspaper, Charlotte turning the events of the past night over in her head. When she’d finished eating, she laid down her knife and fork. “Sir?”
Cosgrove looked up.
“Last night . . .” She straightened the knife and fork on her plate, lining them up with one another. “Last night more windows were broken.”
“I had noticed,” the earl said, dryly.
“Well, sir, I . . . uh, I followed him.”
Cosgrove observed her over the top of the newspaper for several long seconds, then folded the paper and laid it aside. “I thought I told you not to do so alone.”
Charlotte flushed. “You did, sir, but . . . but I woke up when I heard the glass break and I saw him in the square and I couldn’t not follow!”
Cosgrove stroked the bridge of his nose, as if deciding what his response would be. The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece was loud.
Charlotte held her breath.
Cosgrove lowered his hand. He picked up his teacup and leaned back in his chair. “Where did he go?”
She released the breath she was holding. “I don’t precisely know, sir. I didn’t recognize the streets. But it was east of here.”
“How far?”
“We ran for close to an hour.”
“An hour?”
“Almost, sir.”
Cosgrove glanced at her plate. “No wonder you had such a healthy appetite.” He sipped from his cup. “Very well, tell me.”
Charlotte obediently related her tale, finishing with a description of the window-breaker.
“And he didn’t see you?”
“No, sir. I kept well back.” It wasn’t a lie, but it felt like one. Charlotte straightened her unused cutlery on the tablecloth.
“He went into a tavern? “
“Yes, sir. But I couldn’t see the name. It was too dark.”
Cosgrove put down his teacup. “Did you go in?”
“No, sir. It . . . it looked a very rough place.” Again, it wasn’t a lie, but it had the shape of one in her mouth. She reached out and moved her butter knife a quarter of an inch to the right, so that it was precisely parallel to its companions on the tablecloth.
“At least you showed some sense.”
She glanced up in time to see Cosgrove close his eyes for a moment. He looked as if he was in pain.
Charlotte decided that it was best not to reply to this comment. She bit her lip and moved the fish knife she hadn’t used, lining it up with the butter knife.
“Almost an hour’s running east of here, you say?”
She glanced up again and nodded.
“Could you smell tanneries?”
“Oh, is that what it was?”
Cosgrove rubbed his brow, as if her tale had made his head hurt. “Lad, I think you were in Whitechapel.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“Of all the places in London!” The fierceness of his voice made her flinch in the chair. “You should be lying in a gutter with your throat slit!”
Charlotte bit her lip again and looked down at her table setting. Everything was neatly lined up. She reached out and aligned the silver salt and pepper shakers.
“Will you stop doing that!”
Charlotte jerked her hand back. She risked a glance at him.
The earl’s gaze pinned her to her chair, fierce. “I absolutely forbid you to go back there! Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
The earl released a long breath. His anger seemed to die, like a candle being snuffed. “Could you find it on a map?”
Charlotte nodded. “But . . . but you won’t go there yourself, will you, sir?” Memory of the men spilling from the tavern was vivid in her mind. Cosgrove might spar regularly with Gentleman Jack, but what good were fists against knives?
Cosgrove’s eyebrows quirked up. “Would you refuse to show me the way if I said yes?”
“You said yourself that it’s dangerous.”
His expression became amused, as if her concern was a joke. “I’ll take a couple of footmen with me.”
“But, sir . . .” She stared at him, remembering the glint of the knife blade in moonlight. “But . . . but your appearance is striking. Unlike the Smiths, you are memorable. If you ask questions, how long do you think it will take for news of it to reach the lad who broke your windows—and the person who hired him?”
Cosgrove’s smile faded.
“We have an advantage, sir. A very slight one. If you go to the tavern, we lose it.”
Cosgrove’s eyebrows drew together. He pinched his lower lip between forefinger and thumb, tugged, thought.
Charlotte held herself motionless, almost not breathing.
“You’ve made your point, lad.” Cosgrove pushed to his feet. “But I still want to know where that tavern is. Wait here.”
He returned carrying a map. “Show me.” He swept aside her neatly arranged cutlery.
“Where are we?”
The earl planted his finger on the map. “Here.”
Charlotte traced her route, acutely aware of the earl leaning over her, acutely aware of the warmth of his body, the smells of soap and freshly washed linen. The map told her the names of the streets she’d run along last night: High Holborn, Cornhill, Leadenhall Street, Rosemary Lane. “Sir . . . you promise you won’t go there, if I tell you?”
“Lad,” Cosgrove’s voice was startlingly close to her ear. “You do remember that I’m paying you, don’t you?”
Charlotte bit her lip and kept silent, her gaze fixed on the map.
After a moment, Cosgrove laughed. She felt his breath ruffle her hair. “Very well, you have my word. I won’t go there.”
“The tavern was on this street, sir.” Charlotte pointed. “Cripple Lane.”
The earl grunted. He pushed away from the table and walked to the window, stared down at the mews, his brow creased in a frown.
“It doesn’t help much, sir, does it?”
He turned to face her, leaning against the windowsill. “It may be possible to hire someone to patronize the tavern. Someone familiar with Whitechapel. Someone who won’t stand out.”
“How does one locate such a person, sir?”
“A good question, lad. I wonder if Gentleman Jack would know a likely fellow?” His frown deepened, he seemed to gaze through her, and then his gray eyes focused. His expression grew pained. “Albin, if you’re going to sleep under my roof, then I must insist—I really must insist—that you learn to tie a respectable neckcloth.”
Charlotte touched the knot of muslin at her throat. “What’s wrong with it, sir?”
“An organ-grinder’s monkey could tie a neater neckcloth.” Cosgrove pushed away from the windowsill. “Upstairs with you. It’s time you had a lesson.”
Chapter Nineteen
The earl’s bedchamber was a spacious room decorated in brown and gold. His valet was there, folding Cosgrove’s nightclothes. “Leggatt, half a dozen neckcloths, please.”
“Of course, sir.” Leggatt withdrew to the dressing room.
Cosgrove untied his neckcloth and tossed it on the bed. “Take that thing off.” He gestured at Charlotte’s neckcloth.
The earl’s bed was a commanding piece of furniture, as wide as it was long, with four posts of turned mahogany. The counterpane and hangings were a rich, earthy brown. Gold threads sparkled like gleams of sunshine.
Charlotte jerked her attention away from the bed. She fastened her gaze on the earl’s dressing table, with its silver-backed brushes, and unwound the neckcloth from her throat.
The valet emerged with six starched neckcloths hung over his arm.
“On the back of the chair, Leggatt.”
The valet did as he was bid, laying each neckcloth out tenderly.
“Come here, lad.” Cosgrove stood in front of a tall cheval mirror.
Charlotte obeyed.
The earl took the crumpled strip of muslin from her hand and tossed it on the floor. He surveyed her for a moment, eyes narrow. “Something simple . . .” He took two neckcloths from the back of the chair and handed one to her. “A Barrel Knot. Watch carefully. Around the collar thus, so that the right end is longer than the left . . .”
Charlotte copied him.
“Make a loop, then pass the cloth over a second time . . . No, no—” Cosgrove released his own neckcloth. “Like this.” His hands guided hers, his fingers warm and strong and confident. “See?”
Charlotte felt a blush rise in her cheeks. “Yes.”
“Try again.”
She did, acutely aware of him watching. The blush refused to fade; she felt it heating her face.
“Good. Now pull the left end through. Yes, like that. And tighten it. No, lad, watch what you’re doing in the mirror. The knot should be horizontal.”
Charlotte stepped closer to the mirror, wrestling the knot into place across her Adam’s apple. “Like that, sir?” she asked, turning to him.
Cosgrove reached out and tugged the knot, straightening it, tightening it. His knuckles brushed the underside of her chin. The blush flamed hotter in Charlotte’s cheeks. Her pego stirred.
Alarm lurched through her. Was it going to stiffen? Now, of all times? I wish to have a soft pego, she said frantically in her head.
Magic itched at her groin. Her pego stopped stirring.
Cosgrove stepped back, examined her, shook his head. “No.”
“Maybe I should just purchase a stock—”
“Stocks are for country parsons.” Cosgrove held out another neckcloth to her. “Watch me, then try again.”
She labored over the Barrel Knot for half an hour, her face hot, her fingers clumsy. They weren’t alone—the valet was quietly setting the room to rights—but it felt alarmingly intimate to be standing at the mirror alongside Cosgrove, with the bed just behind them. She was acutely aware of the earl’s proximity, his clean scent, the timbre of his voice. Her chin and fingers tingled where he’d touched her. Her pego kept wanting to stiffen. I wish to have a soft pego, she chanted silently.
Charlotte threaded the left end of the neckcloth through the loop and pulled it tight. She peered at her reflection. Was the knot straight enough? Tight enough?
She turned to Cosgrove. “There, sir.”
Cosgrove surveyed her.
Charlotte wanted to reach out and touch his face, to stroke her fingertips from cheekbone to jaw, to feel the grain of his skin. The urge was sudden and shocking and intense. Her pego gave a strong twitch.
She clenched her hands at her sides. I wish to have a soft pego.
“Leggatt? What do you think?”
The valet stopped straightening items on the dressing table. He crossed to the mirror and stood with his head tilted to one side, his lips pursed. “Adequate,” he said finally.
Cosgrove grinned. “Rare praise, lad.”
“It’s all right?” She reached up to touch the neckcloth.
Cosgrove caught her hand. “Leave it alone.”
Heat surged in her face again. I wish to have a soft pego. “Yes, sir.”
Cosgrove released her hand. He took the last neckcloth from the back of the chair, placed it around his throat, and tied it swiftly. “A Mail Coach,” he said, when he was finished. The knot was obscured by a fall of starched muslin. “I’ll teach you it next.” He glanced in the mirror, made a minuscule adjustment, straightened his cuffs, and headed for the door. “Come along, lad.”
Charlotte followed him from the bedchamber. In the coolness of the corridor she pressed her hands to her face, as if she could push the blood from her cheeks by force.
She had to conquer her partiality for Cosgrove. Had to. The blushes were bad enough, but now it was affecting her pego, too.
Cosgrove strode along the corridor. Charlotte soberly trailed him. She’d learned something about the male body this morning. A man’s pego stiffened when its owner felt physical desire. That’s why Phillip Langford’s pego had been sticking up at the brothel. It had been responding to the whores.
And my pego is responding to Lord Cosgrove.
Today, the earl had mistaken her blushes for embarrassment, but tomorrow she might not be so lucky. If he noticed that she blushed when he stood close, if he noticed her pego moved when he touched her, if he realized she was attracted to him—
He’ll dismiss me.
Scratch the itch and it usually goes away, Cosgrove had said. But this was one itch she couldn’t scratch. Not with Lord Cosgrove. She had to master her response to him, wrestle it under control, expunge it.
“Sir . . . you said your last secretary had rooms nearby.”
“In Chandlers Street. Three minutes’ walk from here.” Cosgrove started down the stairs.
“May I have the address please?”
“Anxious to leave?”
“I’m your employee, sir, not your guest.”
Cosgrove glanced back, his eyes creased in amusement. “So you are, lad. So you are. Twelve Chandlers Street, I think it was.”
“Thank you, sir.” The sooner she was gone from his house, the less chance she had of betraying herself.
* * *
The earl insisted on accompanying her—You’ll find me useful, lad—and in the event, he was correct. The landlady, Mrs. Stitchbury, was flattered to receive a visit of inspection from an earl. She allowed herself to be persuaded to rent her best set of rooms—larger, sunnier, and quieter than poor Mr. Lionel’s rooms—at the same price.
The earl smiled charmingly as he thanked her.
Color mottled Mrs. Stitchbury’s face.
I must look like that, always blushing. “I can move in today, sir.”
“Tomorrow’s soon enough, lad. I’m sure Mrs. Stitchbury would like the opportunity to air it.”
“Oh, yes, your lordship. Of course! I’ll have the maids turn the mattress for the young gentleman and air the bedding and—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Stitchbury.” The earl made an elegant bow.
Mrs. Stitchbury’s face reddened again. She curtsied low, as if in the presence of royalty.
Charlotte saw the earl’s lips twitch, but his face was perfectly straight when Mrs. Stitchbury rose again.
“What did I tell you?” Cosgrove said, as they strolled back to Grosvenor Square. He glanced sideways at her. “Useful.”
“You were making up to her, sir!”
“Me?” Cosgrove placed a hand over his heart. “Lad, you wound me.”
Any answer she could make dried on her tongue. How am I to conquer my partiality when he looks at me like that, with laughter in his eyes?
“Lionel said she was a pompous, silly woman. J
ust the sort to be flattered by a visit from an earl.”
They turned into Grosvenor Square. The laughter extinguished in Cosgrove’s eyes. His face hardened. He seemed to age ten years in the space of one second.
Charlotte followed the direction of his gaze. The house looked pained, the shattered windows wounds in its façade. “He broke fewer windows last night.”
Cosgrove grunted.
They crossed the square. Charlotte hid a yawn behind her hand as they climbed the steps to the front door.
“Tired?” Cosgrove said. “I’m not surprised. Have the rest of the day off.”
“Me? But sir, you pay me to work, not to sleep!” Charlotte hurried into the house after him. “And besides, you had forbidden me to follow him!”
“Now he remembers,” the earl said, to no one in particular.
Charlotte bit her lip. Another yawn crept up on her. She tried to swallow it.
The earl noticed. “Off to bed with you.” The note of finality in his voice was unmistakable. “Now!”
Chapter Twenty
Charlotte climbed the stairs to the Blue Bedchamber, but she didn’t go to bed. She stripped out of her clothes, opened her window several inches, and changed into a bird. Not a sparrow this time, but a swift-winged pigeon.
Cosgrove had forbidden her to return to Whitechapel, but he hadn’t asked her to pledge her word. And besides, I’m going as an animal, not Christopher Albin.
She followed the route she’d run last night—London’s rooftops flashing beneath her wings—and landed in an alley off Cripple Lane and changed into a dog. The air was even fouler than she remembered.
Cautiously, she left the alley. Her nose told her that three men had spilled blood here last night. A dark puddle lay in a hollow, swarming with flies. To her dog’s eyes the blood wasn’t red, but dull brown.
Charlotte crept to the tavern doorstep and sniffed. The smell of fresh blood obscured fainter scents but . . . yes, there was the scent she’d followed last night. The window-breaker.
She followed his trail down Cripple Lane, around the corner, and into a busier thoroughfare. An open gutter ran down the middle of the street. Women sat on doorsteps, nursing babies, drinking from bottles of gin. Unshaven men stood in groups, watching the passersby.
