by Emily Larkin
The answer came: in one of Cosgrove’s speeches.
She lifted her head. “Sir . . . the West Indies . . . is it worse than Whitechapel?” Surely nothing could be?
“For the slaves? Much worse.” Cosgrove grimaced, his lips flattening against his teeth. He glanced out the window at the crooked line of roofs, at the coal smoke staining the sky. “One battle at a time, lad. One battle at a time.” His grimace faded. He curled one hand into a fist, a slow, meditative gesture. “Hector Smith was the man who almost killed Lionel.”
“You broke his head, sir?”
“I did.” Cosgrove clenched his hand until the knuckles whitened, then relaxed his fingers. “Where the hell have they gone?”
“We could check the coaching inns, sir.”
“Do you have any idea how many of them there are?” Cosgrove leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes.
Charlotte’s heart squeezed in her chest. She wanted to reach over and smooth the frown from his brow. “They’d be memorable, sir. Three injured men. I’m sure if we tried—”
“It’s of no matter.” The earl opened his eyes. His gaze, gray and direct, seemed to pin her to her seat. Surely he could see inside her? Could see she was a woman, not a man. See that she loved him. “We don’t need to find the Smiths to know who hired them. After yesterday there can be no question.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t be obtuse, lad. Who has the most to gain from my death?”
“But . . . Mr. Langford has no money to pay—”
“He must have promised payment upon his succession to the title.”
Charlotte twisted the button on her coat. “Do you truly think he’d kill you, sir?”
Cosgrove rubbed his forehead, as if his frown hurt. “Do you truly think he wouldn’t?”
Charlotte turned the button one way, then the other. “But . . . but he’s your family.”
“You think it’s more likely to be Brashdon or Hyde?” The earl shook his head. “People don’t murder over differences of political opinion.”
“There’s a lot of money at stake, sir. The plantations—”
“I’m not the only person fighting for abolition of the trade. If they got rid of me, they’d have to get rid of Grenville. Fox. Wilberforce. A dozen others.”
“But what about Monkwood, sir? He hates you. If you were to die—”
“I’ve no doubt he’d be delighted—as would Brashdon and his set—but he’s not so mad as to perpetrate it himself. No.” The earl shook his head again. “Phillip is the only one with sufficient reason to wish me dead.”
His flat, certain voice overruled any argument she might make.
Charlotte turned the button between her fingers while the carriage traversed Cheapside. “Will you let it go to trial, sir?” she asked, when they turned into Newgate Street. “If you find proof it’s Mr. Langford?”
Cosgrove was silent until they reached Holborn. “I don’t know. Maybe he could be sent to the colonies. Australia.” He rubbed his forehead again. “I don’t know, Albin. I don’t know.”
* * *
At Grosvenor Square, they climbed down from the carriage. In Whitechapel, it had gleamed, as bright as gold; here it looked bedraggled, the paintwork splashed with foul mud, smeared with handprints.
Cosgrove stood, watching the carriage rattle over the cobblestones on its way to the mews.
An icy wind tugged at Charlotte’s clothes and slipped cold fingers beneath her hat, trying to flip it from her head. She clutched the hat brim and hunched her shoulders. Her toes were numb inside the new boots.
The carriage clattered out of sight. Still Cosgrove didn’t move. He was frowning, his eyes narrowed in thought.
Wind gusted through the square again. The tall houses shivered, the trees behind the iron palings shivered, the gray clouds scudding across the sky shivered.
Cosgrove didn’t notice. He stood motionless. Frowning. Thinking.
“Sir?”
The earl glanced at her. “You asked what I’ll do once the slave trade is abolished. Do you remember?”
Charlotte nodded, clutching her hat, clenching her teeth to stop them chattering. She remembered the place—St. James’s Street, on the way to Lord Brashdon’s club—and the earl’s reaction—the bemusement, the shrug.
“I think I’ve found it.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Inside with you, lad. You’re freezing.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Charlotte looked up from the columns of numbers in the Somerset ledger. The earl was muttering under his breath, trying out words on his tongue. As she watched, he scowled, scratched out a sentence, dipped his quill in ink, wrote fiercely.
Her heart did its familiar tightening in her chest.
She let her gaze rest on him—the strong-boned face, the scowling black eyebrows, the flawlessly folded neckcloth. Her awareness of Cosgrove was different from last week. It wasn’t lust anymore. It was something she felt in her bones, in her blood, in each beat of her heart. I love you, sir.
She hugged the moment to herself—the fire mumbling in the grate, the clock striking two in the entrance hall, Cosgrove’s quill making tiny scratching sounds as he wrote. This was what happiness was: moments like this, quiet companionship.
A footman knocked on the study door. “Baron Grenville to see you, sir.”
“Grenville?” Cosgrove laid down his quill.
Charlotte knew the name. Baron Grenville was one of Cosgrove’s political allies, a man dedicated to abolition of the slave trade. “Would you like to speak with him in here, sir? Shall I leave?”
“Please.”
She gathered up the Somerset ledger and departed for the library, but she’d barely finished tallying another column before the door opened. It was the earl. “Albin. My study. Now!” Fury blazed in his eyes and vibrated in his voice.
“What is it, sir?”
Cosgrove made no answer. He strode back to the study.
Charlotte hurried after him.
Cosgrove shut the door, almost slamming it, and thrust a letter at her. “Read this.”
The letter was dated two months earlier. “Philadelphia? That’s in the colonies, sir?”
Cosgrove gave a curt nod.
Charlotte read swiftly. The writer claimed to have been in the West Indies both times Cosgrove had visited, but to only recently have become aware of the earl’s abolitionary activities. I put pen to paper, compelled by my duty to draw your attention to the true nature of this man. Countless times have I observed his violence towards the female slaves on his plantation. It was his habit—indeed, his delight—to force himself upon the women he owned.
“What?” Charlotte’s head jerked up. She stared at Cosgrove, her mouth open in shock.
“Keep reading,” he said tightly.
Cosgrove took pleasure in inflicting pain. Sometimes he flogged the unfortunate females he’d chosen, sometimes he beat them with his fists, sometimes he throttled them half-senseless with his hands, before slaking his lusts on them.
Charlotte’s eyes flinched from the words. She glanced at Cosgrove again.
“Keep reading.” His voice was brittle, his face angular. The bones of cheek and jaw looked sharp enough to cut through his skin.
Cosgrove reserved the worst of his excesses for those females barely into womanhood, tender and fragile in their youth. It was his delight to break them with his foul pleasures, to make them beg for him to cease. To my knowledge, more than one poor creature killed herself afterwards.
Horror grew inside Charlotte, swelling like a tumor in her stomach. She closed her eyes briefly, not wanting to read further, knowing she had to.
I write, the letter-writer concluded, because I feel it is my God-given duty to expose Lord Cosgrove for what he is: the worst kind of monster, an abuser of helpless women, obscene and violent in his lusts, a man without morals or conscience. That he should embrace the cause of Abolition is hypocrisy at its greatest. He does not deserve a place in the
House of Lords; he deserves a place in the fires of Hell.
Yours faithfully, etc.
Reverend Jonathan L. Banks
Charlotte lowered the letter. “Sir . . .” She searched for words, but found none. The accusations were too shocking.
“It’s not true.”
“Of course it’s not true! No one who knows you could possibly think so! Baron Grenville didn’t . . . did he?”
“No. But men all over town received copies today.” The earl’s voice was thick, as if choked by rage. “Grenville knows of at least a dozen!” He strode to the window and stared out, his fists clenched on the windowsill. His silhouette was sharp-angled, sharp-edged.
Charlotte clutched the letter, feeling helpless. She could protect the earl from physical attack, but how could she protect him from this? How did one fight such accusations, prove them baseless and unjust?
She looked at the sender’s address. Philadelphia. “Reverend Jonathan L. Banks. Who’s he, sir?”
“I doubt he exists.” Cosgrove turned to face her. “It’s the work of someone here. Someone who’s trying to destroy my political career.”
Charlotte looked closely at the writing. “You think it was written in England and sent out to Philadelphia to be posted back?”
“I do.” Cosgrove pushed away from the windowsill. “The Smiths, the attack yesterday—Phillip was behind that. But this—” He took the letter from her and clenched it in his fist. “This isn’t Phillip’s work. It can only be Brashdon or Hyde.”
Charlotte frowned. “You think it’s unconnected to everything else?”
“Of course! Phillip wants the earldom; Brashdon and Hyde want me discredited.” Cosgrove’s grip tightened on the letter, white-knuckled. His nostrils flared. His lips pulled back from his teeth. “By God, I’ll kill them for this.”
The violence in his face, in his voice, scared her. “Sir, it’s not—”
“Not what? Not important? Not of any consequence?” His rage seemed to heat the air. “This is worse than anything that’s happened yet!”
“But the Smiths tried to kill you!”
“That, I can fight. This, I can’t. This is my name. My reputation!”
Charlotte heard the weight of the words, heard the silence they created in the study.
Cosgrove valued his name as highly as he valued his life.
“What did Baron Grenville recommend, sir?”
“That I ignore it. That I laugh it off. Dismiss it as a prank.” Cosgrove tossed the crumpled letter on the desk. His laugh was harsh. “A prank!”
Charlotte picked up the letter and smoothed it.
The earl strode back to the window. “The less attention I’m seen to pay to it, the less attention it will draw—or so Grenville believes. And I am not—not—to lose my temper publicly over it.” He raised one fist, as if to smash a pane of glass, and then lowered it. “Fuck,” he said, in a low voice. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Charlotte didn’t know what the word meant, but his rage was palpable. “Someone may recognize the writing—”
“It’ll be disguised. Whoever wrote it’s no fool.”
Charlotte looked down at the creased paper, the spiky letters in black ink, the ugly words. “If you write to the West Indies, ask for reputable people there to vouch for you—”
“Of course I’ll do that.” Cosgrove’s voice was impatient. “But it’ll take months before any replies reach London.”
Charlotte bit her lip. A sentence caught her eye: It was his habit—indeed, his delight—to force himself upon the women he owned. She grimaced and folded the letter, hiding the words. She examined the writer’s address. Philadelphia.
It told her nothing.
Charlotte turned the letter over in her hand. There were no clues to the writer’s identity that her eyes could see. “Sir . . .” She hesitated, uncertain of what Cosgrove’s reaction might be. “If I change into a dog, I may be able to smell the writer’s scent.”
There was a moment of utter silence—the ticking of the ebony and gold clock on the mantelpiece was loud—then Cosgrove swung to face her. “What?” His gaze was so fierce she almost stepped back a pace.
“I may be able to smell something.”
“Do it!”
* * *
Marcus turned the key, locking the study door. He tried not to pace while Albin undressed. “It may not work,” the lad said, when he was down to his drawers. “I may not be able to smell anything.”
Marcus nodded. “I understand.” He turned away to give Albin some privacy. He heard the lad strip out of the drawers; then came silence.
He glanced over his shoulder. A brown dog stood in the middle of the study.
The skin on the back of Marcus’s neck, the skin down his spine, prickled in an involuntary shiver, as if he, too, were a dog and his hackles had risen.
The letter lay on his desk. He unfolded it, placed it on the floor, and stepped back a pace.
Albin padded over and touched his nose to the paper, breathing deeply, as if inhaling the ink itself. He sniffed every inch of the letter and then pawed at it.
Marcus turned the letter over, exposing the address and postmark, and watched as Albin sniffed thoroughly.
Faerie magic. It was ludicrous. Preposterous. Impossible. And yet I see it with my own eyes.
But . . . Faeries? Magic? He shook his head in instinctive rejection.
Albin stepped away from the letter. Marcus managed to close his eyes in time not to witness the unsettling transformation. When he opened them, his secretary stood before him, naked and human.
“Well?”
“The outside is covered in smells, sir.” Albin reached for his drawers. “Inside, I could smell you and me, sir, and I think . . . two others.”
“You think?”
Albin fastened his drawers. “One was strong, sir. Baron Grenville, I’d guess. But the other . . .” His expression was apologetic. “It’s very faint, sir. I couldn’t quite catch it.”
Marcus tried not to let his disappointment show on his face. “The letter must have been written several months ago,” he said turning away. “Not your fault, lad.”
“I might recognize who wrote it, if I smelled him, but . . . I might not.”
Marcus swung back to face him. “Recognize?”
“Maybe.” Albin shrugged, a diffident gesture.
“You’re willing to try?”
Albin nodded.
Marcus tried to quash the excitement that flared in his chest. He’s not promising anything.
“We could go for a walk, sir. To their houses. Brashdon and Hyde and Keynes. And Monkwood. And even Mr. Langford, sir. I can see whether I recognize that smell—” Albin gestured at the letter lying on the floor, “—or the Smiths.”
“When? Now?”
Albin nodded.
Marcus bared his teeth in a smile. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Albin obediently removed his drawers again.
“Can you be any breed of dog? Or just that one?”
“Anything you like, sir.”
“How about a . . .” He needed something a gentleman might have. “A spaniel.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcus bent and picked up the letter. Rage surged through him at sight of the spiky writing. By God, I’ll bring you down, if it’s the last thing I do. He folded the letter and thrust it into his pocket. When he next looked, Albin was a black spaniel. “Excellent.”
He bundled up Albin’s clothes and hid them in a cupboard, then crossed to the window and opened it. “Meet me outside.” He turned back to the spaniel, but it was no longer there. A sparrow winged past him.
Marcus watched the sparrow swoop across the square. The back of his neck prickled again, but alongside that sensation was a twinge of envy. To be able to fly . . .
He shook off the envy and slammed the window shut.
Time to go hunting.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Marcus strode down Curzon Street, the black
spaniel at his heels. “Hyde’s house is the one on the corner,” he said in a low voice. “Would you like to smell the letter again?”
The dog nodded.
Marcus unfolded the letter and glanced over his shoulder. There was no one nearby. He crouched to let Albin sniff it.
Albin inhaled the scents, snuffling, then trotted ahead, his tail wagging.
Marcus replaced the letter in his pocket and strolled after him. The black spaniel looked like any other dog. He almost expected Albin to cock a leg and pee.
Albin sniffed the four steps leading up to Hyde’s door, then as much of the door as he could reach, standing up on hind legs to smell the keyhole and knocker. He came back down the steps and shook his head.
Marcus tried not to feel disappointed. “Keynes is around the corner, in Halfmoon Street.”
He’d only gone half a dozen paces when the door to Hyde’s house opened. He looked back and saw Hyde and Keynes emerge.
Marcus halted. “Gentlemen,” he said politely. “Good afternoon.”
Hyde didn’t return the greeting. His chin pushed out slightly, making him look even more like a bulldog.
“Afternoon.” Keynes smiled genially. “What a handsome dog. Is he yours?”
Albin sniffed the proffered hand.
“Aren’t you a fine-looking spaniel?” Keynes said, patting Albin on the head.
Albin growled, pulling his lips back, showing his teeth.
Keynes removed his hand hastily.
“He’s an excellent judge of character,” Marcus said.
Keynes gave him a sour look. “Come along, Hyde. We’ll be late.”
Marcus stayed where he was. “Was it Keynes?” he asked, when the men had turned the corner into Halfmoon Street. “Is that why you growled?”
The spaniel shook its head.
Marcus was relieved. He wanted it to be Brashdon. He knew it was Brashdon.
“Little King Street next. That’s where Brashdon lives.”
They walked down Halfmoon Street, following Keynes and Hyde, crossed Piccadilly, and headed down St. James’s Street. Keynes and Hyde turned into their club. “Probably meeting Brashdon,” Marcus said in an undertone, as they passed the entrance. “If we’re lucky, we’ll run into him.” He turned into Little King Street. “Ah, speak of the devil. You see him?”
