Charlene wondered if she would still approve if the woman knew just where the younger woman’s knowledge came from. If the woman knew that she was, in fact, Charlene Ellington, daughter of the doctor who was currently up for trial for the poisoning death of Lord Henrich.
Charlene had been careful since she had left her aunt’s house, giving the name Theresa to anyone who asked. She couldn’t handle the scandal that came along with her true name. And she had no desire to make it too easy for her aunt to track her down.
She wished that she could apologize to Eric. She thought about writing him a letter. She knew that she had said things that she shouldn’t have to him. And that she had asked him for too much. She shouldn’t have gotten him involved with her father’s situation in the first place.
She thought about writing to her aunt and telling Helene not to worry about her. She wasn’t sure exactly how to apologize, though. What she was really saying was that she was sorry for condemning Helene’s brother to death.
She had destroyed her family. Charlene could barely think about it, let alone sit down and write a letter about it.
Besides, she was worried that any letters she sent would make it too easy to track her down. She didn’t have either the money or the desire to leave London at the moment. She couldn’t go back to Bath without her father. It wouldn’t be the same. But these were the only places that she had ever called home.
She couldn’t imagine striking out in a new city on her own. The thought made her palms sweat and her breath come short.
She wondered how long she would be able to stay here in London. After her father was hanged, would they come for her as well? She knew that there had been plenty of sentiment against her between the scandals with the Duke and the people who believed that she had helped her father commit murder.
Would they take her disappearance as a sure sign that she had been involved? That she was her father’s accomplice?
She had to wonder.
But she couldn’t go back. Either her father was dead or about to be. Her old life was gone, and her future looked bleak. She could only imagine what Lord Ambrose would have to say of her departure.
Or everyone else in society. They probably thought she was prostituting herself to have a place to stay.
She didn’t care about what any of them had to say, however. All she cared about was what Eric must think of her. But she supposed that that didn’t truly matter. She loved him, but he didn’t love her. He had told her once that if their positions were different, he would marry her.
Their positions weren’t different, though. He was a duke, and she was the spinster daughter of an accused murderer. He might wonder what her fate was, but he wouldn’t come looking for her.
Charlene was alone. But no matter how bad things looked, no matter how hard she was going to have to work, at least she was still alive. It was unfair, and she ached with every fiber of her being. But in her heart, she knew that it was best to just make due.
Chapter 26
Lord Eric Cumberland, Duke of Havenport
Eric was shocked when the journals actually mentioned Harvey Blake. He had lost hope that they ever would. As the trial grew closer, the doctor’s situation seemed bleaker and bleaker.
He had let Charlene down.
Charlene. He wondered where the woman was now. She had disappeared after the scene at the theatre. Helene was frantic. Eric couldn’t help but echo her fear, but his own worries were far grimmer than anything that the elderly aunt could ever imagine for her niece’s fate.
Eric knew men only too well, and he now knew the story behind Harvey Blake’s ban from ever having anything to do with the medical field.
He stared down at the journal entry in front of him, his heart in his throat and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Dr. Ellington had written that Harvey was a sadist and unprofessional. Those descriptions were damning enough, but if it was simply that, he might have kept practicing.
Except that Dr. Ellington had discovered that Harvey was administering poison to a number of local girls in Bath, seeing which levels would harm them. The journals weren’t clear on which girls were involved, unfortunately. It would have made their case so much stronger if Eric could have brought them to testify against the man.
Still, if anyone would have known how to kill Lord Henrich, it sounded as though Harvey Blake, now Harvey Parsons, was the man. Eric could even fathom how he had done it. It would have been quite simple, really.
He merely had to give the correct medicine to Dr. Ellington first. Then go behind the doctor’s back to deliver medicine to Lord Henrich, insisting that the doctor had made a clerical error and that this was the correct medication to take. He would have confiscated the original, so there was no evidence. Lord Henrich would have taken the wrong medicine and then died.
A simple matter of slightly falsifying the records, then.
Or perhaps it had been even simpler than that. Perhaps all he had done was create a medicine that appeared to be the one Lord Henrich needed but which, given with improper dosage, actually did something else. Eric had heard that there were certain concoctions which, although normally not poisonous, could prove poisonous in the wrong situations.
However he had done it, Eric was certain that Harvey had a motive. From the sounds of things, Dr. Ellington was responsible for Harvey’s disbarment from the medical field. Eric wondered if he would be able to convince anyone from the medical college to testify to that fact. They had rejected his bribe before and refused to give him any of the information that he had requested, but surely in the face of this information, they would want to help the doctor.
But either way, the duke knew that it would be better if he could actually track down the sadist and bring him to trial. There was too much anger in this city at the moment for there to be no vengeance for the murder of Lord Henrich.
Trouble was, there had been no further information about the man since he had slipped through his operatives’ fingers.
Eric sighed and paced back and forth in his study.
To be honest, he didn’t know exactly why he was still so invested in this case. Charlene was gone. She had made it very clear that she didn’t believe him when he said that he was going to prove her father innocent.
For all that he knew, she could have gone to Lord Ambrose to promise her hand to him and ended up a victim of his cruelty already. Or Harvey could have gotten to her.
It was all Eric could do to keep from seeking out the young woman. Charlene had made it clear that she didn’t want to be found. She had made it clear that she had lost faith in him. And besides, what could Eric really say to her?
Her father was up for trial very soon, and in spite of the fact that he kept telling her that he was going to prove her father’s innocence, he didn’t have all the proof just yet.
He tried not to grimace when his mother came into the study. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you forgotten that you have a ball to attend this evening?” she asked, and Eric could hear from her tone of voice that she was trying to hide her disappointment in him.
She hated that he was still so caught up in proving Dr. Ellington innocent.
Not because she wanted an innocent man to go to his death, of course. But she didn’t see what sort of stake Eric had in proving the doctor innocent. She merely knew that Eric was involving himself in something that was dangerous, and something that had proved time and again that it could ruin his reputation.
He didn’t give a whit about his reputation, he found. And the more he realized that, the more he realized that he didn’t care to end up with Lady Annabelle or any of the other women that his mother saw him with in the future.
He wasn’t going to tonight’s ball. He had made that decision that morning. There were more important things that he needed to do, and the last thing he wanted was to spend another night with Lady Annabelle conning him into yet another dance.
He especially didn’t want to hear all the gossip about Char
lene. It had only grown more rampant since the scene at the theatre and her subsequent disappearance.
Everyone seemed to have some sort of story about where they had seen her, and none of them were favorable. It made him sick with worry about the woman, even though he doubted any of those people had actually seen her.
Charlene was smart. If she didn’t want to be found, she would do a good job of hiding herself. Eric was sure of it.
“Mother, I’m not going to tonight’s ball,” he told her evenly.
“Are you feeling ill?” she immediately asked, looking worried. “Perhaps we should have someone tasting your food before you eat it. In light of the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” Eric asked through gritted teeth, even though he knew exactly what she was suggesting.
Still, his mother refused to say anything scandalous aloud. “I just think that it might be best,” she said.
“I’m not ill,” Eric told her flatly.
His mother looked puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. “If you’re not ill, then why would you miss a chance to – ”
“To do what, exactly?” Eric interrupted. “Oh, you mean to dance with Lady Annabelle again? To listen to everyone list off all the reasons why we are the perfect couple? I’m not interested in that.”
His mother sighed. “I know you believe that Lady Annabelle is being improper in her advances towards you, but I’m sure that I don’t need to remind you what a match she would make for a duke.”
“For the last time, I’m simply not interested in her,” Eric snapped. “I will not marry her.”
His mother was silent for a long moment, and Eric felt guilty for snapping. It hadn’t been all that long since the woman had come out of her mourning period. And anyway, that was no way for him to speak to his mother.
All the same, he couldn’t regret his words. Let her realize, once and for all, that he was serious when he said that he would not marry her. “There is nothing at all which draws me to that insipid woman,” he added.
His mother slowly nodded. “Well, all right then,” she said brusquely. “All the more reason for you to attend tonight’s ball. Perhaps if you meet some of the other eligible women, you’ll find someone more suitable to your desires.”
She paused, and Eric could tell that she was mentally running through a list of every eligible young lady that she knew, trying to come up with someone suitable.
He no longer wished for someone suitable by his side, however. He wanted Charlene. Her absence had only served to make him realize that, no matter what people might say about the two of them, he just had to have her in his life.
He couldn’t live without her. And he certainly wouldn’t marry someone else.
“No, mother,” Eric said, gentling his voice. “I know that it isn’t what you would wish for me, in my position, but the only person whom I will ever wish to marry is Charlene.”
His mother stared at him in horror, and Eric held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear you say anything about her reputation, please,” he said. “Or about how she doesn’t make the right bride for a duke. She is the only woman that I will marry. It’s as simple as that.”
Finally, his mother sighed. “But Eric, you must realize that things will be…complicated if you do.”
“I realize that,” Eric agreed gravely. “Part of the reason why I won’t go to the ball tonight is because the first thing I must do, if I am to marry her, is to clear her name.”
“How do you expect to do that?” his mother asked. “You aren’t a lawyer. Nor an investigator.”
“And yet – investigator, I feel I’ve become. I know who really poisoned Lord Henrich,” Eric told her simply. “I even know the man’s motive.”
He was sure that it was Harvey. Dr. Ellington was the very reason that the man had been barred from his chosen profession. And the fact that it was to do with poison only made things more suspicious.
In fact, Eric had to wonder why the doctor hadn’t even suspected that it might have been Harvey who really poisoned Lord Henrich. But then, and he smiled slightly at the thought, he suspected that the doctor was just as trusting as his daughter Charlene.
Dr. Ellington wasn’t the kind of man who looked for revenge. The thought would never have occurred to him that Harvey might.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have someplace that I need to be,” Eric told his mother. He knew that he needed more information to present at the trial. Of course, he wished he would have the man himself to bring in front of the jurors, but tracking down Harvey wasn’t a task for the duke himself.
His men were working hard on that. That didn’t mean that Eric couldn’t seek out more information about the man, however. Perhaps someone else would vouch for Harvey’s character. He needed to discover if anyone else from the medical community remembered Harvey.
His first stop would be the apothecary where Dr. Ellington’s office had been. It would be reduced to rubble, he was certain, but he doubted it had been all cleaned up yet. Perhaps there were more clues there. He had managed to locate an address for the apothecarist as well. A visit to that man might yield some information, or at least contacts to the medical college.
“Oh Eric, do be careful,” his mother said worriedly. “I don’t like the idea of you being caught up in all of this.”
“I don’t either,” Eric admitted. “What I like even less, however, is the idea that an innocent man could hang if I don’t manage to prove his innocence.”
He left before his mother could formulate a response to that. He was only too certain that her response would be that she didn’t see why the Ellington family should be any of his concern, regardless of their innocence.
When he got to the apothecary, he found that the place had been ransacked long before his return. There was nothing there which hadn’t burnt into unidentifiable pieces or ash. He sighed and turned down the street, keeping careful watch on his surroundings. The last thing he needed was for Harvey, or whoever it was that had started that fire at the apothecary, to find him again. He would be more careful this time.
No more burning buildings. No more brushes with death or discovery.
He made it to the apothecarist’s modest apartment without seeing anything out of the ordinary. When he knocked on the door, however, there was no answer. He frowned, weighing his options.
It was possible that the apothecarist was attempting to set up shop somewhere else in town, but Eric doubted it. The man would likely not have the money for that, and all of his equipment was gone forever.
Was it possible that the man had left town? Given up on his broken business and headed off for someplace else to start afresh? Eric nearly groaned aloud at the thought of that. He couldn’t waste the resources to track down two different men. But he was desperate to know if the apothecarist knew anything, as someone who had worked for so long alongside Dr. Ellington.
He knocked on the door again, and when there was no answer, he looked back and forth. There was no one to see him. He tried the door handle and was surprised to find that it was unlocked. At least he didn’t need to break into another place, but he still felt a little guilty for entering like this.
He pushed those thoughts away, though. He simply wanted to ascertain that the apothecarist was still living there. He wouldn’t go through the man’s belongings, even. If he could tell that the man was still living here, he would come back at another time.
As Eric nudged the door open, he was met by a putrid smell. He tried not to gag as he wondered what it was. Perhaps the man lived in filth. Perhaps it was some medicinal experiment gone awry.
What he found in the man’s apartment was far darker than those conjectures, however. The corpse of a man lay bloodied in the middle of one of the floors, bloated and covered in flies. This time, Eric truly did gag.
Someone, whoever it was, had killed the man violently. Eric wondered if it could have been Harvey. After all, Harvey seemed to have a penchant for po
ison, and this was no poisoning death.
Then again, Eric also suspected Harvey of being the one who lit the fire at the apothecarist’s shop. Perhaps Harvey didn’t care how a man died, as long as death was the outcome.
He stood there for a long moment, wondering if he should go through the man’s things. But there was something in him that stopped him from going through the belongings of a dead man.
Not least of which because he didn’t know if Harvey was still in the area. The last thing he needed was for the man to come after him as well. If the apothecarist’s corpse had yet to be found, Eric wondered how long it would be before his was found.
Long enough that his corpse would be unrecognizable?
He looked down at the corpse one final time. The man’s features were already distorted, hiding what he might once have looked like. Yes, it could be long enough that even his mother wouldn’t be able to identify him.
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