A Question of Numbers

by Andrea Penrose

“History’s boring,” grumbled Raven, reluctantly sitting down.

  “Actually it’s not,” she countered. “It’s all about the fascinating people—the politicians, the philosophers, the artists, the soldiers, the musicians—who shape the world.”

  Hawk looked thoughtful. “William of Orange does seem a like wery interesting fellow.”

  “William—now there’s a good, strong name.” Charlotte seized the opportunity to change the subject. It was a sore point between them, but much as she disliked pressing the boys, it couldn’t be put off much longer. A decision had to be made.

  Raven muttered a word she pretended not to hear. “I don’t want a new name.” His chin took on a pugnacious tilt. “Wot’s wrong with the one I have?”

  They had been over that question countless times during the past week. The new neighborhood was only a scant half mile away. But it was a different world from the stews of St. Giles. To fit in, the boys needed real names.

  “Think of it this way,” she reasoned. “Life is all about change—a caterpillar turns into a colorful butterfly. You are simply shedding your old skin and taking on a new one. It will be . . .”

  A loud knock on the front door saved her from having to utter yet another platitude.

  “That must be the carter.” Charlotte hurried through the entryway and threw back the bolt.

  “You’re late,” she chided as the portal swung open.

  “Am I?”

  The Earl of Wrexford was wearing a superbly tailored coat, a rakish low-crown beaver hat—and his usual sardonic smile, noted Charlotte.

  “That should be of no surprise,” he went on, stepping past her without waiting for an invitation to enter. “You know conventional manners bore me to perdition.”

  “Indeed I do. So I take it this isn’t a social call?” she replied with a harried sigh. It had been a fortnight since his last visit, and the unexpected appearance caused a tiny hitch in her heartbeat—though she was too preoccupied to think about why.

  Ignoring her question, Wrexford took off his hat and ran a hand through his wind-ruffled dark hair. It looked like it hadn’t been trimmed in weeks.

  “Halloo, Weasels,” he called to the boys.

  “You see, m’lady,” challenged Raven. “His Lordship doesn’t give a rat’s arse about calling us by a heathen moniker.”

  Charlotte bit her lip in exasperation. Given the earl’s penchant for sarcasm, this was not likely to end well.

  “I seem to have intruded on some sort of altercation,” he murmured. “Pray tell, what’s the problem?”

  “Never mind,” she said through gritted teeth.

  He arched a brow.

  “She wants us te have proper English names,” volunteered Hawk. “So when we move te a new neighborhood no one will know we’re nuffink but orphan guttersnipes.”

  “It’s bloody stupid and I won’t do it!” cried Raven hotly. “I refuse te be a Charles or a Nathaniel—or any other cursedly idiotic name.”

  “Merde,” muttered Charlotte and then tried another tactic. “Come, there must be some choice that doesn’t make your skin crawl.”

  Raven’s expression turned even more mulish.

  “Ye god,” murmured the earl. “All this sturm und drang, when the answer is laughably simply.”

  She fixed him with a look of mute appeal. “Please, sir, this isn’t a game.”

  “Allow me to explain,” he replied.

  She hesitated, and then gave a brusque nod. So far, all her arguments had been for naught. There was little to lose.

  Wrexford turned to Raven. “Pick a proper Christian name—any choice will suffice.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it, lad.” A note of command edged his voice.

  The boy drew in a wary breath. “What was yer brother’s name—the one who’s dead?”

  “Thomas,” answered the earl softly.

  “Then I choose Thomas.”

  “Excellent.” Wrexford performed an elaborate formal flourish.

  Drat the man—he was clearly enjoying himself, though Charlotte. At my expense.

  His deep, plummy voice drew her back from her momentary brooding. “Allow me to present Thomas Ravenwood Sloane—known to all as Raven.”

  Charlotte started to speak but he waved her to silence. “In the beau monde, men are very rarely called by their Christian name. It’s a time-honored tradition that you acquire a nickname. I am always called Wrex, John Nottingham Allerton is Notty . . .”

  The earl shrugged. “So there you have it—two birds with one stone, if you will. The lads need only mention their full names once, and then never have to deal with the question again. While you have what you need for any official purposes.”

  “Yeah, I s’ppose I can live with that,” allowed Raven.

  “But I—” she began.

  “If you are concerned about the choice of Sloane as a given name, my thought was, you can explain the lads are orphaned relatives from your late husband’s side of the family. Again, it seems the simplest solution, but it is entirely up to you if you wish to choose another.”

  She drew in an uncertain breath. “No, what you suggest makes sense.”

  “Excellent.” Wrexford shifted his gaze to Hawk. “Your turn.”

  “Wot’s your Christian name, sir?”

  The question seemed to take him by surprise. Charlotte realized that she, too, had no idea of the answer.

  “I can’t remember,” quipped Wrexford.

  “Come, sir, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” she murmured.

  He frowned in mock concentration for a long moment. “I believe it’s Alexander. But I ought to check Debrett’s Peerage to confirm it. It may be Agamemnon or Aloysius.”

  Raven snickered.

  “I choose Alexander,” said Hawk solemnly.

  Another flourish. “And here we have Alexander Hawksley Sloane—known to all as Hawk.”

  “Alexander Hawksley Sloane,” repeated Hawk in an awestruck whisper. A delighted smile spread the width of his narrow face.

  “It’s an awfully big handle for an awfully small runt,” teased his brother.

  Although the older boy was very good at hiding his emotions, Charlotte could sense that he was secretly just as pleased.

  “Thank you, milord,” she murmured.

  Hawk took up a pencil and began to write out his new name in large, curling copperplate script letters.

  “I see that no more serious study can be expected,” observed Charlotte wryly. “So you two might as well take your swift feet—and exalted monikers—and fly off to Mr. Henning with my note. Lord Wrexford and I have some private matters to discuss.”

  “How do you know that?” inquired Wrexford, as he watched the boys gratefully snap their books shut and scamper for the door.

  “Because, as you’ve take pains to point out, you despise social pleasantries. You’re a pragmatic man, milord. So since you are here, I assume there’s some sordid matter in which my skills or my knowledge can be of use to you.”

  Was he really that unfeeling to his friends? Sheffield’s oblique criticism suddenly cut a little more sharply against his conscience. Despite the complexities that shaded their relationship, he did think of Charlotte as a friend.

  “Perhaps I have come to wish you well in your new residence.”

  She let out a low laugh. “And perhaps pigs have learned how to fly.”

  Some men might have been offended. However, he liked to think hypocrisy was not one of his many faults.

  “I may always count on you to bring my vanity down to earth,” he murmured.

  Charlotte turned away and began straightening up the jumble of books and papers on the table. “It was merely an empirical observation, not a criticism. We both know you despise tender sentiments.” Her hands stilled on the paper bearing Hawk’s carefully written name. “That said, I’m truly grateful to you, sir. Your solution resolved a very thorny problem.”

  “As we both know, seei
ng a problem from a different perspective often reveals a simple answer.”

  More shuffling. Charlotte shifted her stance, and in the flickering of the shadows, he thought he detected a look of uncertainty pinch at her features. However, it was gone in a flash as she looked up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  A thin smile twitched on her lips. “Which, I take it, is why you are here.”

  Wrexford allowed an answering smile. “Close enough to the truth that I won’t quibble over semantics.”

  She sighed and signaled for him to have a seat on one of the stools. “Why is it that I suspect this concerns last night’s murder?”

  “Because you have very good instincts.”

  “I thought you told the lads it was merely a falling out among criminals.”

  “And so I believed at the time,” he replied.

  She sat down opposite him, her expression unreadable. “Go on.” . . . .

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  EXCERPT: MURDER AT KENSINGTON PALACE

  Book Three in the Wrexford & Sloane Regency Mystery Series

  “M’lady, m’lady!”

  Charlotte Sloane looked up from her drawing as two mud-encrusted boys peltered up the stairs and burst into her workroom.

  “There’s been another Bloody Butcher murder!” announced the one called Raven in a breathless rush.

  “Oiy, and this time the victim’s a titled toff!” piped up his younger brother, who was known as Hawk. “And—”

  “And it’s disgusting,” cut in Raven. “Lilly, the flower girl said—”

  “Said it were so ‘orrible the Bow Street Runner puked all over ‘is boots,” exclaimed Hawk, tripping over his tongue to be first in revealing the gory details. “Because—”

  “Because the Butcher cut off one of the gent’s bollocks!” finished Raven.

  Holy Hell. Though rarely shocked by man’s viciousness toward his fellow man, Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face. Putting down her pen, she leaned back in her chair, for the moment too taken aback by the gruesome news to chide the boys about their filthy faces and less-than-perfect English.

  These mutilation murders seemed to be taking a terribly sinister turn. The first two victims had been nameless vagrants, followed by a respectable tradesman.

  And now an aristocrat.

  What madman was on the loose?

  “Who was the victim?” she asked, forcing herself to focus on the grim practicalities of the news.

  Her livelihood as London’s most popular satirical artist depended on feeding the public’s insatiable appetite for scandal and depravity. And they looked to A. J. Quill to be the first to trumpet all the juicy details of the evils that man did to his fellow man—though the fact that a woman penned such scathing commentary was a well-kept secret. She would need to do a drawing of the crime by evening so the engravers could have it ready for sale in Fores’s print shop for tomorrow morning.

  “Lilly didn’t know,” answered Hawk. “She heard the news from one of the gardeners who found the toff.”

  “Where?” demanded Charlotte.

  “Kensington Gardens,” replied Raven. “The Duke of Sussex had a fancy party for the some visiting men of science from Prussia last night at the palace.”

  Science. The word stirred a pricking at the back of her neck.

  “Word is,” continued the boy, “the victim looks to be one of the guests. But Lilly said Bow Street’s being tighter than a flea’s ars—” He stopped and flashed an apologetic grin. “This is, the Runners are being close-mouthed about any further details.”

  Her brows pinching together in a frown, Charlotte took a moment to think over what she had just heard. Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex and sixth son of King George III, had a keen interest in scholarly subjects and was a member of the Royal Society, which, along with The Royal Institution, was the leading bastion of London’s scientific minds. He often held lavish receptions for its members and guests in his apartments at Kensington Palace.

  Given that such soirees usually included those who moved within the highest circles of Society, she couldn’t help but wonder . . .

  “If Lord Wrexford was there, he might know more about it,” Charlotte mused aloud.

  “You want for us to run along to Berkeley Square and ask?” volunteered Hawk, his pronunciation quickly improving. The earl’s cook was very generous with sweets.

  Charlotte hesitated. But pragmatism quickly overruled emotion. She needed information, and if Bow Street was keeping tight-lipped about the crime because the victim was an aristocrat, her usual sources wouldn’t be of help.

  “Yes,” she answered, and quickly penned a short note. “If he hasn’t risen from his lordly slumber . . .” A glance at the mantle clock showed it was well before noon. “Ask if you may wait for a reply.”

  Both boys bobbed a quick nod and clattered off with undisguised enthusiasm.

  Her own feelings were a bit more ambiguous. Wrexford. A man of maddening complexities and contradictions. Though, conceded Charlotte, she was just as difficult.

  A sigh. She and the Earl of Wrexford had first been drawn together when he was the main suspect in a gruesome murder. Through her network of informants, she had reason to believe him innocent and so they had grudgingly agreed to work together to find the real killer. A wary friendship had developed . . . though that was a far too simplistic description of their relationship.

  They had recently collaborated on solving another complex murder, which had caused Wrexford to come within a hairsbreadth of death. She had helped to rescue him, and in the heat of the moment, both of them had revealed personal secrets and expressed certain emotions . . .

  Which perhaps they were both regretting.

  It had been a fortnight since his last visit, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether he, like herself, felt a little rattled at having spoken—however obliquely—from the heart.

  “What a pair we are,” she muttered. “Prickly, guarded, afraid of making ourselves vulnerable.”

  Taking up her pen, Charlotte carefully cleaned the dried ink from its nib with a damp rag. As a rule, she tried not to brood over a decision once it was made.Noli respicere. Don’t look back. But much as she tried to return her thoughts to her unfinished sketch of the Prince Regent’s latest peccadillo, she couldn’t keep from asking herself whether it was wise to get involved in another murder with the earl.

  A shiver, sharp as daggerpoints, danced down her spine as Charlotte recalled how the thought of losing Wrexford had shaken her to the core. The depth of her sentiment had frightened her. Weakness of any kind was dangerous. Only the strong survived.

  “I am strong. I always have been,” she whispered, trying to give some force to her breath.

  Or am I?

  Of late, so many of her defenses felt under siege. Caring too deeply made one vulnerable. Raven and Hawk, the two homeless, half-wild urchins she had found sheltering in her previous house, had taken hold of her heart in ways she had never expected. Charlotte couldn’t say exactly how it had happened. They had started running errands to her network of informants in return for scraps of food, and . . .

  And now, they had a snug little aerie in her attic, respectable clothing and an Oxford-educated tutor giving them lessons several times a week. Ye God, they even had fancy new names to go along with their avian monikers! Thomas Ravenwood Sloane and Alexander Hawksley Sloane. A smile touched her lips. However unconventional, they had become a family, tied together not by blood but by love.

  Love. In that word lay the heart of her dilemma. It set off a tangle of conflicted emotions, and Charlotte wasn’t quite how to go about unknotting them. Over the years, adversity had shaped her to think that in order to survive, one’s core inner strength had to come from within. One couldn’t count on others.

  Now she wasn’t so sure. And that was frightening.

  Which brought her full circle back to Wrexford.

  �
��Hell’s bells, I’m simply asking him for some information,” she muttered, “Neither of us are in any danger of being drawn into this murder.” Expelling a harsh sigh, Charlotte forced aside further thoughts on the earl and dipped her now-pristine pen into the inkwell. Finishing the drawing of the Prince Regent was something she could control.

  And besides, it was her art that paid for her independence. Despite all fears and uncertainties preying on her mind, that wasn’t something she ever intended to give up.

  Focused on her work, Charlotte lost all track of the time. It was the loud thump of the front door falling shut and a tandem shout from the boys announcing their return that drew her back to the present.

  “Excellent,” she murmured, anxious to learn what Wrexford had told them about the scientific soiree. However, that sentiment was quickly revised when the Raven added, “His Nibs has come along with us.”

  Repressing an oath, Charlotte glanced down at her paint-smudged cuffs before quickly tucking a few strangling strands of hair behind her ear.

  “I thought I might as well come along and subject myself to your interrogation in person,” drawled the Earl of Wrexford as she entered the downstairs parlor. “Knowing your infernal attention to detail, it seemed likely you would have so many questions, the Weasels would wear out their boots running back and forth between our residences.”

  “Weasels” was what Wrexford called the boys, much to their hilarity. They knew he had long ago forgiven Raven for sticking a knife in his leg during their first encounter.

  “How very thoughtful of you, milord,” replied Charlotte, matching his note of dry humor. “Would you care for—”

  “Tea?” said the plain-faced, middle-aged woman, who had hurried out from the kitchen. “I’ve just set the kettle on the hob, Mrs. Sloane. And a pan of ginger biscuits are about to come out of the oven.”

  Ignoring the hungry looks from the boys, Charlotte raised an inquiring brow at the earl. As McClellan was still technically in his employ, she left the decision to him.

  “Halloo, McClellan,” said Wrexford with an amused smile. “I trust Mrs. Sloane isn’t proving too terrible a taskmaster.” He had dispatched the woman—whose arsenal of skills apparently included being a crack shot with a pistol—to stay with Charlotte after an intruder had broken into the house during their investigation of Elihu Ashton’s murder. The arrangement had proved to have a number of practical advantages, and so she had remained as member of the unconventional household. Her somewhat nebulous duties included serving as a lady’s maid on the rare occasions when Charlotte was required to venture into Polite Society, but most importantly, her presence allowed the earl to call at the house without violating the rules of propriety.