A Wicked Scandal For The Bluestocking (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  Even if the thought of being homeless here in London made her panic. She supposed she had known that she was going to need to provide for herself once her father went to trial. She just had never really expected her life to be uprooted so abruptly.

  There was a part of her that wished she had saved asking for Eric’s help until now. Maybe there wouldn’t have been such a scandal. And surely if he still owed her the debt of his life, he would have been able to help to keep her off the streets?

  She only wished that he had truly been able to help her prove her father innocent.

  Charlene leaned against the wall, tucked away in the corner of some back alleyway. She was so dreadfully exhausted.

  She looked back and forth, trying to decide which direction seemed more promising. Was there anywhere in the city where she could rest tonight? Would anyone take pity on her and give her a place to lay her head?

  She doubted it.

  Slowly, she slid down the wall, bringing her knees up to her chest. The damp didn’t bother her anymore. Her dress had seen far better days already.

  She tried to keep her eyes open, but she knew she wasn’t going to manage to keep awake for much longer. And what did it matter, really? She doubted that anyone would bother her. She had nothing left for them to steal. She was dressed dirtier than a street urchin, and she barely had two coins to rub together.

  They would last her for food for a few more days, she hoped. What then? Would she have to steal? Perhaps she truly was no better than the murderess that they had all said she was.

  She sighed softly, leaning her head to the side, against the worn stone of the wall. If only she could have gone to Eric. If only she could have trusted one person in this world.

  She knew it wasn’t fair for her to resent his actions. He had to protect his reputation. She knew that. He had done the best that he could. But he couldn’t get involved in such a scandal, not when seemingly everyone in the entire city believed that her father had been the one to murder Lord Henrich.

  She felt a stab of anger go through her at that thought. She knew, she knew, that her father hadn’t been the one to poison Lord Henrich. Whether the man was already hanged or not, she was suddenly filled with the desire to clear the doctor’s name.

  She harbored no illusions: even if she managed to clear her father’s name now, there would be no return to society for her. She had no desire to ever go back, especially not while knowing that she would have to watch Eric marry someone else.

  She couldn’t let her father’s name go sullied as it was, though. She simply couldn’t leave things the way that they were.

  She frowned, remembering what Eric had said, before he had given up on helping her with her father’s case. Harvey Parsons. She knew that her father had had an apprentice named Harvey a while back. It had been not long after Charlene left Bath to come live with her aunt in London.

  She had met Harvey a couple times, she thought, but she couldn’t remember him well. She hadn’t liked the man, if she remembered correctly.

  However, she wasn’t sure if that was because of his temperament or because she resented the fact that he had essentially taken over what she had always viewed as her place by her father’s side.

  She wished that she had started attempting to find information about Harvey the moment Eric had mentioned him, instead of simply trusting it all to Eric.

  Of course, there had been so much scandal hanging over her head that it was doubtful that she would have been successful in gathering much information.

  Now, though, she had nothing to lose.

  Charlene’s hands clenched into fists. She was going to discover who this Harvey character was, she swore to herself. And if she determined that he was, in fact, the man who had framed her father, she was going to exact her revenge.

  It was the only thing left for her to do.

  With that determination boiling through her, she finally drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 28

  Lord Eric Cumberland, Duke of Havenport

  Eric had to admit, he was shocked to find another lead on Harvey Parsons. The man had been so careful in covering his tracks all this time, and yet it seemed that now, he was starting to get sloppy. Careless, even.

  Was it because he was certain that he had won? Dr. Ellington’s trial would be held in no time at all, and everyone seemed certain that the doctor would swing from the gallows before the week was out.

  Or perhaps he simply couldn’t help but emerge from his hiding. Eric knew there were plenty of criminals who wanted nothing more than recognition for their work. Perhaps Harvey wanted to gloat.

  Whatever the case, one of his men came to Eric early in the morning, the day prior to Dr. Ellington’s trial, with news that he had found a Harvey Parsons hiding out in an inn on the outskirts of London. Not only that, but he was working in an apothecary there. Eric wondered if that meant that he had someone else that he planned to murder.

  If Eric could find evidence about a planned murder, then perhaps the jurors would listen to him when he claimed that the man had also murdered Lord Henrich.

  Eric immediately called for two of his other men and sent them out together to attempt to apprehend the real killer.

  He only hoped that they were more successful this time than they had been the previous time Harvey was spotted.

  He stood there in his study, pacing back and forth. But he knew that it could be a while before the men returned. He couldn’t just sit there waiting for them.

  He summoned Michael. “We need to find Miss Ellington,” he told the man. “I only hope she hasn’t left London by now.”

  The news that she had been working for Miss Anne’s apothecary had spread like wildfire. Everyone was aghast that anyone would hire the woman, let alone an apothecarist. That was the first clue that Eric had of the woman’s whereabouts.

  He doubted Miss Anne would have any idea where the woman had disappeared to after that, but between that and the news about Harvey Parsons, Eric thought he might have a clue.

  What if ruining Dr. Ellington’s life wasn’t enough for Harvey? He seemed to have grown fond of murder by now. And he had been caught poisoning the young women of Bath once. What if Charlene was his next target? What if Harvey was working in the same apothecary that Charlene had started working at since leaving Miss Anne’s?

  The thought sent chills up Eric’s spine. He should have attempted to find the woman sooner. He hadn’t expected her to stay away, though. He had thought that she was merely trying to put off the Marquess’ proposal. But if she was actually looking for work, it seemed like she had totally given up on her place in society.

  Didn’t she care about how the trial went? Didn’t she have any faith in Eric? The duke worried that she had given up any hope that he would prove her father innocent. Eric felt sick at the thought that he had disappointed her.

  And even sicker when he thought of what sorts of things could befall her in those parts of the city. It wasn’t safe for her to be there by herself. Especially not with Harvey still on the loose. She should know better.

  Unexpectedly, it made him think back to Charlene as a young girl, though. He smiled as he remembered her fearlessly wandering around Raven’s Hollow searching for herbs that her father needed for his remedies. The girl wasn’t afraid of anything.

  But in this case, Eric worried that she should have been frightened. He didn’t think she had any idea what sorts of dangers might await her here in the darker parts of London.

  There was nothing that he could do about Harvey at the moment, but he needed to see if he could locate Charlene.

  Michael nodded at him and found him some threadbare clothes that would stand out less once they were out of the cleaner parts of the city. The duke allowed his servant to lead the way into the underbelly of London. Michael of course knew these parts far better than Eric did. Eric had never set foot in Whitechapel before.

  They were silent as they walked. Eric tried not to look too conspicuous as he s
canned the streets, secretly fascinated by the place. It was so noisy here, with shopkeepers yelling out their wares and a couple fighting near an open window. Noisy and dirty.

  He felt even more worried about Charlene. Would she really be somewhere such as this? Alone? Besides, if she had already been discovered here, there was a chance that she had fled even deeper into the shadows.

  His imagination was painting a grim picture. Criminals would surely take advantage of a woman as beautiful and naïve as Charlene. Without a second thought.

  Where was she? And why had she run off? He understood that she was upset and that she didn’t think there was a place for her in society anymore, but if she felt as though she needed to hide from Lord Ambrose, she should have come to Eric. He would have helped her.

  He and Michael looked and looked, but without knowing exactly where the woman might be, it was difficult. He didn’t want to head straight to the apothecary because if Harvey was there, he didn’t want to alert the man as to his involvement in this or get in the way of his men trying to apprehend the disgraced doctor’s apprentice.

  Instead, they wandered, looking for Charlene as if she was out on an errand. It was a long chance, Eric knew, but he couldn’t help hoping. As it grew later in the evening, there only seemed to be more people out on the streets. Eric kept expecting that somewhere, by some stroke of luck, he would finally see Charlene.

  He grew frustrated as they didn’t seem to find a trace of her. Michael even asked a few discrete questions of some of the shopkeepers he knew. No one had seen the woman.

  “We should probably head back soon,” Michael finally said, his voice pitched so only Eric would hear. “Your lady-mother will be worried otherwise.”

  “I’m not giving up,” Eric said through gritted teeth. “We’ll lose time if we have to keep going back and forth. Let’s find an inn to stay at tonight, so that we can resume our search first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “As you wish, sir,” Michael said, nodding. “There’s a place a few streets over that has a decent reputation. Best to let me do all the talking.”

  Eric nodded, still searching the street for any sign of Charlene. Finally, though, he had to give up his search for the night. It was getting dark enough that even if he were to see the woman, he might not recognize her. He followed Michael to the inn and they got a room.

  The food the innkeeper’s daughter served them was greasy and lukewarm, but Eric didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. He went upstairs afterwards even though he still felt restless and unsettled at the thought of Charlene out there on her own.

  Had someone taken her in and given her a place to stay? He doubted that she had had much coin on her when she ran away. She must have found someplace safe to sleep, though. Otherwise, surely she would have returned to her aunt’s.

  He was curious about the girl’s story. But he wouldn’t know what happened to her until he found her. He only hoped he could find her in the morn. She shouldn’t miss her father’s trial.

  Sleep did not come easily for him that night, but eventually, he managed to get some rest. His dreams were filled with Charlene’s face.

  More than once, he woke from nightmares of finding her body sprawled out on one of the back streets.

  He rose at dawn to continue searching. He had to find her. He simply had to.

  Chapter 29

  Miss Charlene Ellington

  Charlene was relieved to finally find another apothecary that she could stay at. Of course, the situation there wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t the nicest part of town, and she couldn’t help but feel that everyone else who lived there was staring at her.

  At first, she was worried that she had been recognized. Then, she worried that it was because she stood out from the rest of them.

  She tried her best to hide her manners and her education, but surely some of them were intelligent enough to see through her act. There were some things about her manners that she just couldn’t seem to change.

  It took her a while and a couple awkward gropes before she realized why they were really staring at her. It made her cheeks flame just to think about it. She tried simply to focus on her work.

  Things certainly weren’t done to the same level of protocol here. A woman like her, on her own, was seen as an open invitation. She was just glad that one of the older women had taken a shine to her and kept the men away from her.

  This is the way my life is now, Charlene thought grimly to herself. I’d better get used to it.

  She tried her best not to think about her former life. If these grubby men and women only knew. But Charlene would never tell them about it.

  “Teresa – work!” the shopkeeper snapped at her. She hurriedly busied her hands with the mortar and pestle.

  There was one good thing about working there, which was that she had to pay attention to what she was doing. Her whole focus was on the task before her, and she couldn’t possibly think about her father or her aunt or any of the rest of them.

  Eric.

  Those thoughts always came to her at night. She tossed and turned restlessly most nights. No matter how much she lied that it was the hard and uncomfortable mattress, she knew that even the plushest bed in the world would afford her no sleep now.

  She felt guilty for leaving Helene behind. She felt guilty for missing her father’s funeral, because she was almost certain that she had by now. Unless somehow, Eric has managed to talk the judge into another hold…

  What were the chances of that, though? Lord Ambrose might not have the same social standing as Eric, but he was the chief investigator, and he wanted this trial to go off as quickly as possible.

  Still, as the days went by and Charlene didn’t hear anything, she was sure there must have been another pause.

  Surely with how angry people had been over Lord Henrich’s death, she would have heard something? Then again, the ton had taken it as a direct attack on them. These working-class men and women didn’t really care about the death of some lord.

  Charlene tried not to think too hard about everything that she would miss out on in light of her new situation in life. The nobility had never felt so far away as they did now.

  She might be in the same city, but barely a rumor of the upper classes came here. She would never hear if Matilda married. She would never hear news of her aunt.

  But she was certain that she had nowhere to go back home to. Everyone must be scandalized about her abrupt departure. She had only given them one more thing to talk about. She had only given them a new set of terrible names to call her by.

  She couldn’t find it in herself to care anymore. Let them call her what they would.

  The only insult that she cared about was the fact that they were all likely still claiming her father was a murderer. That was unforgivable.

  Charlene hadn’t been able to find out any more information about Harvey, and by now, she had mostly given up on trying. She just couldn’t balance that search on top of her busy work schedule during the day, and after a few nights sleeping out on the streets, she had no desire to lose her position here. At least she had a roof over her head.

  Even if she had to worry that one of these nights, one of the men was going to force his way into her bed. She’d be more worried about that out on the streets.

  She wondered if Helene was still searching for her, wanting her niece back in spite of the scandal that Charlene had brought to the family name. When she thought back to how she must have looked at the theatre, she felt ashamed.

  Her father had raised her to be better than that. Aunt Helene had always had such high hopes for her, too. As Charlene lay in her bunk staring at the rough ceiling, she smiled bitterly. Look where she had ended up.

  She couldn’t help but miss Eric. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the kisses and the passion that she longed for. She felt too numb to miss that.

  No, what she missed was the way that he smiled. The way that he assured her that everything was going to be all right. She missed his confidenc
e and his solid presence in her life.

  She missed the gentle brush of his fingers on her cheek and the warm feeling of his chest beneath her cheek as they embraced.

  She would drive herself mad if she continued to think about him, though. He had promised her that he would do the impossible, and yet she still had expected him to come through for her. That wasn’t fair, but it tarnished the vision of the duke that she had in her head.

  Somehow, she would have expected that if he couldn’t prove her father innocent, he would have told her so. Instead, he had lied and insisted that he was able to do the crazy task that she had set to him.

  She felt tears prick the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. That part of her life was over now. No sense in crying about it. This was her life now.