Charlie lowered the note to glance at the bracket clock on the wall by the door.
Why, that was in just ten minutes! Radcliffe was not even home. He would never see the message and get there in time to Frowning, she shook her head. Why would he need to anyway? They were married now.
Besides, the secret of her and Elizabeth's escapades was well known among the ton and had been forgiven. Well most of them anyway, she thought with a grimace and glanced down at the rest of the message.
If you do not show up, I mil assume that you will not mind all of London knowing that your wife visited a brothel ere your marriage.
Charlie groaned as she read that. That little adventure was the only one that the ton was not aware of. She could well imagine the furor that would arise should it come out that Lady Radcliffe had been a patron of a common bawdy house.
Crumpling the letter in her fist, she threw it angrily across the room and stood to hurry around the desk and out of the library. When a glance into the salon showed her that Mrs.Hartshair had joined the little advisory discussion around the tea tray and that her own presence was not being missed, Charlie swerved toward the stairs and rushed up them.
Despite her assurances to Radcliffe, Charlie still had one of the outfits she had worn during her stint as Charles. She had not understood on their return home why he would insist that she destroy them all, but had merely murmured her consent and handed them over to Stokes to get rid of as he saw fit except for the outfit she now dug out of the chest at the foot of the bed. She suspected now that it may have been her husband's hope to avoid something like this from occurring. Radcliffe was very good with details and would not have overlooked the fact that the blackmailer who had sold her back to her uncle was still out there and may contact them again. Charlie had not thought of that. She had assumed that now that she was married, she was safe. She supposed that her husband, in his own way, had been trying to protect her. But would he really rather risk her being ruined than to have her dress as a man again to meet a blackmailer and save herself?
Probably, she thought with a wry grimace as she stripped out of her clothes. Men could be so irrational at times! Grabbing up the strip of cloth, she quickly bound her br**sts, grimacing at the necessary discomfort. Then she donned the male clothes, tied her hair at the nape of her neck, slid it down the back of her shirt, and slapped the now ratty old wig on her head.
Moving to the small chest on the bedside table, she used the key that hung around her neck to unlock it and quickly scooped out a handful of coins.
Charlie then hurried from the room, ran down the stairs and straight out the front door without a word to anyone. They would have just tried to talk her out of going, and she would have had to waste a lot of time convincing them that she was doing the right thing. Charlie did not have that time to spare. She could not risk the blackmailer's giving up on Radcliffe's arrival and going elsewhere with his information.
She wasn't worried about this information getting out so much on her own behalf.
Nay. Her main concern was for Radcliffe. The scandal that would erupt should the story of her antics get out would be a humiliating price to pay for having tried only to rescue her from a horrible life, or more likely death, with Carland.
He deserved better. She owed him better. And she would see that he got it, she thought determinedly as she flagged down a hack and climbed inside after shouting out her destination to the driver.
It was a very short ride to Aggie's. She recalled it as having been longer the first time, but that may have been due to the circumstances. Then, she had been anticipating a night at the club or someplace equally entertaining. She had been impatient to arrive. Today, she was full of trepidation about going there.
When the carriage stopped, Charlie peered out the window at the facade of the brothel, then descended reluctantly and handed the driver a coin.
"I don't think they're open yet, m'lord," the man commented, taking in the silent and still atmosphere around the building as well. It was as if all its inhabitants and even the building itself were sleeping, or waiting. He shook his head. "They are most like all still abed after last night's business. Are you sure you wouldn't rather go elsewheres?"
"Nay. This is fine. Thank you," Charlie murmured, turning away to walk slowly up to the door. She took a moment to inhale a deep breath before knocking, then managed not to shrink when it was opened by a giant who eyed her doubtfully and rumbled, "We ain't open yet."
Clearing her throat, she lifted her chin and announced with as much arrogance as she could muster, "Radcliffe at your service. I am expected"
His bushy red eyebrows rose at that, but he stepped aside at once.
Charlie could not be sure whether he doubted her veracity in claiming to be expected, or that he did not believe that the slender young lad before him was Lord Radcliffe. She did not care either way. She simply ignored his attitude and stepped inside, eager to get this business over with and return home to her imperfect, but at least mostly pleasant, life with her husband.
"This way." Turning, he led her across the hall and upstairs. Recognizing the room he led her to as the very one she had encountered Bessie in, Charlie hesitated about entering until she spotted the man standing by the window with his back to the room.
Blowing her breath out on a long sigh of resignation, she stiffened her spine and strode into the room with a false air of bravado, then jumped in surprise when the door slammed shut behind her. The man at the window had not even reacted to the sound. After several moments ticked by and he still had not turned to face her, Charlie gave up her feigned indifference and shifted unhappily. "Well?"
"Well," the man murmured and turned to face her, revealing the flintlock pistol he held in his hand.
A jolt of disbelief ran through her as she stared at the weapon. A second rocked through her when she raised her gaze to peer at his face.
"Norwich!" she gasped, her gaze shifting between his face and the pistol he held as it dropped limply to his side. The pistol looked vaguely familiar to her, though she'd had no occasion to have seen it before now. One hardly displayed guns at balls and soirees, and those were the only places Charlie had ever had occasion to meet up with the brother of the man Radcliffe's sister had married.
"What are you doing here?"
He stared at her blankly, then down at the weapon he held and away toward the window, a frown furrowing his brow. "I" He hesitated, then grimaced and gazed back at her, giving a short laugh that ended on a sigh. "You know why I am here."
"A spot of blackmail?" she suggested dryly. "It was you all along, was it?"
He shrugged slightly. "London living is quite expensive."
"How did you know who we were?"
"I have a passing acquaintance with your uncle. I was even at your country estate once. It was a very brief stop," he added when he spotted her doubtful expression. "He owed me some money and I came by to get it. I was not there long enough to be properly introduced, but I did spot you and your sister returning from the village as I left in my carriage." Sighing, he moved several steps to the right to set his pistol on one of the bedside tables, then leaned back against the wall beside it, crossing his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankles in a semi-relaxed manner as he continued. "Still, I did not recognize you at first. It had been well over a year since I saw the two of you. Then, too, it was clever of you to disguise yourself as a boy." He complimented her with a sudden grin that, under other circumstances, she would have found charming.
"Very ingenious."
"Not ingenious enough if you recognized us."
"Oh." He waved a hand airily. "That was not your fault, really. After all, it helped that I knew Radcliffe had no relatives. That led me to wonder who you were. And still, I may not have figured it out had you changed your names."
Charlie sighed at that. Their names had been the weakest part of the entire plan. But after having already given them to Radcliffe, they had decided that Charlie and Elizabeth were common enoughas were most royal namesand that they could get away with it. Besides, the off-chance of recognition had seemed less likely to give them away than using alternate names and slipping up by calling each other by their real names, or by forgetting and not answering to the fake ones. Still, if it had not been for the fact that they had never been to London and that few people had ever come to the estate since their parents' deaths, they would never have chanced it.
"You really should have let Radcliffe keep this meeting."
Charlie glanced sharply at him, made extremely waiy by the regret and weariness in his tone. "Aye, well, he was not available. He was not even home and the letter did say that if he did not show up, you would tell the entire ton.
Besides, why should he pay you off? We had him fooled as well."
"Did he really notknow you were a woman?"
She shook her head solemnly. "Do you think he would have dragged me off to a brothel had he realized I was a woman?"
"Good point," he said wryly, and shook his head. "This was where I first saw you, you know."
Charlie tilted her head at that. "Really?"
"Aye. I saw you creeping out of one room and slipping down the hall checking each door until you slipped into this one. What were you looking for?"
"Radcliffe," she murmured, recalling that night.
"I realized you were a woman right away."
Charlie gave a start at the claim, then shook her head, not bothering to hide her disbelief. "Oh, aye. The rest of London was fooled, but not you."
He merely shrugged. "It is all in the presentation, I suspect. Had I first met you at the theater or a ball like everyoue else, I may have been fooled. But I first saw you in a brothel." When she merely stared at him blankly, he continued, "The women here wear all manner of costume to please their customers, and when I first saw you it was from behind as you backed out of the room down the hall."
She arched her eyebrows. "So?" .
"Your h*ps are far too generous and shapely to be a boy's. Quite pert and attractive, actually, and as I have never found a man's behind attractive, you had to be a woman." He grinned wickedly again as she flushed, but continued, "I thought perhaps you were a new girl playing a role for one of the men."
"I see." Charlie cleared her throat. "Then when we were introduced to you as Radcliffe's cousinswhen you knew he had no familyyou put two and two together and decided to blackmail us."
"You make me sound quite dastardly," he murmured with a grimace.
"Are you not?" she asked archly.
He laughed without humor. "Not as dastardly as I am going to be," he muttered under his breath, then took up his pistol again.
Charlie's gaze dropped to the pistol automatically, taking in the cut steel stock inlays and the initials on the butt. 'The inn."
He frowned at her softly spoken word. "What?"
"That is where I recognize your pistol from," she explained. "An inn on the way into London. The innkeeper showed it to me. He said that he had gotten it off of a fellow who had gambled all of his money away to another patron at the inn and had tried to sneak out on his bill. That pistol looked just like yours. In fact it had initials on it," she recalled, and frowned as she tried to recall what those initials had been.
"R.N."
"Aye," Charlie murmured uncertainly. Radcliffe had told her that Norwich's name was George, after the king.
"The R is for Robert. My brother," he explained. "Robert Norwich. They were his.
A matched set, you see. They passed on to me when he died and I kept them for sentimental reasons, which is why I did not simply hand over one of the guns to the innkeeper in lieu of payment, rather than risk the embarrassment of being caught fleeing in the night."
"You must have loved your brother deeply."
"Oh, good Lord, no, I loathed him," he laughed, then scowled at the gun in his hand. "I shall have to go back to that inn and fetch back the other one once I have Radcliffe's money."
Charlie shook her head slightly in bewilderment. "Why? You have just said that you loathed your brother. Why would you want his pistols? And how can you have a sentimental attachment to them if you disliked him so?"
"Because they are what I killed him with."
Chapter Twenty
Charlie stared at the man before her with honor. "You?"
"Killed him," Norwich repeated slowly as if for the benefit of a simpleton.
"Aye. With his own pistols. Can you imagine? It was the crowning moment of my life to date. I can still see the expression on his face as clearly as if he stood before me now." He peered off into space for a moment, savoring the image in his mind, then sighed. "All well, that is the trouble with life. Such pleasures are long awaited and sadly fleeting when they finally arrive."
Charlie shifted impatiently. "May we get back to the part about your killing your brother?"
"Oh, were we not finished with that conversation? I thought we were. What is it you wish to know?"
Charlie took a deep breath, trying to sort the questions barraging her mind. "I was told he was killed by bandits."
"Well, I could hardly go riding back to the house shouting I shot him, I shot my brother.' " He shrugged. "There had been a bandit working in the area; he made an easy target for laying the blame."
She hesitated. This was the question she found hardest to ask, even though she knew what the answer must be. "And his wife? Radcliffe's sister?"
"Ahhh. Mary. Sweet Mary. Aye, I killed her too."
"How could you?"
He held up the pistol in his hand. "A matched set, remember? Two pistols, two bullets, two dead"
"Nay, I mean, he was your own brother. And she..."
"Actually, he wasnot my brother." That brought her up short. "Not ?"