“Regret to inform you, ma’am, that there has been an… incident. A gent’lmun was found earlier this morning. His purse was missing, but he had a card case in his waistcoat pocket. That there card was inside it.”
“But… what happened? Is he hurt? Where have you taken…?”
“Sorry, ma’am.” The visitor grimaced, looking as if he wished very much to be elsewhere. “Regret to tell you, the gent’lmun is dead. Footpads, looks like. Caught him as he was…”
“Dead?” Somehow, Lucy was at Charlotte’s elbow, supporting her. “But how… are you sure? I cannot believe…”
The man shuffled his feet. “Somebody must come and identify him for sartain, ma’am. Mebbe a…?”
“I shall go!” interrupted Holcombe. He glared at Charlotte, at the watchman, at the other servants. No one argued with him. The watchman looked relieved.
They all stood in stunned silence as Holcombe ran for his coat and departed with the watch. Charlotte never remembered afterward how she got back up to the drawing room, only that she was sitting there when Lucy entered some indeterminate time later and said, “It’s him. He’s dead.”
Charlotte half rose. “Holcombe is…?”
“He’s back with the news. Right cut up, he is.” Lucy’s lip curled.
“Henry is dead?” She couldn’t help repeating it.
“Seems he is, Miss Charlotte. Happens more often than we had any notion, Holcombe says. Streets aren’t half safe, after dark. London!” Lucy knew that many people saw the city as thrilling, with every sort of goods and amusement on offer. She hated the filth and the noise—wheels clattering, people shouting at you to buy this or that from the moment you stepped into the street. Strangers shoving past if you walked too slow. She had discounted Holcombe’s horror stories, however. He enjoyed scaring the scullery maid out of the few wits she possessed with tales of hapless servants who wandered into the wrong part of town and never came out. Lucy had refused to show any fear just to irk him. Now it seemed he was right, after all.
Charlotte sank back onto the sofa. She hadn’t wanted this, not anything like this. She’d longed for change, but she’d never wished…
“Can I get you something? Tea? You haven’t eaten a crumb.”
“I couldn’t.”
“You have to eat.”
“Not now.”
Lucy bowed her head at the tension in her voice. “Shall I sit with you?”
“No. No, I’d like to be alone for a while.”
Lucy hesitated, then bobbed a curtsy and went out. Charlotte folded her hands tightly together, pressed her elbows to her sides. This wasn’t change; this was life violently turned upside down. This was the fabric of daily existence ripped right in two.
She hadn’t ever loved Henry. She had tried to like him, almost thought she did, before he made that impossible. In these last months, she hadn’t hated him, had she? No, she hadn’t gone that far. She had wished, over and over, that he had never entered her life. But she hadn’t wished him dead. Yesterday, at about this time, he had been haranguing her about his tea, and now he was removed from the face of the earth. How could this be?
Two
Sir Alexander Wylde rode into the stable yard behind his town house feeling, as usual, that a morning ride in London was the definition of constriction. Small landscapes, slow gaits, and the tedious interruption of acknowledging acquaintances who also chose to ride early. It was almost, almost, worse than no ride at all.
Leaving his horse with the groom, he entered through the back door. He had taken only two steps along the corridor when he heard a crash in the upper regions, followed by pounding footsteps and inarticulate cries, and then a thump, as if some largish piece of furniture had toppled over. Another man might have started in alarm or run toward the stairs, but Alec merely frowned and walked a little faster. His main emotion was disappointment; Lizzy had promised.
He had to climb two flights to discover the source of the uproar. On the way he passed a housemaid with an apron full of broken china; she avoided his gaze. Frances Cole stood outside Anne’s bedchamber wringing her hands.
The moment she saw him, she began to wail. “The creature is filthy and vicious. It is absolutely out of the question. This is too much, Alec! She has gone too far!” The latter phrase had become something of a refrain in the last few months, since Lizzy’s third governess had decamped. “I will not go in there,” Frances added half hysterically.