Night Storm (21 page)

Charlotte’s face was so chilled, she couldn’t be sure if her expression indicated outrage or constipation. She hoped the former. “You presume I’m up to nefarious purposes. Why?”

“Because I know you.” Confidence laced his words. “Secretiveness is not in your nature. You’ve been an open book from the first day I met you.”

“Life has a way of closing the book, page by page. The naïve young woman you used to know disappeared chapters ago.”

His gaze traveled over her features with a thoroughness that left her breathless. A gaze that seemed to say, “No, she’s still on the page. Tattered and dinged, but still there.”

Emotion clutched at her throat, preventing her from swallowing, wailing, or throwing curses. His ability to read what lay just below the surface frightened her far more than his near kiss. A deep ache of vulnerability settled around her heart, and squeezed.

He brushed a gloved finger over her cheek. “Allow me to go to Winthrop’s in your stead.”

Startled, she glanced up. “Pardon?”

“I would like to hear what the coroner has to say as well, and it’s too dangerous for you to be involved any further.”

The wintry breeze finally managed to penetrate her flesh and bone. Surely he did not say what she thought he said. How could he know about her appointment with Joseph Blackburne? Instead of sorting it out, she ignored the problem. Blowing warm air between her palms, she murmured, “I must go.”

Cameron grabbed her hand and towed her to the edge of the pavement.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting you out of the cold.” He lifted his arm, signaling to a driver down the street. Within seconds, he bundled her inside a hansom cab, barked out Lord Winthrop’s address, and wrapped his arms around her. One hand held her tight, while the other rubbed warmth back into her suddenly trembling limbs. Normally, she would balk at such manhandling, but the temperature had dropped significantly, and she would rather be here than out there.

She allowed herself to enjoy his attentions for a little while before pulling away. “Thank you,” she said. “Do not think that I have agreed to your suggestion.”

“I wouldn’t be so naïve as to believe you would listen to my good counsel.” His voice grew more serious. “Please reconsider what you’re about to do. Right now, the most the killer would know about you is that you were one of the first to come across the corpse. If you venture any deeper into this mess, he’ll consider you a threat.”

His warning did its job, sending a spike of fear straight into her midsection. The last thing she wanted to do was attract the murderer’s notice, but what Cameron didn’t know was that she had already plunged deep into the quagmire when she had slipped the red tie into her reticule.

“I appreciate your concern, Cameron. I do. But I’m not missing this opportunity to work with Mr. Blackburne.” She hoped she had infused the right amount of professional determination into her response to ward him off the scent. If nothing else, Cameron understood ambition.

“So you’re placing yourself in danger in order to expand your knowledge. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Yes, I’m expanding my knowledge and appeasing my curiosity at the same time. I think perhaps you’re exaggerating the level of danger. The killer would have to be following me or monitoring Winthrop’s home. Even then, the murderer would not know what I was doing inside.”

“Unless he got hold of one of Winthrop’s servants.”

Charlotte pushed the unpleasant thought away. “An unlikely occurrence. How did you know I was going to meet the coroner?”

“You’re not the only one who has friends in this city.”

She gave him a cross look, then turned to focus on the passing scenery, saying nothing as the carriage bumped along. His hard, muscular thigh pressed against hers as he readjusted his position.
Move away.
She wasn’t sure if her mental command was for him or her. It mattered little in the end, because neither of them listened.

Every bit of her awareness shifted to the narrow, elongated area where their bodies touched. One would think they sat flesh to flesh for all the havoc his nearness wreaked on her nerves. She wanted him to move, but mourned the thought of losing his heat and their ephemeral truce.

“I went by Blackburne’s office to see if he’d returned before coming to find you,” Cameron said. “When I inquired about attending the examination, he mentioned the chamber would already be overcrowded and denied my request. I prodded enough to learn he was doing a favor for an old friend. At my initial meeting with Riordan, he commented about your friendship with the coroner. The leap was not that great a distance from there.”

So she had herself to thank for her present situation. Brilliant. As far as she could see, she had two options. One, spend the rest of the evening keeping Cameron at a distance, making them both tense and miserable. Or, two, resign herself to the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere for a while and relax to the extent her inconvenient longing would allow. Besides, depending on what the coroner found—or didn’t find—she might have to tap into his keen mind.

“Tell me, Charley,” he said, interrupting her musings. “Would you have shared any part of your adventure with me tonight had I not figured it out?”

She pretended to consider his question, though she already knew the answer. Right or wrong, she simply wasn’t ready to hand over her trust—not at any level. Because the moment she did, she would begin to forgive him, and that kind of wrong-thinking would lead her down a very dangerous path.

A long exhalation of breath sounded next to her. “I suppose your silence is answer enough.”

“Until you’ve cleared Felix of any wrongdoing, I’m uncomfortable sharing information with you.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might want to question him so that I can remove him from the list, once and for all?”

“No, never.” She angled her head to look at him. “From the beginning, you’ve made it clear that you think Felix might be hiding something.”

“I also said there’s a good possibility he doesn’t realize he saw something of import. With a few coaxing questions, I’ll know one way or the other.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“A fair amount of practice.”

Dear God, Charlotte didn’t know what to believe or think about Cameron questioning Felix. However, if there was any chance at all of proving Felix’s innocence, she would take it. “I suppose we’ll be able to test your powers of deduction tomorrow—after you receive Mrs. Scott’s permission. She’s rather protective of her children, but I don’t think she will forbid the interview.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

He lapsed into silence, and Charlotte sensed her lack of trust scraped at his pride. Or perhaps enough of the old Cameron still survived and he was hurting instead. She hoped it was the latter. All her life, she had tiptoed around the fragile male pride. Learning she had hurt him by word or action would disturb her far more than she would like to admit.

Because no matter how much she tried to deny it, she still loved him. God help her.

Chapter Nine

Adair wondered what it would take to earn back Charley’s trust. He couldn’t change the past any more than she could. In her innocence, Charley thought her sojourn to Scotland had been all about seizing a rare opportunity to apprentice under a distinguished healer. What she hadn’t known was the meeting her father had had with him the month before.

The son of a dockhand and a maid hadn’t been good enough for an apothecary-surgeon’s daughter. When Charley had enthusiastically announced her plans to him, only he had understood the lengths in which her father would go in order to remove his daughter from his poor influence.

Worst of all, Adair had silently begged for Charley to see through her father’s manipulation. But she hadn’t, and he hadn’t been able to enlighten her. She had accepted her parents’ wishes with only a naïve belief he would, or rather, could follow her.

When it was all said and done, had she ever wondered what he would do all those years without her? How he would yearn to walk with her to the market, ache to hear her voice, hunger to feel the warm press of her lips against his?

He’d gone away that day hurt and filled with an undisciplined rage. A rage that still simmered beneath the surface to this day, driving him, focusing him, eating at him.

Without looking at Charley, he asked, “Won’t you at least explain to me what you hope to learn from the medical examination?”

A long silence followed, then finally, she said, “In the passageway, I noticed bruising around her ladyship’s neck.”

“Made by a man’s hands?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. The line of discoloration was much too narrow and appeared to be a single ring.”

Charley had an eye for detail. Most people who happened upon a dead body would not pause long enough to notice the bruising at all, let alone if the marks left on the victim’s neck were consistent with strangulation. But Charley’s healer’s eye missed nothing.

“Did you notice anything else unusual?”

Adair could not stop himself from taking in the delicate lines of her face, the slender plane of her throat, the uneven rise of her bosom.

He had thought her lovely five years ago. Now, he would not dare use such a bland term to describe what he saw. Tragedy and responsibility had matured her, molded her into a beautiful, self-possessed woman.

His woman
.

Adair swirled the possessive words around his tongue, feeling them, memorizing them before swallowing them back into the darkness of his heart. No matter how badly he might wish to reconcile with Charley, his life had become far too dangerous to share it with the likes of her.

He must content himself with rekindling their former friendship—if she would have him.

“I wouldn’t call it unusual,” she said. “More like curious.”

“How so?”

“Mr. Riordan informed you about the laceration to her left cheek?”

He nodded.

“Why mar her?”

“Pardon?”

“Why would Lady Winthrop’s assailant damage her countenance after inflicting a mortal wound to the abdomen? It makes no sense.”

“You’re certain he slashed her after and not before?”

She stared off to the side, considering. Her gaze flicked to his. “No, I don’t know that for certain.”

“Obviously, you’ve been giving this a great deal of thought since Monday. Let’s assume you are correct. Any theories?”

She immediately nodded, then stopped herself. “I fear my thoughts conveyed aloud won’t sound nearly as logical as they do streaming through my head.”

“What if putting voice to your thoughts—even if they’re not fully formed—could spark new possibilities? I’d like to hear what’s running around that brilliant mind.”

She made a snorting sound and murmured what sounded like, “Not brilliant enough.” He wondered what she meant by that, but her next comment put paid to his pondering.

“The laceration to the baroness’s face seems more personal than desperate. I don’t know why exactly, but the act leaves me with a feeling that the murderer not only wanted to kill her, but also to mark her.” She glanced at him as if embarrassed by her assessment.

“You don’t credit Lord Winthrop’s belief she was killed by an opportunistic footpad?”

“I confess, I know little about the workings of a footpad’s mind—or a murderer’s, for that matter. But people are relieved of their valuables every day without being killed.” She grimaced. “Then again, there are exceptions to every situation, aren’t there? Take my patient from the other night. He was nearly killed for the winnings he carried.”

“Did he put up a fight?”

“Possibly. I got the impression it was a fair sum of money.”

“Many men carry some type of weaponry on them. I wouldn’t be surprised if your patient tried to defend himself, or went on the offensive, and lost the battle.”

Her eyes glinted with interest. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a weapon on your person?” Her gaze swept over his body, pausing at various locations as if to look for a revealing bulge.

Desire stirred low in his gut. If she kept searching his body in that way, she would find a bulge of a different sort. “Yes,” he said in a low voice. “I carry two pieces on me at all times. Sometimes three.” He widened his legs and set his palms flat against the cushioned squabs. “Care to guess where?”

Startled, she jerked her gaze away, then flashed him a reproachful look. “Forget I asked.”

Later, when he lay naked in his bed, aching for her touch, he would pay for that bit of mischief. But right now, a slow smile spread across his face. “We can discuss my armaments later. For the moment, I want to return to the baroness—and your belief that she was killed by someone she knew.”

“I said no such thing.”

“Didn’t you? How could someone inflict a personal wound if that individual didn’t know his intended victim?”

Using her thumb, she rubbed the knuckle of her other thumb, over and over. “Do you think I’m being overly dramatic?” she asked.

Adair considered all that she had said, trying to picture exactly what Charley had seen in the passageway. Feel what she’d felt. He concentrated hard, but failed to attach the same emotion to the injury.

“No,” he said carefully. “I have always trusted your instincts. But I’m at a disadvantage having viewed the murder scene after the corpse was removed. Plus, I haven’t seen the baroness’s injuries firsthand.”

“Normally, I’m dealing with living, breathing individuals who can describe their aches and pains. I’ve never examined a corpse before. It could be that I’m making too much out of nothing.”

“Or you could have noticed an important detail that will lead us to the killer.”

And that was when he saw what he had been waiting for. The edges around her expressive eyes softened just enough to form a slight crinkle at the corners. A slow blink later, it was gone.

As a cautionary measure, Charley had agreed to meet Joseph Blackburne at a small park a quarter mile away from Winthrop’s home, and she redirected the hackney driver to let them out there. Five minutes later the coroner arrived in a carriage.