Page 38 of A Lady’s Dangerous Secret (Scandalous Secrets #1)

James knelt next to the chair where she sat and clasped her hands.

“Tell me.”

Charlotte was torn between being angry at him, and her heart melting at his concern.

“You must know the identity of those strange men outside.”

He shrugged his shoulders just as he had done the day before.

She stood abruptly.

“Your arm!”

“I don’t give a fig about my arm right now. You know who those men are, and you aren’t telling me.”

James slowly rose to his feet so that he towered over Charlotte. He looked down his nose at her. How she did not guess that he had noble blood coursing through his veins was beyond her. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Charlotte tipped up her chin. “It’s not up to you to determine what I should concern myself with. You can’t make these decisions for me.” Charlotte poked his chest with her finger.

“You’re still healing.”

“I’m improving. What do you think the stress of not knowing what’s going on is doing to my healing?” Charlotte retorted.

James crossed his arms and glared down at her. Charlotte lifted her chin even higher.

“The truth is much worse.”

“You infuriating man. If you truly want to marry me, there can’t be secrets. I will not wed someone who is not honest with me.” Charlotte sat with a huff while guarding her left arm.

The muscle in James’s clenched jaw pulsated. “You’re not going to marry me, because I’m trying to protect you?”

Charlotte shot to her feet again and neglected to take care of her arm. “Ouch!”

James immediately moved toward her with his arms outstretched.

“Don’t touch me. You just admitted that you’re withholding information from me.”

James ran his hand through his hair and took a step backward. He let out a prolonged sigh. “Please sit down, Lottie.”

Charlotte eyed him warily but gingerly returned to her seat. Her arm throbbed. James positioned himself on the edge of the adjacent settee. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and clasped his hands. “God, you’re a stubborn woman.”

“You’re just noticing that now?”

James chuckled and shook his head. “Not at all. I love your passion, in all forms.” His eyes raked over her body and lingered at her chest.

“James!” Charlotte’s cheeks flushed. She scanned the room and made note of Bailey, who dutifully sat in the farthest corner immersed in her sewing. She must have slipped in while Charlotte’s mind was consumed with the man before her.

James’s face became somber. He leaned back and tried to make himself comfortable.

Whether it was the information he was going to impart or his military training, James did not look one bit relaxed.

Charlotte fiddled with her fingers while she waited for him to begin.

Before he started, he glanced at Bailey, then asked, “Perhaps you would like some tea?”

He made a good point. “Bailey, fetch us tea and biscuits. You can leave the door cracked open for propriety.”

“Yes, milady.” Bailey curtseyed. Charlotte could see her lady’s maid bite her cheek so as not to respond with a quip. It was always an effort on both their parts to maintain the strict roles of mistress and servant that Society made them play.

“As you are aware, the Bow Street Runners and my father’s solicitors are looking for irrefutable proof of my parents’ marriage. In addition, the Runners are trying to determine who Roberts and those hired killers worked for.” James paused.

“And?” Charlotte inched to the edge of her seat anxiously.

“They found paperwork hidden by Roberts. It seems he would hide one or two pieces of information in various locations with the hope of making it more difficult to discover all the pieces. The Runners searched his office and his private quarters, took apart furniture, and looked behind walls and under floorboards. They found pieces of hidden evidence. Who knows what else is hidden elsewhere. From what they have found thus far, it confirms that he had a long history of criminal dealings. It’s shocking no one discovered this until now. ”

“What is it?” Charlotte champed at the bit.

“I’m getting there. On one of the discovered papers, the Runners found a flame stamped on the paper without a signature.

When the magistrate looked over the body of the man who tried to kill you at the Rowley Ball, he found a small flame tattoo on his wrist. At the time, I thought nothing of it.

Once the Runners discovered the symbol on the paper, I had them show it to the magistrate, and he agreed it was identical to the man’s tattoo.

Apparently, the Runners have been tracking this flame symbol for years because it’s been associated with many criminal activities, including during the war with Napoleon. They think it represents le Diable .

“The devil?”

“Yes, the King of France’s underworld.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened.

“Can you see why I was waiting to tell you about this? Le Diable is the reason I have men stationed around the house, watching you constantly.”

Charlotte nodded in disbelief while panic spread through her body. She finally found her voice again. “What else do you know?”

“Not as much as I’d like.” James’s eyes darkened. “I did learn le Diable was busy during the war. Les flammes were found in any country Napoleon touched and in England as well.”

“The flames?”

“His followers are les flammes, and they are part of his l’Enfer… his Inferno, hell, Hades. Whatever you call it, it’s le Diable ’ s diabolical following. I don’t know how long Roberts was involved with les flammes .”

Charlotte’s mind had been more at peace since she and James reconciled, and she had been cleared of murder when it was accepted it was self-defense.

Subsequently, memories of the Incident haunted her less.

But talk of such frightening matters transported Charlotte back to that fateful day in Roberts’s office.

Escape.

I need to escape.

Charlotte’s heart pounded in her chest. She scanned the room for keys. She knew the door was locked. Her eyes fell on the corpse sprawled on the floor. Blood crept through the linen of Roberts’s shirt from her bullet. Bile rose in her throat and Charlotte forced it down.

No time for hysteric s, she told herself while trying to think clearly. She would be discovered any moment if she did not escape quickly. She scanned the lifeless body. His gun lay next to his hand.

“Dammit,” Charlotte muttered. She had seen Roberts lock the door to his office, so the key must be nearby. Her eyes flitted around the room once more for what felt like minutes but was only mere seconds. She returned to the corpse and saw a bulge in his trousers.

She rushed to his lifeless body and fell to her knees.

Charlotte shoved her hand into the pocket of his trousers, and the coolness of metal struck her skin.

She yanked out a ring of keys and dashed to the door, fumbling with them until she found the correct one.

She ran out of the office and toward the rear exit, too panicked to check if anyone saw her escaping.

Charlotte spilled into the alleyway and sprinted until she reached the main thoroughfare.

She slowed down to a brisk walk, so as not to appear suspicious.

“Charlotte! Charlotte!”

Something tapped her right hand, and she was forced back into the present.

She took a gulp of air and was about to bolt from her chair when firm hands applied pressure to her right arm and left hip to keep her still.

Charlotte’s eyes blinked several times, and the familiar furnishings of her aunt’s drawing room came into focus.

Her heart still beat a staccato and sweat dripped down her corset.

A storm raged in James’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine…just fine,” she choked out, and tried to settle herself.

He released her body and ran a hand through his hair. Despite his new debonair appearance, some habits could not be squelched.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“No.” Charlotte paused and closed her eyes, controlling her breathing.

She concentrated on the pain in her arm to distract her from the memories.

Her eyes opened slowly, and she carefully continued, “I need to know. I’m not some cossetted miss.

I’m not a coward and will face my enemies.

” Charlotte tilted her chin up with bravado for which she fought, and locked eyes with James.

The storm did not thrash in his eyes as much, but it still simmered. “You were thinking of that day in Shrewsbury.”

Charlotte nodded.

“You need to tell me how to help you. I can’t just watch you suffer,” James said.

While Charlotte put her mind to rights, a question formed. “How did le Diable know that I was Mrs. Gibson?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps someone followed you that day. But now le Diable should also have me as a target, since I’ve been deemed responsible for the murder at the ball. I hope that will deflect his attentions from you.”

Charlotte furrowed her brow with worry. “James, I would never want you hurt.”

He grabbed her hands and ran his thumbs soothingly along the tops, despite the fiery look in his eyes. “I want him to come for me so that I can slit his throat and stomp on his cruel heart.”

“James!”

“No one hurts those I love.”

Charlotte worried her lip. “Do you think le Diable was responsible for your aunt’s death?”

He let out a long sigh. “The Runners haven’t found any evidence of when Roberts became une flamme .

I believe Roberts killed my aunt, thinking she was my mother, though it may have been on the order of my grandfather.

My father said my grandfather was a cruel man, and thinks he ordered Roberts to make my mother disappear by any means necessary in order for him to pave the way to marry Miss Waycott. ”

“Oh, how awful. How could your grandfather act so terribly?”

James shrugged his shoulders. “The marriage to Miss Waycott must have been of utmost importance to my grandfather. I asked my father, and he told me she was the daughter of a wealthy local baron who married a French aristocratic woman whose family had been displaced during the French Revolution. He suspected the baron’s family benefited from the wars with France through smuggling, but he never pried and turned a blind eye.

As I come to know my father, I’m realizing he prefers not to look for trouble. ”

James ran his hand through his hair. “I have a nagging suspicion that there is much more to the story.”