Page 49

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

—Thomas Grey, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“ T ake her upstairs!” Charity’s housekeeper told Peregrine, rattling orders to nearly everyone who dared to gawk. Her household staff scattered in a flurry of activity, rushing to get water and linens, a sewing kit, and everything else she asked for.

In his arms, Charity regained her senses with a jolt before he had barely crossed the threshold. “I am all right,” she said, clutching around his neck. “I was just dizzy with relief for a moment. Oh goodness. Perry, you should put me down.”

He tightened his grip, balancing her in his arms as she struggled away. Her voice sounded faint and exhausted. “I absolutely should not,” he informed her.

“But I am ruining your clothes,” she protested, and Ravenscroft snorted.

“Poetic justice if there ever was any,” the magpie muttered .

Perry slanted Ravenscroft a minatory look as he passed by. “You could grind half the coal in London into my coat and I would not care,” he told her. As long as I don’t have to put you down.

As he moved from the doorway towards the stair, it seemed like everyone had found a reason to push into the entrance hall to get a glimpse of Charity—even if only for a moment.

It was as though her household wanted to reassure themselves of their mistress’s well-being.

He couldn’t begrudge them. Despite how brief her marriage had been to the duke, the Atholl servants had clearly taken Charity to their bosom.

“Did you flee from a coal mine?” Prinny’s wit asked their backs next.

“Perhaps I look like I have climbed out of a coal chute,” she blurted out, and then she put a hand to her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she tried to keep slightly hysterical laughter buttoned down.

“For God’s sake, Maggie. Do you have to be like this now?

” Peregrine said testily as Charity flushed with dismay that others were seeing her like this.

Pointedly ignoring the older man, he strode up the stairs.

“Nobody cares how you look, Charity. I’m just—” the words stuck in his throat.

“We’re all just happy you are still alive. ”

“Get me upstairs, please, Perry,” she whispered, no longer fighting to get down.

She was in a dreadful state, white as paper beneath the black marks on her skin. “Easy, Sparkles,” he whispered to her, touching his temple to her forehead. “I’ve got you.”

He carried her straight into the bedchamber, the maids and housekeeper hurrying in behind.

Charity clung to his coat as he set her down on the edge of the bed, and he lifted her hands in his, seeing the scrapes on the pads of her fingers and the dirt beneath her nails.

That, and the rips on the knees and bodice of her skirt suddenly made her comment sound anything like a jest.

“You really did climb out of a coal chute,” he breathed. She must have been both desperate and terrified.

“Yes. Selina—” her voice broke. “Selina helped me get out.”

Ice slipped down his spine. Since Charity had returned alone, he had been afraid to consider what that meant for Lady Normanby. “Then you saw the marchioness? She was with you? Where is she now?”

Charity swallowed several times, her eyes welling with tears, and her chin dropped to her chest. “S-she’s still there, in the house in Kensington.

The shaft was too high for someone to climb without help.

” Wet trails began to form on her cheeks, then.

“She told me we’d both go. But she knew that would be a lie.

She told me to leave without trying to help her.

So I could let you know…” Her words faltered again.

“I am sorry. I know you are here to help Her Grace, but we need a moment.” Peregrine turned to the fluttering women, pointing them firmly towards Charity’s sitting room. “For now, you can guard her reputation from there.”

Then without paying the servants any more attention as they filed out, he dropped to a knee in front of her, forcing her to look at him as he examined and kissed the battered tips of her fingers.

“This isn’t your fault, Charity. The marchioness would reckon the need correctly.

I need you to go back. Tell me everything that happened once you left the Palace. ”

“General Billingham gave us both over.”

He nodded, since they had found that part out—too late.

“After I got into his carriage, a man in a hooded cloak entered a few blocks away from Whitehall. He forced me to drink laudanum so I could not see where we were going.”

He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. “Did he harm you? You can tell me. Please tell me if we need to call a physician, Charity, because when I found torn seats and blood in the carriage, I thought I would go mad.”

“No—he did not hurt me. Or her. Not that man,” she said, bitterly. “ He was a perfect gentleman compared to Bellrose . ”

She was shaken, and Peregrine struggled to put the pieces in order. He reached for her sprained left foot, relieved when she did not flinch from him. Caressing her calves, he began to unlace one boot, and then the other. “A man with a hooded cloak, you said. With dark hair? Was his cloak brown?”

When Charity nodded, Peregrine cursed. He was certain their attacker had held them alive just to lure him into a trap. “I will destroy Chandros and his lackey for what was done to the both of you.”

She clutched at his hands. “You know it’s Chandros? That is why Selina wanted to make sure I got away, so I could tell you that Goldbourne isn’t working alone?—”

“I know,” Peregrine interrupted her gently. “We found Goldbourne dead, hidden inside the bank. I am guessing that was also the work of the hooded man. And when the carriage was found empty, we went looking for Billingham. But—who is Bellrose?”

“Godfrey Bellrose. He is a senior clerk from the treasury, Selina said.”

“The treasury! Bloody hell,” Peregrine swore as his mind put together the scattered pieces of his mother’s puzzle. Regretfully, he stood up, letting her hands go. “Charity, I need to talk to Ravenscroft.”

“Wait—what have you realised?”

“Goldbourne wasn’t creating a scandal with false banknotes, like we thought. He was likely counterfeiting exchequer bills, with help from someone working for the treasury itself.”

She blinked at him. “That’s… treason, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Because exchequer bills are government debt. Forging them is not merely theft, it is a political crime. It undermines the Crown’s credit and strikes the heart of the nation’s purse. That is why it is treason.”

“But—”

“I will come right back,” he told her, tucking some of her loose hair behind her ear. “Ravenscroft is only just downstairs. I have to tell him about the treasury. Also, your servants are likely to kill me if I don’t let them assist you out of these clothes.”

“Then I need to do this first,” she said, struggling to her feet. He caught her around the waist as she slid off the bed, and she balanced herself, resting her palms on his forearms.

Peregrine looked down at her. “What?—?”

And she surged upwards on her toes, just far enough to kiss him. It was like the touch of a butterfly wing. Unexpectedly soft. Sweet, chaste, and far too brief, knowing that the door stood open and others were nearby.

He wanted to return it. To crush her to him, banish the servants, and ignore the demands and boundaries that kept blocking the way.

But instead, he stared like an idiot, drinking in her face and thinking that he would give nearly anything to have her look at him like this every day.

To be able to wake up to her eyes, and her smile, and that unexpected bliss that had somehow snuck into the hardened, broken places of his spirit and taken root.

It was hard to make himself take his hands from her waist. But this was too important to ignore.

If they knew the list of bonds that had been duplicated, and the list of their victims, they had a chance of stopping the culmination of his mother’s plan: to shake the Bank of England and throw the country into disarray before the talks in Vienna.

This scheme served his mother’s need for vengeance, to be sure.

But with the leaders of the world about to arrive on England’s doorstep, Peregrine had a niggling thought that this might be the very clue that could point the way to where on earth his mother might be hiding with Lark.

After they dealt with this, he would have to suggest they examine the invited guest list for who stood to benefit from causing such chaos—and would want to be present to witness it.

Her sad smile turned a little wry when he didn’t move. “Ravenscroft? The treasury?”

Oh. Right.

“I missed you so terribly,” he whispered. And then because he was an ass, and it was agony to be given hope for a future he never dared to imagine, to be so exposed and raw, he added, “And I will miss you again when I am busy talking to Ravenscroft.”

She chuckled, her eyes damp at the corners. “I will be here, waiting.”

He could hear the servants filling a tub in the dressing room, so it might be longer than he hoped. “I’ll be back—well, as soon as they let me. And then we will figure out what to do next.” He peeled his hands away and forced himself to turn on his heel.

Miller, Charity’s lady’s maid, gave his mouth a keen, knowing look as she passed him in the doorway on the way to help Charity out of her ruined clothes. But her eyes were faintly approving rather than censuring.