The Emperor's Conspiracy (3 page)

Lady Holliday put her hands over her face.

“Oh.” Charlotte waited for her to compose herself. “My lady, should you require it, my and Lady Howe’s home is always open to you. I know I can speak for my guardian when I say we would both be delighted to have your company, should you ever choose to take pity on two quiet spinsters.”

The laugh Lady Holliday choked out was too high. “I know who is taking pity on whom in this situation, Miss Raven, and it’s not me on you.”

“Let’s leave pity out of it, then,” Charlotte said. “Let’s rather call it a mutual delight. For I do not have many people I can talk with who know the true story of how I came to be
Lady Howe’s ward, and I would very much enjoy the pleasure of your company and conversation. Whether you would like to take me up on my invitation to stay or not.”

“Let’s rather stay with Miss Raven, Mama,” James said earnestly, his seven-year-old face serious and tight with worry. “If Uncle Edward doesn’t like Daddy, I don’t like him.”

“Hush, angel.” Lady Holliday reached across the carriage and rested her hands on his knees. “Uncle Edward loves you, and he loves me, and we will deal splendidly together. Daddy and Uncle Edward are grown men, and they can handle their differences without us having to worry about it.”

“Are you sure he loves us?” Ned asked, a frown on his face. “And why do we have to stay with him, anyway?”

Charlotte could see Lady Holliday had reached the end of her rope on what must be the worst day of her life.

“Who could resist three lovely children like yourselves?” she asked them with a grin. She fished inside her reticule. “Now here in this little paper bag I have some peppermints. Who would like one?”

L
ord Durnham’s town house was in Mayfair, not far from Charlotte’s own home, and as the coach pulled up to his door, Charlotte turned to Emma Holliday and pressed her card into her hand.

“I am most sincere, my lady, in my invitation, and I truly live less than five minutes from here. Should you wish to take
up my offer, you need give me no warning. Come whenever you like.”

Lady Holliday gave a quick nod. “Could I impose again … that is … would you mind if I meet with my brother alone for a few minutes, keep the boys in the carriage with you while I explain …”

Charlotte nodded. Lord Durnham was obviously no fool if he despised Lord Holliday, and no doubt the situation was awkward between him and his sister because of it, but surely he would not deny her refuge in her hour of need?

“One last peppermint before you meet Uncle Edward?” she offered the three worried faces before her as Lady Holliday was helped from the carriage. “And perhaps a story?”

E
mma’s shoulders relaxed slightly as she heard her boys debating which story Charlotte Raven should tell them. While her world may be crumbling around her, it would have been much worse without Miss Raven’s generosity.

Night was falling in London, and the sky was burnished orange to the west. The lamplighters were out, lighting the streets, calling to each other in the balmy summer evening air.

She fought a deep inclination to run and instead pulled the bell, realizing Edward would most probably be getting ready to dine. There was no right time to break the kind of news she had, nor to throw herself on the mercy of a brother she had once shouted at to mind his own business.

She felt travel weary, bone tired, and heartsore. But for her
boys she would get down on her knees and beg, if that’s what Edward wanted.

“Good evening.” The door was opened by a butler Emma did not recognize.

“Good evening. Please inform Lord Durnham that his sister, Lady Holliday, is here to see him on an urgent matter.”

The butler stepped back quickly and motioned her in, his eyes going to the waiting coach. Like a discreet butler should, he asked no questions.

“This way, my lady. If you could wait in the withdrawing room, I will inform his lordship of your presence.”

Emma nodded her thanks and stood just inside the beautifully proportioned room she remembered well from her childhood. It had been redecorated in fresh blue and white, and she wondered how often her brother used it. She would wager never, but she didn’t gamble. Her husband did enough for the both of them.

“Em?”

She turned at the sound of his voice, and for a moment they stared at each other. He looked just the same, a few more lines around his eyes, perhaps. His hair was still wet from his bath, and he smelled of soap and home.

“Oh, Edward.” She flung herself at him and he caught her in surprise, pulling her back from his chest, his eyes searching her face.

“What is it, Em, what’s happened?”

But for the first time that day, Emma could not find the
strength within to calmly hold things together. She wrapped her arms tighter around her brother and sobbed.

“W
hy is Mama taking so long?” Harry asked, a decided whine to his voice.

“I’m not sure,” Charlotte answered. She had just finished telling a third story, and she wondered what on earth could be keeping Emma Holliday. Was her brother such a cad that she was having to beg and plead with him to let them stay?

“I need to find a chamber pot, Miss Raven,” Ned said, tugging at Charlotte’s skirts.

“Well, let’s go in search of one, shall we?” Charlotte knocked on the roof and Gary opened up for her.

“All right, miss?”

“I think we’ll see what’s taking so long.”

She accepted his hand of help, and he gave her a wink as she jumped lightly down. She grinned back.

The boys crowded around her as she rang the bell, and she could feel their little hands anchored firmly on her skirts.

The butler who opened up took one look at the boys, and her fine traveling cloak, and motioned her inside.

While she stood waiting for Emma Holliday to be called, Charlotte took in a staircase that swept, elegant and glossy as a woman’s coiffure, to the right. A beautiful crystal chandelier hung above it, throwing a warm light and tiny rainbows onto walls covered with seascapes.

The scent in the air was spicy—clean and sharp—as if
Emma’s brother had come straight from his bath to talk to her. Charlotte breathed it in, her eyes on the passageway down which the butler had disappeared.

There was the sound of a door opening, and Emma Holliday hurried forward, her face strained and her eyes red from crying.

The boys crowded closer to Charlotte in alarm, held her skirts tighter. They had perhaps never seen their mother cry before.

“Did Uncle Edward make you cry?” James asked, his voice clear and loud in the hush of the hallway.

Emma Holliday’s eyes flew up to Charlotte’s in dismay. “No. No, it was me just so happy to see him after so long. They were happy tears.” She smiled at her sons, an effort of will that made her lips tremble. Even a young child could see there was no happiness involved.

“Is this the boys’ governess?” A deep voice spoke from behind Emma, and Charlotte started, amazed she had not heard him approach, or seen him before now. Lord Durnham would surely be difficult to miss. He loomed in the passageway, seeming to block it entirely.

Emma shook her head. “No, no. This is Miss Raven. She kindly gave the boys and me a lift here in her carriage. She has put herself to much trouble on our behalf.” Emma stepped closer to her sons, and the boys went to her, Harry grabbing on, while Ned and James stood close by, furtively watching the uncle they had never met.

Charlotte raised her own eyes and met Lord Durnham’s
gaze. His brows were straight and dark, his eyes the same warm hazel as his sister’s and her children. The rest of his face was in shadow.

She had not been introduced. She knew his title and that his name was Edward, but she could not call him that. He stared at her, hostile and suspicious, and she could not help it. She gave him a cheeky grin, straight from the streets. “Good evening, Lord Durnham. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

He blinked.

Dismissing him, enjoying that he was acting badly and would always now have the disadvantage with her, Charlotte turned to Emma. “Do you need to avail yourself of my invitation, or shall we have your trunks unloaded?”

“Of course, you will want to be off home. I know I have delayed you, and I am sorry for it.” Emma’s expression was stricken, her eyes overlarge on her face.

“It was no imposition, Lady Holliday, but I would like to be home if you no longer need me.”

Her brother said nothing, glowering in his shadows like the prince-turned-beast of a fairy tale. The boys were too scared to look at him directly.

“I …” Emma Holliday looked from her brother’s forbidding form to Charlotte, and Charlotte knew, standing in the light of the hallway in her soft blue cloak, she looked the more attractive option.

“Let us go with Miss Raven, Mother.” James spoke with a tremble in his voice. “She says we would be most welcome.”

“Am I to understand you are considering where to stay?”
Emma’s brother stepped, at last, into the full light of his hallway. His voice was incredulous.

It was Charlotte’s turn to blink, but she was pleased to see his focus was entirely on his sister and missed her reaction. He had what would probably be called classical features. Straight nose, beautiful mouth, high cheekbones and forehead. And he was athletic. She felt the skin on her neck and chest heat.

Very athletic.

In the rookeries they’d call him
all the way there
. She’d never appreciated a slang phrase as much as she did at that moment.

Why she’d pictured him as gouty and corpulent she could no longer remember.

“I was unsure of my, our wel—” Emma cut herself off, her gaze going to her boys.

“For pity’s sake.” He cast a hard glare at Charlotte. “You will stay here.”

His voice, sharp, commanding, seemed to snap something in his sister. She drew herself up, far more fierce and angry than Charlotte had seen her all day. “We will not.” She took hold of Harry’s hand. “We will be just around the corner from you, Edward. You can come and visit us, with Miss Raven’s permission of course—” Emma looked at her for guidance, and Charlotte smiled sweetly, although her heart was thumping in her chest.

“But of course your brother would be most welcome, any time.” She felt an urge to wet her lips, and pressed them together instead. She always reacted like this in the face of an
angry male. Ready to run. Only this time she was unsure of the direction she would head. Away … or toward?

“Then let us be off. It has been a long, tiring trip, and Lady Howe will no doubt be anxious about you.”

Charlotte did not point out that Lady Howe did not expect her return for another two days. She merely murmured something indecipherable, and held out a hand for Ned to take.

“Em.” Lord Durnham watched as his sister ushered her children out the door in front of her with disbelief. “I don’t understand …”

He caught Charlotte’s eye as she waited for Ned to go through first, and Charlotte stared straight back. “I’m sure you will, if you think about it enough,” she murmured.

Then she closed Lord Durnham’s front door in his face.

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