allowed Mr Shaw to hurry her out of the room before Miranda had even fully taken in that they were going.
No doubt she soon forgot about them, considering the Earl of Carnwood rushed up the stairs and into her ladyship’s sitting room, without even seeing them, as far as Charlotte could tell. She sighed audibly, then ordered herself back to battle order as Mr Shaw met her unguarded look with a rueful acknowledgement that, yes, it was a very unusual marriage, and yet a very desirable one, even in his cynical view. Their eyes stayed locked as if they were united in longing for the forbidden for once, but she made herself look away and told herself she was imagining it. Somehow it made him seem oddly vulnerable to want such an impossibility, especially when they were both too chastened by life to believe it could exist, either separately or, heady, forbidden thought, together.
‘There’s no need to fret about his lordship’s health from the speed of his run upstairs,’ Mr Shaw remarked ruefully.
‘Yet he was carrying his arm rather awkwardly, don’t you think?’ she asked anxiously. She might not want to believe her employers were truly under threat, but there was no point fooling herself it didn’t exist after such a warning, and from such a source.
‘It would take more than a strained arm to keep him from his lady, but I dare say Coppice will know what’s been going on, he knows everything.’
‘So I long ago concluded,’ she agreed with rare amity and surprised him by accompanying him downstairs to satisfy her curiosity.
Somehow tonight had proved such an upheaval of her usual steady world that she couldn’t bring herself to poker up and retreat into stately solitude just yet. Ben Shaw’s presence at her side made her feel oddly safe anyway, a notion that could hardly be more dangerous, she chided herself, as they descended the elegant stairs at a far more reasonable pace than their owner had just run up them. Coppice was in the act of closing the door on the Earl of Carnwood’s travelling equipage and turned to face them with his usual calm omnipotence, yet for some reason Charlotte thought it concealed his true feelings on this occasion.
‘Your hat and cane, Mr Shaw?’ the butler asked blandly.
‘No, an explanation if you please,’ Ben demanded impatiently, ‘and don’t pretend you’ve no idea what I’m alluding to, you old fox.’
Coppice shook his head as if about to reproach a cheeky young boy and then one look at the giant, and very adult, figure seemed to remind him that Ben Shaw was a force to be reckoned with on any man’s terms. ‘I understand his lordship met with a slight accident,’ he finally admitted.
‘How and where?’ Ben snapped, evidently too preoccupied with worrying about his friend to modify his abrupt tone.
Coppice met Charlotte’s gaze with a shrug as if to say ‘ah well, boys will be boys’, ushered them into his pantry and shut the door against any listening ears. Awed by being admitted into his very private quarters, Charlotte allowed herself a quick look around this holy of holies and told herself she shouldn’t be surprised to see it was unusually comfortable, as well as rigidly tidy. The earl and countess took their servants’ comfort very seriously and she knew how well the governess was lodged, so of course they would see to the well-being of so crucial a person as Coppice.
‘Reuben informed me that his lordship was waylaid by thieves when riding about Miss Kate’s estate. He seems to think that, if he had not been following Lord Carnwood at a discreet distance, the day might have gone rather ill with his lordship. As it is, he had his hat shot off and took a blow to his right arm that would have kept anyone else from travelling for a sennight, or so Reuben seems to think, but his lordship insists we make light of the matter for her ladyship’s sake.’
‘And you think they were not common thieves?’ Mr Shaw asked.
‘Most unlikely from the sound of it,’ Coppice assured him, with a significant look at Charlotte she supposed she was not meant to see.
‘If her ladyship’s peace of mind is to be guarded, you might just as well tell me, because the more of us who are close to her know the truth, the better she’ll be protected,’ she informed them both with what she thought exemplary patience on her part.
‘Very well, ma’am,’ Coppice admitted rather stiffly, as if she was at least twice her actual age, Charlotte decided very impatiently.
‘So who were they really?’ she demanded.
‘I have no idea, madam, but Reuben said they wore silk masks and appeared very prosperous for common thieves, as well as carrying the very latest in firearms. When they were turned over to the local magistrate they refused to say anything, preferring to take their punishment rather than betray even their names, which you must admit, sir, is highly suspicious.’
Ben nodded sagely and they exchanged manly looks as Charlotte was torn between fuming at Coppice, for addressing only what he obviously considered the important part of his audience, and terror for her friends. Added to the letter Miranda had received, it seemed something deeply sinister was coming to a head, and who knew what hurt might befall those she’d come to love in the process? When she had time and privacy, she might take herself to task for letting herself care for her employers so much, but now there were more important considerations than icy self-sufficiency.
‘I wonder just what the magistrate made of that,’ Ben mused.
‘Not a great deal, sir, he sentenced them to be transported for life.’
‘And they still said nothing?’
‘Yes, sir—quite significant, don’t you think?’
‘Indeed, most criminals would name their own grandmother an accessory to avoid such a sentence.’
Charlotte thought of Celia Braxton’s letter, where she too refused to name the man who was threatening the Earl and his family as well as Ben Shaw and shivered. An implacable will lay behind such a depth of fear, and she wondered what he had done in the past to make his tools prefer the penal colony at Botany Bay to his vengeance. He was obviously more than just another common criminal, and tracking such a Machiavellian mind to his lair would be a task fit for Hercules himself. Her gaze turned inevitably to the giant at her side and she became even more thoughtful. If there was a man capable of the quest, it was surely Mr Benedict Shaw and she thought him capable of being every bit as subtle and unrelenting as his quarry, in the pursuit of those out to harm the man he considered a brother. For some reason that notion warmed rather than chilled her as it should have done. Such single-minded pursuit of his enemy should have made her shudder with revulsion, instead of feeling his protection was cast about her as well as her friends. Something else she must chide herself over later, along with the chill that dissipated that warmth as soon as it occurred to her that he would be in acute danger while pursuing a seemingly invisible, untouchable enemy.
‘Her ladyship will soon have the story out of him,’ she insisted in the face of two sceptical males.
‘All the more reason for Miranda to be away from here and safe at Wychwood,’ Ben Shaw said grimly and for once Charlotte agreed with him wholeheartedly.
Indeed she could think of no better scheme than them all returning to Derbyshire post haste and staying there for the foreseeable future. Then the unpalatable truth of such a hasty withdrawal occurred to her.
‘The gossips will say Kate has committed some grand misdemeanour and had to be taken home,’ she warned.
‘Which is why she will have to stay here, with
