* * * *
Charlotte hurried back to her room. She closed the door behind her and leaned against the wood, trying to recover from the shock of seeing Reilly so battered. She would find no more answers than the grim, mute testimony of Cheadle’s abuse apparent against Reilly’s form, and Charlotte no longer had the heart to demand them of him.
“That bastard,” Charlotte whispered, Cheadle’s face foremost in her mind, the wicked gleam in his eyes, and that twisted, triumphant smile hooking his mouth. Her brows furrowed at the recall, and her hands curled into fists. “That bloody bastard.”
She knew a place where she could yet find answers, where she might discover what power Cheadle wielded over Reilly and what threat he had needed to beat against Reilly’s torso to impart in full.
“Kenley,” she breathed, and she darted for her wardrobe, jerking the doors open. She grabbed her old breeches and a rumpled shirt and hurriedly set about changing from her nightclothes.
Whatever Cheadle had threatened to frame them with had been enough to send Reilly, despite his injuries, to Kenley that morning. It had been enough to frighten Kenley into doing as Reilly told him—breaking his engagement to Charlotte. Kenley knew what was going on, and he would tell her.
She drew her pocket pistol from her writing table drawer. “He will tell me, by my breath,” she whispered. She returned to her wardrobe, reaching for her riding habit coat. Her hand settled against a heavy woolen sleeve, and to her momentary surprise, she inadvertently pulled out the black greatcoat given to her during her robbery.
She stared at the coat for a moment and gasped in realization. The Black Trio! she thought. She remembered the note she had found in Cheadle’s book, the gazette clipping about the highwaymen. Suitable for our needs? someone had written in the margin, and all at once, the words made a stunning, new sense to her.
“Of course,” she whispered. Cheadle meant to frame Reilly, Kenley, and Lewis for the Black Trio robberies. The three young men had only been back in Essex County for the last six months, the same timeframe as the robberies. James had probably been fully aware of Charlotte’s homecoming to Epping, and her mother’s intentions to see her married to him; knowing Lady Epping, Charlotte did not doubt that the arrangement of their wedding had been discussed with James and set in full months before her arrival.
James would have known Charlotte would consent to marrying him with all of the eager willingness of a hog taking to the minuet. She did not put it beyond his capacities for one moment that he would have made any arrangements he had deemed necessary to insure her compliance.
She thought of the note again: Suitable for our needs?
and the furrow cleaving between her brows deepened. The bastard had set in his mind from the first to blame Reilly and his friends for the robberies. Kenley’s attraction to Charlotte had been unanticipated, but countered by the same ploy. James knew fully well that Charlotte adored her brother and threatening Reilly must have seemed a sure measure to keep her cooperative with his plans.
“Bloody bastard,” she said, shrugging her way into the greatcoat. She shoved her pistol into the hip pocket. The Black Trio. No wonder Reilly and Kenley had been so intimidated, so terrified. Cheadle had spoken truly; highway robbery was a hanging offense, and because the Trio’s crimes had occurred on the King’s highways, they would prove offenses punishable by execution at the most infamous of England’s gallows—the Tyburn tree of London.
Charlotte had her suspicions; her inquisitive mind had set itself to the task and formulated a seemingly viable scenario. “Now all that remains is to prove it,” she muttered, heading for her door.
There was only one place where she could hope to do so, and she knew it. She had to pay an unannounced call to Theydon Hall.