* * * *
Charlotte and Will waited in the corridor beyond the chamber while Reilly set to work on the earl. “Lord Essex cannot die,” Charlotte whispered, pacing back and forth. She turned to Will, her eyes filled with fear. “If he dies, then it will all still be just as James wanted. The others are dead—Camden, Julian, and Cheadle. There… Will, there is no one left who can say he was involved.”
“I know,” Will said quietly.
“If he dies, James will say that you killed him,” she whispered, stricken. She stopped in front of him, tears swimming in her eyes. “He will say the Black Trio murdered him, and he… he will see you hanged…”
Will drew her against him, holding her fiercely. He pressed his lips against her ear, kissing her through her tangled hair. “It will be all right,” he breathed to her. “I promise you, Charlotte. I promise you.”
She trembled against him, struggling not to weep. “I have to go back to Darton Hall,” she said, and he drew back in surprise, blinking at her.
“What?” he asked.
“Will,” she whispered, taking his face between his hands. “Please. I have to go back. We must act like nothing has happened, like everything is still as it was arranged. For now, James does not suspect anything is amiss. To his mind, everything is yet as he had planned it, and until we know if Lord Essex will survive… until we can think of something if he does not, we have to make sure James keeps thinking that way.”
“But you… that would mean you would marry him,” Will said, stricken. “He is a murderer, Charlotte. There are men dead at Beech Hill because of his word. We can go to your mother. We can tell her what has happened. We can summon the sheriff and show him what James has done.”
“Listen to me,” Charlotte said, stepping toward him. “There is no proof of it, any of it. It would be only our word against James’s, and you, Lewis, and Reilly are the ones with Lord Essex’s blood on your hands—the same three whom James claims he can prove are the Black Trio.”
“Charlotte…” Will said. “No. Please, no. There must be another way. I nearly lost you to a marriage with him, and nearly so again tonight at Cheadle’s hands. I will be damned if I will lose you again, not to that bastard.”
“I will find some way,” Charlotte said. “Please, I will try, but in the meantime, you must see this through. We… we have to see it through.”
“Even if it means wedding him?” Will asked, his eyes filled with a bewildered pain that nearly saw her broken.
She could not bear to see him hanged. No punishment on earth, not even marrying James Houghton, would be as cruel or devastating as that. If she married James, Will would at least still draw breath, and as long as he lived, she had hope to be with him. “Yes,” she whispered, nodding.