Fortune Favors the Wicked by Theresa Romain Read Free Book Online Page A

as the nicks atop the washstand, and you told me of them readily enough.”
    â€œA solid rebuttal.” She sighed. “You have taken the measure of my height, I am sure. My hair is as dark as yours, and as straight as yours is not.”
    So, his hair was still dark. Benedict remembered his father’s head threaded with gray well before the age of thirty, and he had wondered if his was changing similarly.
    The shade of one’s hair seemed an odd thing not to know.
    â€œWhat color are your eyes?” he asked.
    â€œGreen, though not a stunning shade thereof. And before you ask, I do not have freckles. My nose is of a middling size, and I have all my own teeth.”
    â€œWhat an attractive recital,” he murmured. This jumble of facts left him no idea what she looked like, though it was clear his impression of cloudy mildness was entirely wrong. Charlotte Perry was the Derbyshire breeze in human form: invigorating and stronger than one was prepared for.
    â€œHave you any other questions before I leave you?”
    â€œNone that I dare ask at present.” He pasted on a roguish smile. Let her puzzle that one out.
    A sharp knock echoed up the stairwell, and Charlotte took a quick step toward the doorway. “Likely that is your trunk from the Pig and Blanket—and the servants are all over the place with laundry and dinner. As it often is here. Shall I descend to speak with the innkeeper, Mr. Frost, or would you like to?”
    â€œI don’t wish to interrupt if it’s a family caller. Here. I’ll follow you to the stairs and can come down if needed.” He counted off the steps from bedchamber to staircase, touching the wall only once to remind himself where the passage wall was split by a doorway.
    Charlotte descended the eighteen narrow steps ahead of him; from the corridor below, her voice mingled with that of her father’s. The vicar’s voice ended: “. . . cannot let the knocking bother your mother,” and the front door was hauled open.
    â€œVicar, y’er needed!” The voice was indeed that of the Pig and Blanket’s owner, a man with the local accent and a slight wheeze. “At once, y’er needed at the inn. At once.”
    Charlotte spoke up, sounding puzzled. “Mr. Potter. Have you brought Mr. Frost’s—”
    â€œI need the vicar.” The man cut her off with a ragged insistence. “Nance, my serving girl—she’s been stabbed. Constable’s been told, and the Bow Street Runner, and a doctor, and there’s nothing they can do to help her. Vicar—come say a few prayers over the poor lamb, will you, in case she perishes.”

Chapter Four
    From the upstairs corridor, hinges creaked, though not loudly enough to cover a soft cry.
    â€œMaggie heard that,” Charlotte murmured, a cold prickle racing down her spine. “Excuse me, Papa. Mr. Potter, you have my deepest sympathies. I shall pray for Nance’s recovery.”
    She was fluent in polite language; she could speak it, could curtsy even, as her attention flew to the girl upstairs. Her feet followed as she cursed each one of the eighteen shallow steps, brushed past the tall figure of Mr. Frost, and eased into the small bedchamber she would be sharing with the girl who called her Aunt Charlotte.
    Maggie sat beside the bed, a thin figure in a tidy printed gown. Her legs were folded sedately, but her wild tumble of light brown curls still shook, betraying her swift movement to the door and back.
    Next to her was curled the familiar old figure of Captain, a rangy brindled hound of some fifteen years. Captain was stiff and slow, her brown-and-browner coat now graying. Maggie petted the dog’s head, her own face downcast and hidden behind her fallen hair.
    Charlotte seated herself on the bed. It was narrower than Mr. Frost’s, but overspread with the same sort of quilt. She and her older sister had pieced them both as teens, months of