Affair (37 page)

Whatever this emotion was that had so disrupted his orderly, peaceful existence, it was more than fleeting passion.

An overwhelming sense of urgency gripped him. It had nothing to do with The Green Table. He closed his own hand tightly over Charlotte’s.

“Baxter?” She gave him a quizzical glance. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Yes.” He struggled to find the words he needed to argue his point in a logical fashion. “When this is finished, I wish to speak to you about the future of our liaison.”

She blinked. “The future?”

“Bloody hell, Charlotte, we cannot go on like this. Surely you can comprehend that.”

“I thought everything was going quite smoothly.”

“An affair is all very well for a few weeks.”

“A few weeks?”

“Perhaps even a few months,” he conceded. “But in the end the whole thing becomes quite tedious.”

A great stillness came over her. “Yes, of course. Tedious.”

Relieved that she had grasped the point so quickly, Baxter plunged on. “There is the enormous inconvenience, for one thing.”

“Inconvenience.”

“All that damned scurrying about to find a suitable place to, uh, display our mutual feelings,” he explained. “I mean, it’s all very well to use a laboratory bench, or the carriage, or the library sofa on occasion, but over the long term, I suspect it will prove extremely tiresome.”

“I see. Tiresome.”

“A man of my years prefers the comfort of his own bed.” He had a sudden, extremely vivid recollection of
how little a bed had mattered on the few occasions when he had made love to Charlotte. “In the main.”

“Baxter, you’re only thirty-two.”

“Age has nothing to do with it. I was never inclined toward a career as an acrobat.”

She lowered her eyes. “I have always found you to be quite agile, sir.”

He decided to ignore that. “And then there is the constant threat of gossip. It can be quite unpleasant. As we discussed, it might well have an ill effect on your business.”

She pursed her lips. “Yes, I suppose so.”

He cudgeled his brain for other arguments. The most obvious one hit him with a force that twisted his insides. He drew a breath to steady himself. “And you must consider the possibility of pregnancy.”

“I understand that there are devices that a gentleman can wear that will prevent that sort of thing.”

“It may very well be entirely too late,” he said grimly. “That is the great difficulty with an affair, you see. One cannot always control the situation. Charlotte, there are any number of reasons why our liaison cannot go on indefinitely.”

She gazed at him and said not a word. At that moment Baxter would have bargained away the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone to be able to read the expression in her eyes. And then she glanced past his shoulder and smiled.

Hamilton coughed discreetly. “Baxter? According to our plans, it’s time for us to leave.”

“Bloody hell.” Baxter glanced over his shoulder. Hamilton and Ariel stood just behind him. He could only hope they had not overheard the conversation. “Time. Yes. We must be off.”

“Baxter.” Charlotte touched his arm again. “You will remember your promise to call upon me later this evening.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll stop by on the way home to give you a full account.” He nodded brusquely to Ariel and turned to make his way through the crowd toward the entrance.

Hamilton raised one faintly derisive brow and then paused to bend gallantly over both Charlotte’s and Ariel’s hands. They curtsied gracefully.

Baxter stifled a groan. He would only make himself look ridiculous if he turned back now to attempt a more charming leave-taking, he thought.

H
amilton leaned against the green velvet squabs of his sleek, well-sprung carriage and eyed Baxter with amused eyes. “Why don’t you just come straight out and ask her to marry you?”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Baxter muttered.

“I heard enough of the conversation to conclude that you were trying to convince Charlotte to consider a proposal of marriage rather than a liaison. Why beat about the bush?”

“The nature of my association with Miss Arkendale is none of your concern.”

Hamilton idly examined his ebony walking stick. “As you wish.”

“Furthermore, if you dare to mention the word
liaison
in connection with her name again, I can guarantee that not only will you never take possession of your fortune, you will find yourself lacking several front teeth the next time you try to use your smile to charm a lady.”

“That serious, is it?”

“I suggest we change the subject.”

Hamilton shook his head. “You may be a man of science, brother, but you are hopelessly inept when it comes to dealing with the ladies. You should spend more time reading Shelley and Byron and less studying chemistry.”

“It’s a bit late to try to reshape my entire character. Not much point, in any event.”

“Why do you say that? It’s obvious Charlotte has a
tendre
for you.”

Baxter was annoyed by the spark of hope that flickered within him. “Do you think so?”

“No question about it.”

“She may care for me but I don’t believe that she cares for the notion of marriage.”

“Well, then, it’s up to you to convince her that marriage to you would be a sound decision.”

Baxter scowled. “That is precisely what I was trying to do when you interrupted me a few minutes ago.”

Hamilton gave him a knowing smile. “Father believed that I had a great deal to learn from you. But perhaps there are a few things that you could learn from me. Feel free to ask for my advice any time you require it.”

“We have a rather more pressing matter on our hands at the moment, in case it has slipped your mind.”

“It has not.”

“Did you bring your pistol?”

“Yes, of course.” Hamilton patted the pocket of his greatcoat. “Two of them, in fact. What about you?”

“I’ve never practiced enough to become a decent shot. I depend upon other tools.”

“What do you mean?”

Baxter removed one of the glass vials from his pocket. He held it out on his palm. “Items such as this.”

Hamilton looked intrigued. “What is it?”

“A sort of instantaneous light. Break the glass and there is a small, very bright explosion. It can light one’s way for two or three minutes or temporarily blind an opponent. If it is held next to combustible material such as kindling, it will ignite a fire.”

“Damned clever. Where did you get these?”

“I make them in my laboratory.”

Hamilton gave him an odd smile. “Perhaps I should have paid a bit more attention to
Conversations on Chemistry
. When this is over, do you think you might have time to show me how to perform some of your more interesting experiments?”

“If you like.” Baxter hesitated. “It has been a long while since I had a colleague to assist me.”

Hamilton grinned. “Lately I have begun to wonder if I got some of Father’s passion for science, after all.”

Baxter glumly considered his bleak future. “I have begun to suspect that I may have got a bit more of his passion for other things than I had previously believed.”

Eighteen

Charlotte sipped lemonade and surveyed the crowded ballroom floor, where Ariel was engaged in the waltz with yet another distinguished and rather besotted-looking young gentleman. Pleased with the glow of pleasure on Ariel’s face, she smiled at Rosalind, who had come to stand beside her.

“Lady Trengloss, I wish to thank you for what you have done for Ariel. My mother would have been so pleased to know that my sister had a taste of a London Season.”

“It has been my pleasure. Haven’t had an opportunity to fire a young lady off into the ton since my last niece came out. Forgotten how much fun it all is.” Rosalind wielded her elegantly painted silk fan with enthusiasm. “Ariel is a charming young woman. She has attracted any number of admirers.”

Charlotte sighed. “I fear that all of them will swiftly disappear once it becomes known that my engagement to your nephew has been called off. I confess, I worried about that a great deal at the start of this business, but Ariel insists that she does not care a fig if her admirers vanish when they learn the truth.”

“She is very levelheaded for her tender years.” Rosalind gave Charlotte a sidelong glance. “For which you must take the credit, I believe, my dear.”

“Not at all. She has always been inclined in a practical direction. Ariel quite rightly declares the Season to be a fine source of entertainment, rather like the theater. She tells me that when the curtain falls, she will be content to go back to her usual pursuits.”

Charlotte prayed that would be the case. Ariel was still so young. No matter how much common sense one possessed at nineteen, life was bound to seem a bit dull when the invitations and the posies ceased arriving at the door. The important thing was that Ariel did not get her heart broken during her brief experience of Society.

As for her own heart, Charlotte thought, her only hope was to immerse herself in her work until it mended. But she knew that no matter how many new clients she took on or how many interesting inquiries and researches she made into the backgrounds of gentlemen, she would never be able to forget her lover with the alchemist’s eyes. There could never be another Baxter.

Rosalind gave her a considering look. “As long as we are discussing such matters, I feel that I should tell you that I am as grateful to you as you say you are to me.”

“If you refer to my investigations, I assure you I entered into them for my own purposes.”

“I was not speaking of the murder inquiries.” Rosalind folded her fan with a snap. “I may as well be blunt. I
have been concerned about Baxter ever since he returned from Italy three years ago. He had always been far too somber for his years. Even as a child, he possessed an unnerving degree of self-mastery and restraint. He always kept a certain distance between himself and others.”

“As though he were observing and measuring you the way he would examine one of his chemical experiments?”

“Indeed.” Rosalind shuddered delicately. “Quite disconcerting at times. But after the dreadful accident in Italy, he disappeared from Society altogether. He almost never emerged from that cave he calls a laboratory. I feared he was developing a distinct tendency toward melancholia.”

“Melancholia?”

“There is a strain of it in the blood, you know.”

Charlotte frowned. “I was not aware of that. Everyone says that his parents were an outrageously charming, exciting pair who were the talk of Society. I understood them to be full of the liveliest spirits.”

“A bit too lively at times,” Rosalind said quietly. “There was a price to be paid for such strong passions. And I do not speak of reputations.”

“I understand. It has been my observation that people of strong passions often have both a dark and a light side to their temperaments. It is as if nature sought to forge some sort of balance in their humors but in the process created extremes.”

“Very observant, my dear. That is precisely how it was with Baxter’s parents. Esherton, for all his intellect and delight in life, had a dangerous temper and a tendency toward great recklessness. It’s a miracle he survived to enjoy old age. As for my sister …”

“What about her?” Charlotte prompted.

“She was beautiful, intelligent, and gloriously effervescent.
Most of the time. She indulged her independence and her eccentricities. Everyone who knew her was enthralled by her, even when she behaved outrageously. Only her family and her most intimate friends knew that on occasion she would sink into the depths of melancholia.”

“It would seem that Baxter became an alchemist out of sheer necessity,” Charlotte said.

“Alchemist? Whatever do you mean by that?”

“I believe he sees himself as the product of a mix of extremely volatile chemicals. He felt he had no choice but to learn to control the fires that might ignite dangerous explosions.”

Rosalind’s brows rose. “An interesting analogy. What I wished to say, my dear, is that I believe you to be the best thing that has happened to Baxter in years.”

Charlotte was so startled, she nearly dropped her lemonade. “Lady Trengloss. That is very kind of you but surely you overstate the case.”

“It’s no less than the truth. You appear to understand him and deal with him in a way that no one else can quite manage.”

“Come now, he is not all that mysterious.”

“Actually, he is, but that is beside the point. Pardon my curiosity, but I must ask you a very personal question.”

Charlotte eyed her warily. “Yes?”

“There is no delicate way to phrase this so I shall come straight out with it. Has Baxter by any chance mentioned the possibility of a real marriage between the two of you?”

“No.” Charlotte took a deep breath. “He has not.”
And a short while ago he as much as told me that there was no possibility of any other sort of long-standing connection, either
.

Their passionate liaison had become inconvenient. It seemed to Charlotte that the brilliant glow of the chandelier dimmed for a moment.