Addy rose, her dark eyes bright with surprise. “We’re leaving, Miss Charlotte? Tonight? We’re going home?”
“Yes, Miss Addy,” Cade said. “After a brief stop in Paris.”
Addy looked from Charlotte to Cade, then back again. Charlotte knew her friend could see the fear on her face, but Addy remained as composed as ever. “I s’pose one more trial on this journey won’t kill me.”
She opened Charlotte’s armoire and began pulling out dresses and hats, but Charlotte said, “No, Addy, leave all that. We’ll only take what we came with.”
Addy set the dresses back and gave Charlotte a slow appraisal. “And where is that Mr. Dewhurst?” she asked. “Isn’t he coming?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No, of course not.” She tried to affect humor and lightness. “Freddie wouldn’t deign to allow his name to be spoken in such an unfashionable place as Charleston.”
“But he knows you’re going?”
Charlotte shifted. Why was Addy drilling her now? What did she care for Dewhurst? “No, Addy. He doesn’t know, but I’m certain he’ll have a dinner party to celebrate when he learns that I’m gone.”
Addy gave her a curious look. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the type to run away, Miss Charlotte. Leave and not even say good-bye. I never took you for a yellow belly.”
“Oh, good God, Addy,” Cade said. “Can you save the lecture until we’re under way?”
“Addy,” Charlotte said, crossing to her and attempting to soften Cade’s harsh rebuke, “it’s better this way. Trust me. I’m an inconvenience to Freddie. An inconvenience he’s grown fond of, but an inconvenience nonetheless. He’ll be glad that I left this way. It’s easier for everyone.”
“It’s easier for you,” Addy said. “You ain’t got no choice to make this way.”
“Choice?” Cade said. “What choice is there? Would you rather she stay here as his whore than return home where she can rebuild her life?”
“Hmpf,” Addy said, crossing her arms. “You don’t know everything, Cade Pettigru. That Mr. Dewhurst was going to marry my sugar.”
Cade laughed. “Is that what he told you to lure you into his bed?”
Charlotte’s face flushed, and she felt the tears spring to her eyes. “Addy, I want to go home,” she whispered.
“And you sure ’bout that?” Addy asked.
“Yes!” Charlotte answered, exasperated. “There is no way Freddie would want me to stay. No way. Unless—” She broke off as a figure stepped into the room behind Cade and silently closed the dressing room door behind him. “Unless—”
“Unless he loved you,” Freddie said and raised his pistol.
FREDDIE WATCHED THE blood drain from his wife’s beautiful face. No, she wasn’t his wife, he amended. She was a woman playing his wife, a woman he had made love to, and when he’d left her alone for five minutes, she’d run off with another man. Freddie pointed his pistol at that man: Cade Pettigru. Finally the spy was before him, and undoubtedly on his way out of the country with the new British codes.
If Freddie had emerged from Winterbourne’s house three seconds later, the codes might well be on their way into enemy hands tonight. How many men would have died when secret English orders and plans were deciphered if he had not seen Charlotte climb into the carriage with a man? This man. This traitor.
“Freddie!” Charlotte gasped.
“Ah, I see you remember my name after all, madam. Please don’t tell me you were going to leave without saying good-bye.” His tone was light and mocking, but he kept his gaze hard and steady on Pettigru. When the spy shifted slightly,
Freddie stepped forward. “Go ahead. Reach for your gun, Pettigru. I want to shoot you.”
Pettigru sneered. “Pampered English aristocrat. Is your aim as weak as your ale?”
“Cade, no,” Charlotte said, and the concern in her voice cut Freddie more than the sharpest rapier to his heart. “Freddie, please. Don’t hurt him,” she begged.
He gave her a hard look. “Was it all a lie, Charlotte? Was it just a fabrication in the name of money and patriotism, or was there some truth in what we shared?”
Charlotte gaped at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but he couldn’t give her the chance. His reflexes took over and he fired, the bullet deadly and accurate, hitting Cade Pettigru in the heart.
Chapter Twenty
Charlotte couldn’t believe what she’d seen. One moment Cade had been standing beside her. Freddie and she had been talking. And the next moment, there was a loud bang and blood was soaking the carpet beneath Cade’s chest as he lay on the floor and labored to suck in air. Charlotte knelt beside him, cradling the head of the man who truly represented the last of her family. His breath rattled in his chest once more, and then he was silent.
