“It troubles me greatly,” he confirmed, though she would not have guessed it from the Sphinx-like smoothness of his face. “As a man of science, I am skeptical about the notion of random coincidences. In my experience, most things can be explained by logic.”
“Your experience,” said Charlotte softly as she began to draw, “has been different than mine.”
His expression altered, and yet remained a cipher. She had never met a man so hard to read.
“Sometimes random patterns can be just that, like the way the pigment spatters from a brush onto drawing paper when one makes an errant flick of the wrist.”
“Newton’s laws of motion,” he murmured.
“You are being too literal, sir. Sometimes one must apply artistic sensibilities to a problem in order to see it clearly.”
“I shall take your word for it, Mrs. Sloane.” The lamplight flickered over the contours of his face, accentuating the shadow of doubt pooled in the hollows beneath his eyes. He looked tired, and tense. Charlotte guessed it wasn’t often that he second-guessed himself.
She could assure him that it wasn’t a feeling that grew more comfortable over time.
“What are you doing?” Wrexford asked, suddenly taking note of the movement of her hands.
“Making a drawing of your face,” Charlotte replied. “Remember, it was part of our agreement.”
Uncertainty shaded his face. She guessed he wished to protest, but something was holding him back.
“I’ll be done in a moment. I just wanted to capture the way the light is playing over your features.” In truth, it was the conflicting look of hardness and vulnerability that had caught her eye. “Keep talking. You truly think everything can be explained by strict rules of logic?”
He didn’t answer right away. The light from the lamp showed the crinkling of his eyes as they narrowed in thought. That pensiveness was something she had noticed from their very first meeting.
“There is an underlying order to the way things work,” he finally replied. “One only has to look at the natural world to see that. So yes, I do believe there are universal rules. For eons, the change in seasons was thought to be ruled by divine whim. But Kepler, through careful observation and the application of mathematics, formulated his laws of planetary motion, which rationally explain them. Many complex forces may be beyond our power to comprehend right now, but that does not mean they can’t eventually be figured out.”
“A very intriguing philosophy, sir.” Charlotte added a few quick strokes, hoping to catch the look in his eyes. “You like pushing the boundaries.”
“That is the essence of science.” He turned to face her full on. “Just as it is the essence of art.”
“If the two have anything in common, it is imagination. It’s what inspires discovery.”
Wrexford’s gaze was suddenly unnerving. As if he were able to see through her skin.
She set her pad aside, the drawing done. “Where is the sketch you wanted to show me?”
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and wordlessly passed it over.
“Is that blood?” she asked as she gingerly set it on her desk and smoothed it open.
“I imagine so. And given that it came from Henning’s mortuary notebook, blood is likely the least offensive substance gracing its surface.”
The image quickly dispelled all such distractions. Leaning closer, Charlotte carefully studied the penciled lines and felt her flesh begin to prickle. “Where did this come from?”
“Drummond had drawn it on his palm,” answered Wrexford. “God only knows for what reason.”
God—or the devil, thought Charlotte. “Is it an accurate rendering of the original? I am trying to make out this tangle of squiggles at the bottom. . . .” She looked up in question.
The earl gave an apologetic shrug. “I have no pretensions to being an artist. My rendering is likely crude. But Drummond used a pencil and appeared to have been in a rush.” He rose and joined her at the desk. “What a hodgepodge. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know—”
His voice cut off abruptly as he spotted the open books she had pushed aside. “Hell’s teeth, what are those?” he demanded.
“Books on alchemy,” she replied. “I borrowed them from Mr. Henning.”
Wrexford slowly turned a page, and then another.
“I cannot move within the highest circles of Society in pursuit of clues, so I decided to delve into the one realm that is easily open to me,” Charlotte continued. “Granted, I know nothing of science, but there is a chance that my talents may be of use.” She pointed to the top of the sketch. “Already that part of the drawing looks familiar. From what I’ve read so far, it’s the symbol of divine geometry, which is an elemental image in alchemy.”
