A False Mirror - Charles Todd [0]
Charles Todd
For Bonnie and Joe,
and everyone at The Black Orchid.
In addition to a well-deserved Raven,
a Todd award in gratitude for
friendship, book parties, chocolate-covered
raisins, and the most exciting sidewalk
conversations in New York. With much, much love.
Contents
1
It was a bitterly cold night of frost, the stars…
2
Chief Superintendent Bowles sat at his cluttered desk, chewing on…
3
Felicity never discovered why Matthew went to walk on the…
4
Felicity sat by her husband’s bed in the small examining…
5
Rutledge, following his quarry through the busy London streets, kept…
6
Stephen Mallory stood there at the foot of the stairs,…
7
Bowles was livid.
8
After conferring with the desk clerk after breakfast, Rutledge learned…
9
When Felicity wandered down for breakfast, there were dark shadows…
10
Rutledge forced himself to return to the Hamilton house, knocking…
11
As they were leaving the Esterley house, Hamish said, “What’s…
12
The child began to scream at two in the morning.
13
Mallory was once more sitting at the bottom of the…
14
They caught him as he lunged for the door, and…
15
When Rutledge rang up London from the Duke of Monmouth…
16
The police station was a beehive of activity. Bennett was…
17
Bennett insisted that they go to Casa Miranda directly to…
18
Rutledge went back to the inn for a late luncheon,…
19
Rutledge took a quarter of an hour to search out…
20
Nothing that Melinda Crawford said or did surprised Ian Rutledge—he…
21
Rutledge went on searching through the drawers of the desk…
22
Rutledge was up early, waiting at the police station when…
23
Rutledge had given his word, but he made his plans…
24
Felicity insisted that she would make breakfast for him before…
25
Rutledge decided, as he paid his account at the teashop,…
26
Rutledge found himself standing there gaping.
27
When they reached the police station in Hampton Regis, Rutledge…
28
Rutledge took the teak hook back to the boat it…
29
Rutledge walked up the hill to Casa Miranda. The sun…
30
The harsh smell of burning oil and charring wool had…
About the Author
Other Books by Charles Todd
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
HAMPTON REGIS
Early February, 1920
It was a bitterly cold night of frost, the stars sharp and piercingly bright overhead.
He pulled the motorcar to the verge and settled to watch the house that lay directly across the black expanse of water. It stood out against the sky, amazingly clear. Even from here he could tell there were lamps burning in three of the rooms. He could picture them in his mind: at the rear of the house—the sitting room, very likely. In the entry, where the pattern of the fanlight over the front door shone starkly against the deep shadows there—behind it the staircase, of course. And one on the first floor, under the eaves.
Their bedroom, surely.
The sitting room lamp went out after half an hour. He could see, for an instant, the grotesque silhouette cast for a moment or two against the drawn shades as someone reached out to turn down the flame. And then the silhouette reappeared briefly in the fanlight just as the second lamp was extinguished.
He leaned forward, his concentration intense, then swore as the windscreen clouded with his breath.
Were there two people in the bedroom now?
He couldn’t bear to think about it. He couldn’t bear to picture her in another man’s arms, wrapped in the warmth of the bedclothes, whispering softly, her hair falling over his shoulder and across his chest….
His fists pounded angrily on the steering wheel as he tried to force the images out of his mind.
And then the last lamp went out, leaving the house in darkness. Shutting them in. While he sat there, like a fool, in the windless night, cold and wretched.
It was the fourth time he’d driven into Hampton Regis. He had promised the doctor he’d do no such thing. But the temptation was too strong, overwhelming his better judgment. Haunted by the need to know, he had told himself that once