A False Mirror - Charles Todd [2]
She was saying, “We ought to have a fine day. Just as well—I’ve a thousand things to do!” She smiled up at him, then reached out to lay her free hand against his cheek. “I do love you, Matthew,” she told him softly.
He covered her fingers with his own. “I’m glad,” he responded simply. “I don’t quite know how I managed to live so many years without you.”
She set down her cup and walked over to the blazing fire. “Shall I take the dogcart or the motorcar?”
“The motor, of course. It will be warmer.”
She nodded, thinking about her errands. Then she said, “Must you call on Miss Trining today? She’ll have something to say about you arriving in a dogcart. Far beneath your dignity.”
He laughed. “Yes, I know. I shall never live up to old Petrie’s standards. Queen Victoria herself couldn’t have found fault with him.”
“I should hope not. She knighted him,” Felicity answered, laughing with him. “But just think—the next important man who chooses to reside here will be held up to your standards.” She lowered her voice. “Not quite the man Matthew Hamilton was, you know,” she said gruffly in imitation of Miss Trining. “I don’t know what the Foreign Office is coming to these days!”
It was perfect mimicry.
“It would never do for you to attend a vestry meeting. I’d see your face down the table, know what you were thinking, and lose any reputation I ever had for being a sober, God-fearing civil servant. They’d chuck me out on the spot for unseemly levity.”
“Not you,” she said quickly. “God knows, they’re lucky to have someone under eighty willing to serve. I on the other hand would be burned at the stake, before sunrise. Like Guinevere.”
She bit her lip as she spoke the name, wishing she could take it back. She put her arms around his neck, her eyes closed. “Hold me,” she begged.
And he did, her tea forgotten.
2
LONDON
End of February, 1920
Chief Superintendent Bowles sat at his cluttered desk, chewing on the end of his mustache, staring at his subordinate.
“Time off?” he said. “What on earth for?”
“A—personal matter,” Inspector Rutledge answered, unforthcoming.
“Indeed!” Bowles continued to stare. The nurse who’d sent him a copy of this man’s medical file before Rutledge returned to duty last June must have lied.
Rutledge was still thin for his height, and his face was drawn as if from lack of sleep. But the eyes, dark and haunted, were intelligent and alert. So much for cowardice. And he hadn’t shown a yellow streak in the north, over that nasty business about the child. The local man had complained of him, of course, and Mickelson had been angry over the outcome of the case. But the Chief Magistrate had told Bowles in no uncertain terms that the investigation had been brilliantly handled.
And the Chief Magistrate had Connections. It wouldn’t do to ignore that.
Rutledge had also done well in Northamptonshire, though it had been a grave risk sending this man to see to Hensley. But then he’d trusted Hensley to keep his mouth shut, and it had turned out all right. There was no proof to be found that he’d known what Hensley was up to. Or none that he knew of.
His thoughts returned to the letter from the clinic.
Bowles had half a mind to bring that fool nurse up on charges of incompetence. For the past six months, Rutledge had somehow managed to turn every test into a small success. What was he to do about this man who refused to destroy himself? The nurse had sworn she’d overheard him threatening suicide time and again, she had sworn he wouldn’t survive the rigors of the Yard for more than a month, two at best. What’s more, how did Rutledge manage to carry out his duties in such a way that others protected him? Protectors who were unaware that Rutledge had come out of the trenches with shell shock and must have killed who knew how many brave soldiers through his own lack of moral fiber!
Bowles would have given much to know who had pinned medals on this man’s chest and called him a hero. That officer deserved to be shot, by God!
Better still, Rutledge ought to have been shot, he thought