A False Mirror - Charles Todd [35]
9
When Felicity wandered down for breakfast, there were dark shadows under her eyes and she seemed distracted.
“Rutledge was here again,” Mallory said. “You were asleep.”
“Just pretending. I heard him knock at my door and panicked.”
“I don’t think he believed the hostage story. But Nan gave him an earful.”
“Yes, I’m sure she did. I wish we could let her leave, just to be rid of her. I don’t feel comfortable when she’s in the house. I never have. She adores Matthew.” She hesitated. “Did he say—is Matthew all right?”
She was asking if he still lived. Mallory could feel his heart turn over. What would she do if Matthew died? Turn on him, slip out of the house in the middle of the night, when he finally sank into deep sleep, unable to keep his eyes open any longer? And then he felt guilty for even considering such a cruel betrayal.
“Still unconscious.” He didn’t tell her that Rutledge had offered to let her visit her husband. He wasn’t sure how she’d respond to that.
Felicity shook her head and pulled her shawl closer, as if she felt cold. “You don’t suppose we could build a fire in the study or the sitting room? It would be so much cozier.”
“Felicity.” She looked up at him, then looked away. “What are we going to do?”
“I thought this inspector was here to sort it all out for us. That’s why you wanted him to come, isn’t it?”
“The question is, will he be strong enough to stand up to Bennett?” He hesitated. “He wanted to know if we’d had an affair.”
“Hardly an affair. I was in love with you long before I met Matthew. I was going to marry you. Only you didn’t want to marry me. Not then.” There was a hurt expression on her face, as if she remembered the past more clearly or, at the very least, differently.
“Dear girl! I told you, I didn’t want to come home to you a lame beggar—”
“But you didn’t, did you?” There was accusation in her voice, as if he had tricked her somehow. “You came home whole.”
“I couldn’t know that. It was you who refused to wait. Who didn’t have faith in the future.”
“How could I, when you’d painted it so bleakly?” She stood in the doorway to the dining room. “I don’t suppose you could make a pot of tea. Matthew always brought me my morning tea.”
He hesitated, and then said, “Yes, of course. Breakfast!” as if it had just struck him what time it was. “We’ve got to feed Nan, as well.”
Felicity frowned. “We’d be so much better off without her. I wish she was gone.”
“No, we shouldn’t be. She’s your chaperone.”
“Little good she is at chaperoning. Locked up belowstairs.”
He smiled. “Appearances, my dear, appearances,” he said, in a voice that was so like Miss Trining’s that she laughed. Nan must have heard it as well, for she began to bang ominously on the door of her prison.
“I wish she was dead!” Felicity said in anger, and then covered her mouth with her hand. “I didn’t mean that, truly I didn’t.” She waited to be forgiven, like a child.
“No, of course you didn’t.” But he turned away, his appetite gone, and went on to prepare a meal he couldn’t swallow.
Bennett was in a foul mood. His foot had kept him awake most of the night, and this morning Rutledge had proceeded to act without him. It was unprofessional, and in his present state of mind, unforgivable. He sat in his office hunched over his desk like a poisonous toad, waiting for Rutledge to appear.
Then he said, with understated anger, “I hear you’ve been busy.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Rutledge said blandly, his face giving nothing away. “And so I went to the house. The women are safe, but their situation isn’t the best. I’d like to bring this business to a conclusion today.”
And so would I, Bennett thought, if only to be rid of the likes of you.
His feelings were so clear in his expression that Hamish said, “Watch your back. He doesna’ care how it ends.”
“Yes, at least Mallory is right there,” Rutledge answered silently. And to Bennett, “Perhaps it would help if we could go over the evidence against Mallory again.”
“I’ve told you. Twice before. There was reason to believe he might have had a hand in the assault, and I went