A sudden, fearful death - Anne Perry [156]
She knew Kristian was in his rooms from Mrs. Flaherty. She went to his door and knocked, her heart beating so violently she imagined her whole body shook. Her mouth was dry. She knew she would stumble when she spoke.
She heard his voice invite her to enter, and suddenly she wanted to run, but her legs would not move.
He called again.
This time she pushed the door and went in.
His face lit with pleasure as soon as he saw her and he rose from his seat behind the table.
“Callandra! Come in—come in! I have hardly seen you for days.” His eyes narrowed a little as he looked at her more closely. There was nothing critical in him, just a gentleness that sent her senses lurching with the power of her own feelings. “You look tired, my dear. Are you not well?”
It was on her lips to tell him the truth, as she always had, most particularly to him, but it was the perfect excuse to evade.
“Not perhaps as I would like to be. But it is of no importance.” Her words came in a rush, her tongue fumbling. “I certainly don’t need a doctor. It will pass.”
“Are you sure?” He looked anxious. “If you’d prefer not to see me, then ask Allington. He is a good man, and here today.”
“If it persists, I will,” she lied. “But I have come about a man admitted today who most certainly does need your help.” And she described the patient in detail, hearing her own voice going on and on as if it were someone else’s.
After several moments he held up his hand.
“I understand—I will see him. There is no need to persuade me.” Again he looked at her closely. “Is something troubling you, my dear? You are not at all yourself. Have we not trusted one another sufficiently that you can allow me to help?”
It was an open invitation, and she knew that by refusing she would not only close the door and make it harder to open again next time, but she would hurt him. His emotion was there in his eyes, and it should have made her heart sing.
Now she felt choked with unshed tears. All the loneliness of an uncounted span, long before her husband had died, times when he was brisk, full of his own concerns—not unkind, simply unable to bridge a gulf of difference between them—all the hunger for intimacy of the heart was wide and vulnerable within her.
“It’s only the wretched business of the nurse,” she said, looking down at the floor. “And the trial. I don’t know what to think, and I am allowing it to trouble me more than I should … I am sorry. Please forgive me for burdening everyone else with it when we all have sufficient to bear for ourselves.”
“Is that all?” he said curiously, his voice lifted a little in question.
“I was fond of her,” she replied, looking up at him because that at least was totally true. “And she reminded me of a certain young woman I care about even more. I am just tired. I will be much better tomorrow.” And she forced herself to smile, even though she felt it must look ghastly.
He smiled back, a sad, gentle look, and she was not sure whether he had believed anything she had said. One thing was certain, she could not possibly ask him about Marianne Gillespie. She could not bear to hear the answer.
She rose to her feet, backing toward the door.
“Thank you very much for accepting Mr. Burke. I was sure you would.” And she reached for the door handle, gave him another brief, sickly smile, and escaped.
Sir Herbert turned the moment Rathbone came in the cell door. Seen from the floor of the courtroom at all but a few moments, he had looked well in command of himself, but closer to, in the hard daylight of the single, high window, he was haggard. The flesh of his face was puffy except around the eyes, where the shadows were dark, as if he had slept only fitfully and without ease. He was used to decisions of life or death, he was intimately