Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [149]
“Do you want me to come with you?” she offered. “In case Eudora is very distressed? Some people find the invasion of an autopsy very dreadful … as if in some way the person they loved could know about the … the intimacy of it.”
Instinct told him to decline.
“No, thank you. I think this is something better done with as few people involved as possible. I won’t even take Tellman.” He changed the subject. “How is Gracie? She’s taken this matter of Hennessey very bad.”
“I know,” she said softly, her face bleak with sadness and anger. “It will be hard for her for a while. I think the best thing we can do is say as little as possible. It will just take time.”
“By the way, Charlotte.” He looked very directly at her. “Where did you get the newspaper cuttings that Gracie showed to Hennessey?”
“Oh …” She colored uncomfortably. “I think … all things considered … you might prefer not to know that. Please don’t ask, then I shall not have to tell you.”
“Charlotte …”
She smiled at him dazzlingly, and before he could argue, she touched his hand, then turned and went downstairs.
Charlotte turned in the hall and watched him disappear around the newel at the top. Her momentary happiness vanished. She felt so alone she could have cried, which was ridiculous. She was tired. She seemed to have spent weeks trying to make things run smoothly, to prevent quarrels from becoming permanent rifts, trying to make light conversation when all any of them wanted to do was scream at each other, or weep with grief and fear, and now confusion and anxiety as well, and the dark pain of disillusion as things they thought they had known fell apart.
Emily was still terrified for Jack, and she had good cause. She was looking paler and more tired with each day. It was all pointless anyway; nobody was going to solve the Irish Problem. They would probably still be hating each other in fifty years. Was it worth one more life lost or broken?
And what about Eudora? How was she going to find the strength to comfort Piers when he heard the truth about Justine … whatever that truth was? Could he ever find peace within himself once he knew the woman he loved so much now had been his own father’s mistress—and then murdered him? His world was about to end.
And Eudora had not been close enough to him to give the gentleness, the silent understanding he would need. She had not been a large enough part of his experiences in the past to travel through this with him. He would not be able to allow her. Charlotte knew it already from the small things Eudora had said, but more from the way Eudora had watched him with Justine and not known how he would react, what would make him laugh or touch his emotions. Charlotte had felt Eudora’s sense of exclusion, as she felt the sudden chill of her own now.
She watched Pitt’s back as he reached the top of the stairs and wondered if he would turn and look at her. He must know she was still standing by the newel at the bottom.
But he did not. His mind was on Eudora and Piers, and what he must ask of them. So it should be. Perhaps hers was at least in part on Emily.
Aunt Vespasia’s advice seemed hollow. There was probably honor in it, but very little comfort. She turned away and went back to the withdrawing room. Kezia was alone. She ought to talk to her, not simply leave her.
“What do you need to look at him again for?” Piers asked with a shiver. He looked pale and tired, like everyone else, but in no sense afraid. It was perhaps the last evening he was going to have such an innocence.
“I would prefer to see if I am correct before I tell you,” Pitt replied, looking apologetically at Eudora, who had risen and was standing in front of the boudoir fire. She had not taken her eyes from Pitt’s face since he had come in. Thank heaven Justine was not there. She had apparently chosen to retire early.
“I suppose,” she said slowly. “If you must?”
“It matters, Mrs. Greville, or I would not ask,” he assured her. “I really am very sorry.