Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [121]
“You don’t murder people over it,” Charlotte pointed out.
“You might, if you didn’t know it wasn’t worth anything.” Emily stood up and smoothed out her skirts. Her gown fitted very flatteringly and her condition was entirely disguised. “It sounds as if there might be a great deal of money involved, and far more important to some people, a lot of power.”
“It is the police corruption I really care about,” Charlotte said more gravely. “It distresses Thomas so much. I wish we could prove somehow that there is another answer, or at least that it was not one of the police who murdered Weems.”
They went no further because they were interrupted by Emily’s ladies’ maid returning, and as soon as she had gone, Jack came in looking very dashing. He welcomed Charlotte, kissing her on the cheek in a brotherly fashion, then quickly his face clouded with concern.
“Emily, are you feeling worse again?”
“No, not at all,” Emily assured him with ringing candor.
He still looked doubtful, his eyes puckered with anxiety. He glanced at Charlotte.
“She is here to detect,” Emily said quickly.
Jack was not convinced. “No one in society has been murdered,” he pointed out.
Emily walked over to him, her eyes very soft, a little smile on her lips. She stood in front of him and touched his cravat proprietorially with her finger.
“It is a blackmailer who is dead, and two of his victims are to dine with us tonight,” she said sweetly.
Charlotte smiled to herself and looked back in the mirror, pretending to do something further to her hair, although there was nothing to do.
“Charlotte is going to observe, that is all.” Emily raised her eyes and met Jack’s with devastating sweetness.
“It is never ’all,’ ” Jack said dubiously, but he knew not to enter a battle he had no chance of winning.
Emily kissed him very lightly. “Thank you,” she whispered, and after only a second’s hesitation, turned and led the way out onto the landing and downstairs ready to receive her guests.
Among the first to arrive was Fanny Hilliard, looking extremely pretty if a trifle behind the fashion. After greeting her with genuine pleasure, Charlotte made the opportunity to look unobtrusively at her gown. She herself had altered a bodice here and there to adapt someone else’s clothes, usually Emily’s or Great-Aunt Vespasia’s, in order to make a new dress for herself out of an old one of somebody else’s. She saw the telltale needle holes and the fabric slightly across the weave where a waist had been made a great deal smaller than had originally been intended. Even a clever dressmaker could not completely disguise the fact that the bustle had been almost entirely recut, and a piece of toning fabric added to hide the alteration. No man would have known, but any woman who had done the same thing could see it.
She felt an instant empathy with her, and silently wished her well.
Her brother, James, who had escorted her, now gave her his arm into the withdrawing room, and Charlotte turned to welcome that very curious young man, Peter Valerius. He still looked untidy because of his beautiful hair, and a rather artistic disregard for conventional neckwear. His cravat was not only a little oversized, but instead of tying it loosely like the aesthetic set, he had apparently dressed in some haste, and it was tight, and crooked. Charlotte decided it was not an attempt to be Bohemian, simply a lack of interest in something he considered totally trivial.
“Good evening, Mr. Valerius,” she said with a smile, because he reminded her a trifle of Pitt. “How agreeable to see you again.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Pitt.” He looked at her with interest. His eyes flew to Emily, noticed her very obviously improved health, and then came back to Charlotte again. He smiled, but made no comment, and Charlotte had a very strong idea he read her presence here as a matter of interest and not duty this time.
Ten minutes later Great-Aunt Vespasia came in. She was resplendent in ivory lace and a double row of pearls that was so beautiful one felt that even should all the lights fail at once, and leave the room