Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [30]
She had no idea to what he was referring, and yet the past seemed to be in the room with them.
‘But one is alive?’ she probed. ‘Do you know, or are you guessing?’
‘I know Kate and Sean are dead,’ he said, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. ‘I imagine Cormac is still alive. He would be barely sixty.’
‘Why would he wait this long?’
‘I don’t know.’
She studied him as he sat in Pitt’s chair opposite her. He was uncomfortable, yet he made no move to go, nor even to defend himself from her enquiries.
‘But you believe he hates you enough to lie, to plan and connive to ruin you?’ she insisted.
Thoughts chased each other across his face; she could not guess what they were. ‘Yes. I have no doubt of that. He has cause.’
Charlotte realised with surprise, and pity, that he was ashamed of his part in whatever had happened. She hoped she would never have to know what it was.
‘So what will you do?’ she asked again. ‘You have to fight.’
He smiled, and she knew it was because he assumed she was concerned that he protect Pitt. She was, but that was not all, nor had it been uppermost in her mind when she had spoken.
She felt a heat burn up her face. ‘Nurse your wound for a few hours, then gather yourself together and think what you wish to do.’
Now he really smiled, showing a naturalness of humour she had not seen in him before. ‘Is that how you speak to your children when they fall over and skin their knees?’ he asked. ‘Quick sympathy, a hug, and then briskly get back up again? I haven’t fallen off a horse, Mrs Pitt. I have fallen from grace, and I know of nothing to get me back up again.’
The colour was even hotter in her face now. ‘You mean you have no idea what to do?’
He stood up and straightened the shoulders of his jacket. ‘Yes, I know what to do. I shall go to Ireland and find Cormac O’Neil. If I can, I shall prove that he is behind this, and clear my name. I shall make Croxdale eat his words. At least I hope I will.’
She stood also. ‘Have you anyone to help you, whom you can trust?’
‘No.’ His loneliness was intense. Just the one, simple word. Then it vanished, as if self-pity disgusted him. ‘Not here,’ he added. ‘But I may find someone in Ireland.’
She knew he was lying, to cover the moment’s slip.
‘I’ll come with you,’ she said impulsively. ‘You can trust me because our interests are the same.’
His voice was tight with amazement, as if he did not dare believe her. ‘Are they?’
‘Of course,’ she said rashly, although she knew it was the absolute truth. ‘Thomas has no other friend in Special Branch than you. The survival of my family may depend upon your being able to prove your innocence.’
The colour was warm in his cheeks also, or perhaps it was the firelight. ‘And what could you do?’ he asked.
‘Observe, ask questions, go where you will be recognised and cannot risk being seen. I am quite a good detective – at least I was in the past, when Thomas was in the police force and his cases were not so secret. At least I am considerably better than nothing.’
He blushed and turned away. ‘I could not allow you to come.’
‘I did not ask your permission,’ she retorted. ‘But of course it would be a great deal pleasanter with it,’ she added.
He did not answer. It was the first time she had seen him so uncertain. Even when she had realised some time ago, with shock, that he found her attractive, there had always been a distance between them. He was Pitt’s superior, a seemingly invulnerable man: intelligent, ruthless, always in control, and knowing so many things that others did not. Now he was unsure, able to be hurt, no more in control of everything than she was. She would have used his Christian name if she had dared, but that would be a familiarity too far.
‘We need the same thing,’ she began. ‘We have to find the truth of who is behind this fabrication and put an end to it. It is survival for both of us. If you think that because I am a woman I cannot fight, or that I will not, then you are a great deal more naïve than I assumed, and frankly, I do not believe that. You have some other reason. Either you