Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [95]
As if she should have seen it from the beginning, she suddenly understood with blinding clarity that he had always hated Julius. In spite of Minnie’s death, he was still able to rejoice in his destruction. Elsa couldn’t help but wonder if her husband had planned all this. Was the prostitute’s death supposed to implicate and ruin Julius?
Why? Because Elsa loved him? Cahoon did not love her; he never had. But she belonged to him. This was not jealousy, it was hatred for having been insulted. His vanity was wounded, his right of possession injured.
Would she let him trample over her like this? Did she think Julius had butchered that woman, then when Minnie worked it out and faced him, he had killed her in the same way? If she said nothing, then she was admitting that she did, and that would always be part of her. Better to deny it, whatever it cost, than surrender the dream now.
“They will have to prove him guilty first,” she said aloud.
“They will do,” he replied, eyes shining again. “Cling on as long as you can, Elsa! Imagine all you like. You don’t know men, and you don’t know love. You never did! Julius is a madman. Minnie had the courage to face that. But then she was always braver, stronger, and better than you!”
She looked at him and saw the hate in his face, for Julius, and for her too. In all his agony over Minnie—and she believed that—he had a joy that Julius would be destroyed as well. Perhaps it was all he had left now.
Except to destroy her too.
How would he do it? If Julius was locked in his room, he could not cut her throat and her stomach and blame him for it. But he could implicate her somehow, in something, and then put her aside, divorce her. Then perhaps he could marry Amelia Parr!
She looked at him, searched his face, and believed with ice-cold certainty that it was true. There was nothing to protect her, except her own nerve and intelligence, and a will not to be beaten.
“We’ll see,” she said softly. “It isn’t the end yet.”
CHAPTER
NINE
VICTOR NARRAWAY SAT in the hansom oblivious of the sunlit streets through which he passed. He was more concerned with the murders in the Palace than he had allowed Pitt to know. Five years ago, at the time of the Whitechapel atrocities by the man who had come to be known as Jack the Ripper, the Queen had almost retired from public duties. The Prince of Wales’s extravagance had been out of control and he was deeply in debt. The reputation of the Crown was so low that the cry for a republic was finding many to answer it. There had been ugly riots in the streets, especially in the East End, and around the Whitechapel area in particular.
Three years later, Pitt had encountered the same emotions still high with Charles Voisey’s attempt at a republican coup. It had come far too close to success, and far too recently for a scandal like this not to be profoundly dangerous. There was a current of political unrest that was more serious than Pitt was aware.
The other matter that disturbed Narraway was the whole issue of the Cape-to-Cairo railway. On the surface it was a brilliant idea: daring, farsighted, and patriotic. It would unite Africa physically, accomplish new marvels in engineering and exploration, and bring culture, civilization, and possibly Christianity to new regions never before fully explored. And of course it would also be the greatest boost for trade in the Empire since the beginnings of the East India Company over a century before.
However, such a vast undertaking had negative aspects as well, and there was a gnawing doubt in his mind. It had been his habit all his life to listen to both sides of any argument, to give at least as much weight to the opinion against as to the praise. It was a practice that had proved painful, and often unpopular, but it had saved both money and life, not to mention political embarrassment.