Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [101]
Eustace’s face blanched in the yellow candlelight and his eyes opened even wider. “Oh, my God!” he breathed, appalled. “What have you done?”
“Delivered a baby,” Tassie said, with the same smile Charlotte had seen that first night on the staircase.
“You—y-you what!” Eustace was aghast.
“Delivered a baby,” Tassie repeated.
“Don’t be ridiculous! What baby? Whose baby?” he spluttered. “You’ve taken leave of your senses, girl!”
“Her name doesn’t matter,” Tassie answered.
“It matters very much!” Eustace’s voice was rising and growing louder. “She had no business sending for you at this time of night! In fact, she had no business sending for you at all—where is her sense of propriety? An unmarried woman has no ... no call to know about these things. It is quite improper! How can I marry you decently now—now you have been—Who is it, Anastasia? I demand to know! I shall criticize her most severely and have a few very unpleasant words to say to her husband. It is completely irresponsible—” He broke off, as a new thought struck him. “I didn’t hear a carriage.”
“There wasn’t one,” Tassie replied. “We walked. And there isn’t a husband, and her name is Poppy Brown, if that helps.”
“I’ve never heard of her—what do you mean, you walked?—there are no Browns in Cardington Crescent!”
“Are there not?” Tassie was completely indifferent. There was nothing left to be saved by tact, and she was too euphoric, too weary, and too tired of being humiliated to plead.
“No, there are not,” he said with mounting anger. “I know everyone, at least by repute. It is my business to know. What is this woman’s name, Anastasia? And this time you had better tell me the truth, or I shall be obliged to discipline you.”
“As far as I know her name is Poppy Brown,” Tassie repeated. “And I never said she lived in the Crescent. She lives at least three miles from here, maybe more, in one of the slum areas. Her brother came for me, and I couldn’t find the way back there alone if I wanted to.”
He was stunned into silence. They stood in the guttering candlelight at the foot of the stairs like figures in a masque. Somewhere far upstairs there was movement; a junior maid had allowed a door to swing shut unattended. Everything else was so still, the sound reverberated through the vast house.
“The sooner you are married to Jack Radley, the better,” Eustace said at last. “If he’ll have you, which I imagine he will—he needs your money. Let him deal with you. Give you your own children to occupy you!”
Tassie’s face tightened and her hand on the bannister gripped hard. “You can’t do that, Papa, he may have murdered George. You wouldn’t want a murderer in the family. Think of the scandal.”
The blood darkened Eustace’s cheeks and the candle shook in his fingers. “Nonsense!” he said too quickly. “It was Emily who killed George. Any fool can see there is a streak of madness in her family.” He shot a look of loathing at Charlotte, then turned to his daughter again. “You will marry Jack Radley as soon as it can be arranged. Now go to your room!”
“If you do that, people will say I had to marry him because I was with child,” she argued. “It is indecent to marry in haste—especially a man of Jack’s reputation.”
“You deserve to lose your standing!” he said angrily. “You’d lose it a lot further if people knew where you’d been tonight!”
She would not give in. “But I’m your daughter. My reputation will rub off on yours. And anyway, if Emily killed George, Jack is certainly implicated—at least, people will say so.”
“What people?” He had a point, and he knew it. “No one knows of his flirtation except the family, and we are certainly not going to tell anyone. Now, do as I tell you and go to your room.”
But she stood perfectly still, except for a tremor in her hand where it gripped the bannister.
“He may not want to marry me. Emily has far more money, and she has it now. I’ll only get mine when my grandmothers die.”
“I shall see that you are properly provided for,” he countered. “And your