Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [37]
Pitt remained totally straight-faced. “Not at all, ma’am. I’m sure you are right. There are many men like that, and many women who are much the same. Except, of course, they also like a title, where it is to be had.”
The old lady glared at him, wishing to snub his insolence, but he had made the point she desired, and at the moment that need was stronger.
“Hum-ha! Well—Mr. Radley and Emily Ashworth are an excellent pair. Came together like two magnets, and poor George was the victim. There—I’ve done your job for you. Now go away. I’m tired and I feel ill. I have had a severe shock today. If you had the slightest idea how to behave you would ...” She trailed off, not sure what he would do.
Pitt bowed. “You are bearing up magnificently, ma’am.”
She glared at him, sure there was sarcasm there but unable to pinpoint it exactly enough to retaliate. His face was almost offensively innocent. Wretched creature.
“Ha,” she said grudgingly. “You may go.”
For the first time he smiled. “Thank you, ma’am. Gracious of you.”
In the large hall he found a footman waiting for him.
“Lady Cumming-Gould is in the breakfast room, sir. She would like to see you,” the footman said anxiously. “This way, sir.”
With a slight nod, Pitt followed him to the door, knocked, and went in. The room was heavily furnished; bright sunlight picked out the massive sideboard and large breakfast table. The windows were open and a chatter of birds drifted in from the garden.
Vespasia was sitting at the foot of the table—Olivia’s place when she had been alive. She looked tired; there was a stoop to her shoulders that he had never seen before, even in the weariest days when she had been fighting to get the child poverty bill through Parliament. The relief in her eyes when she saw him was so intense, it gave him a lurch of pain that he could do nothing to make it easier for her. Indeed, he feared already that he was going to make it worse.
She straightened up with an effort. “Good afternoon, Thomas. I am pleased it was possible for you to take this—case—yourself.”
For once he could think of nothing to say. Grief was too strong for the few words he could find, and yet to speak purely as a policeman would be appalling.
“For heaven’s sake, sit down,” she ordered. “I am in no mood to break my neck looking up at you. I am sure you have already seen Eustace March, and his mother.”
“Yes.” He sat down obediently opposite her across the heavy polished table.
“What did they say?” she asked bluntly. There was no time for gentle skirting round the truth, simply because it was unpleasant.
“Mr. March tried to convince me it was suicide because George had fallen in love with another woman—”
“Rubbish!” Vespasia interrupted tartly. “He was infatuated with Sybilla. He behaved like a fool, but I think by last night he had realized that. Emily handled it perfectly. She had every bit as much sense as I could have hoped.”
Pitt glanced down for a moment, then up again. “Mrs. March said that Emily was having an affair with the other guest, Jack Radley.”
“Spiteful old besom!” Vespasia said in exasperation. “Emily’s husband was behaving like an ass with another woman, and without the slightest discretion, an affliction which Lavinia has had to put up with herself, and failed to resolve. Of course Emily made it appear she was developing an interest in another man. What woman with spirit wouldn’t?”
Pitt did not comment on Lavinia March; the pain of the dilemma was known to both of them. A man could divorce his wife for adultery; a woman had no such privilege. She must learn to live with it the best she could. With this death the fears engendered by suspicion had begun to grow, to warp thought, to seize and enlarge every ugly