Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [43]
She took a deep breath. “Mr. Stripe?”
“Yes, miss?” He stopped and turned to face her, aware of the blood burning up his cheeks.
She was trying to hide her fear, but it was there in her eyes, dark and shivery. “Mr. Stripe, is it true Lord Ashworth was murdered?”
“We think so, miss. But don’t you worry, we’ll take good care o’ you. An’ we’ll find whoever did it, be sure.” Now he had said it. He waited for her reaction.
Relief flooded into her face; then she remembered herself, her position, and her loyalties. She drew herself up and lifted her chin very high. “Of course,” she said with dignity. “Thank you, Mr. Stripe. Now if there’s nothing else, I’ll be about my business.”
“Yes, miss,” he said regretfully, and allowed her to guide him downstairs again to resume his own duties in the butler’s pantry.
Pitt saw Sybilla March also, and the moment she walked into the room he understood why George had behaved with such abandon. She was a beautiful woman, vivid and sensuous. There was a warmth about her face, a grace in her movement utterly different from the cool elegance of fashion. And yet, for all the curves of her body, the fragility in the slenderness of her neck, the smallness of her wrists, made her also seem vulnerable and robbed him of the anger he had wanted to feel.
She sat down on the green sofa exactly where Tassie had been an hour earlier. “I don’t know anything, Mr. Pitt,” she said before he had time to ask. Her eyes were shadowed, as if she had been weeping, and there was a tightness about her which he thought was fear. But there had been a murder in the house, and whoever had committed it was still here. Only a fool would not be afraid.
“You may not appreciate the value of what you know, Mrs. March,” he said as he sat down. “I imagine anyone had the opportunity to put the digitalis in Lord Ashworth’s coffee. We shall have to approach it from the point of discovering who might wish to.”
She said nothing. The white hands in her lap were clenched so tightly the knuckles were shining.
He found it unexpectedly difficult to go on. He did not want to be brutal, and yet skirting round the subjects that were painful would be useless, and would only prolong the distress.
“Was Lord Ashworth in love with you?” he said bluntly.
Her head jerked up, eyes wide, as if she had been startled by the question, and yet she must have known it was inevitable. There was a long silence before she replied—so long, Pitt was about to ask again.
“I don’t know,” she said in a husky voice. “What does a man mean when he says ‘I love you’? Perhaps there are as many answers as there are men.”
It was a reply he had not foreseen at, all. He had expected a blushing admission, or a defiant one, or even a denial. But a philosophical answer that was a question itself left him confused.
“Did you love him?” he asked, far more brashly than he had planned.
Her mouth moved in the slightest of smiles, and he suspected there was an infinity of meaning in it he would never grasp. “No. But I liked him very much.”
“Did your husband know the true nature of your regard for Lord Ashworth?” He was floundering now, and he was acutely aware of it.
“Yes,” she admitted. “But William was not jealous, if that is what you imagine. We mix in Society a great deal. George was not the first man to have found me attractive.”
That Pitt was obliged to believe. But whether William was jealous or not was another matter. How far had the affair gone, and did William know its extent? Was he either ignorant of it, or truly a complacent husband? Or was there nothing to mind?
There was certainly no point in asking Sybilla.
“Thank you, Mrs. March,” he said formally.
Now he could no longer put it off. He must go and see Emily, face her grief.
He stood up and excused himself, leaving Sybilla alone in the green withdrawing room.
In the hall he found a footman and requested to be taken to see Emily. The man was reluctant