Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [66]
Ross’s eyes traveled past the bracelets on her wrists, over her white shoulders to her face. He had never realized she was capable of such emotion. He did not understand what it was—desperation, fear, a tenderness that made her angry?
Beyond the dancers in their flower colors was the conservatory door where General Balantyne stood leaning forward a little, his face soft as he spoke to Charlotte Ellison. Ross’s eyes were drawn to her because she was beautiful. She had not the flawless loveliness of the young girls, or the chiseled bones of classic beauty, but a sheer intensity of life. Even across the swirl of the room he could feel her emotions. And next to her, so close that his hand brushed her arm, Balantyne was oblivious of all the world.
Was that what Augusta saw that wounded her and caused the confusion he had seen?
“He looked again. No—her head was turned the other way now, and she could not possibly see the general. She was still looking at Christina, at the foot of the curved stairway leading to the gallery, her mulberry-colored taffeta skirt billowing, gleaming where the light caught it, her cheeks flushed. The man beside her put his arm around her waist and whispered something so close to her ear she must have felt his breath on her skin.
Alan Ross decided that moment that the next evening Christina went out alone in the carriage, whomever she was going to visit, he would follow her and know for himself the truth. However painful, the truth must be better than the hideous thoughts that were crowding his imagination now.
His opportunity came almost before he was ready for it. It was the following day, shortly after dinner. Christina excused herself, saying she had developed a headache and would take a short drive to get a breath of fresh air. She had been in the house all day and felt the atmosphere too close. She might call upon Lavinia Hawkesley, who had been indisposed lately, and Ross was not to wait up for her.
He opened his mouth to protest; then, with cold fear inside him, he realized she had offered the perfect opportunity. “Very well, if you think she is well enough to receive,” he agreed, with only the smallest shake in his voice.
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said cheerfully. “She is probably bored stiff, poor soul, if she has been alone all day and confined to the house. I expect she will be delighted with an hour or two’s company. Do not wait up for me.
“No,” he said, turning away from her. “No. Good night, Christina.”
“Good night.” She picked up the ruched skirt of her dinner dress and swept out. How different she was from the girl he had thought her! They were strangers, without humor and without trust.
Five minutes later, when he heard the front door close, he stood up and went to the cloakroom where his heavy coat was hanging and put it on. He added a muffler and a hat, then went out into the icy street after her. It was not difficult to follow the carriage; it could not go quickly on the rime-encrusted cobbles, and at a brisk walk he kept within twenty feet of it. No one paid him the least attention.
He had gone over a mile when he saw the carriage draw to a halt outside a large house. Christina got out of the carriage and went into the house. From the opposite pavement he could not distinguish the number, but he knew Lavinia Hawkesley lived in this area.
So Christina had come, precisely as she had said, for a simple call upon a woman friend. He was standing here shaking with cold for no reason at all. It was stupid—and pathetic! The carriage was moving away. It was turning and coming back, not round to the mews. Christina must have dismissed it. Was she proposing to remain here all night? Or simply to use the Hawkesley coach to come home?
Alan Ross was left to wait like a loiterer on the corner and decide whether to go home himself, soak the chill out of his bones in hot water, and go to bed, or to remain here until Christina came out and to follow her again. But that would be ridiculous; the whole idea had been futile, an aberration