Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [88]
“Yes.” He swallowed and tried to meet the parlormaid’s eyes quite casually. “By all means. She has come to see some historical documents, so show her into the library, and then bring tea.”
“Yes, sir.” If the parlormaid found it strange, there was nothing in her face to betray it.
He stood up and pulled his jacket a little straighter. Without thinking, he raised his hands to his cravat. It seemed tight. He loosened it a fraction, and made sure in front of the glass that it was properly tied.
Charlotte was in the library. She turned and smiled as the general came in. He did not even notice the warm reds of her street gown, or that her boots were soaked. All he saw was the light in her face.
“Good afternoon, General,” she said quickly. “It is most kind of you to allow me to read the letters. I do hope I have not called inconveniently?”
“No—not at all.” He wished she would use his name, but it would be grossly familiar to ask her to. He must behave with dignity or he would embarrass her. He kept his face cool. “I have no other engagements for the meantime.” He was going to have late tea with Robert Carlton, but that was unimportant; they were old friends and the arrangement was quite informal.
“That is very generous of you.” She was still smiling.
“Please sit down,” he said, indicating the big chair near the fire. “I have asked the maid to bring tea. I hope that is acceptable?”
“Oh, yes, thank you.” She sat down and put her feet on the fender. For the first time, he noticed how wet her boots were, and that they were quite worn. He looked away, and went for the letters out of the bookcase.
They studied them together for half an hour. The maid brought tea, Charlotte poured it, and they returned to the utterly foreign world of Spain at the beginning of the century. The soldier wrote with such intense honesty that they knew his thoughts, felt his emotions, sensed the closeness of other men and the impact of battle, endured with him endless marches over dry hills, his hunger, and the long hours of waiting followed by sudden fear.
At last Charlotte sat back, her eyes wide, seeing far away. “You know, with his writing that soldier has given me a portion of his life. I feel very rich. Most people are restricted to one time and place, and I have been privileged to see another so vividly it is as if I had been there but come away without the injury or the cost.”
He looked at her face, alive with pleasure, and felt ridiculously rewarded. The sense of being alone vanished like night when the whole earth whirls suddenly upward toward the sun.
He found himself smiling back at her. Instinctively he put out his hand and touched her for a moment. The warmth of her spread right through him till his whole body felt it. Then, reluctantly, he withdrew his hand. It was a moment he dared not linger over. The intensity with which he wished to was warning enough.
What could he say that was honest? He would shatter the moment if he were to descend to platitudes, ordinary and born of someone else’s mind. “I’m glad,” he said simply. “It mattered to me, too. I felt as if I knew that soldier better than I know most of the people I see and talk to, and whose lives I thought I understood.”
Her eyes moved away from his and she took a deep breath. He observed the smooth curve of her body, her throat, the fine line of her cheek.
“Merely living close to people does not mean you know them,” she said thoughtfully. “All you know is what they look like.”
Christina came to his mind.
“One tends to believe that other people care about the same things,” she went on. “It comes as a shock to discover sometimes that they don’t. I cannot get the murders in the Devil’s Acre out of my thoughts, and yet most of the people I know prefer not to hear anything about them. The circumstances remind us of poverty and injustices that hurt.” She swung around