Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [99]
“I lied by omission,” she went on, to break the silence. “I said nothing untrue!” It sounded like an attempt at excuse.
“Please don’t explain.” He found words at last, his voice a little husky. He breathed deeply in and out. “I care about the murders also—and the Devil’s Acre. I imagined you had not come about the letters. What did you come for?”
“But I do care about the letters!” Now she was sounding like a child, and the tears were spilling over. She sniffed and reached for her handkerchief. She blew her nose and looked away from him. “There is some very disturbing information. I—I thought you would wish to know immediately.”
“I—?” Already he understood that there was something else that would hurt him, something further. An instinctive sense of it made him move a little away from her, allowing her to sit down without seeming to rebuff him. It was a delicacy of emotion he had not known before. “What have you discovered?” he asked quickly.
“Max was keeping two houses.” She hesitated to use the word “whore.” It was too ugly, too close just now.
He did not seem to grasp the meaning of it. “Indeed?” The confusion showed in his voice. They were being formal, as if the past moment’s intimacy had not happened. It was easier for both of them.
She rushed on before there was time to think of emotions. “One was ordinary, like any in the Devil’s Acre. The other was for very high-class customers.” She smiled bitterly, although her face was toward the fire. “Carriage trade. He even provided women of good birth, very good indeed, on occasion.”
He was silent. She tried to imagine what was in his mind: incredulity, horror—knowledge? Pain.
She breathed out slowly. “Adela Pomeroy was one of them.”
Still he said nothing.
“Pomeroy was a pederast. I expect—” She stopped. She was trying to excuse the woman. Why? To excuse Christina also, for him? He did not deserve patronage. Again, almost overwhelmingly, she wanted to hold him tightly in her arms, to touch softly the unreachable wound—as if anything she could do would ease it! It was idiotic. She would only intrude on his embarrassment and hurt, preposterously overrating the affection he had felt for her, which was perhaps already destroyed by her duplicity—and by this much closer threat.
“I’m sorry,” she said, still facing the fire.
“What about the others?” he asked. She could not read his voice.
“Dr. Pinchin performed abortions on prostitutes, not always successfully. He took his payment in kind. Mrs. Pinchin was very grim and very respectable.”
“And Bertie Astley?” he persisted. He was being very objective, covering his feeling for her ... or Christina, or anyone, by seeking to understand the facts.
“He owned a row of houses in the Acre—tenements, sweatshops, a gin mill. Of course, Beau Astley might have killed him for the money. They bring in a lot.” She looked at him.
“Do you believe that?” He appeared perfectly calm, except that his facial muscles were tight and his left hand was clenched by his side. For an instant, she caught the brightness in his eyes before he looked away.
“No,” she said with an effort.
The door burst open and Christina came in, her face white, her eyes brilliant. She was wearing an outdoor cloak and carried a large, handsome reticule.
“Why, Miss Ellison, how delightful to see you again!” she said a little loudly. “I declare, you are the most studious person I have ever known. You will be able to deliver lectures upon the life of a soldier in the Peninsular War to learned societies. That is what you are discussing again, is it not?”
The prefabricated lie came to Charlotte’s lips instantly. “My knowledge is very slight, Mrs. Ross. But I have a relation who is most interested.