Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [125]
“I don’t know,” Hester said honestly. All the pity in the world now would not permit a lie. It was not the time. “But I will do everything I can—that I swear to you.”
Without saying anything else she stood up and left the room, closing the door behind her and walking away towards the rest of the small rooms in the wing. She was looking for Cassian.
She found him standing in the corridor outside the door to his bedroom, staring up at her, his face pale, his eyes careful.
“You did the right thing to get Edith to stop the fight,” she said matter-of-factly. “Do you like Miss Buchan?”
He continued to stare at her without speaking, his eyelids heavy, his face watchful and uncertain.
“Shall we go into your room?” she suggested. She was not sure how she was going to approach the subject, but nothing now would make her turn back. The truth was almost reached, at least this part of it.
Wordlessly he turned around and opened the door. She followed him in. Suddenly she was furious that the burden of so much tragedy, guilt and death should rest on the narrow, fragile shoulders of such a child.
He walked over to the window; the light on his face showed the marks of tears on his soft, blemishless skin. His bones were still not fully formed, his nose just beginning to strengthen and lose its childish outline, his brows to darken.
“Cassian,” she began quietly.
“Yes ma’am?” He looked at her, turning his head slowly.
“Miss Buchan was right, you know. Your mother is not a wicked person, and she does love you very much.”
“Then why did she kill my papa?” His lip trembled and with great difficulty he stopped himself from crying.
“You loved your papa very much?”
He nodded, his hand going up to his mouth.
The rage inside her made her tremble.
“You had some special secrets with your papa, didn’t you?”
His right shoulder came up and for an instant a half smile brushed over his mouth. Then there was fear in his eyes, a guarded look.
“I’m not going to ask you about it,” she said gently. “Not if he told you not to tell anyone. Did he make you promise?”
He nodded again.
“That must have been very difficult for you?”
“Yes.”
“Because you couldn’t tell Mama?”
He looked frightened and backed away half a step.
“Was that important, not to tell Mama?”
He nodded slowly, his eyes on her face.
“Did you want to tell her, at first?”
He stood quite still.
Hester waited. Far outside she heard faint murmurs from the street, carriage wheels, a horse’s hooves. Beyond the window the leaves flickered in the wind and threw patterns of light across the glass.
Slowly he nodded.
“Did it hurt?”
Again the long hesitation, then he nodded.
“But it was a very grown-up thing to do, and being a man of honor, you didn’t tell anyone?”
He shook his head.
“I understand.”
“Are you going to tell Mama? Papa said if she ever knew she’d hate me—she wouldn’t love me anymore, she wouldn’t understand, and she’d send me away. Is that what happened?” His eyes were very large, full of fear and defeat, as if in his heart he had already accepted it was true.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “She went because they took her, not because of you at all. And I’m not going to tell her, but I think perhaps she knows already—and she doesn’t hate you. She’ll never hate you.”
“Yes she will! Papa said so!” His voice rose in panic and he backed away from her.
“No she won’t! She loves you very much indeed. So much she is prepared to do anything she can for you.”
“Then why has she gone away? She killed Papa, Grandmama told me—and Grandpapa said so too. And they’ll take her away and she’ll never come back. Grandmama said so. She said I’ve got to forget her, not think about her anymore! She’s never coming back!”
“Is that what you want to do—forget her?”
There was a long silence.
His hand came up to his mouth again. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t, I’m sorry. I should not have asked. Are you glad now no one is doing that to you anymore—what Papa did?”
His eyelids lowered again and he hunched his right shoulder and looked at the