Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [97]
“Well maybe he would have—if Thaddeus had told him to.” Hester was not very happy with the idea, but it was a start. “Or it might be something quite different, but still to do with Sabella. Alexandra would kill to protect Sabella, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes, I believe so. All right—that is one reason. What else?”
“Because she is so ashamed of the reason she does not wish anyone to know,” Hester said. “I’m sorry—I realize that is a distasteful thought. But it is a possibility.”
Edith nodded.
“Or,” suggested Major Tiplady, looking from one to the other of them, “it is some reason which she believes will not make her case any better than it is now, and she would prefer that her real motive remain private if it cannot save her.”
They both looked at him.
“You are right,” Edith said slowly. “That also would be a reason.” She turned to Hester. “Would any of that help?”
“I don’t know,” Hester said grimly. “Perhaps all we can look for now is sense. At least sense would stop it hurting quite so much.” She shrugged. “I cannot get young Valentine Furnival’s face out of my mind’s eye; the poor boy looked so wounded. As if everything the adult world had led him to believe only confused him and left him with nowhere to turn!”
Edith sighed. “Cassian is the same. And he is only eight, poor child, and he’s lost both his parents in one blow, as it were. I have tried to comfort him, or at least not to say anything which would belittle his loss, that would be absurd, but to spend time with him, talk to him and make him feel less alone.” She shook her head and a troubled expression crossed her face. “But it hasn’t done any good. I think he doesn’t really like me very much. The only person he really seems to like is Peverell.”
“I suppose he misses his father very much,” Hester said unhappily. “And he may have heard whispers, no matter how much people try to keep it from him, that it was his mother who killed him. He may view all women with a certain mistrust.”
Edith sighed and bent her head, putting her hands over her face as if she could shut out not only the light but some of what her mind could see as well.
“I suppose so,” she said very quietly. “Poor little soul—I feel so totally helpless. I think that is the worst part of all this—there is nothing whatever we can do.”
“We will just have to hope.” Major Tiplady reached out a hand as if to touch Edith’s arm, then suddenly realized what he was doing and withdrew it. “Until something occurs to us,” he finished quietly.
But nearly a week later, on June 4, nothing had occurred. Monk was nowhere to be seen. Oliver Rathbone was working silently in his office in Vere Street, and Major Tiplady was almost recovered, although loth to admit it.
Hester received a message from Clarence Gardens in Edith’s rather sprawling script asking her to come to luncheon the following day. She was to come, not as a formal guest so much as Edith’s friend, with a view to persuading her parents that it would not be unseemly for Edith to become a librarian to some discreet gentleman of unspotted reputation, should such a position be found.
“I cannot endure this idleness any longer,” she had written. “Merely to sit here day after day, waiting for the trial and unable to lift a finger to assist anyone, is more than I can bear, and keep a reasonable temper or frame of mind.”
Hester was also concerned about where she herself would find her next position. She had hoped Major Tiplady might know of some other soldier recently wounded or in frail health who would need her services, but he had been extremely unforthcoming. In fact all his attention lately seemed to be on the Carlyons and the case of the general’s death.
However, he made no demur at all when she asked him if he would be agreeable to her taking luncheon with Edith the following day; in fact he seemed quite eager that she should.
Accordingly noon on the fifth saw her in Edith’s sitting room discussing with her the possibilities of employment, not only as librarian but as companion if a lady of suitable occupation