Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [65]
“Someone like whom, Mama? Joshua Fielding? Is that what you are afraid of?”
“No! No.” She shook her head fiercely, her face pink. “It could be anyone.”
“Now who is being illogical?” Charlotte said gently. “The only people the judge saw that day were his wife, Mr. Pryce, Judge Livesey, Devlin O’Neil, Miss Macaulay, and Joshua Fielding. Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Stafford and Judge Livesey had nothing to do with Kingsley Blaine. They only came into the case when it came to trial, and Judge Livesey only when it went to appeal. They couldn’t possibly be guilty of that crime.”
Caroline looked very pale.
“Then we’ve got to do something! I don’t believe it was Joshua, and we must prove it. Perhaps we can find out something before Thomas starts, while he is still investigating Mrs. Stafford and Mr. Pryce.”
Charlotte felt a sudden, quick sympathy with her, but she could think of little that would be helpful. She knew the sense of fear that someone one liked could be implicated, hurt—even be guilty.
“I don’t know what we could find out,” she said hesitantly, watching Caroline’s face and the anxiety in it, the awareness of her vulnerable situation. It was so easy to be foolish. “If Thomas has tried …” She shrugged. “I don’t know where to begin. We don’t know Mrs. Stafford—although of course I suppose I could call on her …” She knew her reluctance to do it was plain in her voice and in her expression. “It’s …” She struggled to find words that were not too abrupt. “She will know it is curiosity; she knows I am a policeman’s wife. And if she is innocent, and grieving, whatever she feels for Mr. Pryce—and we don’t know what her feelings are—it is only rumor—then it would be so offensive.”
“But if innocent people were in jeopardy?” Caroline pressed, leaning forward across the table. “Surely that must be the most urgent thing, the most important.”
“That is not yet the case, Mama, and it may never be.”
“When it is, it will be too late,” Caroline said with rising anxiety. “It isn’t only charges and arrests, Charlotte—it is suspicion, and the ruin of reputations. That can be enough to destroy someone.”
“I know.”
“What did Lady Cumming-Gould say? You haven’t told me.”
“Actually I don’t know. I haven’t been to see her since then, and she did not send a note, so I assume she did not learn anything she thought of value.” She smiled. “Perhaps the case really was decisive.”
“Would you find out, please?”
“Of course,” Charlotte said with relief. That would be easy to do.
“You can take my carriage again, if you like,” Caroline offered, then blushed at her own forcefulness and the urgency with which she was pursuing the issue. “If that would help, of course,” she added.
“Oh yes.” Charlotte accepted with only the faintest smile. “That would help a great deal.” She rose to her feet, the laughter in her eyes unmistakable now. “It is so much more elegant to roll up in a carriage than to walk from the omnibus stop.”
Caroline opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind.
Vespasia was out when Charlotte arrived at her house, but the parlormaid informed her she would be back in no more than half an hour, and if Charlotte cared to wait she could take tea in the withdrawing room. Lady Vespasia would be most disappointed to have missed her.
Charlotte accepted, and sat in Vespasia’s elegant room sipping her tea and watching the flames leap in the fireplace. She had time to look around, which she had never had before, when it would have been obvious and seemed an intrusive curiosity. The room was stamped with Vespasia’s character. There were tall, slender candlesticks on the mantel shelf, not at either end, as one might have expected, but both of them a little to the left