Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [136]
“Are you sure?” she said gently.
His hand came up; he stopped eating and smiled at her with sudden charm, a light of sheer pleasure in his eyes.
“Certainly. Clemency was giving her money away as fast as she could—and Prudence has quite sufficient from her books.”
“Books?” Charlotte was totally confused. “What books?”
“Well, Lady Pamela’s Secret for one,” he said, now grinning broadly. “She writes romances—oh, under another name, of course. But she is really very successful. Josiah would have apoplexy if he knew. So would Celeste—for utterly different reasons.”
“Are you sure?” Charlotte was delighted, and incredulous.
“Of course I’m sure. Clemency managed the business for her—to keep it out of Josiah’s knowledge. I suppose I shall have to now.”
“Good gracious.” She wanted to giggle, it was all so richly absurd, but there was too much else pressing in on both of them.
“All right.” She sobered herself with an effort. “If it was not over Theophilus, either personally or his money, over what then?”
“I don’t know. I’ve racked my brain, gone over and over everything I can think of, real or imaginary, that could cause anyone to hate or fear me enough to take the awful step of murder. Even the risk—” He stopped and a shred of the old irony came back. “Not that it has proved to be much of a risk. The police don’t seem to have any more idea who it was now than they did the first night.”
She defended Pitt in a moment of instinct, and then regretted it.
“You mean they have not told you of anything? That does not mean they don’t know—”
His head jerked up, his eyes wide.
“Nor have they told me,” she said quickly.
But he had understood the difference.
“Of course. I was too hasty. They seem so candid, but then they would hardly tell me. I must be one of their chief suspects—which is absurd to me, but I suppose quite reasonable to them.”
There was nothing else for her to say to him, no other questions she could think of to ask. And yet she could not answer Aunt Vespasia’s question yet. Was he a fool, in her sense—blind to some emotional value that any woman would have seen?
“Thank you for sparing me so much time, Dr. Shaw.” She rose from the table. “I realize my questions are impertinent.” She smiled in apology and saw the quick response in his face. “I asked them only because having followed Clemency’s path I have such a respect for her that I care very much that whoever killed her should be found—and I intend to see that her work is continued. My brother-in-law is actually considering standing for Parliament—he and my sister were so moved by what they learned, I think they will not rest until they are engaged in doing what they can to have such a law passed as she suggested.”
He stood also, as a matter of courtesy, and came around to pull her chair back so she might move the more easily.
“You are wasting your time, Mrs. Pitt,” he said very quietly. It was not in the tone of a criticism, but rather of regret, as if he had said exactly the same words before, for the same reasons—and not been believed then either. It was as if Clemency were in the room with them, a benign ghost whom they both liked. There was no sense of intrusion, simply a treasured presence who did not resent their moments of friendship, not even the warmth in the touch of his hand on Charlotte’s arm, his closeness to her as he bade her good-bye, nor the quick, soft brightness of his eyes as he watched her departing figure down the front steps and up into the carriage, helped by Vespasia’s footman. He remained in the hallway, straight-backed, long after the carriage had turned the corner before eventually he closed the door and returned to the dining room.
Charlotte had instructed the coachman to drive to the Worlingham house. It did sound unlikely that either Celeste or Angeline would have attempted to kill Shaw, however derelict they believed him to have been in the matter of Theophilus’s death. And yet Clemency, and thus Shaw, had inherited a great