Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [44]
“No, he won’t,” he said immediately, then wished he had not been so emphatic. “At least…” He stopped. She was staring at him with her brows furrowed.
“How do you know that, Thomas?” It was not a challenge. She had seen that he did know, and she was asking him to explain it. Now he had either to tell the truth or take the vast step of deliberately lying to her.
“Thomas?” she asked. “How do you know that Voisey won’t do that?”
She would be terrified for him if she knew what he was going to do.
“Wetron doesn’t need him back in the Circle,” he answered. That was true. “And he’d be a fool to trust him.” There was a corroding irony in that! Was anyone a fool to trust Voisey?
“Would you trust him?” she asked. It was a blank question, honest.
“I would trust him to act in his own self-interest,” he said. “To follow his chance for revenge, if you like.” He was making it worse. Now he had backed himself into a corner where it was impossible to tell her that he was going to work with Voisey, and yet neither was he prepared to sacrifice as much of himself as he would have to in order to lie. He wanted to retreat into simply asking her not to pursue it. But that evasion would only make the fear worse.
“Voisey’s involved in this, isn’t he.” She made it a statement, but there was a pleading in her face that he would deny it all the same.
“Of course he is,” he admitted. “He’ll do everything he can to thwart Wetron, and if he succeeds I shall be delighted. But if you are asking me if I know what he plans to do, then no, I don’t.”
“But he’ll do something!” she insisted.
“I believe so. I’m expecting it.”
She let out her breath in a sigh. “I see.”
He wanted to lean forward and touch her, take her in his arms, but the awareness of his evasion kept him back.
He slid a little farther down in the seat, as if he were exhausted, and smiled at her. He meant it far more than she would ever know. “I’ll be careful,” he promised. “I haven’t forgotten what he did, any more than you have, or Vespasia.”
5
THE MORNING THAT Pitt went to St. Paul’s to meet with Voisey, Charlotte telephoned Emily to say that she was coming, and the matter she wished to discuss was of some importance. Emily obligingly canceled her proposed errands to her milliner and her dressmaker, and was at home when Charlotte arrived.
She received her in her private sitting room with the big floral-patterned cushions. The embroidery frame stood with the basket of silks below the painting of Bamburgh Castle outlined against the sea.
Emily was wearing a morning dress of fine muslin in her favorite shade of pale green. It was actually last year’s cut, but no one would have noticed it unless they were a devotee of the minutiae of fashion.
The years had been extremely kind to Emily. In her mid-thirties, she still had a slender figure—she had had only two children rather than the half dozen or so that many of her friends had had—and her skin had the alabaster delicacy of the naturally fair. She was not quite beautiful, but she had elegance and character. Best of all, she knew exactly what flattered her and what did not. She avoided the obvious, choosing the cool colors, the blues and greens of water, the grays and cold plums of shadow, for all important occasions. She would not have worn red even if freezing had been the only alternative.
When it came to fashion, Charlotte was limited by finances. There had been many occasions when, if she wished to move in society, she had been obliged to borrow clothing either from Emily, which was awkward because she was a couple of inches taller, or from great-aunt Vespasia.
“Charlotte!” Emily met her at the sitting room door, her face full of animation. She hugged her quickly, then stepped back. “What is it? Something has happened, or you would not be here at this hour. Is it one of Thomas’s cases?” There was a note of urgency in her