Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [24]
“One doesn’t even wish to try,” She shivered. “I’m sure she has the sympathy of absolutely everyone. I have no doubt each of us will call upon her in the next weeks, it would be inhuman not to. Even gentlemen will call, I’m sure. It would be the least they could do to comfort her.”
The nostrils flared on Selena’s sharp little nose.
“I would not have thought any comfort possible after one’s sister-in-law has been violated practically on one’s doorstep and has staggered in to die literally in one’s arms.” There was an unspecified criticism of Emily in her tone. “I think I should retire altogether if such a thing happened to me. I might even become quite deranged.” She said it very certainly, as if she were in no doubt that such a thing had already happened to Jessamyn.
“Good gracious!” Emily affected horror. “Surely you don’t imagine it will happen again, do you? I didn’t even know you had a sister-in-law.”
“I don’t!” Selena snapped. “I was merely saying how I sympathize with poor Jessamyn, and that we must not expect too much of her. We must be understanding if she seems a little odd—at least I am sure I shall be.”
“I’m sure you will, my dear.” Emily leaned forward, her voice cooing. “I’m sure you would never intentionally be unkind to anyone.”
Charlotte wondered if Emily were not giving her credit for rather many “accidents.”
“It must be very difficult to know what to say,” Charlotte suggested. “I should not know whether avoiding the subject might seem as if I were indifferent to her loss, or then on the other hand discussing it might appear like curiosity, which would be so vulgar.”
Selena’s face hardened, taking the inference perfectly.
“How very frank of you,” she said with wide-eyed surprise, as if she had discovered something alive in the salad. “Are you always so—candid—about your thoughts, Mrs. Pitt?”
“I’m afraid so. It is my greatest social disadvantage.” Now let her find a civil answer to that!
“Oh! Well, I dare say it cannot be too serious,” Selena replied cooly. “Your sister does not appear even to be aware of it.”
“I am inured to it.” Emily smiled dazzlingly at her. “I have suffered disaster upon disaster. Now I only bring her to call upon friends I know I can trust.” She met Selena’s brown eyes squarely.
Charlotte nearly choked, trying to maintain a sober face. Selena was outmaneuvered, and she knew it.
“How kind,” she murmured pointlessly. She took the tray from the maid. “Do have some sherbet.”
There was a natural silence after this for a little while, as they dipped their spoons into the cool delicacy. Charlotte wanted to use the opportunity to learn something more about the people, perhaps something that Pitt, as an obvious policeman, could not observe, but all the questions in her head were too clumsy. And she had not decided precisely what she needed to know. She sat with the sherbet dish in her hand and stared at the roses on the far wall. It reminded her a little of Cater Street and her parents’ home, only this was grander, lusher. It seemed such an unlikely place for a sordid crime like rape. Embezzlement or fraud she could have understood, or of course burglary. But did men who lived in houses like these ever rape anyone? Surely no matter how eccentric their tastes, or even perverted—she had heard that there were such things—men from Paragon Walk could afford to pay to indulge them. And there were always people who catered, everywhere, from the teeming rookeries to the expensive brothels, even boys and children.
Unless, of course, some particular woman was tormenting them, teasing, and flaunting herself. But from everyone’s descriptions, Fanny Nash had been anything but a flirt—in fact, decidedly gauche. Thomas had said Jessamyn made as much a point of it as was only just short of unkindness, and Emily had borne her out.
She was still thinking about it, convincing herself it had been some drunken coachman from the Dilbridges’ party and nothing to touch Emily, when she was distracted by voices across the lawn. She turned to see two elderly ladies, dressed in identical