Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [41]
Charlotte chilled as she remembered him, his cold, probing eyes, the impression he gave of a bitter humor, and a contempt.
“If it’s anybody in the Walk,” she said with feeling. “I sincerely hope it’s him—and that he is caught!”
“So do I,” Emily agreed. “But somehow I don’t think it is. Fulbert is perfectly sure it isn’t. He keeps saying so, and with great pleasure, as if he knew something horrid that amused him.”
“Perhaps he does.” Charlotte frowned, trying to hide the thought, and failing. It would come out in words. “Perhaps he knows who it is—and it is not Afton.”
“It’s too disgusting to think of,” Emily shook her head. “It will be some servant or other, almost certainly someone hired for the Dilbridges’ party. All those strange coachmen milling about, with nothing to do but wait. No doubt one of them refreshed himself too much, and, when he was in liquor, he lost control. Perhaps in the dark he thought Fanny was a maid, or something. And then, when he discovered she wasn’t, he had to stab her to keep her from giving him away. Coachmen do carry knives quite often, you know, to cut harness if it gets caught, or get stones out of horses’ hooves if they pick them up, and all sorts of things.” She warmed to her own excellent reasoning. “And after all, none of the men who live in the Walk, I mean none of us, would be carrying a knife anyway, would we?”
Charlotte stared at her, one of her carefully cut sandwiches in her hand.
“Not unless they meant to kill Fanny anyway.”
Emily felt a sickness that had nothing to do with her condition.
“Why on earth would anyone want to do that? If it had been Jessamyn, I could understand. Everyone is jealous of her because she is always so beautiful. You never see her put out, or flustered. Or even Selena, but no one could have hated Fanny—I mean—there wasn’t enough of her to hate!”
Charlotte stared at her plate.
“I don’t know.”
Emily leaned forward.
“What about Thomas? What does he know? He must have told you, since it concerns us.”
“I don’t think he knows anything,” Charlotte said unhappily. “Except that it doesn’t seem to have been any of the regular servants. They can all pretty well account for themselves. And none of them have a past trouble he can find. They wouldn’t, would they? Or they wouldn’t be employed in Paragon Walk!”
When Emily returned home, she wanted to talk to George, but she did not know how to begin. Aunt Vespasia was out, and George was sitting in the library with his feet up, the doors open to the garden, and a book upside down on his stomach.
He looked up as soon as she came in and put the book aside.
“How was Charlotte?” he asked immediately.
“Well.” She was a little surprised. He had always liked Charlotte, but in a rather distant, absent way. After all, he very seldom saw her. Why the keenness today?
“Did she say anything about Pitt?” he went on, moving to sit upright, his eyes on her face.
So it was not Charlotte. It was the murder and the Walk he was thinking about. She felt that intense moment of reality when you know a blow is coming but it has not yet landed. The pain is not quite there, but you understand it as surely as if it were. The brain has already accepted it. He was afraid.
It was not that she thought he had killed Fanny; even in her worst moments she had never believed that. She did not know or sense in him the capability for such violence or, to be honest, for the fierceness of emotion to ignite such a train of events. If she were honest, he was not stirred by great tides. His worst sins would be indolence, the unintentional selfishness of a child. His temper was easy; he liked to please. Pain distressed him; he would go to much trouble to avoid his own and, as much as he had energy for, that of others. He had always possessed worldly goods without the need to strive for them, and his generosity frequently bordered on the profligate. He had given Emily everything she wanted and taken pleasure in doing so.
No, she would not believe he could have killed Fanny— unless