Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [42]
The blow she felt was that he had done something else that Pitt would uncover in searching for the killer, some thoughtless gratification, not intended to hurt Emily, just a pleasure taken because it was there, and he liked it. Selena—or someone else? It hardly mattered who.
Funny, when she had married him, she had seen all that so clearly and accepted it. Why did it matter now? Was it her condition? She had been warned it might make her oversensitive, weepy. Or was it that she had come to love George more than she had expected to?
He was staring at her, waiting for her to answer the question.
“No.” She avoided his eyes. “It seems as if most of the servants are accounted for, but that’s all.”
“Then what in hell is he doing?” George exploded, his voice sharp and high. “It’s damn near a fortnight! Why hasn’t he caught him? Even if he can’t arrest the man and prove it, he ought at least to know who it is by now!”
She was sorry for him because he was frightened, and sorry for herself. She was also angry because it was his stupid thoughtlessness that had given him cause to fear Pitt, self-indulgence he had had no need to take.
“I only saw Charlotte,” she said a little stiffly, “not Thomas. And, even if I had seen him, I could hardly have asked him what he was doing. I don’t imagine it is easy to find a murderer when you have no idea where to begin, and no one can prove where they were.”
“Dammit!” he said helplessly. “I was miles away from here! I didn’t come home until it was all over, finished. I couldn’t have done anything or seen anything.”
“Then what are you upset about?” She still did not face him.
There was a moment’s silence. When he spoke again his voice was calmer, tired.
“I don’t like being investigated. I don’t like half London being asked about me, and everyone knowing there is a rapist and murderer in my street. I don’t like the thought that he’s still loose, whoever he is. And, above all, I don’t like the thought that it could be one of my neighbors, someone I’ve known for years, probably even liked.”
That was fair. Of course, he was hurt. He would have been callous, even stupid, not to have been. She turned and smiled at him at last.
“We all hate it,” she said softly. “And we’re all frightened. But it might take a long time yet. If he’s one of the coachmen or footmen, he won’t be easy to find, and if it’s one of us—he will have all sorts of ways of hiding himself. After all, if we’ve lived with him all these years and have no idea, how can Thomas find him in a few days?”
He did not reply. Indeed, there was no argument to make.
Still, regardless of tragedy, there were certain social obligations to be honored. One did not abandon all discipline simply because there had been loss, still less if the loss had been accompanied by scandalous circumstances. It would be unseemly to be observed at parties quite so soon, but afternoon calls, discreetly made, were an entirely different matter. Vespasia, prompted by interest and justified by duty, called upon Phoebe Nash.
She had intended to convey sympathy. She was genuinely sorry for Fanny’s death, although the idea of dying did not appall her as it had in her youth. Now she was resigned to it, as one is to going home at the end of a long and splendid party. Eventually it must happen, and, perhaps by the time it did, one would be ready for it. Though doubtless that could hardly have been the case for Fanny, poor child.
Her real sympathy for Phoebe, however, was for her misfortune in having made an excessively trying marriage. Any woman obliged to live under one roof with Afton Nash was deserving at the least of commiseration.
She found the visit more trying to her patience. Phoebe was more than ordinarily incoherent. She seemed forever on the edge of some confidence which never actually formed itself into words. Vespasia tried concerned interest and appreciative silence in turn, but on every occasion Phoebe dived off into some altogether unrelated subject