Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [71]
She took a deep breath and turned to look at Emily, her eyes bright with tears.
“I wish I could help, but I don’t even have any idea what I could do! He won’t talk about it to me, but I know he’s frightened. Mama won’t talk about it either, except to say it will be all right because he can’t be guilty and Papa will see that he isn’t blamed for something he couldn’t possibly have done.”
Emily had a picture of a frightened woman, loving her son but knowing startlingly little about him, seeing in her heart only the child she had known so many years ago. She did not see the present man who lived in a world outside her experience, with appetites beyond her emotional or physical imagination, a woman clinging to decency because it was what she lived by, perhaps even lived for. What did Aloysia FitzJames know of reality beyond her very handsome, safe front door?
No wonder modern, outrageous Tallulah could not speak to her or share her fears. It would be cruel and completely pointless even to try. Who did Tallulah talk to? Her society friends who were all totally occupied in seeking suitable marriages? The convention-defying aesthete set who sat up all night talking about art and meaning, the idolatry of the senses, the worship of beauty and wit? Jago? But he had time only for the poor. He did not see the loneliness or the panic behind her extravagant dresses and defiant face.
“We’ll do something,” Emily stated with absolute determination. “To begin with we’ll deal with this badge which they say is his. If he didn’t leave it there, then someone else must have, either by accident or deliberately.”
“Deliberately?” Tallulah stared at her. “You mean they stole it and put it there to try to get Finlay hanged?” She shivered in spite of the heat, which was now so intense there was a fine dew of perspiration on her brow and Emily could feel the muslin of her own gown sticking to her uncomfortably.
“Is that impossible?” she asked.
Tallulah hesitated only a moment. “No, no it isn’t,” she answered with a catch in her voice. “Papa has quite a few enemies. I’ve come to realize that more lately. They might want to strike out at him where it would hurt the most, and where he was most vulnerable. Finlay does behave like a fool sometimes. I know that.” She shook her head a little. “I think he’s half afraid of being an ambassador, and then going into Parliament, in case he doesn’t live up to all Papa’s expectations for him. It’s almost as if he wanted to do something to prevent it, even before he really tries. Not really,” she added quickly, with a fleeting smile. “Just at moments when he’s … when he has no confidence in himself. We all get times like that.”
“Who in particular?” Emily pressed, flicking her hand sharply to shoo a fly away.
Tallulah thought for a moment. “Roger Balfour, for one. Papa just about ruined him in a business deal with the army—over munitions, I think. Peter Zoffany. I used to like him. He told wonderful stories about living in India. I think he rather liked me too. I thought Papa might marry me to him, but then he used him to get to somebody else and there was a terrible row and I never saw him again. But Fin would never do anything like that.” She did not add any assurance, which made it the more absolute.
She looked at Emily with a frown.
“Does it matter who? All we could do would be tell the police. I wouldn’t mind telling Mr. Pitt if he comes again, but I wouldn’t tell that other miserable-faced man. I think his name was Tellman, or Bellman, or something like that. He looked at me as if I were a leper. He’d only think I was trying to protect Finlay anyway.”
“No, I don’t suppose it matters,” Emily conceded. “That club badge is the thing. If we could throw doubt on that, it would weaken this case a great deal.”
“But they’ve got it!” Tallulah protested. “What doubt could there be? It has Fin