Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [12]
When they had gone and the door was closed, Vespasia looked up at him. “For goodness’ sake sit down,” she ordered. “You make me uncomfortable standing there like a footman.”
Pitt obeyed, finding the overstuffed sofa more accommodating than it appeared; it was soft and spacious enough for him to spread himself.
“What do you know about Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond?” he asked. Suddenly the lightness had evaporated, and there was only death left—and perhaps murder.
“Augustus?” She looked at him long and steadily. “Do you mean do I know anyone who might hire lunatics to disinter the wretched man? No, I do not. He was not a person I cared for; no imagination, and therefore, of course, no sense of humor. But that is hardly a cause to dig him up—rather the opposite, I would have thought.”
“So would I,” Pitt agreed very softly. “In fact, every reason to wish him in his grave.”
Vespasia’s face changed. It was the only time he could recall her losing that magnificent composure.
“Good God!” She breathed out a long sigh. “You don’t think he was murdered!”
“I have to consider it,” he answered. “At least as a possibility. He was dug up twice now; that is more than coincidence. It may be insanity, but it is not random insanity. Whoever it is means Lord Augustus to remain unburied—for whatever reason.”
“But he was so very ordinary,” she said with exasperation and a touch of pity. “He was wealthy, but not exceptionally so; the title is not worth anything, and anyway, there is no one to inherit it. He was pleasing enough to look at, but not handsome, and far too pompous to have a romantic affaire. I really can think of—” She stood with a tired little gesture of her hands.
He waited. There was sufficient understanding between them that it would have been faintly insulting for him to have reasoned with her. She was as capable as he of seeing the nuances, the shadings of suspicion and fear.
“I suppose it is better that I tell you than you learn it from backstairs gossip,” she said irritably, angry not with him but with the circumstances.
He understood. “And probably more accurate,” he agreed.
“Alicia,” she said simply. “It was an arranged marriage, as what else could it be between a sheltered girl of twenty and a comfortable, unimaginative man in his mid-fifties?”
“She has a lover.” He stated the obvious.
“An admirer,” she corrected him. “To begin with, no more than a social acquaintance. I wonder if you have any idea how small London Society really is? In time one is bound to meet practically everybody, unless one is a hermit.”
“But now it is more than an acquaintance?”
“Naturally. She is young and has been denied the dreams of youth. She sees them parading in the ballrooms of London—what else do you expect her to do?”
“Will she marry him?”
She raised silver eyebrows very slightly, her eyes bright. There was a dry recognition of social difference in them, but whether there was amusement at it or not, he was not sure.
“Thomas, one does not remarry, or even allow oneself to be seen considering it, within a year of one’s husband’s death; whatever one may feel, or indeed do in the privacy of the bedroom. Provided, of course, that the bedroom is in someone else’s house, at a weekend, or some such thing. But to answer your question, I should imagine it is quite likely, after the prescribed interval.”
“What is he like?”
“Dark and extremely handsome. Not an aristocrat, but sufficient of a gentleman. He has manners enough, and most certainly charm.”
“Money?”
“How practical of you. Not a great deal, I think, but he does not appear to be in need of it, at least not urgently.”
“Lady Alicia inherits?”
“With the daughter, Verity. The old lady has her own money.”
“You know a great deal about their affairs.” Pitt disarmed it with a smile.
She smiled back at him. “Naturally. What else is there to occupy oneself with, in the winter? I am too old to have any affaires of interest myself.”
His smile widened to a grin, but he made no comment. Flattery was far too obvious for her.
“What is his name, and