Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [29]
“Can’t you ask Thomas?” He leaned forward a little, urgently, his face puckered. “Point out the harm it will do to innocent people? Please, Charlotte? There will be such injustice! We won’t even have the chance to deny or disprove what has only been whispered, never said outright. When people whisper, lies become bigger and bigger as they are passed around—”
The injustice convinced her. For a moment she placed herself in Alicia’s position, in love with Dominic; she could still remember how sharp that was, full of excitement and pain, wild hope and hot disillusion. And to be tied to a husband without imagination or laughter! Then if he died, and at last you were free? Suspicion reached out its ugly fingers and soils everything; no one says to you what they think; it is all smiles and sympathy to your face, polite smirks in the withdrawing room. The moment you are gone the acid overflows, creeping wider and wider, eating away the fabric of everything good. The gossips court you; old friends no longer call. She had seen enough of envy and opportunism before.
“I’ll ask him,” she agreed. “I can’t say what he will do, but I’ll ask.”
His face lit up, making her feel guilty for having promised when she knew she could influence Pitt very little where his job was concerned.
“Thank you.” Dominic stood up, as graceful as always now that his fear had gone. “Thank you very much!” He smiled, and the last few years slipped away—they could have been conspirators again in something trivial, like the filching of Papa’s newspaper.
When Pitt came home she said nothing at first, allowing him to warm himself, to speak with Jemima and see her to bed, and then to eat his meal and relax before the fire. The kitchen was comfortable from the day-long heat of the stove. The scrubbed wood was pale, almost white, and the pans gleamed on the shelves. Flowered china on the dresser reflected the gaslight.
“Dominic came here today,” she said casually.
She was sewing, mending a dress of Jemima’s where she had trodden on the hem and toppled over. She did not notice Pitt stiffen.
“Here?” he asked.
“Yes, this afternoon.”
“What for?” His voice was cool, guarded.
She was a little surprised. She stopped sewing, needle in the air, and looked up at him. “He said you’d done a postmortem on Lord whatever his name is—the man who fell off the cab after the theatre.”
“So we did.”
“And you didn’t discover anything conclusive. He died of heart failure.”
“That’s right. Did he come here to tell you that?” His voice was a beautiful instrument, precise and evocative. It was rich with sarcasm now.
“No, of course not!” she said sharply. “I don’t care what the wretched man died of. He was frightened that the suggestion of murder might cause gossip, whispering that would hurt a lot of people. It is very difficult to deny something that no one has said outright.”
“Such as that Alicia Fitzroy-Hammond murdered her husband?” he asked. “Or that Dominic did himself?”
She looked at him a little coolly. “I don’t think he was afraid for himself, if that is what you are trying to say.” As soon as the words were out she thought better of them. She loved Pitt, and she sensed in him a vulnerability, even though she did not know what it was. But justice was strong, too, and the old loyalty to Dominic died hard, perhaps because she knew his weaknesses. Pitt was the stronger; she had no need to defend him. He could be hurt, but he would not hurt himself, crumble under pressure.
“He ought not be,” Pitt said drily. “If Lord Augustus was murdered, Dominic is an obvious suspect. Alicia inherits a good deal, not to mention an excellent social position; she’s in love with Dominic—and she’s an extremely handsome woman.”
“You don’t like Dominic, do you?” She was listening not to his words, but to what she read in them.
He stood up and walked away, pretending to fiddle with the curtains. “Like and dislike have nothing to do with it,” he answered. “I am speaking of his position; he is a natural suspect if Lord Augustus was murdered. It would