Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [30]
Her face was calm, but there was anger under the surface, and he was not sure exactly why. He had to press until he did, even if it hurt him in the end, because not knowing was worse.
“Don’t talk to me as if I were a child, Thomas,” she said quietly. “I know that perfectly well. I don’t think Dominic killed him, because I don’t think he would want to enough. But I think he is afraid that she did. That is why he came here.”
His eyes narrowed a little. “What did he expect you to do?”
“Point out to you the injustice that might be done if you continue with an investigation, especially since you are not even sure if there has been any crime.”
“You think I shall be unjust?” He was looking for a quarrel now. Better to hear it than leave it in the air, waiting.
She refused to reply, biting her tongue instead of telling him not to be idiotic. She would like to have said it, but she did not dare.
“Charlotte!” he demanded. “Do you think that because it is Dominic, I shall be unjust?”
She looked up from Jemima’s dress, the needle still in her fingers. “It does not need anyone to be unjust for injustice to happen,” she said a little tartly. Really, he was being stupid on purpose! “We all know what suspicion can do, and we have said as much. And in case you think otherwise, I told Dominic that you would do whatever was necessary, and I should have no influence upon you.”
“Oh.” He walked back across the room and sat down in his chair opposite her.
“But you still don’t like Dominic,” she added.
He did not answer. Instead, he pulled out the box where he kept the pieces he was making into a train for Jemima and began working on them skillfully with a knife. He had got enough of the answer he wanted. For tonight, he would prefer to leave it alone. She was still cross, but he knew it was not to do with Dominic, and that was all that mattered.
He carved at the wood with satisfaction, beginning to smile as it took shape.
The following day Charlotte determined to do something about the matter herself. She had not a really good winter dress, but she had one that, although it was very much last year’s fashion, flattered her. Its cut fit her extremely well, especially now that her figure was quite back to its weight before Jemima’s birth, in fact, if anything a little improved. The gown was the color of warm burgundy, complementary both to her hair and her complexion.
She remembered what Aunt Vespasia had said about a suitable hour to call, and she spent the next day’s housekeeping on a hansom cab to take her to Gadstone Park. She could not possibly be seen arriving on an omnibus, even if such a thing were to run anywhere near.
The parlormaid was surprised to see her but well trained enough to show it only slightly. Charlotte had no card to present, as most callers did in society, but she kept her chin in the air and begged the maid to be good enough to inform her mistress that Mrs. Pitt was here at her invitation.
She was more relieved than she had realized when the girl accepted this somewhat odd introduction and led her to an empty withdrawing room to wait, while Lady Cumming-Gould was apprised of the event. It was probably the word “invitation” that had decided it; after all, it was just possible Lady Cumming-Gould had invited her, the old lady being a trifle eccentric.
Charlotte was too tense to sit down. She stood with her hat and gloves still on and tried to affect an air of indifference, in case the maid should return before she heard her; anyway, it was good practice.
When the door opened it was Vespasia herself, dressed in dove gray and looking like a figure from a silversmith’s dream. She was more magnificent