Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [46]
He looked at her slowly, the hot water forgotten. “You know what you are saying?” he asked, watching her face. “That means Dominic, or Alicia, or both of them.”
For several moments she said nothing. She handed him the towel and he dried his feet; then she took the basin and poured the water away down the sink.
“I don’t think I believe that,” she said with her back still toward him. There was no distress in her voice that he could hear, just doubt, and a little surprise.
“You mean Dominic wouldn’t commit murder?” he asked. He tried to make it impersonal, but the edge was still there, sharp with old fears.
“I don’t think so.” She wiped round the basin and put it away. “But even if he did kill someone, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t think to dig up other corpses and leave them around to hide it. Not unless he has changed more than I think people do.”
“Maybe Alicia changed him,” he suggested, but he did not believe that himself. He waited for her to say it could have been Alicia with someone else. She had money enough to pay; but Charlotte said nothing.
“They found him in the park.” He held out his hand for his dry socks, and she passed them off the airing rack, then winched it back up to the ceiling. “Sitting on a bench,” he added. “I think, from the description, it is the body from the grave that was robbed last week, Mr. W. W. Porteous.”
“Does he have anything to do with Dominic and Alicia or anyone in Gadstone Park?” she asked, going back to the stove. “Would you like some soup before your dinner?”
She lifted the lid, and the delicate odor of the steam caught his nostrils.
“Yes, please,” he said immediately. “What is for dinner?”
“Meat and kidney pudding.” She took a dish and a ladle and gave him a generous portion of soup, full of leeks and barley. “Mind, it’s very hot.”
He smiled up at her and took it, balancing it on his knee. She was right; it was very hot. He put a tea towel under it to protect himself.
“Nothing at all, as far as I know,” he replied.
“Where did he live?” She sat down again opposite him and waited for him to finish the soup before getting out the pie and vegetables. It had taken her awhile to learn how to cook economically and well, and she liked to watch the results of her efforts.
“Just off Resurrection Row,” he replied, holding up the spoon.
She frowned, puzzled. “I thought that was rather a—a shabby area?”
“It is. Worn down, and a little seedy. There are at least two brothels that I know of; all discreetly covered up, but that’s definitely what they are. And there’s a pawnshop where we have found rather more than the usual number of stolen goods.”
“Well that can’t have anything to do with Dominic, and certainly not Alicia!” Charlotte said with conviction. “Dominic might have been to such a place; even gentlemen get up to the oddest things—”
“Especially gentlemen!” Pitt put in.
She let the jibe pass. “—but Alicia would never even have heard of it.”
“Wouldn’t she?” He was genuinely not sure.
She looked at him patiently, and for a moment they were both aware of the social gulf between their backgrounds.
“No.” She shook her head minutely. “Women whose parents have social pretensions, real or imaginary, are far more protected—even imprisoned—than you know. Papa never allowed me to read a newspaper. I used to sneak them from the butler’s pantry, but Emily and Sarah didn’t. Papa considered anything controversial or in the least scandalous or distressing to be unsuitable for young ladies to know—and one should never mention them in discussion—”
“I know that—” he started.