Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [79]
How well did she know him? She turned away from the fire to look at him now. He was still as handsome, with the elegant head and shoulders, the way the hair grew on his neck, strong, neatly curved to the nape. His face was the same, the lines of his smile, But how much more was there? What did he think, behind the face? Did she know those things, and did she love them, too?
When she looked at her own face in the glass, she saw even features, fine hair. When she moved closer, in the morning light, she saw all the tiny flaws, but she also knew how to disguise them. The whole was pleasing, even beautiful. Did Dominic see any more than that? Did he see the flaws and still love her, or would they disturb him, even repel him because it was not what he had looked for, believed in?
All he knew was the careful face she presented to him; her best. And perhaps she was at fault for that. She had taken so much trouble to hide all the other facets, the weaknesses and failings, because she wanted him to love her.
Had he wondered if she had killed Augustus? Was that why he had been cooler lately and so absorbed in this bill of Carlisle’s, not sharing it with her? She could have helped! She had every bit as many connections as he, in fact, more! If he had trusted her, felt that unity she believed was love, then he would have told her how he felt, what fear or pity Seven Dials had stirred in him. He would have tried to explain the confusion, in terms not of social wrong but of his own emotions.
He was looking at her now, waiting.
“I don’t suppose it has anything to do with us,” she said at last. “If Mr. Pitt comes here I shall see him, of course, but I cannot tell him anything of value.” She smiled, the nervousness all gone. Her stomach was as calm as sleep. They both knew what had happened, and it was a kind of release, like silence after a crescendo of music, too long and too loud—now she was back to reality again. “Thank you for coming. It was kind of you to tell me. It is always easier to learn of bad news from a friend than a stranger.”
He stood up very slowly. For a moment she thought he was going to argue, to try to pull back the threads; but he smiled, and for the first time they looked at each other without pretense or the delusionary quickening of the heart, the flutter, the urgent breath.
“Of course,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it will be solved before it needs to trouble us. Now I must go and see Fleetwood. The bill comes up very soon now.”
“I know several people I might approach,” she said quickly.
“Do you?” His face was keen, Jones forgotten. “Would you ask them? Anything you want to know, call on Carlisle; he’ll be terribly grateful.”
“I have already written a few letters—”
“That’s marvelous! You know, I think we really have a chance!”
After he had gone she felt a loneliness, but it was not a painful, anxious thing as it used to be, a longing to know when he would return, worrying about all she had said and done, whether she had been foolish, or too cold, or too forward, wondering what he felt, or thought of her. This was more like the emptiness of a summer morning when the whole sky is clear with the day before you, and you have no obligations and no idea what you intend to do.
The morning after he had spoken to Maizie Snipe, Pitt was back in Resurrection Row with a constable and a warrant to search the premises of number forty-seven.
It was what he had expected, a photographic studio complete with all the props necessary for rather glossy pornography: colored lights, animal skins, a few lengths of fabric of various vivid dyes, headdresses of feathers, strings of beads, and an enormous bed. The walls were covered with very skilled and very varied photographs, all of them highly erotic.
“Cor!” The constable breathed out tremulously,