Rutland Place - Anne Perry [38]
Amaryllis’ eyebrows rose. “Are you saying, Mrs. Pitt, that you are of the belief that Mrs. Spencer-Brown took her own life?”
“Oh dear!” Charlotte weighed all the consternation into her voice that she could contrive. “Surely you don’t believe someone else—oh dear—how very dreadful!”
For once, Amaryllis was too confused for words. It was obviously the last thing she had intended to imply.
“Well, no! I mean—” she stumbled and retreated into silence, her skin flushed and her eyes cold with awareness of having been outmaneuvered.
“I hardly think that is likely,” Tormod said, coming to her rescue—or was it Charlotte’s? “Mina was not in the least the kind of woman to rouse such an enmity in anyone. In fact, I cannot believe she would even know a person who would conceive of such an abominable thing.”
“Of course!” Amaryllis said gratefully. “I expressed myself less clearly than I should. Such a thing is unthinkable. If you had known better”—she looked meaningfully at Charlotte—“the sort of people who were her friends, then you would not have mistaken me so.”
Charlotte forced a smile she did not feel. “I am sure I should not. But I am at a disadvantage, and you will have to forgive me. Did you mean that it was some kind of accident?”
Put baldly like that, the idea of having walked home and calmly taken a fatal dose of poison, by pure mischance, was so ridiculous that there was nothing Amaryllis could say. Her round eyes looked at Charlotte with cold dislike.
“I simply do not know what happened, Mrs. Pitt. And I really think we should refrain from discussing the subject in front of poor Eloise.” She let the condescension drip from her voice. “You must have appreciated that she is most delicate and suffers from a nervous and sensitive disposition. We are causing her distress by pursuing this so tastelessly. Eloise, dear.” She swiveled around with a smile so glittering it sent shivers down Charlotte’s spine and produced a feeling of revulsion so sharp it almost burst over into words. “Eloise, are you sure you would not care to come upstairs and rest a little? You look quite extraordinarily pale.”
“Thank you,” Eloise said coolly. “I do not wish to retire. I would greatly prefer to remain down here. We must share this grief together and be what comfort we can to each other.”
But Tormod was not satisfied. “Here.” He brushed Amaryllis aside, led Eloise to lie on the chaise longue, and lifted her feet for her. Charlotte caught a flicker of anger on Amaryllis’ face so hot it would have scorched Eloise to the skin had she known of it. It gave Charlotte an acute satisfaction of which she was not proud, but she did nothing to try to rid herself of it; rather she relished it with peculiar warmth. She savored the turn of Tormod’s shoulder and the soft movement of his hand as he smoothed Eloise’s skirt while Amaryllis watched from behind.
The door opened and the maid came in with a tray, cups, and a hot tisane. Amaryllis set it on the table and poured some for Eloise immediately, giving it to her and passing her a cushion so that she might rest more easily.
Charlotte made some harmless observation about a social event she had read of in the London Illustrated News. Tormod seized on it gratefully, and after they had all drunk a little of the tisane, Charlotte and Caroline took their leave, followed by Amaryllis.
“Poor Eloise,” Amaryllis said as soon as they were in the street. “She does look most poorly. I had not expected her to take it quite so badly. I have no idea what can have caused such a tragedy, but since Eloise was the last person to see poor Mina before she died, I cannot but wonder if perhaps she knows something.” Her eyes widened. “Oh! Told her in the greatest of confidence, of course! Which must place her in a most dreadful dilemma, poor creature! Knowing something