Seven Dials - Anne Perry [82]
Then she lifted her chin. “But I shall find Ferdinand Garrick and see what I can discern. I have nothing more interesting to do, and certainly nothing more important. Perhaps that is the ultimate absurdity?” The puppy had disappeared across the grass, and she was regarding a man and woman who looked to be in their fifties, exquisitely dressed in the height of fashion, walking down the middle of the pathway, nodding graciously to either side of them as they saw people they knew. They acknowledged some and looked through others, now and again hesitating until they had glanced at each other and made up their minds.
“Filling your time with games,” Vespasia remarked. “And imagining they matter, because you can think of nothing that does. Or you can, but do not do it.”
“Aunt Vespasia,” Charlotte said tentatively.
Vespasia turned to look at her, enquiry in her eyes.
“I know you would not like to think that Mr. Ryerson killed Lovat,” Charlotte said. “Or even that he deliberately helped Miss Zakhari with the intention that she should get away with murdering him, but facing the worst, what do you really believe?” She saw Vespasia smile. “We cannot defend against the worst if we do not acknowledge what it is,” she pointed out, but gently, aware of Vespasia’s affections. “What kind of man is he, not just what the police will find, but what you know?”
Vespasia was silent for so long that Charlotte thought she was not going to answer. She stopped waiting for her to speak and bent over to finish unbuttoning her boot. She eased it off painfully. There was a hole in the heel of her stocking, which was what had caused the problem. The skin was raw, but it was not yet bleeding.
She felt a touch on her arm and looked up. Vespasia was holding out a large silk handkerchief and a tiny pair of nail scissors.
“If you cut the stocking off, and tie the silk around your foot,” she said, “it will enable you to get home with a minimum of additional damage.”
Charlotte thought of the appearance of the colored silk above her boot if her skirt swung wide.
“Smile,” Vespasia advised. “Better to be noted for eccentric footwear than a sour expression. Besides, who are you going to encounter here that you will ever see again, and whose opinion you would care about in the slightest?”
“No one,” Charlotte agreed, smiling far more broadly than the invitation had suggested. “Thank you.”
“You are very delicate in your questions, my dear.” Vespasia looked at the far trees, only the odd leaf here and there touched by the warm colors of autumn. “But you are quite right. Saville Ryerson is a man of deep emotions, impulsive, and . . . and physical.” She bit her lip very slightly. “He lost his wife in a miserable mischance of fortune in ’71, but it was more than that; there was a betrayal involved, although I do not know what, and I certainly do not know by whom.” She dropped her voice even lower. “He was furiously angry, even before her death. Not only did he grieve for her, and that he had not been able to save her, but he felt a guilt that he then could never take back the things he had said, even though he believed they were true.”
Charlotte finished rebuttoning her boot. “That must have been very hard. But Lovat could have had nothing to do with it, surely? It happened over twenty years ago.”
“Nothing whatsoever,” Vespasia agreed. “I tell you only so you may know more closely what kind of man he is. He remained alone from that time onward. He served his party and his constituents. They were hard taskmasters, capricious, demanding much and giving little—at times not even loyalty. But the best of them loved him, and he knew it. But it wearied him to the soul, and he did it alone.” She made a slight,