Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [100]
She bit her lip. “I didn’t know. . . .”
“You didn’t care!” he said furiously, the words pouring out now. “You didn’t think about Stallabrass, he was simply in your way, and you didn’t think about Wil Sloan. You knew he was your friend and would do anything he could to help you. You used him. God knows what you thought you were doing to Cullingford! This war is not for your entertainment, or to make it easier for you to have an impossible romance.”
She was scalded by guilt, perhaps not so much for what she had done, but for the ideas and dreams of what she could do, might do, if opportunity were given her. She had not rebuffed Cullingford and it seemed she had no reservoir of virtue within to draw on, to restrain whatever hunger or need raged inside her.
Instead she picked on the least important detail. “I did not coerce Wil!” she said hotly. “It was his idea!”
“That’s a shabby excuse, Judith,” he told her bitterly. “He’s your friend, and he did it to please you. If you have a passion to do something wrong, at least have the grace to stand by it. Don’t duck behind someone else’s skirts.”
The accusation must have cut her like a whiplash, perhaps because part of it was true or because it was he who made it. “I am not hiding!” she said fiercely. “I was there with Wil! And Stallabrass drank because he wanted to! It’s not my job to baby him!”
“It’s your job to look after anyone who needs it,” he replied without compromise. “You took advantage of Wil’s friendship, of Stallabrass’s ignorance, and of Cullingford’s attraction to you, because you want something that isn’t yours. Is Cullingford the sort of man who can have a love affair with another woman, and walk away from it without guilt, without knowing he had betrayed his wife, and more important than that, the best in himself?” he demanded. “And if he is, is he a man whose attention you want? What for? To prove you can get it?”
“I drive him!” She was raising her voice, possibly without realizing it, anger and guilt harsh in her. “That’s all! You’ve got a rotten, vicious imagination, and as my brother, who’s known me all my life, it makes me sick and disgusted that that’s what you think of me. You think you can step into Father’s shoes? You’re not fit to stand on the same piece of ground!” She took a gasping breath and pushed further away from him. “Go and preach morality to your poor, bloody wounded who can’t escape from you—because I can! And I will!” She turned her back, leaving him alone on the gravel in the encroaching night, weary, angry, and disappointed.
But he could not afford to let it go. He still had no proof that Cullingford had not connived at Prentice’s death, directly or indirectly. The last few minutes had shown how intensely vulnerable he was.
Joseph strode after Judith and caught up with her at the side door to the château. She must have heard his feet on the gravel because she swung around to face him. In the fast graying light he saw the tears in her eyes, but he knew it was anger as much as pain.
“What is it now?” she said between her teeth.
He glanced around to make certain there was no one else within the sound of their voices. There was no point in trying to be diplomatic with her, he had already made that impossible.
“Cullingford gave Prentice written permission to go wherever he wanted to, even onto the front lines,” he said grimly. “No other war correspondent is allowed to do that. It meant none of us would arrest him and send him back, no matter what he did.”
Her eyes blazed at him, her face was set in lines of defiance, but she said nothing, forcing him to continue.
“Prentice must have used pressure on him to force him into that,” he said grimly. “Because of you.”
She gulped. She wanted to say something, anything to defend