Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [147]
“I’ll stay up for you?” Belinda said, her eyes eager. There was fierce, shy admiration in them.
“It’ll be the middle of the night,” Judith said wryly. “Are you sure that’s still all right?”
“Of course! I couldn’t leave you to find your own way.” Then she blushed. “And I’d love to talk with you a little bit more, before you go back to see your sister.”
“If I may, I’d love to,” Judith agreed. “London’s got to be more fun than Cambridge anyway!” She meant it as a joke, and after a second’s hesitation Belinda smiled.
She accompanied them to the door, and bade them good night, hoping they would enjoy themselves. Judith hesitated before getting into the car on the passenger side, and Joseph closed the door firmly and went around to crank the engine and start up.
“No!” he said with a smile as he pulled out onto the road. “You are not driving. I don’t care how much better you are at it.”
She laughed, but it was hollow.
He glanced at her. There was a sadness in her face that was more marked now that she was away from the Prentice house, and the need to pretend. The shadows were more obvious in the passing streetlamps.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly, not because the question had any meaning, simply to let her know he was aware.
“No,” she said huskily. “Now I’m sure it was my fault he was killed. That photograph at Henley is almost the same as the one I saw, and told General Cullingford about, but it’s not exactly.” She was looking away from him. “There was an older woman there—I expect it was his wife—and it’s a different girl.”
“Are you certain?” The implication was frightening. It seemed that the Peacemaker had reached this far, in this minute detail. The original girl was indeed someone so close to him he could be identified from knowing who she was, and he had realized how Cullingford knew, and not only had he killed Cullingford, and probably Gustavus Tempany, but he had also substituted another picture for the one with her in it. The only other alternative was that it was all coincidence. Cullingford had been on a wild-goose chase, and died at the hands of some street thief with a knife. Tempany’s death the day after was just one of those extraordinary chances of timing.
He did not believe that.
“I think I am,” she replied. “That’s proof the Peacemaker killed him, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so.” He reached out and put his hand over hers. “I’m sorry.”
She sniffed and gulped. “I’ll have a good cry about it later. I don’t want to go to the party with a blotchy face.”
“Of course not,” he agreed. “We’re all hiding some wound or other. Head up, eyes forward.”
“How about you?” She turned to look at him. The tears brimmed over and slid down her cheeks, but she was searching to know if he was also hiding something too big and too heavy to bear.
“I know who killed Prentice,” he answered, wondering why he told her. He had thought he was going to tell no one, but the decision he had made in the boat was now impossible to live with. He must face Sam, and he was almost certain what he was going to do about it. It would hurt bitterly, almost unendurably. But he had watched hundreds of men bear wounds they would have thought beyond any strength to survive, and yet they had done it with dignity; they were ordinary men, some of them little more than boys. Men sent their sons and brothers and friends into horror unimaginable, and did it without crying against fate. So could he. The loneliness afterward was the price for all of them.
“Who was it?” she asked.
He shook his head very slightly. “I’ll deal with it. Let’s go to the party. Put on our best faces, and pretend it’s fun.”
She smiled at him, and reached over to kiss him on the cheek.
The party was fun, in an absurd, dreamlike way. All the women wore beautiful gowns, but the colors were subdued. It was unseemly to wear reds and pinks, as if denying other people’s loss, and yet everyone was pretending to a laughter