Slaves of Obsession - Anne Perry [53]
A wave of panic passed through Hester, burning her cheeks as she thought of all the answers Monk might make to that—most of them with razor-cruel sarcasm.
But instead Monk smiled, perhaps a trifle wolfishly. “Of course they should,” he said softly. “And I can see that you are doing everything within your power to make sure that they do.”
“That’s right, sir!” Breeland agreed. “Ah! There’s Merrit! Miss Alberton, my son’s fiancée.” He turned, and they could see Merrit coming towards them. She was dressed in wide skirts pinched into a tiny waist, and a softly draped bodice decorated with gardenias. She looked flushed with excitement and quite lovely.
“Brothers?” Hester said very softly to Monk. “Hypocrites!”
“Cain and Abel,” he replied under his breath.
Hester swallowed her snort of abrupt laughter and turned it into a cough just as Merrit saw them and stopped. For an instant her face registered only shock. There was a brief moment while she struggled to remember from where she recognized them. Then it came, and she walked forward, her smile uncertain but her head high.
Hester had thought she knew how she would feel when she saw Merrit again; now it all vanished and she struggled to read in the girl’s face whether it was brazen defiance which lit her expression or if she had no idea what had happened in the warehouse yard. Certainly there was no fear in her at all, and no apology.
Breeland introduced them, and there was a brief instant when they were all uncertain whether to acknowledge past acquaintance or not.
Merrit drew in her breath and then did not speak.
Hester glanced at Monk.
“Good evening, Miss Alberton,” he said with a slight smile, just enough to be courteous. “Mr. Breeland speaks very highly of you.” It was ambiguous, committing him to nothing.
She blushed. It obviously pleased her. She looked very young. For all the womanly curves of her body and the romantic gown, Hester could see the child in her. It did not take much imagination to put her back in the schoolroom with her hair down her back, a pinafore on and ink on her fingers.
In a wild moment Hester longed for any escape from the truth, any answer but the dead bodies in the warehouse yard and Lyman Breeland on his way to Manassas with the Union army—and Daniel Alberton’s guns.
They were talking and she had not heard.
Monk answered for her.
Somehow she stumbled through the rest of the conversation until they excused themselves and moved on to speak to someone else.
Later that night Trace came to Monk and Hester’s room, his face grave, his dark eyes hollow and deep lines from nose to mouth accentuating his weariness.
“Have you made your decision?” he asked, looking at each of them in turn.
Hester knew what he meant. She turned to Monk, who was standing near the window which opened over the rooftops. It was close to midnight and still stiflingly hot. The sounds of the city drifted up in the air along with the smell of flowers, dust and tobacco smoke, and the overtaxed drains that everyone complained about.
Monk answered softly, aware of other open windows.
“We don’t think she knows of her father’s death,” he answered. “We plan to tell her, and what we do after that depends upon her reaction.”
“She may not believe you,” Trace warned, glancing at Hester and back to Monk again. “She certainly won’t believe it was Breeland.”
Hester thought of the watch. She remembered Merrit’s pride in it and how her fingers had caressed its shining surface.
“I think we can persuade her,” she said grimly. “But I don’t know what she will do when she realizes.”
“At all costs, we must keep them apart.” Monk was watching Trace. “If he can, Breeland may hold her as hostage. He won’t go back to England without a fight.” His voice made it half a question. Hester knew he was trying to judge what stomach Trace had for a confrontation and the violence that might go with it.
He could not have been disappointed in the reaction. Trace smiled, and for the first time Hester did not see in him the gentle man who