Southampton Row - Anne Perry [114]
“I see.” He sat staring at her without moving. “We can ask General Kingsley to confirm that at least she had not contacted her mother by the time she left.”
She was startled. “You think she might have gone back afterwards and had a private séance?”
“Someone went back, whatever for,” he pointed out.
“Not Rose!” she said with more conviction than she felt. “She wanted her alive!” She leaned forward across the table. “She’s still so afraid she can hardly keep control of herself, Thomas. She doesn’t know yet! She’s hunting for another medium so she can go on searching.”
The kettle shrilled more insistently on the hob, and he ignored it. “Or Maude Lamont told her something she doesn’t want to believe,” he said gently. “And she is terrified that it will be discovered.”
She looked at him, wishing he did not understand her so well, read in her the racing thoughts she would so much rather have concealed. And yet if she could dupe him that would not be any comfort, either. She had always believed that her own skill with people was her greatest asset. She could charm and beguile and so often make people do what she wished them to without their even being aware that what they embraced so eagerly was actually her idea.
And the use of it left her oddly dissatisfied. She had realized that more and more lately. She did not want to see further than Jack could, or be stronger or cleverer than he was. Ahead was a very lonely place. One had to take the burden sometimes, it was part of love, part of responsibility—but only sometimes, not always. And it was a pleasure only because it was right, fair, an act of giving, not because it afforded any comfort to oneself.
So while she resented Pitt’s pressure on her to tell him more than she wished to, she also felt a sense of comfort that she could not fob him off with half an answer. She needed him to be cleverer than she was, because she had not the power to help Rose, or even to be certain what help would be. She might only make it worse. She realized now that she was not absolutely sure that Rose was not touched with the edge of madness, and could in her panic have thought Maude Lamont knew her secret and would endanger her, and then Aubrey. She remembered how quickly Rose had turned on her when she was afraid. Friendship had vanished like water dropped on the hot surface of a griddle, evaporated before her sight.
“She swore she did not kill her,” she said aloud.
“And you want to believe her,” Pitt finished the unsaid thought. He stood up and went to the stove, moving the kettle off the heat. He turned back to face her. “I hope you are right. But somebody did. I don’t want it to be General Kingsley, either.”
“The anonymous person,” Emily concluded. “You still don’t know who he was . . . do you?”
“No.”
She looked at him. Something was closed and hurt in his eyes. He was not lying. She had never known him to do that. But there was a world of feeling and of fact that he was not willing to tell her.
“Thank you, Emily,” he said, coming back to the table. “Did she say if anyone else knew of this fear? Does Aubrey know?”
“No.” She was quite certain. “Aubrey doesn’t know, and if you are thinking Maude Lamont blackmailed her, I don’t think so.” She was aware of a sudden lurch of anxiety as she said it, and that it was only partially true. Could Pitt see that in her face?
He gave a slight shrug. “Perhaps Maude Lamont didn’t know yet,” he said dryly. “Someone may have affected a very lucky escape for Rose.”
“Aubrey doesn’t know, Thomas! He really doesn’t!”
“Probably not.”
He walked with her to the front door, collecting his jacket on the way, and outside he accepted a lift in her carriage as far as Oxford Street, where