Southampton Row - Anne Perry [59]
“We still don’t want her taken from us,” Jack pointed out. “We are just as perverse in general as we are individually.” He folded his paper and set it on the table, rising to his feet. “But of course I’ll support Serracold.” He leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss on the brow. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Probably for dinner.”
She watched him to the door, then poured herself another cup of tea and opened the newspaper again. It was then that she saw the report of Maude Lamont’s death, and the fact that the police had no doubt that it was murder. The Bow Street station was mentioned, and apparently Inspector Tellman was in charge. He had made no statement, but speculation was rife. The journalists had invented what they did not know. Who were her clients? Who had been there that night? Who had she claimed to call up from the past and what had they revealed that had ended in murder? Whose secrets were so hideous they would kill to hide them? The whisper of scandal, violence and assault was irresistible.
She read it a second time, but there was no need. She could remember every word, and all the ugly implications. And she could remember very clearly Rose Serracold’s saying that she had consulted Maude Lamont. Somehow ragged ends were coming loose in what had seemed to be a simple way ahead. Anxiety gnawed at the back of her mind over Rose, a sense of vulnerability in her, a fear that threatened to escalate and endanger her and Aubrey, and possibly even Jack. It was time Emily did something.
She went straight upstairs to the nursery to spend the morning with her small daughter, Evangeline, who as always was full of questions about everything. Her favorite word was why.
“Where’s Edward?” Evangeline sat on the floor, her face puckered into a frown. “Why isn’t he here?”
“He’s gone for a holiday with Daniel and Jemima,” Emily answered, offering Evie her favorite doll.
“Why?”
“Because we promised it to him.”
“Why?” There was no challenge in her wide eyes.
“He and Daniel are special friends.” Thinking on it now, Emily was concerned that Thomas had been prevented from going with them and at almost the same time his reinstatement to Bow Street had been unaccountably withdrawn. Charlotte had suddenly and without explanation been reluctant to take Edward, whereas before she had been more than willing. She had said something halfhearted about Thomas not being there, and hinted at there being possible unpleasantness, but she had not been specific.
“I’m special friends,” Evie said, turning the phrase over in her mind.
“Of course you are, darling. You are my special friend,” Emily assured her. “Shall we draw a picture? I’ll do this part and you can do the house, over there.”
Evie began enthusiastically, grasping the crayon in her left hand. Emily thought of changing it to the right, and decided not to.
She was concerned over Charlotte. It was going to be very difficult for her to adapt to having Pitt no longer in a senior police position. It was not exactly a job to be proud of, but it was moderately respectable. Now he did something she could barely mention, and his cases could not be discussed. Of course the money was another matter altogether, and not as good!
The thing that affected Emily the most was the inability to share in any of it herself. She had in the past helped Charlotte when she was involved in Pitt’s cases, the more colorful and dramatic of them, where people of the higher social strata were implicated. She and Charlotte had access to the withdrawing rooms of society that Pitt would never have. They had almost solved some of the more bizarre and dreadful murders themselves. Lately that had happened less and less, and Emily was beginning to realize how she