The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry [69]
She kept her eyes shut. “I realize I hardly even know people I thought I loved. And I see it in others, too. All the people who have come here. I listen to what they say, because I have to. And they are beginning to look around, to try to find someone to blame where it will upset them least. The gossip and the suspicions are beginning, the little whispered suggestions. It isn’t only the dead who are going to suffer, or even only those who loved them.”
“Then help me, Charlotte. What is it you know, or think you know?”
“George Ashworth. Lord George Ashworth; he knew Chloe Abernathy quite well just before she died. He took her to some—some very unpleasant places, or so Mrs. Abernathy said. And in spite of what Papa says, Chloe was not immoral, not in the least, just silly!”
“I know.”
She opened her eyes. “Ashworth is escorting Emily a lot. Please see he isn’t—that he doesn’t—”
He gave a bitter little grimace. “I shall look discreetly into the late actions of Lord George Ashworth, I promise you. He is not unknown to us, at least by repute.”
“You mean—”
“I mean he is a gentleman whose taste is a little—raucous, and whose pocket and family title allow him to do things that in others would be punished. I suppose speaking to Emily would have no effect?”
“None at all. I have done so, and if it had been received differently, I would not have troubled you.”
He smiled. “Of course. Don’t worry.” He put out his hand, as if to touch her arm, and then withdrew it self-consciously. “I shall have Lord Ashworth observed, discreetly. I shall do all I can to see Emily comes to no harm, although I cannot protect her from a possible serious fright.”
“That will do her no harm at all,” Charlotte said tersely. She was overwhelmingly relieved. “Thank you, Inspector. I—I am glad—of your help.”
He coloured faintly, and turned to leave. “Are you going to remain with Mrs. Lessing until after the funeral?”
“Yes. Why?”
“No reason. Good night . . . Miss Ellison. Thank you for your assistance.”
“Good night, Inspector Pitt.”
It was over a week later, after the funeral, when Charlotte returned from the Lessings’. She had been forbidden to travel alone, not only by Pitt, but by Papa. She was more than pleased that it was Dominic who came in the cab to collect her.
Even the memory of the funeral, the finality of it, the pathetic black, Mrs. Lessing’s grief, could not drive away the pleasure of seeing Dominic, being alone with him. When he met her eyes it was as if he had touched her. His smile warmed her through, melting the chill of fear and helplessness. She sat in the cab beside him, and for a moment everything else was shut out, no past and no future.
They talked of trivialities, but she did not care. It was being with him that mattered, knowing that all his attention was turned towards her.
The cabdriver unloaded her box and Maddock carried it in. She followed behind on Dominic’s arm. It was a marvellous feeling.
It collapsed as soon as she entered the withdrawing room. Sarah looked up from the sofa where she was sitting sewing. Her face darkened as soon as she saw them.
“You are not entering a ballroom, Charlotte,” she said tartly. “Nor, unless you are feeling faint, do you need someone to hang on to like that!”
Emily was at the piano and looked downward at her hands with an uncomfortable colour creeping up her