The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry [90]
“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “I imagine so. But you must catch him all the same, for everyone’s sake.” She deliberately put a lift into her voice, a positive sound as if it were all only peripherally to do with her, a social concern and not a personal one.
His mouth curled a little at the corner and with a tiny gesture like a bow, he turned and went out of the room. She heard Maddock opening and closing the front door for him.
Her knees gave way and she collapsed onto the sofa, tears running down her face.
When Dominic returned in the evening she could not meet his eyes. Sarah also sat through dinner in silence. Emily was out with George Ashworth and a group of his friends. Grandmama delivered a monologue on the decline of social manners. Edward and Caroline maintained the rudiments of a conversation that no one else listened to.
Afterwards Sarah said a little stiffly that she had a headache, and retired to bed. Mama accompanied Grandmama up to her sitting room to read to her for an hour or so, and Papa went into the study to smoke and write some letters.
Dominic and Charlotte were left alone in the withdrawing room. It was a situation Charlotte had dreaded, and yet it was almost a relief to face it. The reality might not be as bad as her fears had become.
She waited for a few minutes after the others had gone; then she looked up, afraid that if she did not speak soon, he might also leave.
“Dominic?”
He turned to face her.
She was alone with him; she had his entire attention. The dark eyes were fully on her, a little worried. It should have turned her heart over. But all she could think of was Lily Mitchell, and Sarah upstairs unhappy over a trifle, when there was so much more Sarah did not even guess—or did she? And Pitt. She could see Pitt’s face in her mind, the light, probing eyes that made her feel so close. She shook herself hard. The thought was ridiculous.
“Yes?” Dominic prompted.
She had never been gifted with tact, never been able to approach things obliquely. Mama would have been so much better at this.
“Did you like Lily?” she asked.
His face puckered in surprise. “The maid Lily, Lily Mitchell?”
“Yes.”
“Did I like her?” he repeated incredulously.
“Yes, did you? Please answer me honestly. It matters.” It did matter, although she was not sure what she wanted the answer to be. The thought that he had cared for her was sharply painful, and yet the thought that he had used her without caring was worse; it was shabbier, dirtier, wider in its meaning.
There was a faint colour in his face.
“Yes, I liked her well enough. She was a funny little thing. Used to talk about the country, where she grew up. Why? Do you want to do something about her? She was an orphan, you know, actually illegitimate, I think. There’s no family to speak of.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking of doing anything,” she said a little sharply. She had not known Lily was an orphan. She had lived in the same house with her all those years, and for all the interest she had shown, Lily might as well not have existed. Was Dominic really any worse? “I wanted to know because of you.”
“Me?”
Was she mistaken, or had the colour deepened in his face?
“Yes.” There was no point in lying, in trying to be evasive. He was staring at her. Why on earth should she want so much to touch him now? To reassure herself he was still the same person, the Dominic she had loved all her womanhood? Or was she feeling something like pity?
“I don’t understand you,” he said slowly.
She met his eyes with an honesty she could not have imagined a month ago. For the first time she looked deep into him, without fluttering heart or beating pulse. She looked at the person, and forgot the man, the beauty, the excitement.
“Yes, you do. Millie brought me the necktie she found at the back of the bed when