The Sins of the Wolf - Anne Perry [155]
No one answered immediately. She looked at Monk, not that she expected comfort from him, but possibly because she did not. His face would reflect the worst she would find, the plain and bitter truth.
He stared back at her with such a blazing anger that for a moment she was frightened. Even during the trial of Percival in the Moidore case, she had never seen such a barely controllable rage in him.
“I wish I could say otherwise,” Rathbone said very softly. “But it is a very unsatisfactory conclusion.”
Callandra and Monk both spoke at once, but her voice was lost in his, which was harsh, furious, and immeasurably more penetrating. Whatever she said was never heard.
“It is not a conclusion. For the love of God, what is the matter with you?” He glared at them all, but principally at Rathbone and Hester. “We don’t know who killed Mary Farraline! We must find out!”
“Monk …” Rathbone began, but again Monk overrode him with a snarl of contempt.
“It is one of the family.”
“Baird McIvor?” Callandra asked.
“I have doubts,” Henry Rathbone began. “It seems …”
“Unsatisfactory?” Monk asked with sarcasm, mimicking Oliver’s earlier comment. “Very. No doubt they’ll find him ‘not proven’ also, if it ever gets to trial. At least I hope so. I think it was that sniveling little beggar Kenneth. He embezzled from the company books, and his mother caught him.”
“If he has covered his tracks, and from his confidence I have no doubt he has,” Oliver argued, “then we’ll never prove it.”
“Well, you won’t if you run off back to London and leave McIvor to face trial … and maybe hang for it,” Monk snapped back at him. “Is that what you intend?”
Rathbone looked temporarily nonplussed. He stared at Monk with acute dislike.
“Do we gather from your remark that you intend to remain, Mr. Monk?” Henry Rathbone asked, his mild face pinched with concern. “Is that because you believe you can accomplish something you have not done so far?”
A faint flush of anger and self-consciousness colored Monk’s lean cheeks.
“We have a great deal more to pursue than we did even a day ago. I’m going to remain here until I have seen the end of it.” He looked at Hester with a strange, mixed expression in his face. “You don’t need to be so frightened. Whether they can prove it or not, they’ll charge someone else.” His voice still sounded angry.
She felt absurdly, unreasonably hurt. It was unfair. He seemed to be blaming her because the matter was unresolved, and she was frightened, and only with the greatest difficulty prevented herself from bursting into tears. Now that the worst fear was over, the sense of anticlimax, the confusion and relief, and the continued anxiety were almost more than she could bear. She wanted to be alone, where she could allow herself to stop the pretense and not care in the slightest what anyone else thought. And at the same time she wanted company, she wanted someone to put his arms around her and hold her closely, tightly, and not to let her go. She wanted to feel the warmth of someone, the breathing heartbeat, the tenderness. She certainly did not want to quarrel, least of all with Monk.
And yet because she was so vulnerable, she was furious with him. The only defense was attack.
“I don’t know what you are so upset about,” she said. “No one accused you of anything, except perhaps incompetence! But they don’t hang you for that!” She turned to Callandra. “I am going to remain as well. For my own sake, as well as anyone else’s, I am going to find out who killed Mary Farraline. I really—”
“Don’t be absurd!” Monk cut across her. “There’s nothing you can accomplish here, and you may well be a hindrance.”
“To whom?” she demanded. Anger was so much easier than the fear and need she really felt. “You? I would have thought, on your showing so far, you would be grateful for any help you could obtain. You don’t know whether it was Baird McIvor or Kenneth. You just