The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [506]
“Why?” she said huskily.
Hester took a deep breath.
“Because he was committing sodomy and incest with his own son,” she said very quietly. Her voice sounded obscenely matter-of-fact in the silent room, as if she had made some banal remark that would be forgotten in a few moments, instead of something so dreadful they would both remember it as long as they lived.
Damaris did not shriek or faint. She did not even look away, but her skin was whiter than before, and her eyes hollower.
Hester realized with an increasing sickness inside that, far from disbelieving her, Damaris was not even surprised. It was as if it were a long-expected blow, coming at last. So Monk had been right. She had discovered that evening that Peverell was involved. Hester could have wept for her, for the pain. She longed to touch her, to take her in her arms as she would a weeping child, but it was useless. Nothing could reach or fold that wound.
“You knew, didn’t you?” she said aloud. “You knew it that night!”
“No I didn’t.” Damaris’s voice was flat, almost without expression, as if something in her were already destroyed.
“Yes you did. You knew Peverell was doing it too, and to Valentine Furnival. That’s why you came down almost beside yourself with horror. You were close to hysterical. I don’t know how you kept any control at all. I wouldn’t have—I don’t think-”
“Oh God—no!” Damaris was moved to utter horror at last. “No!” She uncurled herself so violently she half-fell off the settee, landing awkwardly on the ground. “No. No, I didn’t. Not Pev. How could you even think such a thing? It’s—it’s—wild—insane. Not Pev!”
“But you knew.” For the first time Hester doubted. “Wasn’t that what you discovered when you went up to Valentine’s room?”
“No.” Damaris was on the floor in front of her, splayed out like a colt, her long legs at angles, and yet she was absolutely natural. “No! Hester—dear heaven, please believe me, it wasn’t.”
Hester struggled with herself. Could it be the truth?
“Then what was it?” She frowned, racking her mind. “You came down from Valentine’s room looking as if you’d seen the wrath of heaven. Why? What else could you possibly have found out? It was nothing to do with Alexandra or Thaddeus—or Peverell, then what?”
“I can’t tell you!”
“Then I can’t believe you. Rathbone is going to call you to the stand. Cassian was abused by his father, his grandfather—I’m sorry—and someone else. We have to know who that other person was, and prove it. Or Alexandra will hang.”
Damaris was so pale her skin looked gray, as if she had aged in moments.
“I can’t. It—it would destroy Pev.” She saw Hester’s face. “No. No, it isn’t that, I swear by God—it isn’t.”
“No one will believe you,” Hester said very quietly, although even as she said it, she knew it was a lie—she believed it. “What else could it be?”
Damaris bowed her head in her hands and began to speak very quietly, her voice aching with unshed tears.
“When I was younger, before I met Pev, I fell in love with someone else. For a long time I did nothing. I loved him with … chastity. Then—I thought I was losing him. I—I loved him wildly … at least I thought I did. Then …”
“You made love,” Hester said the obvious. She was not shocked. In the same circumstances she might have done the same, had she Damaris’s beauty, and wild beliefs. Even without them had she loved enough …
“Yes.” Damaris’s voice choked. “I didn’t keep his love … in fact I think in a way that ended it.”
Hester waited. Obviously there was more. By itself it was hardly worth repeating.
Damaris went on, her voice catching as she strove to control it, and only just succeeding. “I learned I was with child. It was Thaddeus who helped me. That was what I was talking about when I said he could be kind. I had no idea Mama knew anything about it. Thaddeus arranged for me to go away for a while, and for the child to be adopted. It was a boy. I held him once—he was beautiful.” At last she could keep the tears back no longer and she bent her head and wept, sobs shaking her body and long despairing cries tearing