Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [149]
“I should think that it was like that,” Farnsworth agreed. His body relaxed indefinably. Once again he looked irritable and impatient. “Yes, I daresay you have it, Pitt. Well, let go of it, man. Get back to work on the Chancellor case. That is your absolute priority. Do you understand me?”
“Yes sir. Of course I do.” Pitt rose to his feet and found his knees unaccountably weak. He was forced to stand still for several seconds before he could master himself and take his leave, closing the door behind him and starting down the stairs holding on to the banister.
11
NOBBY GUNNE WAS deeply distressed by the death of Susannah Chancellor, not only because she had found her a charming and unique person, but also, with an intense sense of guilt, because she was terrified that Peter Kreisler had some involvement in it. In her worst moments she even feared he might have been directly responsible.
She did not see him for at least three days, and that only added to her anxiety and the hideous ideas that danced in her head. His presence might have been reassuring. She might have looked at his face and seen the ultimate sanity in it, and known her fears were ugly and unjust. She would have been able to speak with him and hear his sorrow for Susannah. Perhaps he might even say where he had been that night and prove his innocence.
But all she received from him was a short note saying how grieved he was, and that business to do with it kept him occupied to the exclusion of all else, at least for the present She could not imagine what business he could have as a result of Susannah’s death, but possibly it concerned African finance and the banking which so involved her family.
When she did see him it was because he had called upon her in the afternoon. It was a most unconventional thing to do, but then convention had never bothered either of them. He found her in the garden picking early roses. Most of them were still in bud, but there were one or two open. She had already chosen some leaves from a copper beech tree which were a deep purply red and set off the pink petals in a way no ordinary green leaf could.
He was walking across the lawn, unannounced, a fact over which she would have words with her maid later on. Now all she could think of was her pleasure in seeing him and the brooding anxiety which made her heart beat faster and tightened her throat.
He did not bother with formal greetings, enquiries for health or remarks about delightful weather. He stopped in front of her, his eyes direct and troubled, but his delight in her company undisguised.
For a moment her fears were swallowed up in the inner surge of happiness at the sight of his face and the confidence in him which she had in part forgotten.
“I’m sorry to intrude on you uninvited,” he said, holding out his hands, palms upwards.
She placed her own in his and felt the warmth of his fingers close over hers. For an instant she forgot her fears. They were absurd. He would never have done anything so appalling. If he had been involved at all, then there would be some innocent explanation of it, whether she ever heard it or not.
She did not reply with the cliché she might have said to anyone else.
“How are you?” She searched his face. “You look very tired.”
He let go of her hands and fell into step beside her, walking very slowly along the herbaceous border. “I suppose I am,” he admitted. “I seem to have slept very little in the last few days, since the death of Mrs. Chancellor.”
Although the subject was at the forefront of her thoughts, yet still she was startled to hear him raise it so soon, too soon for her to have prepared what she meant to say, in spite of having turned it over in her mind through every wakeful hour since it had happened.
She looked away from him, as if to some point on the far side of the garden, although nothing was happening more important than a small