Twisted Root - Anne Perry [52]
"Yes," he answered, looking across at her. She was not sewing, as other women might have been. She did needle-work only as necessity demanded. She was concentrating entirely upon what he was saying, her back straight, her shoulders square, her eyes intent upon his face. All the confusion and tragedy he was aware of could not stifle the deep well of satisfaction within him that underlay everything else. She infuriated him at times; they still disagreed over countless things. He could have listed her faults using the fingers of both hands. And yet as long as she was there, he would never be alone and nothing was beyond bearing.
"What was she like?" she asked.
He was startled. "Like?"
"Yes," she said impatiently. "She didn’t give you any explanations? She didn’t tell you why she ran away from the Stourbridges’ party? You did ask her, I suppose?"
He had not asked. By that point he already knew she would not tell him.
"You didn’t!" Hester’s voice rose an octave.
"She refused to tell me anything," he said clearly. "Except that she was not there when Treadwell was killed. I don’t think she even knew he was dead. When I told her that, she was so horrified she was almost incapable of speech. She all but fainted."
"So she knows something about it!" Hester said instantly.
That was an unwarranted leap of deduction, and yet he had made exactly the same one. He looked across at her and smiled bleakly.
"So you have learned no new facts," she said.
"There’s the fact that Mrs. Whitbread was prepared to fight to defend her, and risk the police coming after her instead," he pointed out. "And the fact that almost certainly Robb will find her, sooner or later." He did not want to tell Hester about Robb’s opinion of him. It was painful, a dark thing he preferred she did not know.
"So, what was she like?" she asked again.
He did not make any evasions or comments on the obscurity of feminine logic.
"I’ve never seen anyone more afraid," he said honestly. "Or more anguished. But I don’t believe she will tell me—or anyone else—what happened or why she is running. Certainly, she won’t tell Lucius Stourbridge."
"What are you going to do?" Her voice was little more than a whisper, and her eyes were full of pity.
He realized he had already made his decision.
"I will tell Stourbridge that I found her and she is alive and well, and that she says she had no part in Treadwell’s death, but I will not tell him where she is. I daresay she will not be there by the time I report to him anyway. I warned her that Robb was close behind me." He did not need to add the risk he took in so doing. Hester knew it.
"Poor woman," she said softly. "Poor woman."
5
IT WAS the sixth day of Monk’s enquiry into Miriam Gardiner’s flight. Hester had gone to sleep thinking about her. She wondered what tragedy had drawn her to such an act that she could not speak of it, even to the man she was to marry.
But it was not that which woke her, shaking and so tense her head throbbed with a stiff, sharp pain. She had an overwhelming sense of fear, of something terrible happening which she was helpless to prevent and inadequate to deal with. It was not a small thing, or personal to herself, but of all-consuming proportions.
Beside her, Monk was asleep, his face relaxed and completely at peace in the clear, early light. He was as oblivious of her as if they had been in separate rooms, different worlds.
It was not the first time she had woken with this feeling of helplessness and exhaustion, and yet she could not remember what she had been dreaming, either now or before.
She wanted to wake Monk, talk to him, hear him say it was all of no importance, unreal, belonging to the world of sleep. But that would be selfish. He expected more strength from her. He would