Paragon Walk (11 page)

“No,” Charlotte shook her head, and, mistaking her meaning, the footman whisked the tray away and she was left with an empty hand outstretched. No one took any notice, and she withdrew it. “No, I don’t.”

There was no polite reply to this, so Grace returned to the original subject.

“Daughters are such an anxiety, until one has them married. My dear,” she turned to Emily, reaching out her hand, “I do so hope that you have only sons—so much less vulnerable. The world accepts the weaknesses of men, and we have learned to put up with them. But when a woman is weak, all Society completely abhors her. Poor Fanny, may she rest in peace. Now, my dear, I must go and see Phoebe. She looks quite ill! I must see what I can do to comfort her.”

“That’s monstrous!” Charlotte said as soon as they were gone. “Anyone would think from the way she speaks that Fanny went out whoring!”

“Charlotte!” Emily said sharply. “For goodness’ sake don’t use words like that here! Anyway, only men go out whoring.”

“You know what I mean! It’s unforgivable. That girl is dead, abused and murdered here in her own street, and they are all talking about marriage opportunities and what Society will think. It’s disgusting!”

“Sh!” Emily’s hand gripped her hand, her fingers digging in painfully. “People will hear you, and they wouldn’t understand.” She smiled with rather more force than charm, as Selena approached them. By her side George breathed in deeply and let it out in a sigh.

“Hello, Emily,” Selena said brightly. “I must compliment you. It must be a most trying experience, and looking at you one could hardly tell. I do admire your fortitude.” She was a smaller woman than Charlotte had realized, fully eight or ten inches shorter than George. She looked up at him through her eyelashes.

George passed some trivial remark. There was a faint flush on the bones of his cheeks.

Charlotte glanced at Emily and saw her face tighten. For once Emily seemed to think of nothing to say.

“We must also admire you,” Charlotte stared at Selena pointedly. “You carry it so well. Indeed, if I did not know you must naturally be distressed, I would swear you were positively gay!”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Emily, but Charlotte ignored her. George shifted from one foot to the other.

Color rushed up Selena’s face, but she chose her words carefully.

“Oh, Mrs. Pitt, if you knew me better, you could not imagine me callous. I am a most warmhearted person! Am I not, George?” again she looked at him with her enormous eyes. “Please do not let Mrs. Pitt think I am cold. You know it is not so!”

“I—I am sure she does not believe it,” George was palpably uncomfortable. “She only meant that—er—that you comport yourself admirably.”

Selena smiled at Emily, who stood frozen.

“I should not care for anyone to think I was unfeeling,” she added the last little touch.

Charlotte moved closer to Emily, wanting to protect her, guessing vividly what the threat was, feeling it in Selena’s dazzling eyes.

“I am flattered you care so much what I should think of you,” Charlotte said coolly. She would like to have forced a smile, but she had never been good at acting. “I promise you I shall not make any hasty judgments. I am sure you are capable of great—” She looked directly at Selena, allowing her to see she picked the word intentionally with all its shades of meaning. “—generosity!”

“I see your husband is not with you!” Selena’s reply was vicious and unhesitating.

Charlotte was able to smile this time. She was proud of what Thomas was doing, even though she knew they would have held it in contempt.

“No, he is otherwise engaged. He has a great deal to do.”

“How unfortunate,” Selena murmured, but without conviction. The satisfaction was gone out of her.

It was not long after that that Charlotte got her opportunity to meet Algernon Burnon. She was introduced by Phoebe Nash, whose hat was now straight, though her hair still looked uncomfortable. Charlotte knew the sensation all too well: a pin or two in the wrong place, and it could feel as if all the weight of one’s hair were attached to one’s head with nails.

Algernon bowed very slightly, a courteous gesture Charlotte found a little discomposing. He seemed more concerned for her comfort than his own. She had prepared herself for grief, and he was asking her about her health, and if she found the heat trying.

She swallowed the sympathy she had had on the edge of her tongue and made as sensible a reply as she could. Perhaps he found it all too painful to dwell on and was glad of the chance to speak to someone who had not known Fanny. How little one could really tell from faces.

She was floundering, too conscious that he had been close to Fanny and too busy with her own confusion, wondering whether he had loved her, or if it had been a very much arranged affair, or if perhaps he even was relieved to be free of it. She hardly noticed his conversation, though part of her brain was telling her it was both literate and easy.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. She had no idea what he had just said.

“Perhaps Mrs. Pitt finds our baked meats a little diverse—as I do?”

Charlotte turned sharply to find the Frenchman only a few feet away from her, his fine, intelligent eyes carefully hiding a smile.

She was not quite sure what he meant. He could not possibly have known the wanderings of her mind—or was he thinking the same things, perhaps even knowing them? Honesty was the only safe retreat.

“I am not experienced in them,” she replied. “I have no idea what they usually are.”

If Algernon had any understanding of the ambiguity in her words, he did not betray it.

“Mrs. Pitt, may I present Monsieur Paul Alaric,” he said easily. “I don’t believe you have met? Mrs. Pitt is Lady Ashworth’s sister,” he added by way of explanation.

Alaric bowed very slightly.

“I am well aware who Mrs. Pitt is.” His smile removed any discourtesy from his words. “Did you imagine such a person could visit the Walk and not be talked of? I’m sorry it is a tragic occasion that has afforded us the opportunity to meet you.”

It was ridiculous, but she found herself coloring under his calm gaze. For all his grace, he was unusually direct, as if his intelligence could penetrate the polite, rather empty mask of her face and see all the confused feelings behind. There was nothing unkind in his stare, only curiosity and faint amusement.

She pulled herself together sharply. She must be very tired from the heat and all this mourning to be so stupid.

“How do you do, Monsieur Alaric,” she said stiffly. Then, because that did not seem enough. “Yes, it is unfortunate that it frequently takes tragedy to rearrange our lives.”

His mouth curled in the slightest, most delicate smile.

“Are you going to rearrange my life, Mrs. Pitt?”

The heat scorched up her face. Please heaven, the veil would hide it.

“You—you misunderstand me, monsieur, I meant the tragedy. Our meeting can hardly be of importance.”

“How modest of you, Mrs. Pitt,” Selena drifted up, wafting black chiffon behind her, her face bright. “I judged from your marvelous gown that you had imagined otherwise. Do they always wear lavender for mourning where you come from? Of course, it is easier to wear than black!”

“Why, thank you,” Charlotte forced a smile and feared it might be more like bared teeth. She looked Selena up and down. “Yes, I imagine it is. I’m sure you would find it flattering, too.”

“I do not go around from funeral to funeral, Mrs. Pitt, only to those of people I know,” Selena snapped back with tart meaning. “I don’t imagine I shall be requiring it again before this style has gone quite out of fashion.”

“Sort of ‘one funeral per Season,’” Charlotte murmured. Why did she dislike this woman so much? Was it only an identification with Emily’s fears, or some instinct of her own?

Jessamyn moved toward them, pale but entirely composed. Alaric turned toward her, and a look of venom momentarily hardened Selena’s face before she mastered it and ironed it out. She spoke quickly, preempting Alaric.

“Dear Jessamyn, what a terrible ordeal for you. You must be devastated, and you have comported yourself so well. The whole affair has been so dignified.”

“Thank you,” Jessamyn took the glass Alaric handed her from a waiting footman’s tray and sipped at it delicately. “Poor Fanny is at rest. But I find it hard to accept it as I suppose one should. It seems so monstrously unjust. She was such a child, so innocent. She did not even know how to flirt! Why her, of all people?” Her eyelids lowered slightly over her wide, cool eyes, and she did not quite look at Selena, but some minute gesture of her shoulder, an arch in her body, seemed addressed to her. “There are other people so—so much more—likely!”

Charlotte stared at her. The hatred between the two women was so tangible she could not believe Paul Alaric was unaware of it. He stood elegantly, with a slight smile, and made some innocuous answer, but surely he must feel as uncomfortable as she did? Or did he enjoy it? Was he flattered, excited to be fought over? The thought hurt her; she wanted him to be above such a demeaning vanity, to be embarrassed by it, as she was.

Then another thought occurred to her as Jessamyn’s words sank in, “... other people so much more likely.” That was a dig at Selena, of course, but could it have been precisely Fanny’s innocence that had attracted the rapist? Perhaps he was tired and bored with sophisticated women who were only too available. He wanted a virgin, frightened and unwilling, so he could dominate her. Maybe that was what excited, sent his blood racing, the touch and the smell of terror!

It was an ugly thought, but then the intimate violence in the dark, the humiliation, the symbolic, stabbing knife, the blood, the pain, life gushing away—they were all ugly. She shut her eyes. Please, dear God, it had nothing to do with Emily! Don’t let George be anything worse than easygoing, a little foolish, a little vain!

They were talking across her, and she had not heard them. She was conscious only of the prickling hostility and of Alaric’s elegant black head as he half listened to one, then the other. Somehow it seemed to Charlotte as if his eyes were on her, and there was an understanding in them which was uncomfortable and at the same time stirring.

Emily found her again. She was looking very tired, and Charlotte thought she had already been standing too long. She was about to make some suggestion of returning home when she saw, behind Emily, Hallam Cayley, the only man she had observed to be moved by Fanny’s death beyond the usual trappings of observance. He was facing toward Jessamyn, but his expression was vacant, as if he were unaware of her. Indeed, the whole room, with its shafts of sunlight under the half drawn blinds, its glittering table spread with the debris of food, its clusters of murmuring figures in black, seemed to make no impression on his senses at all.

Jessamyn caught sight of him. Her face changed, the full lower lip came forward and the skin tightened fractionally across her cheeks. For a moment it was frozen. Then Selena spoke to Alaric, smiling, and Jessamyn turned back.

Charlotte looked at Emily.

“Haven’t we paid all respects necessary now? I mean, surely we could decently go home? The heat in here is oppressive, and you must be tired.”

“Do I look it?” Emily asked.

Charlotte lied immediately and without thought.

“Not at all, but surely better to leave before we do. I know I feel it!”

“I expected you would be enjoying yourself, trying to solve the mystery.” There was a faint cutting edge in Emily’s voice. Indeed, she was tired. The skin under her eyes looked papery.

Charlotte pretended not to notice.

“I don’t think I have learned a thing, except what you had already told me—that Jessamyn and Selena hate each other over Monsieur Alaric, that Lord Dilbridge has very liberal tastes, and Lady Dilbridge enjoys being put upon because of them. And that none of the Nashes are very pleasant. Oh, and that Algernon is behaving himself with great dignity.”

“Did I tell you all that?” Emily smiled faintly. “I thought it was Aunt Vespasia. But I suppose we may as well go home. I admit, I have had enough. I find myself much more affected by it than I had thought to be. I didn’t care much for Fanny when she was alive, but now I can’t help thinking of her. This is her funeral, and do you know, hardly anybody has really spoken of her!”

It was a sad and pathetic observation; yet it was true. They had spoken of the effect of her death, its manner and their own feelings, but no one had spoken of Fanny herself. Lost, and a little sick, Charlotte followed Emily to where George was half waiting for them. He, too, seemed eager to leave. Aunt Vespasia was deep in conversation with a man about her own age, and since it was only a few hundred yards, they left her to come when she chose.

They found Afton and Phoebe in desultory expression of mutual sympathies with Algernon. They all three stopped as George approached.

“Leaving?” Afton enquired. His eyes flickered over Emily and then Charlotte.

Charlotte felt her stomach curl up and instantly longed to be outside. She must control herself and leave with courtesy. After all, the man must be under great strain.

George was muttering something to Phoebe, a ritual politeness about the hospitality.

“How kind of you,” she replied automatically, her voice high and tight. Charlotte saw that her hands were clenched across the billows of her skirt.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Afton snapped. “A few are here out of courtesy, but most are no more than inquisitive. Rape is a better scandal than mere adultery any day. Besides, adultery has become so common that, unless there is something ludicrous attached to it, it is hardly worth recounting anymore.”

Phoebe colored uncomfortably, but she seemed incapable of finding an answer.

“I came out of affection for Fanny.” Emily looked up at him coldly. “And for Phoebe!”

Afton inclined his head a little.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. If you are able to call upon her some afternoon, she will no doubt regale you with her feelings in the matter. She is quite convinced there is some madman lurking around, just waiting for the chance to leap upon her and ravish her next.”