Rutland Place (24 page)

She had been afraid, almost angry in anticipation of it, that he might say something trite, but he did not.

“I know.” His voice was very quiet, his mind seeking to understand the pain. “I really don’t feel I can be of any use, but not to call seems so indifferent, as if I did not care.”

“Are you a great friend of Mr. Lagarde’s?” she inquired with surprise. She had not considered a realm of his life where he might find company with a man as much younger and as relatively slight in his pursuits as Tormod Lagarde. “Please do sit down,” she offered as composedly as she could. “I daresay they will be a little while as yet.”

“Thank you,” he said, moving the skirts of his coat so he did not sit on them. “No, I cannot say that I found much in common with him. But then tragedies of this sort override all trivial differences, don’t they?”

She looked up to find his eyes on her, curious and quite devoid of the impersonal glaze she was accustomed to in social conversation. She smiled slightly to show she was calm and grave and composed; then, as an afterthought, she smiled again, to show that she agreed with him.

“I see it has not kept you away,” he continued. “It would have been quite excusable for you to have found other business and avoided what can only be painful. You do not know the Lagardes well, I believe? And yet you felt a desire to come?”

“I fear to little enough good,” she said with sudden unhappiness. “Except perhaps that Mama and Emily removed Mrs. Denbigh.”

He smiled, and the irony inside him went all the way to his eyes.

“Ah, Amaryllis! Yes, I imagine that was something of a kindness in itself. I don’t know why, but there seems to be little love lost between her and Eloise. It would have been a source of considerable pain had they become sisters-in-law.”

“You don’t know why?” Charlotte was surprised. Surely he could not be so blind! Amaryllis was intensely possessive and her feeling for Tormod was almost devouring in its heat. The thought of living in a household with Eloise would be unbearable to her. When two women shared a house, there was always one who became superior; that it should be Eloise was unlikely, and for Amaryllis intolerable, but if Eloise were driven, however subtly, into a subordinate position, then Tormod would feel a sense of obligation, even of pity, toward her, and that might be worse. No, if Paul Alaric could not see why Amaryllis felt as she did, he was disappointingly lacking in imagination.

Then she looked at his face and realized he had not understood that Eloise would remain with them. But Tormod could hardly leave her alone! She was young and desperately vulnerable—even if it would be socially acceptable, which it was not.

“I had formed the impression that Mrs. Denbigh was extremely fond of Mr. Lagarde,” she began. What a ridiculously inadequate use of words for the violence of feeling she had seen in Amaryllis, the appetite of mind and body that boiled so close below the surface.

Slowly he smiled, without pleasure. He had seen it too.

“Perhaps I have too little insight, but a wife and a sister do not seem mutually exclusive.”

“Really, Monsieur.” Suddenly she was impatient with him. “If you were totally in love with someone, if you can conceive of such a feeling”—the acid of her rage for Caroline dripped through her voice—“would you care to share your daily life with somebody who knew that person infinitely better than you did? Who had a lifetime of memories in common, all the laughter and secrets, the friends, the childhood echoes—”

“All right. Charlotte—I understand.” Suddenly he reverted to the moment of friendship they had shared in those terrible days in Paragon Walk when other jealousies and hatreds had seethed into murder. “I have been insensitive, even stupid. I can see that to someone like Amaryllis it would be unendurable. However, if Tormod is as badly injured as I have heard, then the question of marriage will never arise.”

It was a statement of a truth that must have been obvious, yet the words fell like ice into the room. They were still silent, each wrapped in his own conception of its enormity, when Eloise returned.

She regarded Alaric without interest, as if she did not recognize him except as a shape, another figure that required acknowledgment.

“Good afternoon, Monsieur Alaric. It is kind of you to call.”

The sight of her face, stiff, eyes sunken with shock, affected him more than anything Charlotte could have said. He forgot his manners, a lifetime of polite expressions. There was nothing in him but untutored emotion.

He put out his hand and grasped hers, his other hand touching her arm gently, as if her skin might bruise.

“Eloise, I’m so sorry. Don’t give up hope, my dear. One cannot know what may be possible, with time.”

She stood quite still, not moving away from him, although it was not plain whether she was comforted by his closeness or simply oblivious to it.

“I don’t know what to hope for,” she said simply. “Perhaps that is very wrong of me?”

“No, not wrong,” Charlotte said quickly. “You would have to be omniscient to know what is best. You cannot blame yourself, and please do not even think of it.”

Eloise shut her eyes and turned away, pulling her arm from Alaric, leaving him standing confused, aware he was in the outside of some tremendous grief and unable to reach it or share it.

Charlotte felt a certain compassion for him, but her first feeling was for Eloise. She stood up and went to her, putting her arms around her and holding her tightly. Eloise’s body was yielding, lifeless, but Charlotte held on to her just the same. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alaric’s face, tight with pity, and then silently he turned and left, closing the door behind him with a tiny click as the latch went home.

Eloise did not move, nor did she weep; it was as if Charlotte were holding a sleepwalker whose nightmare imprisoned her mind and soul elsewhere. Yet Charlotte felt that her presence, the contact of her warmth, was worth something.

Minutes went by. Someone clattered up the back stairs. Rain drove in a gust against the windows. Still neither of them spoke.

At last the door opened and the maid spoke, then was overcome with embarrassment. “Mr. Inigo Charrington, ma’am. Shall I tell him you are not at home?”

“If you would inform Mr. Charrington that Miss Lagarde is not well,” Charlotte said quietly. “Ask him to wait in the withdrawing room, and I shall go to him in a few moments.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The girl withdrew gratefully, without waiting for Eloise to confirm the command.

Charlotte stood for a moment longer, then guided Eloise to the sofa and laid her on it, kneeling beside her.

“Do you not think you would be better to lie down for a while?” she suggested. “Perhaps a dish of tea, or an herbal tisane?”

“If you wish.” Eloise obeyed because she had no will to argue.

Charlotte hesitated, still not sure if there was anything else she could do, then accepted at last that it was futile and went to the door.

“Charlotte!”

She turned. For the first time there was expression in Eloise’s face, even her eyes.

“Thank you. You have been kind. I may not appear as if I value it, but I do. You are right. Perhaps I shall drink something, and sleep for a while. I feel very tired.”

Charlotte felt a surge of relief, as if hard knots inside her had slipped loose.

“I’ll tell your maid to see that no one else is admitted for today.”

“Thank you.”

After delivering the directions to the maid and the footman, Charlotte went into the withdrawing room where Inigo Charrington stood by the mantelshelf, his face creased with anxiety, his coat still over his arm as if he were unsure whether to stay or go.

“Is she all right?” he said without any pretense at formality.

“No,” Charlotte replied with equal honesty. “No, she isn’t, but I don’t know of anything else we can do to help.”

“Should you have left her?” Inigo’s face creased. “The last thing I want is for my calling to cause further distress.”

“I sent the maid for a dish of tisane. Then I think she will rest for a time. Sleep will not alter the facts; she will still have to face them when she awakes, but she may have a little more strength for it.”

“It’s absolutely bloody!” he said with sudden anger. “First poor Mina, and now this!”

Charlotte was appalled to hear herself reply, “And your own sister—”

“What?” His quicksilver face was blank, almost comically empty.

This time embarrassment made her hold her tongue.

“Oh,” Then he realized what she had said. “Oh yes. You mean Ottilie.”

She wanted to apologize, to undo her intrusion, but she knew how close it could lie to Mina’s death, and murder. And she had learned only too dreadfully how one murder could beget another—and another. Mina was not necessarily the last victim.

“I believe her death was very sudden—I mean, quite unexpected. It must have been a devastating shock.” She had meant to be subtle, and ended by sounding crass.

“Unexpected?” Again he repeated her words. “Mrs. Pitt! Of course, how stupid of me. The policeman! But why the interest in Ottilie? She was eccentric, to put it at its mildest, but she certainly never harmed anyone—least of all Mina.”

“That is the third time someone has said that she was eccentric,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “Was she really so very unusual?”

“Oh yes.” He smiled at the memory. “She did some appalling things. Once she got up on the dining table at dinner and sang a bawdy song. I thought Papa would die of it. Thank God no one else was there but the family, and one or two of my friends.” His eyes were alight, gleaming with the memory, laughter and softness in them.

“Embarrassing, if it were to be repeated.” Charlotte was confused by him; surely no man could act affection so perfectly and be lying? “One cannot afford a great deal of that if one is to remain in Society.”

His face was bright, with mockery in it, but no malice, as if he himself were part of the joke.

“You know, Mrs. Pitt, I have the strongest feeling that in spite of your afternoon-tea behavior, you are a good deal more your husband’s wife than your mother’s daughter! You think we quietly suppressed Ottilie somewhere, don’t you? Perhaps imprisoned her in our country house, locked in a disused wing, with an old family retainer to guard her?”

Charlotte felt the crimson heat flood up her face. She was blundering, and yet she must not stop; there would not be another chance.

“Actually, I thought you might have murdered her,” she said tartly, furious with herself for her clumsiness. “And perhaps Mina knew it? She was a Peeping Tom, you know. And maybe a thief as well!”

His eyes opened wide in surprise.

“A Peeping Tom, yes, but a thief? Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Several things have gone missing in Rutland Place recently.” She could still feel the scarlet under her skin. “None of them are very valuable of themselves, but at least one holds a secret which would be most embarrassing if it were to become known. Perhaps Mina was the thief, and she was killed to retrieve whatever it was?”

“No,” he said with conviction. “Whatever she was killed for, it had nothing to do with the thefts. Anyhow, most of the things have been returned. They always are.”

She stared at him. “Returned? How do you know?”

He took a long, slow breath. “I do. Just accept that. I have seen the things. Ask the people who lost them, they’ll tell you.”

“My mother lost something. She did not say she has it back.”

“Presumably it was the article containing the embarrassing secret you spoke of, since you are aware of it. Maybe she was afraid you would think she stole it back. You have a highly suspicious mind, Mrs. Pitt!”

“I would hardly suspect my own mother of—” She stopped.

“Killing Mina?” he finished for her. “Perhaps not—but would the police be so well-disposed?”

“Where did Ottilie die? It was not at your country house, as you said.”

“Oh.” For several minutes he remained silent, standing with one foot on the hearth, and she waited. “Tell you what,” he said at last. “Come with me and I’ll show you!”

She exploded in frustration. “Don’t be ridiculous! If it is something so secret—”

“Bring your own carriage,” he interrupted. “And your own footman if you like.”

“Policemen do not have carriages!” she snapped. “Or footmen!”

“No, I suppose they don’t. Sorry. Bring your mother’s. I’ll prove to you we didn’t murder Ottilie.”

Her mind raced to find a way of accepting that was not wildly foolish. If he or his family had killed Ottilie, and then Mina, they would not balk at killing her just as easily. Yet perhaps she was being offered the solution. And if the stolen articles had really been returned, how did Inigo Charrington know it? Why had Caroline not told her? Anyway, why would a thief take them and then return them? It made no sense—unless it was involved with the murder. Had Mina been the thief, and had the murderer retrieved all the stolen things to mask the recovery of the one thing that would have damned him?

Suddenly the solution came to her. Emily would never permit such an opportunity to escape, and she could provide the means for Charlotte to accept.

“I shall take my sister’s carriage,” she replied with an assurance she hoped she could justify. “And naturally I shall tell her for what purpose, and who is to accompany me.”

“Excellent! Have you considered joining the police force yourself?”

“Don’t be impertinent!” she said acidly, but inside excitement was boiling up.

He smiled. “I think you would enjoy it enormously. Actually, I think I might myself. I shall collect you at six o’clock. What you are wearing will be adequate, if you take off that thing from the neck.”

“At six o’clock?” She was startled. “Why not now?”

“Because it is barely half past three, and far too early.”

She did not understand, but at least by six o’clock she would have had opportunity to make some arrangement with Emily, both to borrow the carriage and to be perfectly sure that Inigo Charrington did not imagine he could harm her in any way and remain at liberty himself.

When she arrived at her mother’s house and explained the matter to her sister—out of Caroline’s hearing, of course—Emily was aghast. Her immediate reaction was that Inigo had undoubtedly murdered his sister and now intended to do away with Charlotte as well.