Caroline stood frozen.
“Do you think either she, or any man, would allow such a matter to become public?” Alaric asked with an expression Charlotte could not fathom.
“I have no idea,” she said with defiance she instantly regretted, but she plunged on. He had always had the ability to make her speak incautiously. “Perhaps an indiscreet letter, or a love token? People who are infatuated are often very foolish, even normally sensible people!”
Caroline was so rigid Charlotte could feel her behind her shoulder like a column of ice.
“You are right,” Caroline said in a low voice. “But death seems a terrible price to pay for such a folly.”
“It is!” For the first time Charlotte looked fully at her; then she turned to Alaric and found his eyes dark and bright, and unreadable, but understanding her as clearly as if they could see inside her head.
“But then when we embark on such affaires,” Charlotte continued with a tightening of her throat, “we seldom see the price at the end until it is time to pay.” She swallowed and suddenly tried to sound light, as if it were all just speculation, and nothing to do with anything real. “At least so I have observed.” Surely he must also be remembering Paragon Walk and their first meeting? Did he still live there now?
His face relaxed fractionally and his lips moved in the smallest smile. “Let us hope we are wrong and there is some less desperate explanation. I would not care to think of anyone suffering so.”
She recalled herself. All that was long past. “Nor I. And I am sure you would not either, Mama.” She closed her hand over Caroline’s. “We had better be returning home, now that we have paid our duty calls. Papa will be expecting us for tea.”
Caroline opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again; but even so Charlotte had to pull her.
“Good day, Monsieur Alaric,” Charlotte said briskly. “I am delighted to have made your acquaintance.”
He bowed and raised his hat.
“And I yours, Mrs. Pitt. Good afternoon, Mrs. Ellison.”
“Good afternoon, Monsieur Alaric.”
They walked a few paces, Charlotte still pulling Caroline uncomfortably by the arm.
“Charlotte, I despair of you sometimes!” Caroline shut her eyes to block out the scene.
“Do you!” Charlotte said tartly without relaxing her pace. “Mama, there is no need for a great deal of words between us that will only hurt. We understand each other. And you do not need to tell me that Papa is not at home either. I know that.”
Caroline did not reply. The wind was sharper and she tucked her head down into her collar.
Charlotte knew she had been abrupt, even cruel, but she was very badly frightened. Paul Alaric was not some light affaire, a man full of pretty phrases and little gestures to please, a taste of romance to brighten the monotony of a thirty-year marriage. He was hard and real; there was power in him and emotion, a suggestion of things beyond reach, exciting and perhaps infinitely beautiful. Charlotte herself was still tingling from the meeting.
Chapter Five
CHARLOTTE DID NOT tell Pitt of her feelings regarding Paul Alaric and Caroline, or indeed that he was someone she had known previously; in fact, she could not have put it into words had she desired to. The encounter had left her more confused than ever. She remembered the heat of emotion and the jealousies he had engendered in Paragon Walk, the disquiet he had awoken even in her. She could understand Caroline’s infatuation easily. Alaric was far more than merely charming, a handsome face upon which to build a dream; he had a power to surprise, to disturb, and to remain in the memory long after parting. It would be blind to dismiss him as a flirtation that would wear itself out.
She could not explain it to Pitt, and she did not wish to have to try.
But of course she had to tell him that Tormod and Eloise Lagarde planned to leave Rutland Place the following day, so that if he wished to speak to them about Mina’s death, he would have to do so immediately.
Since they had been the last people he knew of to see Mina alive, there was a great deal Pitt wished to ask them, although he had not yet formed in his mind any satisfactory way of wording his thoughts, which were still confused, conscious only of unexplained tragedy. But chance allowed him no time to juggle with polite sympathies and suggestions. At quarter past nine, the earliest time at which it would be remotely civil to call, he was on the icy doorstep facing a startled footman, whose tie sat askew and whose polished boots were marred with mud.
“Yes, sir?” the man said, his mouth hanging open.
“Inspector Pitt,” Pitt said. “May I speak with Mr. Lagarde, if you please? And then with Miss Lagarde when it is convenient?”
“It ain’t convenient.” In his consternation the footman forgot the grammar the butler had been at pains to instill in him. “They’re going down to the country today. They ain’t—they is not receiving no one. Miss Lagarde aren’t well.”
“I’m very sorry Miss Lagarde is unwell,” Pitt said, refusing to be edged off the step. “But I am from the police, and I am obliged to make inquiries about the death of Mrs. Spencer-Brown, who I believe was known to Mr. and Miss Lagarde quite closely. I am sure they would wish to be of every assistance they could.”
“Oh! Well—” The footman had obviously not foreseen this situation, nor had the butler prepared him for anything of this sort.
“Perhaps it would be less conspicuous for me to wait somewhere other than on the doorstep,” Pitt said, glancing back into the street with the implicit suggestion that the rest of the Place knew his identity, and therefore his business.
“Oh!” The footman realized the impending catastrophe. “Of course, you’d best come into the morning room. There’s no fire there—” Then he recollected that Pitt was the police, and explanations, let alone fires, were unnecessary for such persons. “You just wait in there.” He opened the door and watched Pitt go in. “I’ll tell the master you’re here. Now don’t you go a-wandering around! I’ll come back and tell you what’s what!”
