courtesans, and this appalling man had taken her for one of them! Her face flamed with confusion for her own obtuseness, and rage with herself because at least half of her was flattered! It was mortifying!
'I do not care in the slightest what you are!' she said with a choking breath. She added, quite unfairly, 'And I shall have most unpleasant words with my brother-in-law for bringing me to this place. His sense of humor is in the poorest possible taste!' With a flounce of her skirts, she swept away from him,
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leaving him surprised but delighted, with an excellent story to recount to his friends.
'Serves you right,' Dominic said with some satisfaction when she found him. He half turned and moved his hand toward a man of casually elegant appearance, dressed in the height of fashion but managing to make it all seem uncontrived. His bones were good, his wavy, fair hair not especially long. 'May I present Mr. Esmond Vanderley, my sister-in-law Miss Ellison!'
Charlotte was ill-prepared for it; her wits were still scattered from the last encounter.
'How do you do, Mr. Vandeiiey,' she said with far less composure than she had intended. 'Dominic has spoken of you. I am delighted to make your acquaintance.'
'He was less kind to me,' Vanderley answered with an easy smile. 'He has kept you a total secret, which I consider perhaps wise, but most selfish of him.'
Now that she was faced with him, how on earth could she bring up the subject of Arthur Waybourne or anything to do with Jerome? The whole idea of meeting Vanderley in this place had been ridiculous. Emily would have managed it with far more aplomb-how thoughtless of her to be absent just when she was needed! She should have been here in London to hunt murderers, not galloping about in the Leicestershire mud after some wretched fox!
She lowered her eyes for a moment, then raised them with a frank smile, a little shy. 'Perhaps he thought with your recent bereavement you would find being bothered with new acquaintances tiresome. We have had such an experience in our own family, and know that it can take one in most unexpected ways.'
She hoped the smile, the sense of sympathy, extended to her eyes, and that he understood it as such. Dear heaven! She could not bear to be misunderstood again! She plunged on, 'One moment one wishes only to be left alone; the next, one desires more than anything else to be among as many people as possible, none of whom have the faintest idea of your affairs.' She was proud of that-it was an embroidery of truth worthy of Emily at her best.
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Vanderley looked startled.
'Good gracious! How perceptive of you, Miss Ellison. I had no idea you were even aware of it. Dominic apparently was not. Did you read it in the newspapers?'
'Oh, no!' she lied instantly. She had not yet forgotten that ladies of good society would not do such a thing. Reading the newspaper overheated the blood; it was considered bad for the health to excite the mind too much, not to mention bad for the morals. The pages of social events might be read, perhaps, but certainly not murders! A far better answer occurred to her. 'I have a friend who also has had dealings with Mr. Jerome.'
'Oh, God, yes!' he said wearily. 'Poor devil!'
Charlotte was confused. Could he possibly mean Jerome? Surely whatever sympathy he felt could only be for Arthur Wayboume.
'Tragic,' she agreed, lowering her voice suitably. 'And so very young. The destruction of innocence is always terrible.' It sounded sententious, but she was concerned with drawing him out and perhaps learning something, not with creating a good impression upon him herself.
His wide mouth twisted very slightly.
'Would you consider me very discourteous to disagree with you, Miss Ellison? I find total innocence the most unutterable bore,
