battle was over.
“Why?” Charlotte asked. “You must have had a very powerful reason.”
Justine looked drained, as if the life had ceased inside her. In a few words Charlotte had ended everything she had longed for and worked for, and almost had within her grasp. There seemed nothing she could say which would alter or redeem even a portion of the loss. There was no anger in her, only resignation in the face of absolute disaster.
Charlotte waited.
Justine began in a low, quiet voice, not looking at Charlotte, but down at the embroidered edge of the linen sheet under her fingers.
“My mother was a maidservant who married a Spanish sailor. He died when I was very young. He was lost at sea. She was left with no money and a small child to bring up. Because she had married a foreigner, against her family’s wishes, they would have nothing to do with her. She took in laundry and mending, but it barely kept us alive. She didn’t marry again.”
She smiled a curious, half-amused smile. “I was never beautiful. I was too dark. They used to call me names when I was a child: gypsy, dago, and worse. And make fun of my nose. But as I got older I had a kind of grace, I was different, and it interested some people … especially men. I learned how to be charming, how to awaken interest and to sustain it. I …” She kept her eyes studiously away from Charlotte’s. “I learned how to flatter a man and make him happy.” She did not specify in what way she meant.
Charlotte believed she understood.
“And Ainsley Greville was among them?”
Justine jerked her head up, her eyes bright and angry.
“He was the only one! But when you are desperate, and it is your way of surviving, you can’t pick and choose. You take who has the money, and doesn’t knock you around or carry disease, at least that you can see. Do you think I liked it?” She was defiant, as if Charlotte were judging her.
“You poor soul,” Charlotte said, slightly sarcastically.
Rage blazed in Justine’s eyes for an instant as they sat staring at each other. It never crossed Charlotte’s mind that she was in any danger. She had in all practical senses forgotten that Justine had only a few days ago attempted to murder a man. She had failed only because he was already dead. She had thought until ten minutes before that she had succeeded.
Charlotte looked at the gorgeous embroidered lace on Justine’s nightgown. It was immeasurably prettier than her own, and more expensive.
“I like your nightgown,” she remarked dryly.
Justine blushed.
Again they sat in silence for several moments.
Justine looked up. “All right … I did it to survive, to begin with. Then I learned to like the luxuries I could afford. Once you’ve been poor, really hungry and cold, you never feel safe enough. You always know it can happen again tomorrow. I was always thinking I’d give it up, do something respectable. It just … never seemed the right time.”
“So why murder Ainsley Greville? Did you hate him so much? Why?”
“No, I didn’t hate that much!” Justine said angrily, contempt hot in her black eyes. “Yes, I hated him, because he despised me just as he despised all women,” she said viciously. “Except when he couldn’t be bothered with us at all. Yes, there was a way in which he was typical of all the men who use women and loathe them at the same time. But I killed him because he would have told Piers what I am—what I was ….”
“Does that matter?” Charlotte did not ask as a challenge this time, simply a question.
Justine closed her eyes. “Yes … it mattered more than anything else in the world. I love him … not just to get out of being a—a whore!” She made herself say the word, and her face showed that it was like stabbing herself. “I love him because he is kind and funny and generous. He has hopes and fears I can understand, dreams I can share, and the courage to seek them. And he loves me … most of all, he loves me.” Her voice was strained so tight it cracked with her effort to keep control. “Can you imagine what it will do to him if he hears? Can you see the scene … Ainsley laughing at him, telling him his precious betrothed was his father’s whore? And he would have enjoyed that. He could be very cruel.”
Her hands were knotted on the edge of the sheet. “He resented anyone’s happiness, especially if he knew them well, because they had something he didn’t. He couldn’t find happiness in any woman because he didn’t know how to love. He didn’t permit the gentleness in himself, so he couldn’t see it in others. He only saw his own reflection, unsatisfied, seeking the weakness to exploit, using his power to hurt, before anyone hurt him.”
“You did hate him, didn’t you?” Charlotte said, feeling not only the emotion behind Justine’s words but the knowledge and the reason.
Justine met her eyes. “Yes, I did, not only for what he did to me, but to everyone. And I suppose for a moment to me he was all men like him. What are you going to do now?”
Charlotte made her decision as she was speaking the words.
“You didn’t kill him, but that was only chance, your good fortune, if you like. You meant to.”
“I know that. What are you going to do?” Justine repeated.
“I don’t know what kind of a crime it is to attack a man who’s already dead. It’s bound to be some sort.”
“If … if Mr. Pitt is going to arrest me …” Justine took a shuddering breath. She did not weep. Perhaps that would come later, when she was alone and it was all over, and there was nothing left ahead but the regret. She regained her control and started again. “If Mr. Pitt is going to arrest me, may I please go and tell Piers myself why? I think I would rather … at least …”
Again there was silence. The gas hissed gently in the bracket. There was no other sound in the house.
