“How very frank of you,” she said with wide-eyed surprise, as if she had discovered something alive in the salad. “Are you always so-candid-about your thoughts, Mrs. Pitt?”
“I’m afraid so. It is my greatest social disadvantage.” Now let her find a civil answer to that!
“Oh! Well, I dare say it cannot be too serious,” Selena replied cooly. “Your sister does not appear even to be aware of it.”
“I am inured to it.” Emily smiled dazzlingly at her. “I have suffered disaster upon disaster. Now I only bring her to call upon friends I know I can trust.” She met Selena’s brown eyes squarely.
Charlotte nearly choked, trying to maintain a sober face. Selena was outmaneuvered, and she knew it.
“How kind,” she murmured pointlessly. She took the tray from the maid. “Do have some sherbet.”
There was a natural silence after this for a little while, as they dipped their spoons into the cool delicacy. Charlotte wanted to use the opportunity to learn something more about the people, perhaps something that Pitt, as an obvious policeman, could not observe, but all the questions in her head were too clumsy. And she had not decided precisely what she needed to know. She sat with the sherbet dish in her hand and stared at the roses on the far wall. It reminded her a little of Cater Street and her parents’ home, only this was grander, lusher. It seemed such an unlikely place for a sordid crime like rape. Embezzlement or fraud she could have understood, or of course burglary. But did men who lived in houses like these ever rape anyone? Surely no matter how eccentric their tastes, or even perverted-she had heard that there were such things-men from Paragon Walk could afford to pay to indulge them. And there were always people who catered, everywhere, from the teeming rookeries to the expensive brothels, even boys and children.
Unless, of course, some particular woman was tormenting them, teasing, and flaunting herself. But from everyone’s descriptions, Fanny Nash had been anything but a flirt-in fact, decidedly gauche. Thomas had said Jessamyn made as much a point of it as was only just short of unkindness, and Emily had borne her out.
She was still thinking about it, convincing herself it had been some drunken coachman from the Dilbridges’ party and nothing to touch Emily, when she was distracted by voices across the lawn. She turned to see two elderly ladies, dressed in identical turquoise muslin and lace, although the styles were different, as suited their vastly different figures. One was tall and gaunt, flat-chested, the other small and rotund with a high, overstuffed bosom and plump little hands and feet.
“Miss Lucinda Horbury,” Selena introduced the small one, “and Miss Laetitia Horbury.” She turned to the taller. “I am sure you have not met Lady Ashworth’s sister, Mrs. Pitt.”
Greetings were exchanged with elaborately concealed curiosity, and more sherbet was brought. When the maid had left, Miss Lucinda turned to Charlotte.
“My dear Mrs. Pitt, how good of you to call. Of course you have come to comfort poor Emily after the dreadful happening! Isn’t it too appalling?”
Charlotte made polite noises, scrambling to think of something useful to ask, but Miss Lucinda did not really require a reply.
“I really don’t know what things are coming to!” she went on, warming to the subject. “I’m sure when I was young such things never occurred in decent society. Although, of course-” she glanced at her sister “-we did have those among us whose morals were not without fault!”
“Indeed?” Miss Laetitia’s faint eyebrows rose. “I don’t recall that I knew any, but perhaps you had a wider circle than I?”
Miss Lucinda’s plump face tightened, but she ignored the remark, lifting her shoulder slightly and looking toward Charlotte.
“I expect you have heard all about it, Mrs. Pitt? Poor dear Fanny Nash was vilely assaulted and then stabbed to death. We are all quite shattered! The Nashes have lived in the Walk for years, I dare say for generations, a very good family, indeed. I was talking to Mr. Afton, that’s the eldest of the brothers, you know, only yesterday. He has such dignity, don’t you think?” She flushed and looked at Selena, then Emily, and returned to Charlotte. “He is such a sober man,” she continued. “One can hardly imagine his having a sister who would meet with such an end. Of course, Mr. Diggory is a good deal more-more liberal-” she pronounced the word carefully “-in his tastes. But I always say, there are things a man may acceptably do, even if they are not very pleasant, which would be quite unthinkable in a woman-even of the loosest order.” Again she lifted her shoulder a little and glanced momentarily at her sister.
“Are you saying that Fanny somehow invited her attack?” Charlotte asked frankly. She felt the ripple of amazement in the others and ignored it, keeping her eyes on Miss Lucinda’s pink face.
Miss Lucinda sniffed.
“Well, really, Mrs. Pitt, one would hardly expect such a nature of thing to happen to a woman who was- chaste! She would not allow herself to be put in such a circumstance. I am sure that you have never been molested! And neither have any of us!”
“Perhaps that is no more than our good fortune?” Charlotte suggested, then added, lest she embarrass Emily too much, “If he were a madman, he might imagine all sorts of things that were entirely false, might he not, utterly without reason?”
“I have no acquaintance with madmen,” Miss Lucinda said fiercely.
Charlotte smiled. “Nor I with rapists, Miss Horbury. Everything I say is only a surmise.”
Miss Laetitia flashed her a smile so quick it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared.
Miss Lucinda sniffed harder. “Naturally, Mrs. Pitt. I hope you did not imagine for a moment that anything I said was from any kind of personal knowledge! I assure you, I was no more than sympathizing with poor Mr. Nash- to have such a disgrace within his family.”
“Disgrace!” Charlotte was too angry even to try to control her tongue. “I see it as a tragedy, Miss Horbury, a terror, if you like, but hardly a disgrace.”
“Well!” Miss Lucinda bridled. “Well, really-”
“Is that what Mr. Nash said?” Charlotte pressed, ignoring a sharp nudge from Emily’s boot. “Did he say it was a disgrace?”
“Really, I do not recall his words, but he was most certainly aware of the-the obscenity of it!” She shuddered and snorted down her nose. “I am quite terrified at the mere thought myself. I believe, Mrs. Pitt, if you lived in the Walk, you would feel as we do. Why, our maid, poor child, fainted clean away this morning, when the next door bootboy spoke to her. That’s another three of our best cups gone!”
“Perhaps you could reassure her that the man is probably miles away from her now?” Charlotte suggested. “After all, with the police investigating and everyone looking for him, this is the last place he would be likely to remain.”
“Oh, one must not lie, Mrs. Pitt, even to servants,” Miss Lucinda said sharply.
“I don’t see why not?” Miss Laetitia put in with mildness. “If it is for their good.”
“I always said you had no sense of morals!” Miss Lucinda glared at her sister. “Who can say where the creature is now? I am sure Mrs. Pitt cannot! He is obviously possessed by uncontrollable passions, abnormal hungers too dreadful for a decent woman to contemplate.”
Charlotte was tempted to point out that Miss Lucinda had done little else but contemplate them since she had arrived, and it was only sensibility for Emily that prevented her.
Selena shivered.
“Perhaps he is some depraved creature from the under-world, excited by women of quality, satins and laces, cleanliness?” she said to no one in particular.
“Or perhaps he lives here in the Walk, and naturally chooses his own to prey upon-who else?” It was a gentle, light voice, but distinctly masculine.
They all whirled round as one, to see Fulbert Nash only two yards from them on the grass, a dish of sherbet in his hand.
“Good afternoon, Selena, Lady Ashworth, Miss Lucinda, Miss Laetitia.” He looked at Charlotte with raised eyebrows.
“My sister, Mrs. Pitt,” Emily said tightly. “And that is an appalling thing to say, Mr. Nash!”
“It is an appalling crime, ma’am. And life can be appalling, have you not observed?”
“Not, mine, Mr. Nash!”
“How charming of you,” he sat down opposite them.
Emily blinked. “Charming?”
