“Mr. and Mrs. Asherson, Mr. Garrard Danver and Mr. Julian Danver and the Misses Danver, Sir Reginald and Lady Arbuthnott, and Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Adair.”
“Did any of the other ladies or you yourself wear a gown of a brilliant cerise or magenta color, ma’am?”
“What?” Her voice was barely a whisper, and this time her face was so ashen the skin looked like wax.
“A brilliant cerise or magenta,” he repeated. “It is a bluish pink, the sort of color cinerarias grow.”
She gulped and her lips formed the word
“Dulcie saw a woman in such a dress, Mrs. York, upstairs in this house-” Before he could finish she gasped and pitched forward onto the floor, hands out to save herself, knocking into the chair as she went.
He dived forward too late to catch her, and half falling over the chair himself, knelt down beside her. She was completely unconscious, her face ivory in the gaslight. He uncrumpled her limbs and picked her up. It was awkward, because she was a deadweight, but she was so slender there was hardly any substance to her. He laid her on the sofa, arranged her skirts to cover all but her feet, then rang the bell, almost yanking the cord from the wall.
As soon as the footman appeared Pitt ordered him to get the lady’s maid with some smelling salts. His voice sounded rough, even frightened. He must steady himself. There was a violence of emotion inside him; he feared he had been too clumsy and had provoked the very scandal Ballarat would pay any price to avoid, anger at the loss of life, pity for it, a sense of betrayal because he had not wanted it to be Veronica. But surely the gay and daring Cerise would not have crumpled into a faint at the first suspicion of the law.
The door opened and the lady’s maid came in, a pretty, slight creature with fair hair and-
“God Almighty!” The breath hissed out between his teeth and Pitt felt the room lurch a little round him also. “Emily!”
“Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth and she dropped the bottle of salts. “Thomas.”
“All right!” For a moment there was a silence of utter incredulity. Then his fury broke. “Explain yourself!” he ground out between his teeth.
“Don’t be foolish!” she whispered. “Keep your voice down! What happened to Veronica?” She knelt down, picked up the salts, and unstoppered them, waving them gently under Veronica’s nose.
“She fainted, of course!” Pitt snapped back. “I asked her about Cerise. Emily, you’ve got to get out of here. You must be mad! Dulcie was murdered, and you could be next!”
“I know she was-and I’m not leaving.” Her face was determined as she stared at him defiantly.
“You are!” He grasped her arm.
She snatched it away. “No, I’m not! Veronica isn’t Cerise. I know her far better than you do!”
“Emily-” But it was too late; Veronica was beginning to stir. Her eyes opened, dark with horror. Then, as memory came back and she recognized Pitt and Emily, the mask returned.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Pitt,” she said very slowly. “I’m afraid I am not very well. I–I haven’t seen the person you spoke of. I cannot help.”
“Then I’ll not disturb you any further. I’ll leave you with your-maid.” Pitt forced himself to be civil, even gentle. “I apologize for having disturbed you.”
Emily rang the bell for the footman, and when he came she gave him his instructions. “John, please show Mr. Pitt to the front door, and then ask Mary to bring Mrs. York a tisane.”
Pitt glared at her and she looked back with her chin high.
“Thank you,” he said, and followed the footman out.
He took a hansom home and strode up his own hallway to the kitchen.
“Charlotte! Charlotte!”
She turned round with innocent surprise at the rage in his voice, then saw his face.
“You knew!” he said furiously. “You knew Emily was in that house as a maid! God Almighty, have you no wits at all, woman?”
It was the wrong approach and he knew it even as he shouted at her, but he was too angry to control himself.
For a moment she glared back at him, then she changed her mind and lowered her eyes meekly. “I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t know until it was too late, I swear, and then there was no point in telling you. You couldn’t have done anything about it.” She looked up with a very small smile. “And she will learn things there that we can’t.”
He gave up, swearing long and savagely under his breath before he ran out of vocabulary he could use in front of Charlotte and accepted the cup of tea she was pouring.
“I don’t give a damn what she learns!” he said fiercely. “Have you thought for one moment in all your idiotic plans about the danger she’s in? For God’s sake, Charlotte, two people have been murdered in that house already! If she were found out, what could you do to help her? Nothing! Nothing at all!” He flung his arm out. “She’s there completely on her own; I can’t get in there. How could you be so bloody stupid?”
“I am not stupid!” she said hotly, indignation bright in her cheeks and eyes. “I didn’t know anything about it-I told you that! I only heard about it afterwards.”
“Don’t equivocate!” he snapped back. “You drew Emily into this; she would never have heard about it if you hadn’t started meddling. Get her out! Sit down now and write to her telling her to go home where she belongs- now!”
Charlotte’s face was set. “There’s no point; she won’t come.”
“Do it!” he roared. “Don’t argue with me, just do it!”
There were tears in her eyes, but no obedience or submissiveness. “She won’t listen to me!” she said furiously. “I know the danger! Do you think I can’t see it? And I know you’re in danger too! I sit at home and wait for you when you’re late, wondering where you are, if you are safe-or lying bleeding in the street somewhere.”
“That’s unfair! And it has nothing to do with Emily,” he answered more levelly. “Get her out, Charlotte.”
“I can’t. She won’t come.”
He said nothing. He was too angry-and too frightened.
7
Emily was appalled when she came into the library in answer to Albert’s summons and saw Pitt standing there. Thank heaven the circumstances had given him little time to express his outrage or to press his demand that she leave. When Veronica returned to consciousness, Pitt had been obliged to remain silent, except for the few remarks to excuse himself, leaving Emily alone with her mistress propped up against the cushions, looking like death warmed over.
Emily felt so intense a pity for her it was like a new wound, but she also knew that she would probably never have a better chance than now, when Veronica was shocked and off balance, to draw some unguarded word from her as to what had frightened her so profoundly.
She bent down beside her and touched her hand. “Ma’am, you do look ill,” she said gently. “Whatever did he say to you? He ought not have been allowed!” She stared so intently at Veronica’s ashen face that some sort of answer was unavoidable.
“I–I think I fainted,” Veronica whispered at last.
Mentally Emily apologized to Pitt for the injustice she was about to do him; then with all the skill she could muster, she let genuine compassion fill her eyes. “Did he threaten you, ma’am? What did he say? He has no right! You should report him: What was it?”
“No,” Veronica said quickly, then bit her lip, struggling with the lie. “No-he-he was really quite civil. I. .” For a moment her eyes met Emily’s and she hesitated on the brink of speech, the temptation to trust so vivid that Emily could trace every thread of it, the wavering, the rival fears.
Emily held her breath.
But the moment passed. Veronica turned away and the tears spilled and ran down her cheeks. She lay back and closed her eyes.
Emily longed to put her arms round her and tell her she understood, she knew what it was like to lose your husband suddenly, violently, in the horror of murder, with the knowledge that someone must hate so much that only death could satisfy them. And she also knew the fear that grew day by day, fear of confusion, of a whole world
