Rutland Place
Anne Perry
Dedicated
with love to my father,
with friendship to Judy,
with gratitude to the city of Toronto
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter One
CHARLOTTE PITT TOOK the letter and looked at the errand boy in some surprise. He gazed back with round, intelligent eyes. Was he waiting for a financial reward? She hoped not. She and Thomas had only recently moved from their previous house into this larger, airier one, with its extra bedroom and tiny garden, and it had taken all their resources.
“Will there be a reply, ma’am?” the boy said cheerfully, a trifle amused by her slowness. He was generally employed in a wealthier part of the city; people in these streets ran their own errands. But this was the sort of place he aspired to one day in the dim, adult future: a terraced house of his own with a clean step, curtains at the windows, a flower box or two, and a handsome woman to open the door and welcome him in at the end of the day.
“Oh,” Charlotte breathed out in relief. “Just a moment.” She tore the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper, and read:
Charlotte folded the letter and looked back at the boy.
“If you wait just a moment I shall write a reply,” she said with a little smile, and then, after a small interval, returned to hand him her acceptance.
“Thank you, ma’am.” The boy nodded and scampered off. Apparently he had not expected more; his reward no doubt customarily came from the sender. Anyway, he was far too worldly wise not to know precisely who was worth how much, and who would or would not part with it.
Charlotte closed the door and went back along the corridor to the kitchen where her eighteen-month-old daughter Jemima was sitting in her crib chewing a pencil. Charlotte took it from her absentmindedly and handed her a colored brick instead.
“I’ve asked you not to give her pencils, Gracie,” she said to the little maid, who was peeling potatoes. “She doesn’t know what they’re for. She only eats them.”
“Didn’t know she had it, ma’am. She can reach ever so far between those bars. Leastways, it keeps her from getting into the coal scuttle or the stove.”
There was an abacus of bright wooden beads set into the railings of the crib, and Charlotte knelt down and rattled them lightly. Jemima was immediately attracted and stood up. Charlotte began to count them out for her, and Jemima repeated the words, concentrating hard, her eyes going from the beads to Charlotte’s face, waiting after each word for approval.
Charlotte was only half alert to Jemima. Most of her concentration was on her mother. Her parents had accepted it extremely well when she had told them she was going to marry, of all things, a policeman! Edward had prevaricated a little and asked her very soberly if she was perfectly sure she knew what she was doing. But right from the start Caroline had understood that her most awkward daughter had found someone whom she loved, and
