For once, Amaryllis was too confused for words. It was obviously the last thing she had intended to imply.
“Well, no! I mean—” she stumbled and retreated into silence, her skin flushed and her eyes cold with awareness of having been outmaneuvered.
“I hardly think that is likely,” Tormod said, coming to her rescue—or was it Charlotte’s? “Mina was not in the least the kind of woman to rouse such an enmity in anyone. In fact, I cannot believe she would even know a person who would conceive of such an abominable thing.”
“Of course!” Amaryllis said gratefully. “I expressed myself less clearly than I should. Such a thing is unthinkable. If you had known better”—she looked meaningfully at Charlotte—“the sort of people who were her friends, then you would not have mistaken me so.”
Charlotte forced a smile she did not feel. “I am sure I should not. But I am at a disadvantage, and you will have to forgive me. Did you mean that it was some kind of accident?”
Put baldly like that, the idea of having walked home and calmly taken a fatal dose of poison, by pure mischance, was so ridiculous that there was nothing Amaryllis could say. Her round eyes looked at Charlotte with cold dislike.
“I simply do not know what happened, Mrs. Pitt. And I really think we should refrain from discussing the subject in front of poor Eloise.” She let the condescension drip from her voice. “You must have appreciated that she is most delicate and suffers from a nervous and sensitive disposition. We are causing her distress by pursuing this so tastelessly. Eloise, dear.” She swiveled around with a smile so glittering it sent shivers down Charlotte’s spine and produced a feeling of revulsion so sharp it almost burst over into words. “Eloise, are you sure you would not care to come upstairs and rest a little? You look quite extraordinarily pale.”
“Thank you,” Eloise said coolly. “I do not wish to retire. I would greatly prefer to remain down here. We must share this grief together and be what comfort we can to each other.”
But Tormod was not satisfied. “Here.” He brushed Amaryllis aside, led Eloise to lie on the chaise longue, and lifted her feet for her. Charlotte caught a flicker of anger on Amaryllis’ face so hot it would have scorched Eloise to the skin had she known of it. It gave Charlotte an acute satisfaction of which she was not proud, but she did nothing to try to rid herself of it; rather she relished it with peculiar warmth. She savored the turn of Tormod’s shoulder and the soft movement of his hand as he smoothed Eloise’s skirt while Amaryllis watched from behind.
The door opened and the maid came in with a tray, cups, and a hot tisane. Amaryllis set it on the table and poured some for Eloise immediately, giving it to her and passing her a cushion so that she might rest more easily.
Charlotte made some harmless observation about a social event she had read of in the London Illustrated News. Tormod seized on it gratefully, and after they had all drunk a little of the tisane, Charlotte and Caroline took their leave, followed by Amaryllis.
“Poor Eloise,” Amaryllis said as soon as they were in the street. “She does look most poorly. I had not expected her to take it quite so badly. I have no idea what can have caused such a tragedy, but since Eloise was the last person to see poor Mina before she died, I cannot but wonder if perhaps she knows something.” Her eyes widened. “Oh! Told her in the greatest of confidence, of course! Which must place her in a most dreadful dilemma, poor creature! Knowing something vital, and not being able to tell it! I should not care to be in such a position.”
Charlotte had begun to wonder the same thing, especially in view of Tormod’s decision to take her away from Rutland Place into the country, where Pitt could not easily question her.
“Indeed,” she said noncommittally. “Confidences are always a most difficult matter when there is strong reason to believe it might be morally right to divulge what you know. The burden is even heavier if the person who entrusted you is dead, and therefore cannot release you. One cannot envy anyone so placed. If that indeed is the case. We must not leap to conclusions and risk spreading gossip.” She flashed Amaryllis a freezing smile. “That would be quite irresponsible. It may simply be that Eloise is more compassionate than we are. I am very sorry, but I did not know Mrs. Spencer-Brown very well.” She left the implication in the air.
Amaryllis did not miss it. “Quite. And some of us display our emotions while others prefer to keep a certain reserve—a dignity as befits the death of a friend. After all, one does not wish to become the center of attention. It is poor Mina who is dead, not one of us!”
Charlotte smiled more widely, feeling as if she were baring her teeth.
“How sensitive of you, Mrs. Denbigh. I am sure you will be a great comfort to everyone. I am charmed to have met you.” They had come to Amaryllis’ gateway.
“How kind,” Amaryllis answered. “I’m sure I enjoyed it also.” She turned and, lifting her skirts, climbed the steps.
“Charlotte!” Caroline said sharply under her breath. “Really! Sometimes I am quite embarrassed for you. I thought now that you were married you might have improved a little!”
“I have improved,” Charlotte replied as she walked. “I lie much better. I used to fumble before, and now I can smile as well as anyone, and lie through my teeth. I can’t bear that woman!”
“So I gathered!” Caroline said dryly.
“Neither can you.”
“No, but I manage to keep it under considerably better control!”
Charlotte gave her a look that was unreadable, and stepped off the pavement to cross the road.
Then, suddenly, she noticed the lean, elegant figure of a man coming out of a gateway on the far side of the street. Even before he turned she knew him, knew the straight back, the grace of his head, the way his coat sat upon his shoulders. It was Paul Alaric, the Frenchman from Paragon Walk about whom everyone thought so much and actually knew so little.
He walked over to them easily, a half smile on his face, and raised his hat. His eyes met Charlotte’s with a widening of surprise, and then a flash that might have been pleasure or amusement—or even only the courtesy of remembering a most agreeable acquaintance with whom one had shared profound emotions of danger and pity. But naturally he spoke to Caroline first, since she was the elder woman.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Ellison.” His voice was exactly as Charlotte had remembered: soft, the pronunciation exquisitely correct, more beautiful than that of most men for whom English was their mother tongue.
Caroline stood in the middle of the road, her skirt still held in her hand. She swallowed before she spoke, and her voice was rather high.
“Good afternoon, Monsieur Alaric. A very pleasant day. I don’t think you have met my daughter Mrs. Pitt.”
For an instant he hesitated, his eyes meeting Charlotte’s very directly while a host of memories flashed through her mind—memories of fear and conflicting passions. Then he bowed very slightly, the decision made.
“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt.”
“I am quite well, thank you, Monsieur,” she replied levelly. “Although I was distressed at the tragedy that has so recently happened.”
“Mrs. Spencer-Brown.” His face wiped clean of polite trivia and his voice dropped. “Yes. I’m afraid I can think of no answer which is not tragic. I have been struggling within myself to find any reason for such an ugly and useless thing to have happened, and I cannot.”
Compulsion drove Charlotte to pursue it, even though good taste might have demanded that she say something sympathetic and change the subject.
“Then you do not think it could have been an accident?” she asked. Caroline was beside her now, and she was acutely conscious of her, of the tight muscles of her body, of her eyes fixed on Alaric’s face.
There was gentleness in him, and something like a light of bitter humor, as if for a second her candor had aroused some other emotion in him.