Rutland Place (4 page)

“Even what, Mama?” Charlotte asked very softly. Maddock was back in the hall, standing with her cloak, and the footman was at the door.

“Even perhaps—a little pressure,” Caroline whispered.

Charlotte was used to ugly words, and ugly thoughts. Crime was part of Pitt’s life, and she was too close to him not to share much of his pain, confusion, or pity.

“You mean blackmail?” she asked.

Caroline winced. “I suppose I do.”

Charlotte put her arms around her and held her tightly for a moment. To Maddock and the footman it must have looked like an affectionate goodbye.

“Then we must find out where it is,” she said almost under her breath. “And see that it does no harm. Don’t worry! We’ll manage.” Then she raised her tone to normal and stepped back. “Thank you for a most pleasant afternoon, Mama. I hope I shall come again sooner next time.”

Caroline blinked and sniffed in a manner she would have abhorred, had she been aware of it.

“Thank you, my dear,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

I
T WAS THREE DAYS
after this that Charlotte received another letter from Caroline touching on the same subject. This time she did speak of it to Pitt. They were sitting in front of the fire after Jemima had been put to sleep; Charlotte was sewing, and Pitt was gazing into the flames and sinking gently lower and lower into his chair.

“Thomas.” Charlotte looked up from her work and held the needle in the air.

He turned his head and hitched himself a little higher before his feet slipped over the fender. The light flickered and jumped warmly in its glowing brass.

“Yes?”

“I had a letter from Mama today,” she remarked casually. “She is distressed about the recent loss of a piece of jewelry.”

His eyes narrowed. He knew Charlotte a great deal better than she suspected.

“When you say ‘loss,’ I take it you do not mean that she misplaced it?” he inquired.

Charlotte hesitated. “I’m really not quite sure. She may have.” She picked up her work again to give herself time to arrange her words. She had not expected him to perceive quite so quickly. Actually, she had thought he was very nearly asleep.

After a moment or two she looked across at him and found his eyes bright and waiting, watching her through his lashes. She took a long breath and abandoned the idea of subtlety.

“It was a locket and there was a picture of somebody inside it,” she went on. “She would not say who, but I gathered it was someone whose presence she would prefer not to explain.” She smiled a little self-consciously. “Perhaps it was an old love, someone she knew before Papa?”

He straightened up and took his legs off the fender; his feet were getting hot and he would scorch his slippers if he was not careful.

“And she thinks someone has taken it?” he asked the obvious.

“Yes,” Charlotte said. “I think she does.”

“Any idea who?”

She shook her head. “If she has, she won’t say so. And of course if she were to report the loss, it would cause far more unpleasantness than even having it returned would be worth.”

Pitt needed no further explanation. He was perfectly familiar with Society’s feelings about having police in the house, with the attendant vulgarity. One reported a break-in, of course, and that was regrettable enough, but at least a break-in was an outside affair, a misfortune that could happen to anyone with goods worth the taking. Domestic crime was different; it was something that might involve the questioning, and resultant embarrassment, of one’s friends, and therefore resorting to the police was unthinkable.

“Does she expect you to play discreet detective?” he asked with a broad smile.

“I’m not a bad detective,” she said defensively. “In Paragon Walk I knew the truth before you did!” As soon as she had spoken, memory came back and brought with it ugliness and pain, and self-congratulation became ridiculous, almost indecent.

“That was murder,” he pointed out soberly. “And you nearly got yourself killed for your cleverness. You can hardly go around asking your mother’s friends, ‘Do you happen to have stolen Mama’s locket, and if so, would you please give it back unopened, because it contains some indiscretion, or a picture that might be interpreted as such.’ ”

“You’re not being very helpful!” Charlotte said crossly. “If I could have done it as easily as that, I wouldn’t have needed to ask you about it!”

He sat up straight and leaned forward to take her hand. “My darling, if it really does contain something private, then the less said about it the better. Leave it alone!”

She frowned. “It’s more than that, Thomas. She feels someone is watching her, and waiting!”

He screwed up his face. “You mean someone has already opened it and is waiting for an opportunity to apply a little blackmail?”

“Yes, I suppose I do.” Her fingers grasped around his. “It’s horrid, and I think she’s really quite frightened.”

“If I come in, it will only make it worse,” he said softly. “And I can’t officially anyway, unless she calls me.”

“I know.” Her fingers tightened.

“Charlotte, be careful. I know you mean well, but, my dear, you have a transparent face and a tongue about as subtle as an avalanche.”

“Oh, that’s unfair!” she protested, although at least half of her knew it was not. “I shall be very careful!”

“I still think it would be better if you left it alone—unless someone actually does try blackmail. There may be nothing to it—no more than your mother’s own fears painting shadows on the wall. Perhaps a little conscience?”

“I can’t do
nothing,”
she said unhappily. “She has asked me to come see her, and I can’t leave her so distressed without doing all I am able to.”

“I suppose not,” he conceded. “But for goodness’ sake, do as little as you can. Questions will only arouse curiosity and are more likely than anything else to bring about the very speculations she is afraid of!”

Charlotte knew he was right and she nodded, but at the same time she was already making plans to call at Rutland Place the following day.

She found Caroline in and awaiting her anxiously.

“My dear, I’m so glad you were able to come,” she said, kissing Charlotte on the cheek. “I have planned for us to make a few calls this afternoon, so you can meet some of the other people in the Place—particularly those I am best acquainted with myself, and to whose houses I have been, or who have come here.”

Charlotte’s heart sank. Obviously, Caroline intended to pursue the pendant.

“Do you not think it would be better to be quite casual about it, Mama?” she asked as lightly as she could. “You do not wish anyone to realize how important it is to you, or their curiosity will be aroused. Whereas if you say nothing, it may pass almost without remark.”

Caroline’s lips tightened. “I wish I could believe that, but I feel terribly sure that whoever it is already knows—” She stopped.

“Knows what?” Charlotte asked.

“Knows that it is mine, and that it is important to me,” Caroline finished awkwardly. “I told you—I can feel them, feel their eyes on me. And don’t say it’s foolish! I know it is, but I’m as sure as I have ever been of anything that there is some—person—here who is watching, watching and laughing!” She shivered. “And hating! I—I have even felt once or twice as if they were following me, in the dusk.” The red color burned uncomfortably in her cheeks.

“That person sounds like somebody mad,” Charlotte said as levelly as she could. “Very unpleasant, but more to be pitied than feared.”

Caroline shook her head sharply. “I would prefer to be sorry for madness at a much greater distance.”

Charlotte was shaken. Her voice came far more roughly, more critically than she had intended.

“So would most people,” she said. “I think that is what is called ‘passing by on the other side.’ ” Then she stopped, aware of how unjust she was being. She was confused; she was afraid Caroline was hysterical, and she did not know how to treat it.

A look of amazement crossed Caroline’s face, followed swiftly by anger.

“Are you suggesting I owe some Christian duty to this creature who stole my pendant, and now is peeping at me and following me?” she said incredulously.

Charlotte was ashamed and angry with herself. She should not have spoken her thoughts so bluntly, especially since they had nothing to do with the problem, and would hardly be of comfort in what was now obviously a far deeper matter than she had appreciated.

“No,” she said gravely. “I am trying to make you see that it is not as serious as you believe. If whoever stole or found the pendant is really watching you, and sniggering behind the curtains, then they are not quite right in their minds, and need not be feared so much as viewed with revulsion, and some sense of pity as well. It is not like a personal enemy who wished you harm and had the ability to bring it about.”

“You don’t understand!” Caroline shut her eyes in exasperation, and the muscles in her face were tight. “They would not need to have any brains to cause me harm! Merely to open the locket and see the picture would be enough! One can be as mad as a bedlamite, and still be able to open a locket and see that the picture inside it is not of your father.”

Charlotte sat silent a moment, trying to collect her thoughts. There must be a great deal more to it that Caroline had not said. The picture must be more than some dim, romantic memory. Either the dream was still sharp, the event still capable of causing pain, or else the picture was of some man she knew now, here in Rutland Place!

“Who is it in the picture, Mama?” she asked.

“A friend.” Caroline was not looking at her. “A gentleman of my acquaintance. There is no more to it than a—regard, but it could easily be misunderstood.”

A flirtation. Charlotte was only momentarily surprised. She had learned a lot since her total innocence at the beginning of the Cater Street murders. Few people are immune to flattery, a little romance to flesh out the ordinariness of every day. Edward had not been, so why should Caroline?

And she had kept a picture in a locket. Foolish, but very human. People kept pressed flowers, theater or dance programs, old letters. A wise husband or wife allowed a little privacy for such things, and did not inquire or dig up old dreams to look for answers.

She smiled, trying to be gentler.

“Don’t worry about it, Mama. Everyone has something private.” She deliberately phrased it evasively. “I daresay that if you do not make much of it, other people won’t. In fact, I don’t suppose they will wish to. Quite apart from liking you, they probably have lockets themselves, or letters they would prefer not to lose.”

Caroline smiled bleakly. “You have a charitable view, my dear. You have been out of Society too long. You see it from a distance, and lose the detail.”

Charlotte took her arm and squeezed it for a moment.

“Above all things, Society is practical, Mama. It knows what it can afford. Now who is it you wish us to visit? Tell me something about them, so I don’t say anything tactless and embarrass you.”

“Good gracious! What a hope!” Caroline put her hand over Charlotte’s in a little gesture of thanks. “First we are going to the Charringtons’, to see Ambrosine. I told you about her before. Then I think on to Eloise Lagarde. I don’t think I said anything about her.”

“No, but was that not a name Mrs. Spencer-Brown mentioned?”

“I don’t recall. Anyway, Eloise is a charming person, but quite retiring. She has led a very sheltered life, so please, Charlotte, do give some thought to what you say.”

From Charlotte’s now wider viewpoint, everyone in Rutland Place had led a very sheltered life, including Caroline herself, but she forbore saying so. Pitt’s broader, teeming world, with its vigor and squalor, farce and tragedy, would only be confusing and frightening to Caroline. In Pitt’s world, realities were not softened by evasion and genteel words. Its raw life and death would horrify the inhabitants of Rutland Place, just as the myriad icebound rules of Society would appall a stranger to it.

“Is Eloise in delicate health, Mama?” Charlotte asked.

“I have never heard of any actual illness, but there are many things a person of taste does not discuss. It has occurred to me that she might be consumptive. She seems a little delicate, and I have noticed her faint once or twice. But it is so hard to tell with these fashions whether a girl is robust or not. I confess that when Mary does her best with my whalebone and laces to give me back the twenty-inch waist I used to have, I sometimes feel like fainting myself!” She smiled ruefully, and Charlotte felt another twinge of anxiety. Fashion was all very well, but at Caroline’s age she should not care so much.

“I have not seen a great deal of Eloise lately,” Caroline continued. “I think perhaps this inclement weather does not agree with her. That would not be hard to understand. It has been distressingly cold. She is quite lovely—she has the whitest skin and the darkest eyes you ever saw, and she moves marvelously. She reminds me of Lord Byron’s poem—‘She walks in beauty like the night.’ ” She smiled. “As fragile and as tender as the moon.”

“Did he say that, about the moon?”

“No, I did. Anyway, you will meet her and judge for yourself. Her parents both died when she was very young—no more than eight or nine—and she and her brother were cared for by an aunt. Now that the aunt is dead also, the two of them live here most of the time, and only go back to the country house for a few weeks at a time, or perhaps a month.”

“Mrs. Spencer-Brown described her as a child,” Charlotte said.

Caroline dismissed it. “Oh, that’s just Mina’s turn of phrase. Eloise must be twenty-two or more, and Tormod her brother, is three or four years older at least.” She reached for the bell and rang it for the maid to bring her coat. “I think it’s about time we should leave. I would like you to meet Ambrosine before there are a number of callers.”

Charlotte was afraid the matter of the locket was going to be raised again, but she did not argue. She pulled her own coat closed and followed obediently.

It was a very short walk, and Ambrosine Charrington welcomed them with an enthusiasm that startled Charlotte. She was a striking woman, with fine features under a smooth skin only faintly wrinkled around the corners of the mouth and eyes. Her cheekbones were high and swept wide to wings of dark hair. She surveyed Charlotte with interest and gradual approval as her instinct recognized another highly individual woman.