Anne Perry - A Breach of Promise

"I can help." Her face was set in immovable determination. "We'll start tomorrow. When I tell Gabriel he'll insist." She stood up.

"I'm not sure you should. We may be wrong."

She looked at him with eyes wide, her mouth twisted in a mixture of urgency and anger. "We'll need money. I haven't any. Have you?"

"No." He was too tired to argue. And anyway, she was right.

"Then it's settled. I'll go and talk to Gabriel about it, and he'll give us some. We'll start tomorrow morning-early!" She wrinkled her nose at him, and she went out of the room with a swish of skirts, held high. He heard her heels light and rapid along the corridor.

They did start out very early the following day. By half past eight on a blustery spring morning they were in a hansom on the way east and south to Putney. Gabriel had been generous with all he could spare, his only regret being that he was not yet well enough to come with them, and an acute awareness that his disfigurement might prove a hindrance. Meeting strangers was a difficulty he had yet to overcome. It would always be painful. No matter how many times he did it, for them it would always be the first time. The horror and embarrassment would be new.

Now Monk and Hester were sitting side by side in the hansom bowling along at a smart pace through the elegant streets of Chelsea, with the river glinting in the light. To the left lay Battersea Reach, curving away from them. They would pass the gas works and go along the Kings Road with Eel Brook Common to the right. Beyond that was Parsons Green and the Putney Bridge to the south. It was a very long journey.

There was so much to say, and yet he was uncertain where to begin. From Tavistock Square, where he had picked her up, she had told him how Leda and Phemie were this morning, and how changed they seemed already, with clean clothes, washed hair and good food. They were still terrified, expecting each moment to wake up and discover it was all a cruel dream. But they did seem to understand quite a lot, if spoken to slowly and in simple words. The thing that was most apparent was their affection for each other-and their awe and wonder at the thought that Martha actually liked them, rather than simply wished to use them. They flinched if approached too quickly, and it might take some time before they understood that food would be given them regularly and did not need to be stolen or defended.

They were moving away from the river. The street was busy with early traffic, other hansoms, several private carriages. This was an affluent area. Four perfectly matched bays went past at a brisk pace, pulling a magnificent coach, footmen in livery riding behind.

"Where shall we begin?" Hester asked, staring ahead of her. "It all happened twenty years ago. Who will still be there now?"

"Some of the neighbors," he answered. "A doctor must have been called. There'll be a death certificate."

She frowned. She was sitting very straight, her hands in her lap. She looked a little like a governess. She was angry and nervous, afraid they would not succeed. He knew her so well. Anyone else might have thought her rather prim, but he knew she was boiling with emotion, all kinds of fears and furies at the pain and the injustice, and their helplessness to reach it.

"I suppose we could find that," she replied without looking at him.

He was watching her face profiled against the light of the window. What was she thinking about the whole business of beauty and the notion of young women being too plain to be acceptable, or loved at all, because they were not considered marriageable? Phemie and Leda were disfigured. But what about Zillah Lambert? She was now unmarriageable, in her mother's eyes, because two men in a short space of time had been attracted to her and then at the last moment withdrawn. Perhaps society would discount Keelin, knowing the truth now. But what about Sacheverall? Did it make any difference that he was a shallow, selfish opportunist who had not loved her, only her position and her money? Would she find Hugh Gibbons again? He had not even told Hester about that!

"When she was very young, Zillah had a great romance with a man called Hugh Gibbons," he said aloud.

Hester looked at him with surprise.

He realized his remark seemed to come from no previous thought or word.

"I only say so because he never lost touch with her-I mean, he never forgot her," he amended. "He might still care for her very much. And she obviously thinks of him with kindness. I remember her smile when she spoke of him."

"You mean she might marry him?" she asked.

"Well… it is possible."

She turned back towards the window. "Good."

He looked at her and could not read her expression. Had he sounded as if marriage were so important? Zillah, at least, would not be left behind by happiness, social acceptability, living out her days dependent upon other people or earning her own living, pitied by her more fortunate sisters.

That was not what he had meant.

"It will…" he began. He was going to say it would matter to Zillah in a way it would not to Hester. But why not? That was a ridiculous thing to say, and insulting. He had no idea how important it might be to Hester to be married. He had always purposely avoided thinking of what hopes or dreams she might have, what secret wounds. He wanted to think of her as she was: strong, capable, brave, well able to care not only for herself but also for others.

And he did not want to consider her in that light; it was too complicated. They were friends, as honest and candid and uncomplicated as if they had been two men, at least some of the time. She was sharper-tongued than most men, quicker of thought, and then sometimes almost willfully obtuse. But she was wise and brave, and sometimes very funny. And she was generous-when it came to care for others, she was the most generous person he had ever known. She just did not know how to be mysterious or alluring, how to flirt and flatter and intrigue. She was too direct. There was nothing unknown about her.

Except that he had no idea what she was thinking now as she stared straight ahead of her. He could see the open stretch of Eel Brook Common through the window past her head.

How could he take back his clumsiness and say something to undo his words? Everything that came to his mind only made it worse, sounding as if he knew he had made a mistake and was trying to climb out of it. Which, of course, was the truth. She would know that.

Better to try something completely different.

"We'll have to see if we can find the doctor," he said aloud.

She looked back at him. "He won't appreciate our suggesting it was poison. We will be saying he was incompetent, that one of his patients was murdered twenty years ago, and he missed it. Even if it is a different doctor, they defend one another. It is a form of mutual self-defense."

"I know that. Have you a better idea?"

"No." She sat silently for a few moments. The sun was shining brightly and the trees and the common were in full leaf at last. They could have been miles from London. They passed several people out walking, women in pale and pretty dresses, splashes of pink and blue and gold, men more somber stems of grays and browns. Two dogs chased each other, barking madly. A child sent a hoop whirling along too fast to catch it. It sped down the incline, bounced over a stone and fell flat when it hit a tussock of grass.

"Hester…"

"Yes?"

He had no idea what he wanted to say. No, that was not entirely true. He had a hundred things to say, he was just not certain he wanted to say them, not yet, perhaps not at all. Change was frightening. If he committed himself he could not go back. What did he really want to say, anyway? That her friendship was the most valuable thing in his life? That was true. But would she see that as a compliment? Or would she only see that he was treating her like a man, avoiding saying anything deeper, anything with passion and vulnerability in it, anything that bared his soul and left him undefended?