Anne Perry - Death in the Devil's Acre

“I had no intention of discussing it with you at all!”

The matter was too urgent for Augusta to lose her temper. She did not wish to tell Christina that she had learned through an old servant’s loyalty of her trips to the slums under the shadows of Westminster. It would jeopardize the servant’s post-but, more practical than that, it would remove her own source of information, and with Christina so rash there was only Augusta to protect her.

“No doubt,” she said tartly. “Which is why it is just as well I am aware of it for myself. You were seen. You must stop immediately.”

Christina was frightened now. Augusta had known her too long to be deceived by the arrogant stance, the squared shoulders under the thick satin. Good heavens-she was still so much of a child, as feckless as a summer day. So little thought of consequences. She saw what she wanted and reached for it. Where on earth had she come by such abandon? It was certainly not her father! He had never done anything emotionally prodigal in his life-would to God he had! And Augusta had always had enough strength of will at least to be discreet. She knew the line between pleasure and duty and would walk it with an acrobat’s balance. Why was Christina such a fool?

“Really-you try my patience!” she said furiously. “Sometimes you don’t seem to have retained the wits you were born with!”

“If you’ve never had an affair worth a damn, then I’m sorry for you!” Christina was shouting now, pouring all her frustration, her hunger, and her pride into a burning contempt for what she considered a lesser woman. “I went to the Acre to a house owned by a friend of mine. And yes, I did go there to meet a lover. But you won’t tell Alan that because you want to ruin my marriage even less than I do! Alan Ross was your choice for me-”

“He was the best offer you had, my girl, and you were as happy to take it as I-at the time,” Augusta reminded her. “Who is this lover?”

“At least be glad I am conducting it in a very private room, and not at someone else’s house party, creeping in and out of bedrooms,” Christina snapped. “Who he is is none of your business. But he is a gentleman-if that is your concern.”

“Then your taste is improving!” Augusta said cruelly, and rose to her feet. “But from now on you will restrict it to your own home. Remember, Christina, Society does not forgive women, and it does not forget. A great deal of flirtation may be overlooked-even affairs if they are conducted discreetly enough. But slumming in the Devil’s Acre halls will not. It is a betrayal of one’s own class.” She moved to the door and opened it. There was no servant in the hall. “Be careful, my dear. You cannot afford another mistake.”

“I have not made one!” Christina replied through her teeth. “I thank you for your concern, but it was unnecessary.”

Augusta had chosen to make dinner a very formal affair. The servants were in full livery and all the best crystal was out. There were three Georgian silver candelabra and arrangements of flowers on the table that must have come from a dozen glasshouses. General Balantyne chose not even to imagine what they had cost.

Augusta herself wore black and white, favorites of hers, complementing her dark hair with its streaks of silver and her still perfect white shoulders. General Balantyne was obliged to acknowledge with a little jolt of surprise that she looked magnificent. He could still see in her the beauty and dignity that had delighted him as a young man. Of course it had been a very suitable marriage. He was of excellent family, with a long and spotless reputation. But all its titles were military ones, and there was not a great deal of money. Augusta’s father, however, had been an earl; her title was her own for life, regardless of whom she married-unless, of course, she gained a better one! And there was not a little wealth in her dowry, and, later, in her inheritance.

All the same, her person and her qualities had enabled him to ask for her hand with considerable enthusiasm, and she had seemed happy to accept. The surprise was that her father had also been agreeable.

That brought the general’s mind to his own daughter Christina, and to her marriage to Alan Ross. Of course that had been different. Christina was nothing like her mother, though as far as he could judge, she was even less like him. She had not Augusta’s regal beauty, but she was dazzlingly pretty. And she had always had charm, allied with a considerable wit-a wit too often exercised at the expense of someone else, for his pleasure. But that was what made Society laugh. A harmless wit was for them a contradiction in terms.

He was not sure whether she had ever really loved Alan Ross or, indeed, if she was ready yet to love anyone. But she had certainly been determined to marry him, and that was something Augusta had refused to discuss. It all belonged to the shock and the weeks of fear and distress during the murders here in Callander Square three years ago.

The suspicion still filled him with unhappiness. He liked Alan Ross; he was an unusually quiet man. One moment the fine aquiline nose made him look strong, even arrogant. Then that peculiarly vulnerable mouth shattered the impression, leaving one with a sense only of the passions that might lie unreachable beneath. Balantyne had never quite known what Ross felt about Christina.

On the other hand, he had come to know his son a great deal better. Brandy had Augusta’s dark good looks, but he was gentler. He had a well of laughter within him-one might even go so far as to say an appreciation of the absurd-and Balantyne envied it. There was random joy in such a quality he would dearly have loved to possess.

And Brandy had certainly shown a courage no one had expected when he had insisted on marrying Reggie Southeron’s governess, Jemima! She was a charming girl, well mannered, and apparently more than adequately educated, though she was barely more than a superior servant till the marriage.

But they were obviously happy, and they had named their daughter after Balantyne’s mother-a gesture he found remarkably pleasing. Yes, Brandy had made a good choice.

The dinner was served in seven courses, and naturally took a great deal of time. Augusta presided at the far end of the table, although Balantyne himself was nominally at the head. On the side nearest the windows, with their moss-green velvet curtains drawn to exclude the night and its driving sleet, Alan Ross sat with the candlelight gleaming on his fair hair. As usual, he spoke little. Jemima sat next to him. She was wearing pale green and white, the design of the fabric suggesting it would be like flowers to touch. She reminded Balantyne far more of spring or the gentle days of early summer than this icy January. Jemima always did; she made him think of daisies, and saplings bending in the wind. She was talking to Augusta, and on the far side Brandy was watching her, smiling.

Beside him Christina sat, immaculately dressed in a deep shade of gold, her dark hair gleaming. Balantyne could see why men found her beautiful, although her nose was a little small, her eyebrows winged instead of arched, and her lips too rounded for classical taste. But there was something individual about her, an impression of daring. She had a touch of Brandy’s humor, but without his tolerance or his sense of the absurd.

The course was cleared away and the next one served.

“Do you remember that fellow Pitt?” Brandy asked, looking up from his plate. They were eating a whitefish curled and baked, covered with sauce and flaked almonds. Balantyne did not like it.

“No,” Augusta said coldly. “The only Pitt I know of was the First Minister of England who introduced income tax during the Napoleonic Wars.”

Alan Ross hid a smile and Jemima bent her head. But the arch of her neck suggested to Balantyne that she was smiling also.