Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

Her face altered so slightly it could have been a change in the light, had not the sky beyond the windows been a steady cloudless blue. Suddenly she looked tired.

"I know Joscelin found finances a little difficult from time to time," she answered quietly. "But I do not know of any particulars, or whom he owed."

"He would hardly have discussed such a thing with my wife." Lovel swung around sharply. "If he wanted to borrow he would come to me-but he had more sense than to try. He had a very generous allowance as it was."

Monk glanced frantically at the splendid room, the swagged velvet curtains, and the garden and parkland beyond, and forbore from making any remark as to generosity. He looked back at Rosamond.

"You never assisted him, ma'am?"

Rosamond hesitated.

"With what?" Lovel asked, raising his eyebrows.

"A gift?" Monk suggested, struggling to be tactful. "Perhaps a small loan to meet a sudden embarrassment?"

"I can only assume you are trying to cause mischief," Lovel said acidly. "Which is despicable, and if you persist I shall have you removed from the case."

Monk was taken aback; he had not deliberately intended offense, simply to uncover a truth. Such sensibilities were peripheral, and he thought a rather silly indulgence now. Lovel saw his irritation and mistook it for a failure to understand. "Mr. Monk, a married woman does not own anything to dispose of-to a brother-in-law or anyone else."

Monk blushed for making a fool of himself, and for the patronage in Lovel's manner. When reminded, of course he knew the law. Even Rosamond's personal jewelry was not hers in law. If Lovel said she was not to give it away, then she could not. Not that he had any doubt, from the catch in her speech and the.flicker of her eyes, that she had done so.

He had no desire to betray her; the knowledge was all he wanted. He bit back the reply he wished to make.

"I did not intend to suggest anything done without your permission, my lord, simply a gesture of kindness on Lady Shelburne's part."

Lovel opened his mouth to retort, then changed his mind and looked out of the window again, his face tight, his shoulders broad and stiff.

"Did the war affect Major Grey deeply?" Monk turned back to Rosamond.

"Oh yes!" For a moment there was intense feeling in her, then she recalled the circumstances and struggled to control herself. Had she not been as schooled in the privileges and the duties of a lady she would have wept. "Yes," she said again. "Yes, although he mastered it with great courage. It was not many months before he began to be his old self-most of the time. He would play the piano, and sing for us sometimes." Her eyes looked beyond Monk to some past place in her own mind. "And he still told us funny stories and made us laugh. But there were occasions when he would think of the men who died, and I suppose his own suffering as well."

Monk was gathering an increasingly sharp picture of Joscelin Grey: a dashing young officer, easy mannered, perhaps a trifle callow; then through experience of war with its blood and pain, and for him an entirely new kind of responsibility, returning home determined to resume as much of the old life as possible; a youngest son with little money but great charm, and a degree of courage.

He had not seemed like a man to make enemies through wronging anyone-but it did not need a leap of imagination to conceive that he might have earned a jealousy powerful enough to have ended in murder. All that was needed for that might lie within this lovely room with its tapestries and its view of the parkland.

"Thank you, Lady Shelburne," he said formally. "You have given me a much clearer picture of him than I had. I am most grateful." He turned to Lovel. "Thank you, my lord. If I might speak with Mr. Menard Grey-"

"He is out," Lovel replied flatly. "He went to see one of the tenant farmers, and I don't know which so there is no point in your traipsing around looking. Anyway, you are looking for who murdered Joscelin, not writing an obituary!"

"I don't think the obituary is finished until it contains the answer," Monk replied, meeting his eyes with a straight, challenging stare.

"Then get on with it!" Lovel snapped. "Don't stand here in the sun-get out and do something useful."

Monk left without speaking and closed the withdrawing room door behind him. In the hall a footman was awaiting discreetly to show him out-or perhaps to make sure that he left without pocketing the silver card tray on the hall table, or the ivory-handled letter opener.

The weather had changed dramatically; from nowhere a swift overcast had brought a squall, the first heavy drops beginning even as he left.

He was outside, walking towards the main drive through the clearing rain, when quite by chance he met the last member of the family. He saw her coming towards him briskly, whisking her skirts out of the way of a stray bramble trailing onto the narrower path. She was reminiscent of Fabia Shelburne in age and dress, but without the brittle glamour. This woman's nose was longer, her hair wilder, and she could never have been a beauty, even forty years ago.

"Good afternoon." He lifted his hat in a small gesture of politeness.

She stopped in her stride and looked at him curiously. "Good afternoon. You are a stranger. What are you doing here? Are you lost?"

"No, thank you ma'am. I am from the Metropolitan Police. I came to report our progress on the murder of Major Grey."

Her eyes narrowed and he was not sure whether it was amusement or something else.

"You look a well-set-up young man to be carrying messages. I suppose you came to see Fabia?"

He had no idea who she was, and for a moment he was at a loss for a civil reply.

She understood instantly.

"I'm Callandra Daviot; the late Lord Shelburne was my brother."

"Then Major Grey was your nephew, Lady Callandra?" He spoke her correct title without thinking, and only realized it afterwards, and wondered what experience or interest had taught him. Now he was only concerned for another opinion of Joscelin Grey.

"Naturally," she agreed. "How can that help you?"

"You must have known him."

Her rather wild eyebrows rose slightly.

"Of course. Possibly a little better than Fabia. Why?"

"You were very close to him?" he said quickly.

"On the contrary, I was some distance removed." Now he was quite certain there was a dry humor in her eyes.

"And saw the clearer for it?" He finished her implication.

"I believe so. Do you require to stand here under the trees, young man? I am being steadily dripped on."

He shook his head, and turned to accompany her back along the way he had come.

"It is unfortunate that Joscelin was murdered," she continued. "It would have been much better if he could have died at Sebastopol-better for Fabia anyway. What do you want of me? I was not especially fond of Joscelin, nor he of me. I knew none of his business, and have no useful ideas as to who might have wished him such intense harm."

"You were not fond of him yourself?" Monk said curiously. "Everyone says he was charming."

"So he was," she agreed, walking with large strides not towards the main entrance of the house but along a graveled path in the direction of the stables, and he had no choice but to go also or be left behind. "I do not care a great deal for charm." She looked directly at him, and he found himself wanning to her dry honesty. "Perhaps because I never possessed it," she continued. "But it always seems chameleon to me, and I cannot be sure what color the animal underneath might be really. Now will you please either return to the house, or go wherever it is you are going. I have no inclination to get any wetter than I already am, and it is going to rain again. I do not intend to stand in the stable yard talking polite nonsense that cannot possibly assist you."