by Anne Perry
Did she think Patrick would do such a thing? Or only fear it? She wanted to avoid the thought, but that was to admit there was something to be afraid of. “He met the Thorwoods when we first went to Washington, about three and a half years ago.” She raised her chin a little. “We didn’t have a lot money. I was carrying Cassie. She was almost due.” Her hands clenched at the memory of it. It had been a hard, cold winter and she had felt it badly. She had not told anyone in England, not even her mother, how difficult it had been. She had felt very isolated. Patrick had worked so hard to give her extra luxuries, the best he could afford, and more. He seemed to be away so much. She had learned only later he was moonlighting to earn extra money. He dared not tell anyone. If he were caught, his superior would understand, but he might not be able to overlook it. And the extra had meant so much! More warmth! Better food. The things she would never ask for, like chocolate, apples, really good bacon. She found tears in her eyes as she remembered.
“Jem?” Daniel interrupted her thoughts.
“Sorry. I was just remembering…all the things Patrick did for me in those months. I was probably very difficult. You don’t know what it’s like, being with child. You really want to be able to talk to your own mother.”
“The Thorwoods, Jem…?”
“Oh, yes. Tobias Thorwood wanted extra security work. He already knew Patrick—because they have an apartment in New York as well. I don’t know exactly what the work was, but he needed someone he could trust. He never mentioned it to anyone else, so as not to get Patrick into trouble with the police department.” She smiled in spite of herself, at the look on Daniel’s face. “Don’t look like that, Daniel. Although moonlighting was frowned upon it was perfectly legal, or Patrick wouldn’t have done it. If you don’t believe in his morality, at least believe in his sense of survival!”
Daniel blushed. “I would’ve done the same, I hope. So that is how he knows Thorwood. And Mrs. Thorwood?”
“Less well. And Rebecca was just coming into society. She is only twenty-one now.” She remembered that more clearly. “I think Patrick may have been finding out about some young man who was courting her—whether he was suitable or not. I presume he was not. I don’t think it matters. Three and a half years ago, she was rather too young anyway. And very naïve. She still is!”
“Was it Philip Sidney?” Daniel asked. Had he been lied to about when Sidney first went to Washington? He had been at the embassy less time than that, but nothing said he had not visited Washington, or New York!
“No!” Jemima said immediately. “Unless…”
“Unless what? Why couldn’t he have visited before working at the embassy?”
“He could.”
“Doesn’t take long to fall in love,” he pointed out.
She felt the heat rise up in her face. She had gone to America for a very short time, to accompany a friend to her wedding, and during those dramatic weeks…days…she had met Patrick and had fallen in love with him. It had felt crazy, impulsive, even foolish at the time, and yet she was perfectly certain of it. The only question in her mind had been, was he? Yes…yes. Still…yes.
“Not like that,” she said with certainty. “If I had waited this long, caring but not knowing, I’d be half crazy.” She saw the laughter in his eyes. “You just wait! Your turn will come, I hope. But no. Rebecca’s not a very good liar.”
“Or she’s a very good one?” he suggested.
“Oh, really!” Jemima dismissed it out of hand. “No, she isn’t. She likes him.”
“Even after the assault?”
“She didn’t know it was him. For that matter, she still doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t she?”
Jem looked down, then up at Daniel quickly. “She doesn’t want to,” she said very quietly. “In her place, I wouldn’t either. That’s part of the reason I know she didn’t know him before. She…she’s only just on the edge of falling in love with him now.”
“And Thorwood wouldn’t approve?”
“I know Sidney’s an old name, an old family, even if he comes from a very junior branch,” she explained. “But there’s no money. Even if he were higher up, he wouldn’t be the first English aristocrat to marry a rich American for her money!”
“Or the first American to marry a man for his title!” he said.
“What title?” she dismissed it.
“Maybe this is when he ceases to be attractive?”
“You’re miles away, Daniel. Tobias Thorwood would never have heard of Sir Philip Sidney, the hero of romantic Elizabethan poetry! Even to us, it’s only a great story. No, no…” She waved away his interruption. “Rebecca wouldn’t want to marry a man who wanted her money. The thought’s revolting! Her father would be protecting her from that. If it’s got anything at all to do with Sidney and Rebecca, which I don’t think it has.”
“Don’t think?”
“You may not be able to tell if a woman’s in love with someone—although you ought to learn—but I can, usually even if it’s someone I don’t know, and I do know Rebecca.”
There was a moment’s silence. The maid brought tea and very thin sandwiches, which she knew Jemima loved. Jemima smiled and thanked her with feeling, not only for the sandwiches, but for the moment of respite from the subject.
But as soon as she was gone and the tea poured, Daniel returned to it. “I can understand why Patrick is so loyal to Thorwood,” he said gently. “He gave him an honorable way to earn money he badly wanted, to give you a little extra when it meant so much to you. You must remember it with warmth every time you look at Cassie.”
“I’m not blinded by it!” she said, almost choking on the words.
“But is Patrick?” Daniel could not leave it alone.
“I…I don’t know. He’s familiar with crime, Daniel. He’s a policeman.”
“So is our father, but everyone is different. Our father is not half as intuitive as Victor Narraway! And neither of them is as subtle to the dimensions of the mind as Aunt Vespasia.” He winced. “I still miss her.”
“You always will,” Jemima said gently. “She’s part of everything that was good when we were children, and after that. You never die in the memory of the people who loved you.”
“Don’t change the subject,” he said.
She saw a momentary tremble of his lips and smiled. “You changed it. You’re looking for what it is you don’t know about Sidney. And it’s possible the assault was not at all what it seems. Or if Tobias was mistaken as to who it was that night? Or if he’s lying? Anything to prove Sidney is not guilty?”
“Not…not really. I’m looking for a reason he would do such a crazy thing! Even with Morley Cross and his murder, the center isn’t there. Why kill him?” He looked totally puzzled. “There’s something a lot darker behind all this. Does Patrick know something he doesn’t realize fits in?”
“Such as what?” Jemima racked her mind, but she could think of nothing.
“I don’t know,” Daniel answered. “Does Patrick owe more to the Thorwood family than he’s told you? It doesn’t have to be a debt of money. It could be anything. It could even be a secret he knows about them, that has earned his pity.”
She did not answer him, her mind searching the past.
“Don’t be slow, Jem. You know as well as I do, if someone has a deep vulnerability that only you know about, a fear, or a failure, a secret they are ashamed of, you would never betray them. You can’t.”
“I don’t know!” She wanted to, and yet she was also afraid to. Patrick had trusted her with his emotions. At least it seemed so. But everyone has to have a private area, somewhere where even those closest to them did not go uninvited. It was part of becoming an adult, being able to keep secrets. It was part of knowing someone that you did not intrude, or even want to. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “But I have no sense of it. I’m alm
ost certain Patrick really believes Thorwood saw Sidney in the corridor. Which means he was there. And even if Rebecca invited him, he should have known better than to take advantage of her.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “That’s bad behavior, but not something to ruin his career over. And why take the pendant?”
“Perhaps…” She struggled for an answer. “It was only rock crystal, not a diamond.”
“That’s no answer!” Daniel’s disbelief was clear in his face. “Come on, Jem. He tore it off her neck. It must have hurt. And why did she scream? If she invited him there, the last thing she would do is scream and wake the household! It has to make sense—at least to someone.”
“I know. To the someone who did it!” She gulped. “What you’re really asking is, does Patrick believe it was Sidney, and has made him look guilty of embezzlement to punish him for it?”
Daniel nodded minutely. “Yes. It could be for a perfectly honorable reason that he wants to make sure Thorwood gets justice for Rebecca’s assault. Perhaps Thorwood is a witness to some crime, and Patrick is afraid for him. Or Thorwood is involved in something dangerous and needs Patrick’s protection. Or perhaps Patrick knows of Sidney’s guilt in some way he can’t reveal…to protect someone else? There are lots of answers that leave him innocent of any wrong, but unable to speak. Crime can get very complicated. Debt is difficult, and you cannot walk out of it when it gets expensive, or uncomfortable.”
Ideas poured through her mind, but the fear eased away. “Do you think so? Please…please unravel it carefully.”
“I’m not sure I can unravel it at all,” Daniel replied. “But I will be careful, I can promise you that!”
* * *
—
JEMIMA DID NOT confront Patrick when he returned from his visit to the Tower with Charlotte. He was full of enthusiasm, partly out of courtesy to Charlotte and the fact that he found her company enjoyable—she was too much like Jemima for him not to—but also out of fascination with the relics of history he had seen, even touched. Charlotte had told him how, ten years after William the Conqueror’s conquest in 1066, he had had an accounting made of his new kingdom. The Domesday Book named every house and holding, every hamlet and steading. And of course she included what she could remember of the Yeomen Warders—the Beefeaters, as they were known—who guarded the Tower in their traditional heraldic scarlet uniforms.
When they were upstairs changing for dinner, Jemima made herself take the opportunity to bring up the subject of the trial.
“Did you have a good day, too?” Patrick asked, not casually as if in good manners, but watching her, as though he cared.
“Yes, Sophie was looking on while Cassie and I built sandcastles.”
“All day?” he smiled.
“No, not all day. Daniel came.”
He caught the difference in her tone immediately. “In the middle of the afternoon? Why? It must be serious to take him away from the court. The trial isn’t over…unless Sidney has changed his plea. Has he?”
“Do you think he might?” she asked. She did not explain that Kitteridge was now defending him, too. Maybe she would be spared having to ask him about Tobias Thorwood.
“He would if he had any sense,” Patrick replied. “In fact, he should have pleaded guilty in the first place, and avoided a trial at all. Then we would have had no chance at all of raising the assault. Daniel hasn’t done it yet, has he? Jem, is that what you’re looking so tense about?”
“No, he hasn’t. At least not so far as I know. He didn’t say anything about that when he was here.”
“Then what? Come on! What’s happened?” He spoke gently, but there was an edge of anxiety in his voice.
“Why would he do it, Patrick? It doesn’t make sense! And kill Morley Cross? You think he did that, too, don’t you?”
“Most crimes don’t make sense, when you think of them afterward.”
“They make sense at the time to the person who commits them,” she answered. “That’s how you catch them. People steal things because they want them, or they want to sell them, or take them away from whomever has them. They attack people because they’re angry and can’t control their rage. Or they want to silence them because they know something, or will say something, or they’re jealous or greedy. Or they hate someone for any number of reasons. Or they need to—”
“All right!” he cut her off. “I don’t know why Sidney did it. I don’t know why he took the money. It’s little enough over time, but if someone knew about it, I can see why he would want to make sure they didn’t tell on him. And Morley Cross was in a perfect position to know. He worked in the same department. Perhaps he even blackmailed Sidney over it. But that wouldn’t explain about Rebecca. I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a reason. Tobias saw him! There isn’t any doubt about it. Even if it makes no sense at all. Maybe he was drunk? Or it was a stupid…someone dared him to! Or he had some grudge against Tobias that we don’t know about. It doesn’t matter. He was there!”
She did not look at him. “Unless Tobias was mistaken.”
He looked exasperated. “He wasn’t guessing. He knew. He wouldn’t swear to it in court and ruin a man’s career on a guess.”
She did not answer.
“Is that what you think of him?” he said, his voice low, carrying hurt as well as anger. “What did Daniel say to you?”
What could she say, without betraying one or the other? “That it doesn’t make any sense. That there’s something bigger that we don’t yet know.”
“Such as what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel has to think that! He’s defending Sidney. He has to look for anything he can! What would you do in his place?”
“The same,” she said softly. “I’d look for an explanation that made sense. I’d ask someone who knew anything about it. I’d…I’d try to break Tobias’s identification, but I hope I’d do it honestly.” She stepped away from him and looked up at his face. “I’d have told Sidney to plead guilty to the embezzlement, even if he was innocent, and so prevent anyone raising the whole issue of the assault. He would then offer to pay the money back, and expect dismissal from the service. And before you say it, I know Daniel didn’t do that because at first he believed that Sidney assaulted Rebecca and deserved to pay for it, even indirectly. I don’t know what Sidney thought! Maybe that he’d get away with it all.” She looked directly into his eyes. “Did he embezzle the money, Patrick?”
He winced. “Do you mean did I make it look that way?”
“No, not you. But do you suspect that Tobias Thorwood did?”
He was silent for a long time.
She did not move away from him.
“I don’t know,” he said to her. “I didn’t. I really didn’t. And I would stake a lot that he really believes he saw Sidney in his house that evening.”
Jemima did not have to say that she believed him. He would see that in her eyes, feel it in the way she touched his face, gently, with her fingertips, before she kissed him.
CHAPTER
Sixteen
THOMAS PITT HAD a study at home in addition to his office, and it, too, was lined with books. It was the one place where he was allowed to be untidy. No one commented; even the maid was not allowed in. In spite of appearances, he knew where everything was. Now he stood by the window and thought about missing Jemima when she moved to America and married the man she loved. He was realizing it far more since she was home—no, he should say back in England. Her home was wherever Patrick was now. He would have expected Charlotte to follow him, too, had his work taken him elsewhere, and he never doubted that she would have. Now that Cassie and Sophie were in the world, in their world, rather than just photographs, letting Jemima go and realizing it might be a year, even two years before they saw her again was difficult.
/> Pitt liked Patrick. He even trusted him. And it was obvious that he made Jemima happy. He clearly loved her, and more surprisingly, he stood up to her! It remained to be seen how long he would stand up to his daughters! Cassie reminded Pitt of Jemima when she was that age. Cassie had many of the same characteristics, the same curiosity, and the same absolute trust that he would never hurt her. That was what reached him the most deeply, with a wave of sudden emotion that caught him unawares.
He had made it a point of honor not to inquire into Daniel’s cases. It would look like interference, as if he believed that Daniel was not man enough to solve them himself. But this case troubled him in a different way from others, because although he did not know how—and he had very carefully refrained from asking—it clearly affected Jemima very closely.
He closed the study door behind him and went into the drawing room. He knew Cassie and Sophie were in bed. Patrick was talking to Charlotte. They seemed to get along very well. Maybe they were both working at it, for Jemima’s sake, but it looked from the outside to be perfectly natural. Jemima was standing at the end of the room by the French doors, not yet closed from the warm August darkness. She was perfectly still, and there was a tension in her face, in the way she held her shoulders. He ached to do something about it. She was afraid. He knew that more clearly than if she had actually said so. Looking at her stiff shoulders and the graceful way she held her head, he could see Charlotte in her, and Cassie, too.
“Like to go for a walk?” The words were out before he thought about them. “Only to the end of the garden.”
She hesitated a few seconds. Did she fear he was going to ask her what was troubling her? She was right: He was, wasn’t he?
