Armistice (22 page)

Shakily she climbed the stairs up to her room. As soon as she stepped inside she smelled danger, but there was no one hiding in there, not in the wardrobe, not under the bed. Neither could she detect signs of anyone having been there. Cautiously she edged toward the window and peered down. No one.

She removed Felicity's clothes and smoothed them, ready to return to the dress agency. Felicity couldn't find out anything from Anthony Dore, could she? Not after he'd groped her like that. If Felicity returned to Anthony he'd assume that his behavior was acceptable to her. She put on her own nightdress and lay down on the bed. She'd forgotten what it was like to sleep properly, wake refreshed; tried not to make too much of the stone-throwing—if that's what they were—incident outside. It must have been a random event entirely unconnected to her or any situation she was involved in. But she kept coming back to wonder who might want to throw things, not at a chance victim, but at Felicity, while simultaneously dismissing that as a ridiculous question, because the only man who knew Felicity and where she was staying was Jonathan.

Before she knew it she'd got up from the bed and was looking out of the window into the darkness. A glow developing in the sky told her that it was nearly dawn. She really had to try and sleep. She lay down again. When she closed
her eyes her thoughts were filled with images of Jonathan, naked. She turned her head to look at Dan's photograph.

Jonathan lay on his bed wondering again what it might be like to be Anthony Dore, thinking his way deeper into him. How had his allegation affected Dore? Did he lie awake worrying? Did he wonder who else knew about it? How would he be able to tell if someone knew of it? Would people stop talking when he entered a room? Would he be shunned at his club—his legitimate club, that is? Or could the result of any rumor about him be things Dore was unaware of? For instance, things that would have happened had been prevented from happening: an introduction not made, perhaps, or an opportunity denied him. Jonathan knew that Dore didn't need to work as such, but if someone heard that he was accused of murdering a comrade that could make life extremely difficult for him. Jonathan hoped. Not that he himself was broadcasting his accusation. He was just hoping that someone else was.

He drifted back to the first time he and Dan had been able to talk properly. After they'd met for the first time in that shell hole they'd managed to make it back to their lines, where they'd parted. Later, after Jonathan had hung his mirror to be able to see as he patched up his scalp wound, he spied Dan further down the trench. Dan and he met halfway, warily. This was the start of them seeking each other out, the first of their “little chats.” Dan had talked of Philomena and it was a description of a complicated, unsentimental love with many
downs and ups. A few days later, after Jonathan's dugout was destroyed by a shell Dan suggested he move into his. When the war was over Jonathan expected that their dialogue would cease, and he anticipated regretting that, and he knew that, without it being physically sexual, that he loved Dan—not that he would ever have said as much.

And now Philomena was here in London Jonathan felt less alone, but he had to admit to certain feelings, and hopes, that he dared not … He wondered if … if
now you're dead, do you know what we're doing? And I don't just mean being naked near Philomena—because of what I did, the thing I did, I am—what is the word stronger than remorseful? Abject? Conscience-stricken
?

What he hoped for was irreconcilable with what he had done.

Philomena was awoken by a knock on her door and someone hissing her name through it. Thinking it was Jonathan she stumbled upright and went to the door to answer it, but when she opened it it wasn't him, it was Anthony Dore and he seemed to be traveling at about a thousand miles an hour, begging her to hear him out, just hear him out.

She staggered backward without him laying a hand on her, and before she knew it he was fully in her room, closing the door behind him. Through her befuddlement she was asking herself how he knew she was Philomena. How? He was begging her to be calm and to hear him out and pleading with her not to scream—she didn't have to do anything except listen; that's all she had to do.

She put on her dressing gown, trying to ignore Anthony's furtive glances at her body beneath her nightdress. Why shouldn't she demand that he left, or just scream? Was he a danger to her? A physical danger? He didn't look like he was. He was still placating her—his arms out, palms down, eyebrows raised, head nodding.

All right. She had to hear what he had to say—find out how he'd got ahead of the game. Get him by the window and herself by the door; hear what it was he wanted her to just listen to. She issued instructions and he seemed only too willing to follow. She turned her back and adjusted her dressing gown, making it more secure. She took up Felicity's hat and fiddled with it, fingers ready to grasp the pin. She told him to sit in the chair. He smelled expensive. New leather; his gloves, his boots. Polish. How did he know her real name?

How? Again—how?

Major James? But Major James didn't know where she was. Jonathan? Ridiculous. No, Major James had warned Anthony and he'd set some investigators onto her—that was the most likely explanation. That meant there were other men outside? Police, even? Had she broken the law? She didn't think she had. Jonathan had in telling her. Slander. She buttoned her lip. Zipped mouth shut. Didn't know for certain what was going on. Walked into this. Sleep walked.

“You have done nothing illegal to me as far as I know,” began Anthony, gravely. “As to the morality of your actions that is for your conscience. I know that your name is Philomena
Bligh, and that you were the fiancée of Daniel Case. I wrote to you expressing my sorrow at his death. I also believe, but do not know, that you have been misled to believe—”

It sounded like a prepared speech. Bordering on pompous. Philomena shifted her weight from one leg to another and he stopped speaking. She'd made that happen? She shifted her weight back again, but nothing resulted.

Anthony didn't start speaking again. He watched her. What were the obvious differences between Felicity and Philomena? Philomena was shorter. But that was the shoes—lack of them. Same green eyes, of course. But less eager. No make-up.

“Why did you approach me pretending to be Felicity?”

But surely from what he'd said he understood why? Test this, she thought.

“If you know that I'm Philomena Bligh, the fiancée of Daniel Case, then I think you know why.”

Anthony narrowed his eyes. “That's your real voice, isn't it?” he said. “That accent.”

Philomena pursed her lips. Was that all he could think to say?

“Why approach me in disguise?”

She didn't answer that either. She wasn't going to state the obvious, that someone had told her about the allegation.

“To trick me?” probed Anthony.

She wished he'd stop looking at her body. He made her feel that her nightie and dressing gown were transparent, though she knew that they weren't.

“Very well,” he said, “I know of a story, in which I feature, against my will …” He tailed off.

A statement, but phrased in such a way as to invite the offer of information. She wasn't falling for that.

“You said I had to just listen.”

“The story is a story that might cause Daniel Case's fiancée to disguise herself and befriend me.”

Any harm in confirming that? No. She had to give away a little to get something back.

“I have heard a story, yes, that might lead to that.”

“From whom?”

She shook her head. Wouldn't say. Wouldn't do that.

“The story concerns the manner of your fiancé's death?”

She nodded, eking out the most miserly response.

Anthony sighed. “Am I going to have to make all the running? Is it going to have to be me asking leading questions that you answer monosyllabically?”

Philomena looked steadily at him. Not even a monosyllable this time.

Anthony appeared to lose his patience. “That accusation, the one I'm assuming featured in the story, although completely unfounded, was nevertheless officially investigated. No evidence could be found and no motive. Or have you been told otherwise?”

She shook her head. She was beginning to get scared. He seemed very confident of his ground.

“Why do you give any credence to it?”

She looked at the floor, then up at him, unable to provide,
to formulate a scientifically logical reply, wishing once again that there were an infallible way of knowing the truth about another human being.

Anthony knew he'd pierced her defense. Something he'd said was working on her. He'd spent a good while outside pacing, trying to get inside her head. She didn't have any more evidence than anyone else, did she? He'd worried in the past that Daniel Case might have told, or fired off a celebratory message to someone: “Won my fortune at cards!” or something like that.

“All I can do is repeat my defense,” said Anthony, “my rocksolid defense. There was never any card game involving Daniel Case and me, therefore none of the other details can be true. End of defense. Verdict, not guilty; innocent. I would like to know what I must do to convince you of that. I would like to know what I must do to convince you that I am innocent and that the official findings of the investigation into the allegation were correct. I would like to know, in fact, why there is any suspicion against me, who has been found innocent, while my accuser, whoever that is, who is committing a very serious crime in making false allegations against me, seems to be believed.”

Anthony's rational arguments, his indignant tone, made Philomena fear for Jonathan. It suddenly felt as though she and Jonathan had been in a dream together. In it they could think and say and do whatever they liked and there would be no consequences. They'd created an alternate world that had seemed real. Now another world, Anthony Dore's—no,
not his, the real world—had come along and shown how delusional their world was.

“Or perhaps the person who told you didn't accuse me, but only related events?” continued Anthony, giving her an opportunity to absolve herself.

“I'm not going to tell you how I learned the story,” Philomena said defiantly, still standing near the door, hiding her shaking hands behind her hat. She could see Anthony looking at it, wondering why she was holding it when she wasn't dressed.

It hadn't occurred to him to question her attachment to her headgear. He was picturing her naked body. What a prize she would be. Beguiling. Daniel Case's “darling.” In the corner of his eye the sheaf of letters lay on the table, leading him to remember what he'd done when last in this room. He marshaled his features as she began to speak.

“You can see that once I knew the story I had to investigate it,” she started out, trying to sound reasonable, but inside she wanted the whole thing to stop now. She felt like a child again. She'd been going along denying that she was doing something that she knew was unacceptable and now an adult had caught her.

“Why didn't you approach me as yourself?” Anthony chided.

“Because then you'd know what I might be seeking.”

“But what you did is underhand and it goes against the grain of the law. A man must be told what he is charged with before he is questioned, surely? That is only fair, is it not?”

Philomena nodded in agreement but protested: “I wasn't charging you.”

“But you were going to question me.”

“I hadn't thought that far—I already knew what your answer was. I was trying to verify it,” rallied Philomena.

“No,” said Anthony, pouncing, “you were trying to corroborate what someone had told you was my answer. You were already biased against me by what someone else had told you. You had prejudged me.”

“It's in the official records,” she said, hoping this was true and it would throw Anthony off.

“I think you'll find that it's
not
,” said Anthony. “It is not written in
any
official records. Have you seen it on paper? Have you seen it on paper? Have you seen it on paper?”

“No,” she had to admit, partly to shut him up, “I haven't.”

“That's because it isn't written. Or if it is, someone's for it. This conversation might be a good rehearsal for the legal action I may be forced to bring.”

Philomena's free hand went to her throat. Good, thought Anthony, that's shaken her to her bare feet.

“Then you must leave now.”

“But I do not want to bring any such suit,” said Anthony, telling the truth for two reasons: first, a libel trial would only draw public attention to the accusation; second, he didn't want this dialogue with Philomena to end—except in his favor. “And I don't think you've been misled by a currently serving officer. No, I think I know who told you. The unfortunate mad man himself,” he said.

Philomena's gaze went inward, reviewing Jonathan's nervy behavior. That was a fitting description of him—the unfortunate
mad man? Was that how he was known? When she looked out again Anthony Dore was studying her with a sympathetic look on his face.

“I can see that you're out of your depth. Can you also appreciate my position? I don't want to say anything against the man I think told you the story that made you act because I believe he is a fine man who was destroyed in the war. But just because he is a damaged person doesn't mean that he can make such serious allegations against another person and, a) be believed and b) go unpunished.”

Oh God, he was right. She had no answer to make, certainly no rebuttal.

“How long have you been following me?” There was a gleam in Anthony's eye.

“I might ask you the same question,” she countered.

“Excuse me, miss, I know that there are women taking up all sorts of positions these days but prosecution counsel isn't one of them.”