Death in the Devil's Acre (8 page)

“I know,” Christina said quietly. She took a shaky breath. “It is extremely unpleasant.”

“The police are investigating both crimes.”

“Naturally. Although I cannot see what good it will do. Every so often, people like that are bound to get murdered. I don’t suppose there is the slightest chance they will ever discover who did it, and why hardly matters. I really cannot believe they care—they have to go through the motions because it is expected of them.”

“Doubtless. But that is not the point. It is Inspector Pitt who will try—do you remember Pitt?”

Christina winced.

“There are houses in that quarter,” Augusta continued, “where wealthy women occasionally find themselves some diversion. I dare say it offers them a certain thrill to enter into a world of filth and danger. Perhaps their own looks the sweeter after it?”

Christina’s eyes were hard and angry, her skin tight across the cheekbones. “I have no idea!”

Augusta sighed. “Don’t pretend to be stupid, Christina. And, above all, do not pretend that I am! Alan may prefer to affect ignorance of a great deal that you do—indeed, he appears to be remarkably patient. But he cannot ignore scandal—no one can. The Devil’s Acre will come under very close scrutiny. These crimes have shocked people—and, since Pinchin was relatively respectable, frightened them as well. If you cannot control your taste for slumming, you must do it elsewhere. Although you would be very wise not to do it at all. London is much smaller than you think—you cannot be anonymous for long. Your lady friends will not frequent these gambling houses or music halls, but their husbands might well. What is a dangerous adventure for you is merely a lark for them—”

“Hypocrites!” Christina spat out.

“My dear girl, stop behaving like a child. You are too old for it. Naïveté excusable at twenty is boring at twenty-five, and at thirty it becomes ridiculous. You stand in danger of losing your reputation. Take a great deal of thought as to what that means!”

“On the contrary, I am very popular and considered most entertaining!”

“So are buffoons and whores! Do you wish to be one of them?”

Christina’s face was very white. “I’m sorry you imagine I go to cheap music halls, Mama. I have never entered one in my life, so I cannot say what they offer. But if I wished to gamble, there are plenty of perfectly respectable houses where I could do so. And I do not need to find myself a lover—I have more offers than I can entertain!”

Augusta was unimpressed. She had seen Christina’s wounded dignity before. “Do you indeed? Are you telling me you have not been to 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.

“The policeman who always looked as if he’d just come in out of a gale,” Brandy went on, oblivious of the chill. “Three years ago.” Even he avoided mentioning the events of death so close to them then.

“Why on earth should I remember such a person?” Augusta inquired critically.

Brandy seemed impervious to the ice in her voice—or to the warning. “He was rather memorable—”

“For goodness’ sake!” Christina interrupted. “He was a policeman! That is like saying one ought to remember other people’s servants!”

Brandy ignored her also. “He’s in charge of this maniac case in the Devil’s Acre,” he continued. “Did you know that?”

Augusta’s face froze, but before she could speak Christina turned on her brother, her voice unusually brittle. “I think it is most coarse of you to bring up such a subject at table, Brandy. Indeed I cannot see the need to discuss it anywhere at all! And I would be obliged if while we are eating you could talk of something pleasant. For instance, did you know that Lady Summerville’s eldest daughter is betrothed to Sir Frederick Byers?”

Augusta relaxed, the tension in her shoulders easing under the stretched silk of her gown. But she did not yet resume eating, as if she might be required at any moment to rescue the situation.

“I know Freddie Byers doesn’t know it!” Brandy replied dryly. “At least he didn’t on Tuesday.”

Christina laughed, but without the usual full-throated delight.

“Oh, how marvelous! I wonder if we are to have a scandal? I can’t bear Rose Summerville anyway. Did I tell you that story of when she was presented to the Princess of Wales, and what happened to her feathers?”

Balantyne could not think what on earth she meant. “Feathers?” he repeated with disbelief.

“Oh, Papa!” Christina waved her small hand, delicate, ringed with two beautiful diamonds. “When one is presented at Court, one has to wear the Prince of Wales’ feathers as a headdress. It is really dreadfully difficult to keep them standing up, especially if you have wispy hair like Rose.” She proceeded to tell the disaster so trenchantly that even though Balantyne found the whole social presentation of débutantes farcical, and more than a little cruel, he was obliged to smile.

He looked once at Jemima, who of course had never been anywhere near the Court. But her eyes were bright with laughter, even if her mouth showed some indecision on just how much pity she felt for the hapless girls herded like competing livestock one after another, dressed in hundreds of guineas’ worth of gowns for their entrance into “Society.” Honor demanded they find a suitable husband before the Season’s end.

The dishes were cleared away and the next course served: chicken in aspic. The color and texture of it reminded Balantyne of dead skin, and in a flash of memory the present footman’s face was replaced by Max’s as he bent forward to offer the silver dishes.

Suddenly he did not wish to eat. There was no more food on the table than usual, but it seemed too much. He thought of the cold body on the mortuary slab. That was meat, too: gray-white flesh, like fowl, all the red blood settled to the back and buttocks. And yet even robbed, emasculated, Max had not seemed anonymous in death, as most men he had seen. That heavy face was too similar to his memory of the man in life.

Augusta was staring at him. He could not possibly explain to her what was in his mind. Better force himself to eat, even if it stuck in his throat. He would be able to wash it down with the Chablis, and the physical discomfort was easier than the continuing constrictions of trying to explain.

“I rather liked Miss Ellison, too,” Brandy said, out of nowhere. “She was one of the most individual women I have ever met.”

“Miss Ellison?” Augusta looked nonplussed. “I don’t think I know any Ellisons. When was she presented?”

“Never, I should think.” Brandy smiled broadly. “She was the young woman who helped Papa put his papers in order when he began writing his military history of the family.”