Midnight at Marble Arch - By Anne Perry Page 0,108

acknowledge that he had heard.

“Accident, all right,” the man was almost talking to himself as memory filled his mind. “In an ’ansom, an’ the ’orse got spooked by summink. Some said it were a dog went fer it. Dunno. Terrible thing. Poor driver got killed too.”

“How long ago was that?” Pitt asked, trying to keep his voice level, the razor-sharp interest at least half-concealed.

“Four years, maybe?” The man turned back to the horse. “There y’are, girl. That’s yer lot for now. Got other things ter do but talk ter you all day. Spoiled rotten, you are, an’ all.” He picked up his brushes and patted her gently with his free hand.

“Going to clean the harness?” Pitt asked.

“Gotter,” the man replied. “Not as I mind, like. It’s a good job.” He led the way to the tack room and Pitt followed.

“May I help?” Pitt asked, mostly to keep the man in conversation, but also because it would be a physical job with good memories attached, something with assured purpose. He found he wanted very much to do it.

The man looked Pitt up and down. “Get yourself dirty, ’ands and cuffs all messed.”

Pitt answered by taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.

A few minutes later they were both working hard. It took one or two fumbles before Pitt had the art back, but the rhythm of it returned quickly, to his intense satisfaction.

“That must have been very hard for Sir Pelham,” Pitt said, returning their conversation to the main subject

“Took it bad,” the man agreed, nodding as he watched Pitt work. “Strange one, that. Never know wot ’e’s thinkin’. Mind, that’s true of a lot o’ the gentry. Never knew whether ’e loved ’er, or was just angry ’cos she were leavin’. Not as I s’pose she’d ’a got away very far, poor soul.”

“Unless there was somebody else?” Pitt made it half a question.

“If there were, they were so bleedin’ careful no one ever knew of it.” The man looked sad, as if he had wished there had been. Pitt could see it through his eyes; Eleanor Forsbrook had belonged to another world: one he served, and caught glimpses of in unguarded moments, one whose inner life he could only imagine—still, he had liked her. In a sense she was a prisoner of her circumstances also, but with less freedom than he, a neighbor’s groom.

Pitt worked on the leather silently for a few more minutes before pursuing the thought.

“I suppose young Neville found it hard too. Was he close to his mother?” he asked casually. Pitt had been close to his own mother. They were survivors together after his father was sent away. His education, equal with that of Sir Arthur Desmond’s son, had separated them in mind, and in language, but the affection, although hardly ever put into words, had never been doubted. When she had died it had been the end of a part of his life.

Perhaps that had been at least in part why he had found it easy to love Charlotte. He had trusted women all his life. He had seen too closely their loyalty, sacrifice, and stoicism for it not to be part of his belief system.

“Did it change him?” he asked aloud, referring again to Neville Forsbrook.

“No,” the man said, shaking his head. “More’s the pity. Always was a cruel little bastard. Sorry, sir. Shouldn’t ’a said that.” But there was not a shred of regret in his weathered face.

“Said what?” Pitt asked with a smile.

“That’s right, sir. Thank you,” the man agreed, his eyes bright.

“Fancy a glass of cider when this is done?” Pitt invited him.

The man surveyed the harnesses a little doubtfully.

“It’ll take less time with two of us,” Pitt pointed out.

“In’t yer got nothin’ else ter do, important gent like yerself?”

“Probably, but it’ll wait. Everybody has to have an hour or two off sometime. And a glass of cider and a sandwich. Cheese and pickle?”

“Done,” the man agreed instantly. “You’re a rum one, an’ no mistake. Maybe we’ll be all right after all!”

Pitt bent to the harness again to hide the pleasure he felt at the compliment, and the hope that he would live up to the trust.

CHAPTER

16

IT WAS A QUIET summer evening as Vespasia walked along the gravel path beside Victor Narraway, moving from dappled sunlight into the shade. They had met by design at the end of a busy and, for him, unsatisfactory day. He was troubled, and as had happened so often lately, he sought her company. He