Midnight at Marble Arch - By Anne Perry Page 0,140

and, unless they are very fortunate, ruined their lives as well—perhaps even taken them. I am sure you understand why I would very much prefer to correct it while I still can, rather than try to mitigate the disaster afterward.”

“I cannot help you,” Townley repeated. “Neville Forsbrook violated my daughter and there is nothing I can do about it, except protect her from public ruin. Now will you please leave my house, and allow my family to have what little peace we may.”

Pitt clenched his fists by his sides, trying to control his voice.

“Will you come and watch the hanging?” he asked levelly, even though he was trembling. “Will you try to console the man’s wife afterward? She is not so very much older than your daughter. And speaking of your daughter, how will you comfort her in the years to come, when she wakens in the night knowing that it was possible she could—”

“Get out of my house before I strike you, sir!” Townsley said between his teeth. “I don’t care a jot who you are, or what office you hold.”

The sitting-room door opened and Mrs. Townley came out, her face stiff, eyes wide.

Townley swung around. “Mary! Go back to the withdrawing room. Commander Pitt is leaving.”

Mrs. Townley looked past her husband, her eyes meeting Pitt’s.

“I don’t think he is, Frederick,” she said quietly. “I think he will remain here until we act, because we are standing in the path of justice, and I do not choose to do that.”

“Mary …” Townley began. “For heaven’s sake, think of Alice!”

“I am,” she said with gathering confidence. “I think she would rather speak to Mr. Pitt and gain some kind of justice than believe that her experience has so damaged her that she would see a man die wrongly rather than tell him the truth.”

“You have no right to make that decision for her, Mary,” Townley said quietly, struggling to be as gentle as possible.

“Neither have you, my dear,” she pointed out. She turned to Pitt. “If you will be good enough to wait, sir, I shall ask my daughter whether she will hear you out or not.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, the sudden release of tension rippling through him like an easing warmth.

Five minutes later Pitt was in the withdrawing room facing Alice Townley, who was pale, clearly very apprehensive, but waiting with her hands folded in her lap, knuckles white.

“I am sorry to ask you again,” Pitt began, sitting opposite her. “But events have not gone at all as I would have liked. Mr. Alban Hythe has been convicted of raping and beating Mrs. Quixwood and causing her to take her own life.” He did not shrink from using the appropriate words. “I believe he is not guilty, and I have only three weeks in which to prove it—”

“Mama told me,” Alice interrupted. “Do you think Mr. Forsbrook did it? He wasn’t anything like so—violent with me. He did not … beat me. Although … although I did feel pretty dreadful.” She moved her right hand off her lap, lifted it, then let it fall again. “It was revolting.” She blushed scarlet. “It wasn’t anything like love.”

“No, he did not act out of love,” Pitt said gently. “Can you tell me exactly what he did?”

She looked at the floor.

“Perhaps you would prefer to tell your mother, and she could tell me?” he suggested.

She nodded, not raising her eyes.

Pitt stood up and left the room, Townley, still angry, on his heels.

They waited in silence in the morning room, chilly, fire unlit at this time of the year. After just over a quarter of an hour Mary Townley came in.

Pitt rose to his feet as a matter of courtesy.

“I think it would be a good idea if you were to go and sit with her,” Mrs. Townley said to her husband. “I’m sure she would find your presence comforting. She doesn’t want to feel that you disapprove of her decision, as if she has defied you. She is doing what she believes is right, and brave, Frederick.”

“Of course … of course.” He stood up and left without even glancing at Pitt.

Mary Townley sat down, inviting Pitt to do the same. She was very pale and clearly found the matter embarrassing. Hesitantly, in a voice so carefully controlled as to be almost expressionless, she told him exactly what had happened, in Alice’s words, including that Forsbrook had bitten her painfully hard on the left breast.

That was it, the connection with Catherine Quixwood,