Rutland Place by Anne Perry Page A

reproved herself for making too hasty a judgment, an act she despised in others.
    “I suppose Eloise Lagarde might know,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “We shall have to be very tactful in inquiring. No one would wish to believe they might have been the cause, however unintentionally, of someone else’s taking her own life. And Eloise is bound to protect her brother.”
    The hope faded from Caroline’s face. “Yes. They are very close. I suppose it comes from having only each other when their parents died so young.”
    “There are several other possibilities,” Charlotte continued. “Someone has been stealing. Perhaps they took from Mina some lover’s keepsake from Tormod, and the fear that it might become public was unbearable to her. Perhaps they even went to her and threatened to give it to Alston if she did not give them money—or whatever else they wished.” Her imagination went on to thoughts that might drive a person into thinking of death. “Perhaps it was another man who desired her. And that was the price of his silence.”
    “Charlotte!” Caroline sat bolt upright. “What a truly appalling mind you have, girl! You would never have been capable of such thoughts when you lived in my house!”
    Charlotte had on her tongue a few pointed words about Caroline, Paul Alaric, and the question of morality, but she refrained from speaking them.
    “Some truly appalling things happen, Mama,” she said instead. “And I am a few years older than I was then.”
    “And you also appear to have forgotten a great deal about the sort of people we are. No man in Rutland Place would stoop to such a thing!”
    “Not so openly, perhaps,” Charlotte said quietly. She had her own ideas about what was done but would be called by a pleasanter name. “But he doesn’t have to be one of you. Why not a footman—or even a bootboy? Can you answer for them so surely?”
    “Oh, dear God! You can’t be serious!”
    “Why not? Might not that have been enough to make Mina, or any other woman, think of suicide? Might you not?”
    “I—” Caroline stared at her. She let out her breath very slowly, as if she had given up some fight. “I don’t know. I should think it is one of those things that would be so dreadful you could not know how you would feel unless it happened to you.” She moved her eyes to look down at the floor. “Poor Mina. She so hated anything in the least unseemly. Something like that would have—shriveled her to the heart!”
    “We don’t know that that was what happened, Mama.” Charlotte leaned forward and touched her. “There are other things it could have been. Perhaps Mina was the thief, and she could not face the shame of being discovered.”
    “Mina? Oh, surely—” Caroline began, then stopped, suspicion fighting incredulity in her face.
    “Someone is,” Charlotte pointed out soberly. “And considering where the articles were stolen from, it doesn’t appear that any one servant could have taken them. But someone like Mina could!”
    “But she lost something herself,” Caroline argued. “A snuffbox.”
    “You mean she said she did,” Charlotte corrected. “And it was her husband’s, not hers. Surely the most intelligent way to direct suspicion from oneself would be to take something of your own as well? It does not take a great deal of brains to work that out.”
    “I suppose not. And you think this person who is watching knew about it?”
    “It is a possibility.”
    Caroline shook her head. “I find it terribly hard to believe.”
    “Do you find any of it easy? Yesterday Mina was alive.”
    “I know! It’s all so ugly and useless and stupid. Sometimes it seems impossible to believe how so much can change irrevocably in a few hours.”
    Charlotte tried another line of thought. “Do you still have the sensation of being watched?”
    Caroline looked startled. “I’ve no idea! I haven’t even considered it. What does a Peeping Tom matter now, compared with Mina’s