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“You’ve learned something?” he said quickly, stepping back for her to enter.
Perhaps she had overstated it and given him unjustified hope. She felt foolish.
“Only a few facts, or perhaps I should more correctly say a few people’s opinions.”
“Whose opinions? For heaven’s sake, come in! I don’t want to stand here on the step, even if you don’t mind.” He pulled the door wider, and then as she passed him, closed it behind her.
“Why are you so angry?” She decided to stop retreating and attack instead. It was more in her nature. She should not allow him to make her feel as if she had to justify herself all the time. “If your case is going badly, that is unfortunate,” she continued, walking past him through the outer chamber to the inner one. “But being offensive will not help it, and it is very childish. You should learn to control yourself.”
“Have you come all the way, at this time of the evening, to tell me that?” he said incredulously, following her in. “You interfering, opinionated, monumentally arrogant woman! Treating the sick has gone to your brain! Even in your futile field, surely you must have something more useful to do? Go and empty some slops, or scrub a floor. Stoke a fire somewhere. Comfort someone, if you have the faintest idea how.”
She took off her wet cloak and handed it to him.
“Do you want to know about Angus and Caleb, or not?” It was almost a relief to be just as rude in return. She had guarded her tongue for so long, all sorts of emotions were knotted up inside her, memories of loneliness and fear, of horror and exhaustion in the past, pain she could not ease, deaths she had been helpless to prevent. All of it came back to her so much more vividly and easily than she had expected. And she did not want to care about Monk. It was nice, almost like a familiar pleasure, to quarrel with him. “Are you actually interested in helping poor Genevieve, or are you just taking her money?”
His face went white. She had hurt him with that last suggestion. For all his faults, she knew with absolute certainty he would never have done that. Perhaps she should not have said it. But then he had insulted her professionally just as much.
“I’m sorry,” he said tightly. “I had not realized that this time you had something useful to say. What is it?” He put her cloak absentmindedly over the back of one of the chairs.
Now she felt foolish. It was not truly useful. Maybe he knew that too? She took a deep breath and faced him. His gray eyes were cold and level, full of anger.
“Lord Ravensbrook does not think Caleb would have harmed Angus,” she began. “Because for all his violence, they are brothers, and grew up together, sharing their loneliness and grief when they lost their parents. But he thinks that because he loves them, and cannot bear to think otherwise. He has already lost his first wife, and then the boys’ parents, and now Enid is terribly ill, and Angus is missing.”
He was staring at her, waiting for her to conclude.
Her voice sounded thin e
ven in her own ears. “But Genevieve is convinced Caleb has killed him. She told me that in the past Angus has come home with knife scars that no one else knows about. He would not call a doctor. He was ashamed of them. I think that is why she did not tell you. She does not wish anyone to think Angus was not able to stand up for himself, or that he was a coward. Angus …” She did not know how to phrase what she thought and make it seem sensible. She could almost hear Monk’s sarcastic dismissal even before she spoke. “Angus loved Caleb,” she went on hastily. “They were very close as children. Perhaps that bond still existed, for him, and he could never believe Caleb would hurt him. Maybe he could even have felt guilty for his own success, when Caleb had so little. That could be why he kept going back—to try to help him—for his own conscience’s sake. And pity can be a very hard thing to take. It can eat more deeply into the soul than being hated or ignored.”
He looked at her in silence for a long time. She did not look away, but stared back.
“Perhaps,” he conceded at length. For the first time his imagination could conceive of the emotions within Caleb, the explosion of rage which could end in such violence. “It could explain both why Angus did not simply leave him to rot, which is what it would seem he both wanted and deserved, and why Caleb was stupid enough to kill the one man on the earth who still cared about him. But it doesn’t help me find Angus.”
“Well, if it was Caleb who killed him, at least you have some idea where to look,” she pointed out. “You can stop wasting your time trying to find out if Angus had a secret mistress or gambling debts. He was probably just as decent as he seemed, but even if he wasn’t, you don’t need to find out, and you certainly don’t need to tell Genevieve—or Lord Ravensbrook. They are both convinced he was an extraordinarily good man. Everything they knew of him was honorable, generous, patient, loyal and innately decent. He read stories to his children, brought his wife flowers, liked to sing around the piano, and was good at flying a kite. If he is dead, isn’t that loss enough? You don’t have to find his weaknesses too, do you, simply in the name of truth?”
“I’m not doing it in the name of truth,” he said, his face screwed up with irritation and pain at the thought. “I want, in the name of truth, to find out what happened to him.”
“He went to the East End to see his twin brother, who in a fit of violence, which he is prone to, killed him! Ask the people of Limehouse—they are terrified of him!” she went on urgently. “I’ve seen two of his victims myself, a boy and a woman. Angus crossed him one time too many, and Caleb killed him—either by accident or on purpose. You have to prove it, for the sake of justice, and so Genevieve can know what happened and find some peace of heart—and know what to do next.”
“I know what I have to do,” he said curtly. “It is a great deal harder to know how. Can you be as quick to tell me that?”
She would have loved to reply succinctly and brilliantly, but nothing came to her mind, and before she had time to consider the matter for long, there was a sharp, light rap on the door.
Monk looked surprised, but he went straight over to answer it, and returned a moment later accompanied by a woman who was beautifully dressed and quite charming. Everything about her was feminine in a casual and unaffected way, from her soft, honey-colored hair, under her bonnet, to her small, gloved hands and dainty boots. Her face was beautiful. Her large hazel eyes under winged brows looked at Monk with pleasure, and at Hester with surprise.
“Am I intruding upon you with a client?” she said apologetically. “I am so sorry. I can quite easily wait.”
Somehow the suggestion was painful. Why had the woman automatically assumed that Hester could not be a friend?
“No, I am not a client,” Hester said more sharply than she would have wished the moment she heard her own voice. “I called to give Mr. Monk some information I thought might be of assistance.”
“How kind of you, Miss …?”
“Latterly,” Hester supplied.
“Drusilla Wyndham.” The woman introduced herself before Monk had the opportunity. “How do you do.”
Hester stared at her. She seemed very composed and her attitude made it apparent that in spite of the fact that this was Monk’s office, her call was social. Monk had never mentioned her before, but there was no question that he knew her, and every evidence he also liked her. It was there in his expression. The way he stood with his shoulders straight, the very slight smile on his lips, unlike the hard-eyed look of the moment before she came.
