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Had Fuller Pendreigh known of Elissa’s gambling and paid her debts when Kristian could not? Or was it possible she owed more than she could meet and had found some desperate way of her own of raising the money? Could that somehow have led to her murder? She had been beautiful, imaginative and never lacked physical courage. She would not be the first woman to sell herself when it seemed the only resort.
Had Pendreigh’s wealth cushioned her or not?
She rose to her feet, leaving the weeds where they were, and went up the lawn to the French door and inside. She dropped the trug and the secateurs on the step and peeled off her gloves. Inside, she took off her shoes and went straight up the stairs to her bedroom.
She was already washed and in fresh underlinen when she finally called her maid to help her lace up her stays and fasten the small buttons of the bodice. Her hair was another matter. No one had ever been able to make that look elegant for more than fifteen minutes, but the maid, an even-tempered woman of endless patience, did her best.
An hour after making the decision, Callandra sat in her carriage on the way to visit Fuller Pendreigh. She would wait for him as long as necessary, or travel into the City if that was where he was, but she would see him.
He was not at Ebury Street, but he was expected very shortly, and she was shown to a most pleasant conservatory. Had she had less on her mind, she would have enjoyed recognizing the various exotic plants and trying to decide where their native habitat might be.
She was looking at a large yellow flower, without really seeing it, when she heard footsteps across the hall, the low murmuring of voices, and the moment after, Pendreigh was in the doorway, regarding her with slight puzzlement. She saw the signs of strain in his face. There was little color to his skin and a shadow about his cheeks almost as if he had not shaved, although actually he was immaculate. It was exhaustion which tightened his lips and hollowed the flesh.
“Lady Callandra?” It was a question not as to her identity, rather a confusion as to what she was doing waiting there, in the middle of the afternoon, and without having sent any letter or card to say that she was calling. They knew each other only by repute. She had worked tirelessly for reform of the way injured and ill soldiers were treated. Her husband had been an army surgeon, and she learned from him of the problems which could be overcome with foresight and intelligence. She had certainly made sufficient complaints, pleas and arguments, and had written to all manner of people for her name to be known. She was intimidated by no one, nor did flattery have any effect upon her.
Pendreigh, she had heard, had campaigned for the reform of the laws pertaining to property. That was largely why he had come from Liverpool to London, and of course to Parliament. It sounded a thing in which she would be little interested. To her mind, human pain had always far outweighed the disposition of wealth.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Pendreigh,” she replied, recollecting herself and unconsciously using the enormous charm she possessed, and was quite unaware of because it lay in her warmth and simplicity of manner. “I apologize for calling upon you without writing first, but sometimes events move too rapidly to allow for such courtesy, and I confess I am deeply concerned.”
Only for an instant did he wonder why, then knowledge of it was plain in his eyes. He came further into the room. His expression softened a little, but it obviously cost him an effort of will. “Of course. It would be absurd to wait upon convention at such a time. Would you prefer to speak here or in the withdrawing room? Have you taken tea?”
“Not yet,” she replied. She did not care whether she had tea or not, but he might be tired and thirsty, and feel more comfortable if he offered hospitality. It gave one something to do with one’s hands, time to think of a reply to an unforeseen or difficult question, and an excuse to look away without rudeness. “That would be most agreeable, thank you.”
A flicker of relief crossed his face, and he led her back across the hall to the withdrawing room, instructing the maid to bring tea for them both.
On the day of the funeral she had barely noticed the room. Now, empty of people and with the black crepe of the occasion removed except around the pictures, she saw the magnificence of it. It faced south, and there were long windows to the front, which meant that the unusually large amount of blue in curtains and furniture did not make it cold, rather it gave it a depth and a sense of calm that warmer tones wou
ld not.
He caught her admiration and smiled, but he made no comment.
She did not wish to open the subject of Elissa until the maid had brought the tea and gone. Until then she would prefer to speak of something of mutual interest but no emotional heat. She remained standing and looked at the very fine portraits on the wall. One in particular caught her eye. It was of a woman with a handsome face and magnificent hair the shade of warm, dry sand, paler even than corn. The style of her gown was of some twenty years ago, and she looked to be in her middle or late thirties. The resemblance was so marked that she assumed it was Pendreigh’s sister, or at the most distant, a cousin.
“My sister, Amelia,” he said quietly from a few feet behind her. There was a sorrow in his voice she could not miss. She did not know whether he had meant to conceal it or allowed it to be heard because the wound was still raw and it comforted him to share something of it.
“She has a remarkable face,” she said sincerely. “Rather more than beautiful.”
“She was,” he replied. “She had extraordinary courage, and. .” He stopped for a moment, as if to compose himself. “Generosity of spirit,” he finished.
The use of the past tense and the emotion in his voice required she pursue the subject, but with the greatest delicacy. “She looks no more than thirty-five,” she said, leaving it open for him to say whatever he pleased, or to pass on to something else, perhaps the next picture.
“Thirty-eight, actually,” he answered her. “It was the year before she died.”
“I’m so sorry.” It would be tactless to ask what had happened. It could be any of a score of illnesses, without even considering accident.
“Poverty!” His voice was so harsh it actually distorted the word so that for a moment she was not sure if she had heard him correctly. She turned to face him, and the pain and the anger she saw in him startled her. It was as fresh as if it had only just happened, and yet from the picture, it must have been a quarter of a century ago.
“You think I can’t mean it, don’t you?” he asked with a sharp gesture at the room around him, which was obviously that of a wealthy man. “My family had money. My father died quite young, and he was generous to Amelia as well as to me. She was an heiress when she married.” He left the conclusion for her to draw, a challenge in his eyes, hard and bright.
Of course, when she married everything she owned would automatically have become her husband’s. It was the law; everyone knew that. Only unmarried women owned anything.
“I see,” she said very quietly.
“Do you?” he demanded. “He took her to Europe, first to Paris, then to Italy. We did not know that he spent everything and left her with barely a roof over her head, or that she was living on the few meals offered her by compassionate friends, most of whom had little more than she did. And she was too proud to tell us that the husband she adored was a wastrel and had deserted her in every practical sense. She died in Naples, alone and destitute.”
She felt the loss as if he had been able to transfer it to her physically. Her imagination painted a terrible picture of the woman in the portrait being thin to gauntness, racked with fever, lips bloodless, skin flushed and sweating, alone in an ill-furnished room in a foreign land.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in little more than a whisper. “I’m not surprised you cannot forget it. . or forgive. I don’t imagine I could, either.”
