Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries: Two Holiday Novels by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page B

rapidly from one to the other of them, trying to judge their reactions. Not that she was sure she could tell guilt from shock anyway, or from grief for that matter.
    Zachary looked least surprised, rather more puzzled, as if he had not fully understood the meaning of her words.
    Agnes gave a gasp and her hand flew to her mouth in a gesture of stopping herself from crying out, oddly like Bedelia’s five minutes before. She was very pale.
    “Poor Aunt Maude,” Randolph murmured. “I’m so sorry, Mama.” He looked at Bedelia with concern.
    Clara Harcourt said nothing. Perhaps as one who had barely known Maude she felt it more appropriate not to speak.
    Arthur Harcourt’s olive complexion was a muddy color, neither white nor gray, and his eyes seemed to have lost focus. What was he feeling? Was that the horror of guilt now that the act was real and not merely dreamed?
    “I am sorry to bring you such news.” Grandmama felt compelled to fill in the silence that seemed to choke the room. The mere flickering of the fire sounded like a sheet torn in the wind.
    “It…it was good of you,” Agnes stammered. “Such a terrible thing for you…a guest in your house…a virtual stranger.”
    Suddenly a quite brilliant idea lit in Grandmama’s mind. It went up like a flare of light. She could almost feel the heat of it in her face. “Oh, not at all!” she said with feeling. “We talked for hours, Maude and I.” She was stunned at her own audacity. “She told me so much about…oh, of any number of things. Her feelings, her experiences, where she had been and the people she had met.” She waved her hands for emphasis. “Believe me, there are those I have been acquainted with for years about whom I know far less. I have never made such excellent friends with anyone so rapidly, or with such a natural affection.” That was a monstrous lie—wasn’t it? “I must admit her trust in me was most heartwarming, and that was a great deal the reason why I could not possibly allow anyone else to come to you now,” she hurried on. “I shall never forget Maude, or the confidence she placed in me regarding her life and its meaning.” It was an extraordinary feeling to have made such statements as if they were true, as if she and Maude had become instant and total friends.
    She realized with a flutter of absurdity, even of sweetness, that it was not completely a lie. Maude had told her more of meaning in a couple of days than most of her acquaintances had in years, although not the personal details she implied to her wretched family!
    And grudgingly, like the lancing of a boil, she admitted that she had actually liked Maude, at least more than she had expected to, considering the gross imposition of having her in Caroline’s home for Christmas—uninvited!
    Bedelia stared at her incredulously. “Really? But you knew her for barely a day…or two!”
    “But we had little to do but talk to each other. She was fascinating at the luncheon and dinner table, but even more so when we were out walking, just the two of us. I was very flattered that she should tell me so much. I found myself speaking equally frankly to her, and finding her most gentle and free from critical judgment. It was a quite…quite wonderful experience,” she added too quickly. She said it purely to frighten them into believing she knew something of whoever it was who had murdered Maude, if indeed they had. This was a deviousness added to her new grief. She intended them to think her too desolate to consider the long carriage ride in the dark to go home again!
    She also found, to her dismay, that she wished quite painfully that it were all true. She had not been anything like such friends with Maude. Nor had she confided in her the agonies of her own life, the shame she had carried for years that she had not had the courage to leave her abusive husband and flee abroad as his first wife had done!
    But it was startlingly sweet to think that Maude might have