Highgate Rise by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

hands, small and strong and unlined on the table. “I’m a little frightened in case suddenly we’re not sure what to say to each other—or even what to do to fill the day. It’s going to be so different. There isn’t any crisis anymore.” She sniffed rather elegantly and smiled directly at Charlotte. “Before we were married there was always some terrible event pressing us to act—first George’s death, and then the murders in Hanover Close.” She raised her fair eyebrows hopefully and her blue eyes were wide, but they knew each other far too wellfor even Emily to feign innocence. “I don’t suppose Thomas has a case we could help with?”
    Charlotte burst into laughter, even though she knew Emily was serious and that all the past cases in which they had played a part were fraught with tragedy, and some danger as well as any sense of adventure there may have been.
    “No. There was a very terrible case while you were away.”
    “You didn’t tell me!” Emily’s expression was full of accusation and incredulity. “What? What sort of case? Why didn’t you write to me about it?”
    “Because you would have been too worried to enjoy your honeymoon, and I wanted you to have a perfect time seeing all the glories of Paris and Italy, not thinking about people having their throats cut in a London fog,” Charlotte answered honestly. “But I will certainly tell you now, if you wish.”
    “Of course I wish! But first get me some more tea.”
    “We could have luncheon,” Charlotte suggested. “I have cold meat and fresh pickle—will that do?”
    “Very well—but talk while you’re getting it,” Emily instructed. She did not offer to help; they had both been raised to expect marriage to gentlemen of their own social status who would provide them with homes and suitable domestic servants for all house and kitchen labor. Charlotte had married dreadfully beneath herself—to a policeman—and learned to do her own work. Emily had married equally far above herself, to an aristocrat with a fortune, and she had not even been
in
a kitchen in years, except Charlotte’s; and although she knew how to approve or disapprove a menu for anyone from a country squire to the Queen herself, she had no idea, and no wish for one, as to how it should be made.
    “Have you been to see Great-Aunt Vespasia yet?” Charlotte asked as she carved the meat.
    Great-Aunt Vespasia was actually George’s aunt, and no immediate relative to either of them, but they had both learned to love and admire her more deeply than any of their own family. She had been one of the great beauties of her generation. Now she was close to eighty, and with wealthand social position assured she had both the power and the indifference to opinion to conduct herself as she pleased, to espouse every cause her conscience dictated or her sympathies called for. She dressed in the height of fashion, and could charm the prime minister, or the dustman—or freeze them both at twenty paces with a look of ice.
    “No,” Emily replied. “I thought of going this afternoon. Does Aunt Vespasia know about this case?”
    Charlotte smiled smugly. “Oh yes. She was involved. In fact she lent me her carriage and footman for the final confrontation—” She let it hang in the air deliberately.
    Emily glared at her.
    Blithely Charlotte refilled the kettle and turned to the cupboard to find the pickle. She even thought of humming a little tune, but decided against it on the ground that she could not sing very well—and Emily could.
    Emily began to drum her fingers on the scrubbed-clean wooden tabletop.
    “A member of Parliament was found lashed to a lamppost on Westminster Bridge….” Charlotte began to recount the whole story, at first with relish, then with awe, and finally with horror and pity. When she had finished the meal was done and it was early afternoon.
    Emily said very little, reaching her hands across the table to clasp Charlotte’s arm with her fingers. “You