Rutland Place by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

delightful to have made your acquaintance.”
    Inigo opened the door for them and followed them out into the hall.
    “I’m so sorry if I caused you distress, Mrs. Pitt,” he said with a little frown. “It was not my intention in the least.”
    “Of course not,” Charlotte answered him. “And I think from what I have heard of her that I should have liked your sister very much indeed. I certainly find your mother the most comfortable person I have met for a long time.”
    “Comfortable!” he said in amazement. “Most people find her quite the opposite.”
    “I suppose it must be a matter of taste, but I assure you, I like her a great deal.”
    Inigo smiled broadly, all the anxiety slipping out of his face. He shook her hand warmly.
    The footman was helping Caroline with her coat. She fastened it and Charlotte accepted hers. A moment later they were outside in the sharp March wind.
    An open carriage rattled by, and the man inside raised his hat to them. Caroline had a brief impression of a dark, elegant head, with thick hair curving close to the nape of his neck, sleek and beautiful, and of dark, level eyes. She caught only a glimpse, and then the carriage had passed, but it woke a memory in her so sharp it left her tingling. The man in the carriage was Paul Alaric, the Frenchman who had lived in Paragon Walk, only a hundred yards from Emily, and who had stirred so many passions that summer of the murders. Poor Selena had been so obsessed with him it had almost deranged her.
    Against all her common sense, Charlotte herself had felt attracted by his cool wit, the charm that seemed almost unconscious, and the very fact that they all knew so little about him—no family, no past, no social category in which to fit him. Even Emily, with all her grace and élan, had not been entirely impervious.
    Could it really have been he just now?
    She turned and found Caroline standing very straight, her head high, the wind whipping color into her cheeks.
    “Do you know him?” Charlotte asked incredulously.
    Caroline began to walk again, her steps sharp on the pavement.
    “Slightly,” she replied. “He is Monsieur Paul Alaric.”
    Charlotte felt the heat flood through her—so it was he. . . .
    “He is acquainted with quite a few residents in the Place,” Caroline continued.
    Charlotte was about to add that it seemed beyond question that Caroline was one of them; then, without being sure why, she changed her mind.
    “He seems to be a person of leisure,” she said instead. It was a pointless remark, but suddenly sensible words had left her.
    “He has business in the city.” Caroline walked more rapidly, and further conversation was whipped away from them by the wind. Twenty or thirty yards on, they were at the Lagardes’ front entrance.
    “Are they French?” Charlotte whispered under her breath as the door opened and they were conducted into the hall.
    “No,” Caroline whispered as the parlormaid went to announce them. “Great-grandfather, or something. Came over at the time of the Revolution.”
    “The Revolution? That was nearly a hundred years ago!” Charlotte whispered back, then fixed her face in an appropriately expectant expression as they were ushered into the withdrawing room.
    “All right, then it was further back. I have heard so much history from your grandmother I am tired of it,” Caroline snapped. “Good afternoon, Eloise. May I present my daughter Mrs. Pitt,” she continued with a total change of voice and expression, without drawing breath.
    The girl who faced Charlotte was indeed, as Caroline had said, darkly lovely, with the translucence of moonlight on water. Her hair was soft and full, without sheen, quite unlike Charlotte’s, which gleamed like polished wood and was hard to keep pinned because of its weight.
    “How delightful of you to call.” Eloise stepped back, smiling and by implication inviting them to sit down. “Will you take tea?”
    It was a little late, and perhaps it was merely