A Christmas Gathering

by Anne Perry

  What could the attacker do? Deliberately cut a finger to account for it? That was something to look for.

  Had he intended to kill her but not hit her hard enough? Would he wait, go back to complete the act? Even if only to suffocate her while she was unconscious and could not fight, scream, or defend herself in any way?

  Maybe he had not meant to kill her. So was rendering Iris unconscious an accident or clumsiness? What effect had that on him? Or his plans? Surely Victor would question all the servants, especially the ones who would have noticed marks on clothes. What would the guests have to say about one another? That might be most telling, if the questions were clever enough.

  Would Victor tell her about any progress he made? Should she ask, or would that only invite rebuff?

  “Come on!” she told herself grimly. Hurt feelings were small and absurdly self-important now. Whether he wanted her help or not, Victor might need it very much. There would be time for apologies afterward.

  She thanked the housekeeper and took her leave, going back upstairs. She was not yet ready to face Narraway. She wanted all the information she could acquire before she tried to put it together.

  She was upstairs in her room, looking for a white lace fichu to add a little warmth, when her fingers touched a package she did not recognize. She hesitated for a moment, then pushed away the handkerchiefs that were close to it and another lace collar and a silk fichu. They left in her hand a tightly wrapped packet the size of a large envelope, but it was not paper; rather it was carefully wrapped oiled silk, with a seal on it. She had never seen it before.

  Had Victor put it there? There was no reasonable alternative. She wrapped it again in the silk fichu, then disguised its shape with lace collars and a piece of feminine underwear she hoped no one else was likely to undo.

  She stood up slowly and went to the window, because she needed to see, high above her, the wind-driven clouds across the sky and feel the sense of space. This house, in all its extravagance and unhappiness, was closing in around her. Only Victor could have put the package where it was. It was possibly the best place to hide it, and whatever it contained. But it was now obvious that the reasons for which he had come to Cavendish Hall this Christmas were very important. There could be many of them, good or bad, but it was the possibility of the bad ones that hurt, like a thorn not on the surface of the skin, where it could be pulled out, but inside, where it would hurt until it grew septic and poisoned the blood.

  There had been years of life before they met each other, time to have contained things they might never share. She had thought it did not matter. She had thought they were trivial, the facts that had forged who they were now. Perhaps she had been wrong.

  But Iris’s injuries, perhaps her death, would not permit such luxury of ignorance. She turned away from the window and went out of the room and downstairs. She found Narraway in the withdrawing room talking to Dorian Brent.

  She smiled charmingly at Dorian, then turned to Narraway. “I think it might rain later on. Would you accompany me for a walk in the garden before that?” It was phrased as a question, but it was not really one. She would not accept a refusal.

  “Of course,” Narraway answered, and excused himself to Dorian.

  They walked in silence to the garden room, put on boots and coats, then went outside into the sharp chill air.

  “It’s not going to rain,” he observed.

  “Not yet.” It was a polite fiction. “I was looking for a white lace fichu…”

  He stared straight ahead and kept walking at a slow, even pace.

  “I found the package, which I believe you put there,” she continued. “I cannot imagine anyone else hiding such a thing in my undergarments.”

  There was a faint flush in his cheeks from more than the wind’s sting. “It was the safest place to put it. I apologize if I…intruded.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” she snapped. “I have no secrets in there! Is it what you took from Iris?”

  “Took from? No, it is what she gave me.”

  “What you came here to collect, if you prefer.”

  “Yes.” He continued to look straight ahead. “She gave it to me in the orangery, and I thought she had left. Either I was mistaken, or she left and came back…” His voice trailed off.

  “And someone attacked her.”

  He swung round to face her. “For God’s sake, you don’t think that I did, do you?”

  It was a genuine question. She saw it plainly in his eyes. She controlled herself with an effort. This was not the time to follow through with all the unanswered questions that boiled inside her, raw, painful, but never of suspecting him of such a thing. Perhaps it was herself she doubted? But this was not about her. Solve this first! Then, if the pain remained, pull it out and take it apart. “No, I don’t,” she said with as much self-control as she could manage. “I don’t imagine your doing that at all, least of all here, and now, a few days before Christmas.” Her voice wavered and she hated her own vulnerability. “You are doing something that is very important to you, and you have not told me what it is, and I am not trying to guess.” Did that sound petty, as if she were concerned about hurt feelings more than the importance of what it meant to him? This was a time when she must be better than that. She swallowed and took a breath. “And it is clearly dangerous. Iris was nearly killed over it. She yet may die. The package is critical. You may be next. Or I may be.”

  “No!” His voice was almost strident. He took her by the arms, at first roughly, then, as she winced, loosening his hold. “You are not involved.”

  She forced her voice to be gentle, although her feelings were far from it. “I appreciate being protected, if that is your intent, but it is a little late for—”

  “Of course that was my intent! What else could it be?”

  She knew from his eyes, impenetrably dark, shielded, that that was not the whole truth. “But it is too late for that now,” she finished. “I am aware that you do not know who your enemy is.”

  “No. But the choice is limited.” He started to move again slowly, perhaps to seem to be doing no more than taking a walk, in case they were being observed.

  It gave her a cold feeling quite different from that of the chill morning air. “We had better be more precise,” she said. “This needs to be solved before anyone else is hurt. Don’t shut me out, Victor. You can’t protect me, except by solving this.”

  For a moment, they kept walking. They had reached the end of the herbaceous border and the path went through an arch that would be covered with roses in the spring, but just now only the bare stems wound through the trellis. In front of her was a flight of shallow steps with a balustrade on either side, beautiful carved urns on the pedestals at both ends.

  They crossed the path and started upward, still side by side.

  “I really have no idea who it is,” he said when they reached the top. “I saw no one when I left the orangery and walked back to the house.” He would not tell Vespasia that he’d been shot at on that walk through the grounds. There was no need to worry her more.

  “Then we had better think hard,” she replied. “And don’t waste time putting me off. I am staying, with you or alone. I think we can omit James Watson-Watt. That leaves everyone else. Is there anybody you can exclude because of the nature of…whatever it is?”

  “No.”

  She racked her mind, trying to recall everything she knew of the different women who were here. What passions or griefs lay beneath the polite, well-trained smiles?

  She had seen a pain in Amelia she had never recognized before. Had it been there all the time, masked by retaliation against—anyone? Perhaps, for a proud woman, being pitied was worse than being disliked by an equal? But pitied for what? For being bullied, perhaps, in her own house? For being frightened, even for being unloved? Who knew what went on in someone else’s marr
iage?

  And Rosalind Allenby? Did she feel excluded from all Rafe’s former adventures, many of which Vespasia had shared, at least in part? But that had nothing whatever to do with Iris, except that Allenby seemed so attracted to her. That hardly seemed reason enough to attack her so violently! Had Rosalind, or anybody, imagined that Iris was going to the orangery to meet someone romantically?

  And Georgiana Brent? Was the feeling of exclusion—and Vespasia had seen it in her face for more than an instant—such as anyone might feel? Such as Vespasia herself felt in this particular house party?

  “Victor?” she prompted. “Could the assailant be a woman, out of jealousy, perhaps? Rather than anything at all to do with the package?”

  He hesitated and turned to face her, immediately masking his features. “No,” he said sharply.

  “Don’t be intentionally stupid!” she answered impatiently. “Women have killed before, and jealousy is one of the oldest reasons in the world. If someone followed, whoever it was…No, that would make no sense….”

  “None at all,” he said with a shadow of a smile. “Or are you suggesting that Iris had a meeting with me, to give me the package at midnight in the orangery, and someone else had an assignation with her, or with someone else at midnight in the orangery, and by extraordinary mischance the person, consumed with jealousy, struck Iris by mistake, and both the other two escaped unseen and unheard? That means four of us, all in the orangery at midnight, and we did not see each other? It’s a big orangery, but that’s absurd. Was anybody in bed?”

  She wanted to laugh and cry at the same moment. She kept herself controlled with great difficulty. “Well, Iris was definitely there. And you admit you were. If you did not strike her, then someone else was there, too. Or are you suggesting she went down again, at a later time? Why? A genuine assignation this time?” She heard the disbelief in her own voice.

  She saw his jaw tighten, an expression she knew well.

  They were walking slowly, actually in step. Without realizing it, he had matched his pace to hers. The air was damp, smelling of fresh earth.

  She knew it was up to her to speak. “Is there anyone you know well enough to rule out? If we could narrow it down, it might help.”

  “I suppose we should concentrate on the men,” he replied after a moment. “It was clearly someone strong enough to overcome Iris and attack her, but why?”

  “The package?” she asked. Then her mind slipped back to her examination of Iris’s dress on the back of the chair. “No, it might have been to force her to say who she gave it to.”

  He looked at her curiously. “Why do you say that?”

  “Iris was very slim, and there was definitely no place in her dress where she could have concealed a package of that size. Anyone at all observant would know that. Or have you considered that it might have nothing to do with the package? Who else would know about it, anyway?”

  “Only someone involved in the same espionage…” He said it slowly, as if it had greater meaning than he had first thought.

  “What?” she asked.

  He said nothing.

  “Victor?”

  “I was just thinking of something that happened long ago. In ways, it was a bit like this.”

  So, this was digging up deeper memories again, something he had not told her about. There were many things in her life that she had not told him, and probably never would. Some of them were painful, many were happy, but they belonged in the past and to other people, people he would never know.

  She decided to put her own emotions aside and return to the subject. “Anything in those memories that could be helpful to this?” she asked.

  “The passing of another package.” His voice caught. “Another young woman…but she was killed.”

  “I’m sorry.” She needed to say something in the silence. How could she ask how it was related to this? “You were there?”

  “Yes.” He stared straight ahead. The lines of his face were tight and hard. Full of grief.

  She was shut out of this old memory, but the wave of emotion that swept over her was not jealousy, or any kind of feeling of exclusion, only the passionate need to protect him from its ever happening again. The past, she knew, was unreachable. “Iris isn’t dead, Victor, and we can solve this. But we need to be clearheaded. It happened at a country house party?”

  “Yes, in Normandy, in the middle of summer. There is no place more deeply, richly beautiful, more certain of its…of its own completeness. Do you know what I mean?” He glanced at her, then away again, but in that instant he had shown a need for her to understand.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve been to Normandy in the summer, and farther south…vineyards in the sun, making a sweet wine of their tears. The summer fades, but the taste remains.”

  He said nothing.

  She brought him back to the present. “How did it end? Who was responsible?”

  “I never found out. I…failed.”

  So that was it. It was more than grief, it was unfinished in his mind. Above everything, she must not be clumsy. She must acknowledge it so he never afterward doubted her understanding. Nor would she ask him what his part in it had been.

  “Could this be connected—other than by coincidence? Are any of the same people involved?”

  “Not that I know of. Normandy was twenty years ago.”

  Was it hope in his voice? Or just the overwhelming weight of the pain of remembrance?

  “Then, if not, perhaps it has nothing to do with the package. Consider what else it might be. Are you satisfied that the attacker was not James?”

  “Yes, why? Do you think it could have been?” He turned toward her briefly. “Have I missed something?”

  “I don’t think so. It is just that anyone we can eliminate leaves fewer to consider. Have you any idea who the enemy is? Nationality he sympathizes with? Unusual skills? Other events like this that might tell us something more about him? How would he know that Iris was going to give something to you?” She knew that perhaps she was on dangerous ground, but there was no retreating now. “It has to be someone who knows you, doesn’t it? Did he also have to know the courier was Iris?”

  He was silent for several steps. They were walking without taking the slightest notice of where they were going. “I don’t think whoever it was followed me,” he answered thoughtfully. “But I suppose he could have. Which means he was waiting, and followed me downstairs and along the gallery to the orangery. There’s no furniture in the gallery. Nothing to hide behind, if I had turned around. How on earth could he explain himself?”

  “Then maybe he waited for Iris,” she replied. “Even so, he took a chance.” She concentrated on the gallery in her mind’s eye. “There are gas lamps there. A few. Were they lit? I mean, all of them?”

  “No…not all of them.” He faced her. “You mean he deliberately turned some of them off, at the base of each burner. He must have done that every night.”

  She gave a shiver at the forethought behind it. What was propelling all this? Was it devotion to another country, another cause? Or hatred of England? How could anyone mask that so well? Unconsciously she wrapped her coat more tightly around her.

  He reached out and for a moment held her. Then, as if recalling himself to the present, he let his hand fall.

  She swallowed back the words that rose and replaced them carefully with ones that were relevant. “If you’re convinced it must be one of the men, then it is Brent, Allenby, or Cavendish. Knowing would be helpful, but we also have to prove it. And tomorrow is Christmas Eve….”

  He said nothing.

  Somewhere above them a bird flew out of a tree and rode the billowing wind up into the sky.

  “Would his wife know?” She pursued her own thoughts. “Or guess?”

  He smiled, as if something was both funny and sad. “I d
oubt it. Most of us really do not know each other very well.”

  “A lot of women know their husbands a great deal better than their husbands would like to believe,” Vespasia said dryly. “I think she would know there was a lot about her husband that was not what people supposed. But she would think it was a mistress, or even a lover of the same sex….”

  He stared at her, but she ignored him.

  “Or an opium habit or gambling debts. Drinking she would know about. It is usually more obvious. And another thing, is he doing this out of idealism, love, or hatred? Or is he being pressured into it because of some unfortunate secret? That makes a difference.”

  “Does it?” Narraway said bleakly.

  “Yes. An idealist is different from a man terrified.” Vespasia stopped. It was an appalling thought, but the more she considered it, the sharper and more real it became. She remembered past experiences of people who behaved in a way that only became understandable when one knew the entire story, the loves, the fears, even the old losses. “Who’s the real enemy, Victor?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted very quietly. “That’s the worst of it. I’m not sure if his purpose is to give misinformation to us or whether it’s giving information to the enemy…which is probably Germany. It’s the biggest rising naval power likely to threaten us. Or maybe this is personal, to take some kind of revenge on me or the Home Secretary.”

  She did not reply. There was nothing to say. She wanted to take his hand and let him know she understood, without words that were too direct, too clumsy at the moment, but she was not sure enough that he would welcome this.

  She started to walk again slowly, matching her steps to his.

  * * *

  The rest of the day went according to Amelia’s plan for her guests, except that, of course, neither Iris nor James was present. It was all rather forced, but no one wished to raise the question that hung in the air. Women wrote letters; men played billiards or read in the library. In ordinary circumstances, it would have been restful and perhaps a little boring. They would catch up on old friendships, new gossip.