Paragon Walk by Anne Perry Page B

excitement. But that had not been in Emily’s home, among her friends.
    She was wrong to have thought the gray muslin was all right; it was dull, and there was a tear near the hem that showed where she had mended it. She did not think her hands were red, but she had better keep her gloves on just in case. Emily would be bound to notice; Charlotte’s hands had always been beautiful, one of the things she had been proud of.
    The maid opened the door, surprise in her face at seeing a stranger.
    “Good morning, ma’am?”
    “Good morning,” Charlotte stood very straight and forced herself to smile. She must speak slowly; it was idiotic to be nervous calling upon one’s own sister, and one’s younger sister at that. “Good morning,” she repeated. “Will you be good enough to inform Lady Ashworth that her sister, Mrs. Pitt, has called?”
    “Oh.” The girl’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes, ma’am. If you’d like to come in, ma’am, I’m sure as her ladyship’ll be pleased to see you.”
    Charlotte followed her in and waited in the morning room for only a few minutes before Emily came bursting in.
    “Oh, Charlotte! How marvelous to see you!” She threw her arms around Charlotte’s neck and hugged her, then stood back. Her eyes glanced over the gray muslin, then at Charlotte’s face. “You look well. I have been meaning to come and see you, but you must know what an awful thing has happened here. Thomas will have told you all about it. Thank heaven it is nothing to do with us this time.” She shuddered and shook her head in a little gesture of denial. “Does that sound terribly callous?” She turned back to Charlotte again with a wide, slightly guilty look.
    Charlotte was honest as always.
    “I suppose it does, but it is the truth, if we would all but admit it. There is a sort of thrill in horror, as long as it is not too close. People will talk about how dreadful it is and how the mere mention of it distresses them beyond conceivable opportunity.”
    Emily’s face relaxed in a smile.
    “I’m so glad you’re here. I dare say it is quite irresponsible of me, but I shall love to hear your opinions of the Walk, although I shall never be able to view them in the same way afterward. They are all so very careful, they bore me terribly at times. I’ve an awful feeling I have forgotten how to think frankly myself!”
    Charlotte linked her arm in Emily’s, and they walked through the French doors and onto the lawn at the back. The sun was hot on their faces and dazzled from a peerless sky.
    “I doubt it,” Charlotte answered. “You were always able to think one thing and say another. I am a social catastrophe because I can’t.”
    Emily giggled as memories came back to her, and for a few moments they talked together over disasters of the past that had made them blush at the time but were only bonds of laughter and shared affection now.
    Charlotte had even forgotten her real reason for coming when sudden mention of Sarah, their older sister who had been a victim of the Cater Street hangman, made her remember murder, its close, suffocating terror, and the corroding acid of suspicion it brought in its wake. She had never been able to be subtle, least of all with Emily who knew her so well.
    “What was Fanny Nash like?” She wanted a woman’s opinion. Thomas was clever, but so often men missed the real things in a woman, things that were perfectly obvious to another woman. The number of times she had seen men taken in by a pretty girl who chose to seem vulnerable, when Charlotte knew really she was as strong and as hard as a kitchen pot!
    The laughter died out of Emily’s face.
    “Are you going to play detective again?” she said warily.
    Charlotte thought of Callander Square. Emily had wanted to detect then. She had even insisted on it, and there had been times when it was a kind of adventure—before the frightening, horrifying end.
    “No!” she said immediately. Then, “Well, yes. I can’t help