Free A sudden, fearful death by Anne Perry Page A

she truly believes it was the farthest thing from my wishes? I did
nothing whatsoever to lead him to think I would ever be willing, and that is
true, Mr. Monk! I swear it by all I hold dear—"
    "I know that," he said,
interrupting her. "That is not what I mean."
    "Then what?" she demanded
abruptly. "What else could be of importance beside that?'
    "Why do you believe that it
will never happen again?"
    Her face was white. She swallowed
with difficulty. She started to speak, and then stopped.
    "Have you any protection
against it happening again?" he insisted quietly.
    "I—but..." She looked
down. "Surely that was just one terrible lapse in—in an otherwise
exemplary man? I am sure he loves Julia...."
    "What would you have said
about the possibility of it ever happening a week before it did? Did you know
or expect him to do such a thing?"
    Now her eyes were blazing.
    "Of course not. That is a
dreadful thing to say. No! No, I had no idea! Never!" She turned away
abruptly, violently, as if he had offered her some physical attack.
    "Then you cannot say that it
will not happen again," he reasoned. "I'm sorry." He hovered on
the edge of adding the possibility of becoming with child, and then remembered
what Hester and Callandra had said. Marianne might not even be aware of how
children were begotten, and he said nothing. Helplessness and inadequacy choked
him.
    "It must have cost you to tell
me that." She looked back at him slowly, her face drained. "There are
many men who would not have found the courage. Thank you at least for
that."
    "Now I must see Mrs. Penrose.
I wish I could think of another way, but I cannot."
    "She is in the withdrawing
room. I shall wait in my bedroom. I expect Audley will ask me to leave and
Julia will wish me to." And with quivering lips she turned and walked to
the door too rapidly for him to reach it ahead of her. She fumbled with the
knob, then flung it open and went out across the hall to the stairway, head
high, her step clumsy.
    He stood still for a moment,
tempted to try one more time to think of another way. Then intelligence
reasserted itself over emotion, and he went the now familiar way to knock on
the withdrawing room door.
    He was bidden to enter. Julia was
standing at the central table before a vase of flowers, a long, bright stem of
delphinium in her hand. Apparently she had not liked the position of it and
had chosen to rearrange it herself. When she saw who it was she poked the flower
in the back lopsidedly and without bothering to adjust it.
    "Good morning, Mr. Monk."
Her voice shook a little. She searched his face and saw something in its
expression that frightened her. "What is it?'
    He closed the door behind him. This
was going to be acutely painful. There was no escape, no way even to mitigate
it.
    "I am afraid that what I told
you yesterday was not the truth, Mrs. Penrose."
    She stared at him without speaking.
The shadow of surprise and anger across her eyes did not outweigh the fear.
    This was like looking at something
and deliberately killing it. Once he had told her it would be irretrievable.
He had already made the decision, and yet he found himself hesitating even now.
    "You had better explain
yourself, Mr. Monk," she said at last, her voice catching. She swallowed
to clear her throat. "Merely to say that is not sufficient. In what
respect have you lied to me, and why?"
    He answered the second question
first. "Because the truth is so unpleasant that I wished to spare you from
it, ma'am. And it was Miss Gillespie's wish also. Indeed, she denied it at
first, until the weight of evidence made that no longer possible. Then she
implored me not to tell you. She was prepared to accept any consequence of it
herself rather than have you know. That was why it was necessary for me to
speak to her this morning to tell her I could no longer keep my word to
her."
    Julia was so white he was afraid
she would faint from lack of blood. Very