Free Brunswick Gardens by Anne Perry

repentance. I can’t ask him! He’s my father!” He looked helpless, but his unhappiness focused on Dominic, so there was nothing Dominic could say that would help.
    “You don’t have Confession in your faith—you don’t have Absolution!” Mallory went on with pent-up rage twisting his mouth. “You threw out all that when Henry VIII had to have his divorce to go after Anne Boleyn. You have nothing left for the times of worst trial, the dark of the night when only the blessed sacraments of the true church can save you!” He stood with his chin high, his shoulders squared. One might have thought he was facing an actual physical fight.
    “If he did kill her, and any part of him meant to,” Dominic replied, struggling in his own mind between refusal to believe such a thing and the incredible meaning of Vita’s words, “then itwill take more than anyone else’s comfort or counsel for him to work through this towards any kind of peace with himself.” He waved his hand sharply, dismissing the idea. “You cannot simply say ‘I forgive you’ and it all disappears. You have to see the difference between what you are and what you ought to be, and understand it! You must—” He stopped. Mallory was ready for a long theological argument about the true church and its mysteries, and the heresy of the Reformation. He had already drawn in his breath to begin. It was easier than talking about the realities which faced them.
    “This is not the time,” Dominic said firmly. “I’ll go and see him when I’ve thought about it a little more.”
    Mallory shot him a disbelieving look and walked away.
    Dominic turned and nearly bumped into Clarice. Her hair was coming undone, and actually it would have looked rather becoming were her eyes not pink and her skin so pale.
    “He used not to be so pompous,” she said grimly. “Now he reminds me of the stuffed carp in the morning room. It always looks so surprised, like a vicar who has accidentally backed into one of the organ stops.”
    “Clarice … really!” Dominic wanted to laugh, and he knew it was entirely inappropriate. She herself still looked profoundly upset.
    “Not you, too!” She pushed her hand through her hair and made it worse. “Tryphena is locked in her room, which I suppose is reasonable. She really cared for Unity, heaven help her. Although I suppose it is a good thing she did. Everyone should have at least one person to mourn for them when they die, don’t you think?” Her eyes were full of pity, her voice hushed. “How terrible to die and have no one to weep, no one to feel as if they have lost something irreplaceable! I couldn’t replace Unity, but then neither would I try. I think she was pretty odious. She was always mocking Mal. I know he asks for it, but he’s too easy a target to be worthy of anyone who’s worth anything themselves.”
    She was talking quickly, nervously, her hands twisting together. Dominic knew without asking that she too was afraid that her father might be guilty.
    They were standing in the hall, by now far nearer the door to the morning room. He was aware that Vita must still be in the conservatory.
    “I’m going up to see Father.” Clarice made as if to move away and go towards the stairs. “Mal may think he wants a long theological conversation. I don’t. If it were me, I should simply want to know that somebody loved me, whether I had lost my temper and pushed that miserable woman down the stairs or not.” She said it defiantly, challenging him to disagree.
    “So should I,” he answered. “At least at first. And I think I would want someone to consider the possibility that I was innocent, and perhaps to listen to me if I needed to talk.”
    “You can’t imagine pushing her down the stairs, can you?” She looked at him curiously. Her eyes were earnest, but there was the characteristic flicker of laughter there, far beneath the hurt, as if she were picturing it in some part of her mind, and the absurdity of