William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

quite well, although I feel as if my stomach were full of little birds and I cannot collect my thoughts.”
    Hester stopped without disengaging her arm. “Why? Tell me, what is it?” All her irritation vanished. “Can I help?”
    A rueful smile crossed Edith’s mouth and disappeared.
    “No—except by being a friend.”
    “You know I am that,” Hester assured her. “What has happened?”
    “My brother Thaddeus—General Carlyon—met with an accident yesterday evening, at a dinner party at the Furnivals’.”
    “Oh dear, I am sorry. I hope it was not serious. Is he badly hurt?”
    Incredulity and confusion fought in Edith’s expression. She had a remarkable face, not in any imagination beautiful, yet there was humor in the hazel eyes and sensuality in the mouth, and its lack of symmetry was more than made up for by the quickness of intelligence.
    “He is dead,” she said as if the word surprised even herself.
    Hester had been about to begin walking again, but now she stood rooted to the spot. “Oh my dear! How appalling. I am so sorry. However did it happen?”
    Edith frowned. “He fell down the stairs,” she said slowly. “Or to be more accurate, he fell over the banister at the top and landed across a decorative suit of armor, and I gather the halberd it was holding stabbed him through the chest.…”
    There was nothing for Hester to say except to repeat her sympathy.
    In silence Edith took her arm and they turned and continued again along the path between the flower beds.
    “He died immediately, they say,” Edith resumed. “It was an extraordinary chance that he should fall precisely upon the wretched thing.” She shook her head a little. “One would think it would be possible to fall a hundred times and simply knock it all over and be badly bruised, perhaps break a few bones, but not be speared by the halberd.”
    They were passed by a gentleman in military uniform, red coat, brilliant gold braid and buttons gleaming in the sun. He bowed to them and they smiled perfunctorily.
    “Of course I have never been to the Furnivals’ house,” Edith went on. “I have no idea how high the balcony is above the hallway. I suppose it may be fifteen or twenty feet.”
    “People do have most fearful accidents on stairs,” Hester agreed, hoping the remark was helpful and not sententious. “They can so easily be fatal. Were you very close?” She thought of her own brothers: James, the younger, the more spirited, killed in the Crimea; and Charles, now head of the family, serious, quiet and a trifle pompous.
    “Not very,” Edith replied with a pucker between her brows. “He was fifteen years older than I, so he had left home, as a junior cadet in the army, before I was born. I was only eight when he married. Damaris knew him better.”
    “Your elder sister?”
    “Yes—she is only six years younger than he is.” She stopped. “Was,” she corrected.
    Hester did a quick mental calculation. That would have made Thaddeus Carlyon forty-eight years old now, long before the beginning of old age, and yet still far in excess of the average span of life.
    She held Edith’s arm a little closer. “It was good of you to come this afternoon. If you had sent a footman with a message I would have understood completely.”
    “I would rather come myself,” Edith answered with a slight shrug. “There is very little I can do to help, and I admit I was glad of an excuse to be out of the house. Mama is naturally terribly distressed. She shows her feelings very little. You don’t know her, but I sometimes think she would have been a better soldier than either Papa or Thaddeus.” She smiled to show the remark was only half meant, and even then obliquely and as an illustration of something she did not know how else to express. “She is very strong. One can only guess what emotions there are behind her dignity and her command of herself.”
    “And your father?” Hester asked. “Surely he will be a comfort to her.”
    The sun was warm and bright, and hardly a breeze stirred the dazzling flower heads. A small dog scampered between them, yapping with excitement, and chased along the path, grabbing a gentleman’s cane in its teeth, much to his annoyance.
    Edith drew breath to make the obvious answer to Hester’s remark, then changed her mind.
    “Not a lot, I should think,” she said ruefully. “He is angry that the whole thing has such an element of the ridiculous. It is not exactly like falling in battle,