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William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

Titel: William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Anne Perry
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disillusion and sense of betrayal? He was so afraid of it, it was as if it had already happened.
    “Thank you,” he said with his voice choking in his throat. He wanted to add more, but could think of nothing. “Thank you.”
    Hester was also deeply afraid for Monk, not for what he might have done—she had not concerned herself with that—but for the ruin it would bring him when Drusillamade her charges public. The fact that she could not prove them was immaterial. She had chosen her time and place to be melodramatic with great skill. Not a man or woman emerging from the party in North Audley Street would forget the sight of her pitching headlong out of the moving cab, her clothes torn, screaming that she had been assaulted. Whatever reason told them, they would relive the emotions, the horror and the sense of outrage. And they would be totally unprepared to accept that they had been duped. It would make them foolish, and that would be intolerable.
    Something must be done to help him, something practical and immediate. There was little use trying to limit the damage after it was done.
    She and Callandra had talked about it sitting late at night in the small room in the Limehouse hospital, in the few moments when they were not either working or asleep. Callandra was deeply distressed, even in the face of the disease and death around her, and Hester realized with a quick uprush of pleasure how fond she must be of Monk. Callandra’s regard for him was far more than mere interest, and the adding of a new dimension to her life.
    But she had been able to offer no practical counsel.
    Now Hester sat in the warmth and clean, sweet-smelling comfort of Enid’s bedroom in Ravensbrook House and watched Enid’s frail form, at last peacefully asleep. Genevieve had gone home, weary with grief and the mounting anxiety and loneliness of her loss, dreading the trial of Caleb which must shortly begin.
    Hester tidied a few things which were hardly out of place, then returned to her seat. It was so different from just a few days ago. Then Monk faced no greater danger than failing on a case which had seemed hopeless from the beginning. Two weeks ago Enid had been delirious and fighting for her life. She had tossed from side to side, moaning in pain as her body ached and her mind wandered in nightmare and delusion, mixing past and present and distorting everything.
    Hester smiled in spite of herself. One heard some very strange things in a sickroom. Perhaps that was one of the reasons certain people were wary of taking nurses rather than a lady’s maid, who presumably already knew a great many of her mistress’s secrets.
    Enid had rambled about many things, snatches of thoughts, old griefs and loneliness, longings she had never realized and perhaps would never have given words in her conscious mind. There had been fear in her, and half-guessed-at disillusion. She had also referred more than once to letters which were quite openly declarations of love. Hester hoped Enid had not kept them. She doubted very much they were from Lord Ravensbrook. Nothing in what she had seen of him suggested such fluency or ease of expression. He seemed a very formal man, even stilted when it came to speaking of feelings—which did not, of course, mean that his emotions were less, or that his physical expression of them was not as profound as any other man’s.
    She had debated whether to mention it to Enid, and warn her that she was capable of indiscretion in her illness, and therefore perhaps in her sleep, if she should ever become feverish again. Then she had decided it might be seen as an impertinence and place a barrier of embarrassment between them. If Enid had managed so far to conduct her marriage without such a disaster, then it might very well continue so, without Hester’s advice.
    She looked across at Enid’s sleeping form now. She seemed utterly at peace; in fact, there was a very slight smile on her face, as if she dreamed of something pleasant.
    Perhaps she was thinking of some of those past letters. They might still give her happy memories, days when she knew she was admired, found beautiful. Love letters were strange; they could do so much good, if kept discreetly … and in the wrong hands so much damage.
    Hester had received very few herself, and most of them had been formal, more a statement of ardent hope than any real understanding or knowledge of her nature. Only thosefrom soldiers had had any meaning, and they were

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