A Christmas Grace by Anne Perry

Author:Anne Perry [Perry, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345509819
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-10-27T13:00:00+00:00

Emily did not get the opportunity to speak to Susannah alone until afternoon teatime when Daniel had gone back to sleep, still aching from his deep bruises and finding himself overcome by tiredness, and perhaps as much by grief. She had given little thought to the loneliness he must be feeling, the loss to which he could put no names or faces, only a consuming void.

Emily and Susannah sat by the fire with tea and scones, butter, jam, and cream. Emily missed the bright flames of a coal or log fire, but she was growing used to the earthy smell of peat.

She told Susannah of the morning at church, and then of her walk back with Daniel, the questions he had asked and how his probing had disturbed her thoughts, making her realize what Father Tyndale had meant of Connor Riordan.

Susannah sat still for a long time without replying, her face bleak and troubled.

“Is that not what you wanted me here for really?” Emily asked gently, leaning forward a little. She disliked being quite so blunt, but she had no idea how long they had in which to pursue this.

“Actually I wrote to Charlotte,” Susannah said apologetically. “But that was before Thomas told me that you actually helped him quite a lot as well, in the beginning. I’m sorry. That’s ungracious, but we have no time left for polite evasions.”

“No,” Emily agreed. “I need your help. Are you wishing to give it? If not, let us agree that we do nothing.”

Susannah winced. “Do nothing. That sounds so…weak, so dishonest.”

“Or discreet?” Emily suggested.

“In this case that is a euphemism for cowardly,” Susannah told her.

“What are you afraid of? That it will have been someone you like?”

“Of course.”

“Isn’t knowing it’s one person better than suspecting everybody?”

Susannah was very pale, even in the glow of the candlelight. “Unless it is someone I care for especially.”

“Like Father Tyndale?”

“It couldn’t be him,” Susannah said instantly.

“Or someone Hugo cared for?” Emily added. “Or protected?”

Susannah smiled. “You think I am afraid it was him, to protect the village from Connor’s probing eyes.”

“Aren’t you?” Emily hated saying it, but once the question was asked, evasion was as powerful as an answer.

“You didn’t know Hugo,” Susannah said softly, and her voice was filled with tenderness. It was as if the years since his death vanished away and he had only just gone out of the door for a walk, not forever. “It’s not my fear you are speaking about, my dear, it is your own.”

Emily was incredulous. “My own? It doesn’t matter to me who killed Connor Riordan, except as it affects you.”

“Not your fear of that,” Susannah corrected. “Your doubts about Jack, wondering if he loves you, if he’s missing you as much as you hope. Perhaps a little realization that you don’t know him as well as he knows you.”

Emily was stunned. Those thoughts had barely even risen to a conscious level of her mind, and yet here was Susannah speaking them aloud, and the denial that rose to her lips would be pointless.

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