Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes
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Название: Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume
Автор: Annie Haynes
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788075832535
isbn:
"Go!" she cried. "Go! He must not hear. I forbid you to tell him now."
The sullen fire in the pale eyes of the man watching her leapt to sudden life, then died down swiftly.
"If I go now, you must see me—later. Look." He drew out his pocket-book and scribbled an address upon the first page: "42 Abbey Court, Leinster Avenue, 9.30 to-night. There!" He tore out the leaf and thrust it into her hands. "If you fail me, Judy, you know the consequences."
She pushed the scrap of paper mechanically into her glove; he turned and disappeared in the crowd.
Sir Anthony caught a momentary glimpse of him as he came up, and looked after him curiously.
"Who was that, Judith? He looks rather an odd customer, as if he had seen life in some queer places. But what is it, child?"—his tone turning to one of apprehension—"You are ill—faint?"
Lady Carew forced a smile to her stiff lips. "It is nothing. It was so hot in the church," hesitatingly, "and the scent of the flowers is overpowering," she added as a passing waft of sweetness from the great sheaves of Madonna lilies that stood in the nave reached them. "I shall be all right directly. What was wrong with the car?"
"Nothing much," Sir Anthony said carelessly. "Jenkins soon put it right, but you can't wait here. Monktowers said he would send his brougham back for us. Ah, here it is!"
He helped her in carefully, and to her surprise gave their own address.
"I can't have you knocked up, and the reception is sure to be a crush," he said in answer to her look. "I am going to take you home, and make you rest, or certainly you will not be fit for the Denboroughs' to-night."
The Denboroughs'! Judith shivered in her corner; she was deadly cold beneath her furs. Lady Denboroughs' dinner parties were among the most select in London; her invitations were eagerly sought after; it had been a tribute to the furore that Lady Carew's beauty had excited that she, who but two years ago had been only Peggy Carew's governess, should have been included.
How far away it all seemed to her now, as she laid her head back on the cushions and tried to think, to realize this awful catastrophe that had befallen her. The dead had come to life! All that past, that she had believed buried beyond resurrection, had risen, was here at her very doors.
Through the shadow of the carriage, she glanced at Anthony, at the dark rugged profile, at the crisp dark hair with its faint powdering of grey near the temples, at all that only an hour ago had been so intimately dear, that was now, as it were, set on the other side of a great gulf. Her heart sank, she felt sick as she thought of the other face with its bold good looks. It was impossible, she tried to tell herself despairingly, that this thing should really have befallen her, that there should be no way of escape. Sir Anthony watched her anxiously.
As the carriage neared their house in Grosvenor Square, she sat up, and drew her furs around her with a pitiful attempt to pull herself together.
Sir Anthony helped her out solicitously. As she paused for a moment on the step, a man passed, gazing up at the front of the house.
Lady Carew caught a momentary glimpse of the big familiar figure, a mist rose before her eyes, her fingers closed more tightly over that piece of paper in her glove as she swayed and reached out a trembling hand to her husband's arm.
With a quick exclamation of alarm, Sir Anthony caught her, carried her over the threshold of their home.
"Judith, Judith, what is it, my darling?" he said, bending over her.
Chapter II
"You must go to the Denboroughs' alone, Anthony." Judith was looking frail and wan as she came into the study in her white tea-gown, her hair gathered together loosely in a great knot behind.
Sir Anthony was sitting at his writing-table, a pile of unopened letters lay beside him, he was apparently oblivious of them as he studied the card in his hand. He sprang up now.
"Judith, is this wise? I hoped you were asleep."
"I couldn't sleep," Judith said truthfully, as she steadied herself by the table, "and I went up to the boy. Anthony, you must not give up the Denboroughs'. I shall go to bed at once. Célestine is going to give me a sleeping draught, so you see you will be no use here"—with a pitiful attempt at a smile.—"And we shall put the Denboroughs' table out altogether if neither of us goes. It won't matter so much about me, people can always get another woman, but you, you must not disappoint them."
Sir Anthony hesitated, some quality in her insistence impressed him disagreeably. Why was she so anxious to get rid of him? The next moment he was chiding himself for his folly. Judith was evidently unwell, she was overwrought, feverish.
"Yes, yes," he answered soothingly. "Of course I will go. That will be all right, Judith."
She drew a little soft breath as she laid her head against his arm.
"And now that is settled I am going to take you back to your room," he went on. "You ought not to have come down, you ought to have sent for me."
But Judith's hands clung to his arm. "No, no. There is an hour yet before you need dress. I want to sit here like this. Don't send me away, Anthony!"
Sir Anthony felt a quick throb of anxiety as he looked down at her ruffled golden head; this attack of nerves was something outside his experience of Judith; he began to ask himself whether it was not possibly the forerunner of some serious illness?
"My darling, do I ever want to send you away?" he questioned, a reproachful reflection in his pleasant voice. "It is because I know that you ought to be in bed. For myself could I ask anything better than that you should be here with me?"
Judith sank down in one of the big saddleback chairs near the fire-place, and drew Sir Anthony on to the arm with weak, insistent fingers. As his arm closed round her she nestled up to him with a deep sigh of content, but she did not speak.
To herself she was saying that this might be the last time that she would see the love-light in Anthony's eyes, feel the warmth of his tenderness.
For this one hour she would forget everything outside. She remember only that she was with the man she loved, the man who loved her. Then everything would be over, she would be no longer Anthony Carew's honoured wife. Her life at Heron's Carew would be as if it had never been. There would be nothing for Anthony to do but forget her. But first there was this one hour—this golden hour that she would have to remember afterwards!
Sir Anthony held her closely for a time in silence, once or twice his lips touched a loosened strand of golden hair that lay across his shoulder. But at last he laid her back very gently in her chair, and straightening himself turned to his writing-table.
Judith clung to his arm. They were running out so fast, the minutes that were the souls of her one golden hour.
"You—you are not going to leave me?" she gasped.
"Leave you, my sweetheart, no!" Sir Anthony said drawing his blotting-book towards him. "But I must just finish this letter that I was writing when you came in, I shall not be a minute. It СКАЧАТЬ