A Fatal Likeness Read Online Free PDF Page A

and move him off.
    “Still think it could all be a terrific to-do about nothing,” mumbles Sir Percy. “The mater never gave a hint about any of it when I was growing up.”
    “How could she have done so without destroying the past forever in your eyes? Without creating a monster in your mind that even her years of selfless devotion could not counter? It is no surprise to me that she has cast a veil of oblivion over those events, and spoken of them only in the bitter privacy of her private journal.”
    “And there’s no mistake—you’re sure it’s Harriet she spoke of?
    “You,” says his wife with emphasis, “have not been through their papers. You have not read how that wretched girl really met her death. Can you imagine what would ensue if such a document were to become known—such a scandal bruited abroad? We may know that woman’s secret, but that will not prevent the vulgar world from casting her as an innocent and forsaken wife. After everything I have done to efface all trace of her!”
    “But if you burned what you found—”
    Her impatience now is flaming in her face. “But how do we know what else there might be? What records that old meddler Maddox might have kept? For one thing, I assure you, is abundantly clear, and that is that he had a hand in it. Everything that happened that whole dreadful winter— he was involved. Think what that might mean—what more he might know that even we do not yet suspect—what he might say, should he choose to do so.”
    Sir Percy shakes his head. “From what I gathered, he’s in no condition to say much at all—”
    “But there may still be papers, Percy—papers he wrote at the time that would be far more credible, and far more damaging, than the ramblings now of a mad old man.”
    “And you don’t think it’s a risk, hiring this nephew of his? Seemed pretty sharp-witted to me.”
    “In that case,” she retorts tartly, “he should be more than capable of resolving our other, more immediate problem. He is not to know that there is a second, and far more significant task we are using him to accomplish.”
    She turns to the window and watches as the gate-keeper pulls the beggar roughly to his feet and manhandles him away. The paper dolls are scattering across the pavement in the wind.
    “All the same, Jane,” her husband continues behind her, “might it not be best just to let matters lie? After all, if nothing’s come to light in all these years—”
    “How many times must I say this?” she snaps. “We cannot rely on that state of affairs continuing. If the old man shows no sign of ever recovering there will come a moment when this young fellow will take it upon himself to go through his effects. And who knows then what he might unearth—what papers he may discover that the old man has hidden? Far better that we anticipate such an event, and act now to counter it.”
    Sir Percy shakes his head again, his ruddy cheeks suddenly pale. “I’m still not happy about this, Jane—and as for what you suggested—strikes me as a pretty low way of carrying on. Rather infra dig, if you must know—”
    She silences him with a glance and turns back once more to the window, her round plain face suddenly hardened, hawkish. “If we may contrive to avoid such a course, so much the better. But I tell you this—I will not have all I have striven for overturned, or see the labour of so many years laid waste.” Her eyes narrow, and her voice drops so low she seems to be speaking only for her own hearing. “I will not permit the spectre of that woman to return to haunt us, or allow everything this family has achieved to be ruined in her name.”

TWO
    The Question
    B ACK AT B UCKINGHAM S TREET , Charles opens the door of the drawing-room and stands there, watching. He isn’t really expecting any change, but his heart sinks nonetheless when he sees Maddox’s head lolling to one side, and his body starting and flinching at the demons that beset him. The old