Resurrection Row by Anne Perry

of the postmortem. She heard about the latter two days later in the early afternoon. She had just finished her housework and put Jemima to bed for her rest when the doorbell rang. The woman who came in three mornings a week to do the heavy work had gone before midday, so Charlotte answered the door herself.
    She was startled to see Dominic on the step. At first she could not even find words but stood stupidly, without inviting him in. He looked so little different it was as if memory had come to life. His face was just as she had remembered it, the same dark eyes, the slightly flared nostrils, the same mouth. He stood just as elegantly. The only difference was that it did not tighten her throat anymore. She could see the rest of the street, with its white stone doorsteps and the net twitching along the windows.
    “May I come in?” he asked uncomfortably. This time it was he who seemed to have lost his composure.
    She recollected herself with a jolt, embarrassed for her clumsiness.
    “Of course.” She stepped back. She must look ridiculous. They were old friends who had lived in the same house for years when he had been her brother-in-law. In fact, since he had apparently not remarried, even though Sarah had been dead for nearly five years, he was still a member of the family.
    “How are you?” she asked.
    He smiled quickly, trying to look comfortable, to bridge the immense gap.
    “Very well,” he replied. “And I know you are. I can see, and Thomas told me when I met him the other day. He says you have a daughter!”
    “Yes, Jemima. She’s upstairs, asleep.” She remembered that the only fire was in the kitchen. It was too expensive to heat the parlor as well, and anyway, she spent too little time in there for it to matter. She led him down the passage, conscious of the difference between this, with its well-worn furniture and scrubbed board floors, and the house in Cater Street with five servants. At least the kitchen was warm and clean. Thank goodness she had blackened the stove only yesterday, and the table was almost white. She would not apologize; not so much for herself as for Pitt.
    She took his coat and hung it behind the door, then offered him Pitt’s chair. He sat down. She knew he had come for some reason, and he would tell her what it was when he had found the words. It was early for tea, but he was probably cold, and she could think of nothing else to offer.
    “Thank you,” he accepted quickly. She did not notice his eyes going round the room, seeing how bare it was, how every article was old and loved, polished by owner after owner, and mended where use had worn it down.
    He knew her too well to play with gentilities. He could remember her sneaking the newspaper from the butler’s pantry when her father would not allow her to read it. He had always treated her as a friend, a strong friend, rather than as a woman. It was one of the things that used to hurt.
    “Did Thomas tell you about the grave robbing?” he asked suddenly and baldly.
    She was filling the kettle at the sink. “Yes.” She kept her voice level.
    “Did he tell you much?” he went on. “That it was a man called Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond, and that they dug him up twice and left him where he was bound to be found quickly—the second time in his own pew in church, where it would be his family who saw him?”
    “Yes, he told me.” She turned off the tap and set the kettle on the stove. She could not think what to offer him to eat at this time of day. He was bound to have lunched, and it was far too early for afternoon tea. She had nothing elegant. In the end she settled for biscuits she had made, sharp, with a little ginger in them.
    He was looking at her, his eyes following her round the room, anxious. “They did a postmortem. Thomas insisted on it, even though I begged him not to—”
    “Why?” She met his eyes and tried to keep all guile out of her face. She knew he had come for some kind of help, but she could not